Page 34 of Not a Strong Enough Word

Huge, aching sobs are wrenched from her throat. That’s the only way to describe the sound—it’s as if she’s having an out-of-body experience, the entirety of her pain and emotion being sucked out of her with each cry.

I drop to the ground next to her and pull her close. She doesn’t even resist; she just folds herself into me and presses her cheek to my chest. The warm water from her hair blooms over my sweater, soaking through to my skin. I wrap my arms around her and hold on tight as waves of sobs crash out of her.

I don’t know how long we sit like this. All I know is that when I exited the bathroom, the sun was just starting to set, and by the time her sobs have calmed to more manageable sniffles and the occasional gasp, it’s almost completely dark outside.

She shifts so the crown of her head rests just under my chin. I kiss it without even thinking. Even in her sadness, touching her like this is automatic. As easy as breathing. And now that I’ve done it again, maybe it’s as necessary, too.

“What happened?” I risk asking quietly.

She sniffles and wipes her nose with the sleeve of her robe. I make a mental note to wash that later for her, too.

“I don’t know.” Her voice is hoarse. “I don’t usually… That’s not…” She lets out another gasping sob.

I squeeze her even tighter. “Hey. It’s okay. I’m here.”

She nods against my chest and wraps her arms around my torso. I rest my cheek against the still-wet crown of her head.

“The last time this happened,” she starts haltingly, “was the day after I quit writing.”

I hum, and she snuggles closer to me as if trying to chase the sound of it in my chest. “You had a good run, I guess.”

She huffs a wet laugh, wipes her nose again, and goes back to squeezing my middle.

“It makes sense, though,” I say. “You had a lot going on then. You’re going through a lot of change now, again. Sometimes you have to let it all out.”

Scarlett had held me like this once, on the anniversary of my father’s death. He died when I was in high school, but there have been so many times in my life when I have wished I could ask him one more thing. One more piece of advice. Whether or not I’m on the right track. If I’m good man. If I could be a good husband, a good father one day…

She had found me drowning my worries in a bottle of whiskey. I hate whiskey, but he loved it. I thought maybe one drink would make me feel closer to him, but the situation quickly devolved. Scarlett let herself into my condo after I hadn’t answered her calls, silently cleaned up my picked-over meal and the glass I had forgotten after I started drinking directly from the bottle. She pressed two ibuprofen into one palm and a glass of water into the other. When the glass clinked against my father’s ring, I lost it again. When the wave of sadness passed, she urged me to take the medicine and finish the water, then she wrapped me up in herself and a blanket and held me until morning.

“Sometimes you have to let it all out,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with missing your dad.”

I hadn’t even told her what was wrong. That’s how well she knew me—how in sync we were.

A tear leaks out of the corner of my eye as the full weight of the loss of her hits me again, as it has so many times over the years. It mingles with the wetness on her hair.

“You sound like my therapist,” she grumbles, tearing me away from the memory.

“I sound like you.”

Her body stiffens ever so slightly under me. “Ryan—”

“I’m sorry,” I say quickly, then shake my head as I backtrack. “No. I’m not, actually. I won’t pretend that I haven’t missed you, Scarlett. I can keep this professional, but I won’t lie. I loved you, and I won’t wish that time of my life away. Not for anything.”

She’s quiet for a moment, which is about as long as it takes me to replay everything that happened in the last ten minutes and decide that the best course of action is to curl up in a hole and never come back out.

“This is…keeping it professional?”

I can’t see her face, but I can hear the smile in her voice. The relief that washes over me is intense. This is the Scarlett I know: teasing, irreverent, sarcastic. I can work with this.

“I go above and beyond for my writers, Scarlett. I am often their editor, confidant, and meal-delivery service.”

“Do you bathe them, too?”

Chuckling deeply, I plant another kiss on her head, hoping it’s an innocent enough gesture. “That one’s special for you.”

She pushes off of me and scoots about an inch away. Immediately, my body leans toward her until my brain rudely reminds it who we are now and what we’re doing here. As she rolls her shoulders, her robe slips down to expose the smooth expanse of her skin, and I have to ball my hands into fists at my sides as a reminder that her skin is not mine to touch anymore.

“Well, I wouldn’t want to keep you from taking meals to your other writers.” The way she ends the sentence, it seems like she’s going to continue, but she doesn’t.