Tattoos & Teacups (23 page)

To give them their due, his friends gave us our privacy as for the first time I saw him cry, his hot tears soaking the front of my shirt.

We had to break away eventually.

His kiss tasted of salty tears and the sort of pain that breaks you apart inside and cigarette smoke and Chris.

“I love you,” he said, his forehead pressed to mine, his hand tightly wrapped around the back of his neck so he could tug at his own hair. His eyes screwed closed.

“I love you too.” I didn’t realize until that moment that I was crying too.

It was easier to keep my eyes shut as he kissed me again and, with a sound of absolute distress, pulled away.

I didn’t want to watch him climb into the van and pull away, and then I did.

My last memory of him was seeing him curled up on the passenger seat of the van with his head on his knees.

And then he left.

Intermission

I
N
THE
weeks since he left, I’ve changed. Considering all the ways I’ve changed since first meeting Chris, this isn’t such a surprise, but these are changes that only those closest to me have noticed.

I could have thrown myself into my lectures, but there was no passion there for me. Instead I picked up the battered manuscript that I’d been working on for nearly six years, the pages and pages of notes and scribbles and research, and poured myself into making something new.

Before he left I had just started to see myself in terms of him; I became Chris’s partner, Chris Ford’s boyfriend, even, and as terrifying as those terms were, I embraced them.

Without him I feel lost again, and the only way I can find myself is to redefine who I am, this time not in terms of Chris but in terms of myself and my own achievements. I want to be able to call myself a published author and a specialist in my field. From all the research I’ve done over the years, I know that nothing like what I’m working on exists out there. Maybe there’s a reason for that; maybe no one wants to read it or buy it or sell it, but maybe no one has ever thought of putting it together before.

After six years of research, it takes me a little over six weeks of work to turn that pile of scrapbooks and notes into a tangible manuscript. I’ve considered asking the university for a sabbatical, but having something at home to go back to and work on is even more exciting, like I have a secret identity. Like Superman.

Only Superman never walked around in a daze. Superman never got to the grocery store and had no idea what food was in the cupboard and what he needed to buy. And I bet Superman never pulled over on the side of the road with a paper bag on the passenger seat full of cereal and cat food and cried until he thought his chest might break.

The missing him is intense.

But, as they say, life goes on. Mine certainly has.

Christmas came and went with the usual festivities that I felt strangely distant from. New Year. More snow. The big thaw. The inevitable flash floods. My daughter. Holding it together for Chloe. Because Chris had helped me to reestablish a relationship with her that I’d thought was nearly impossible.

Then I go home and miss him some more.

Tiptoe toward spring, tentative, baby steps as the days start to get lighter and my mood starts to lift, little by little, day by day.

I’m not ready to go back out into the big wide world again yet and start dating, as Marley has been suggesting I should. But I chance a night out at the gay bar, even though I know it will remind me of Chris. It’s not as bad as I thought it might be. There are other people my age there, as well as the deluge of young, beautiful people.

The offer of swapping numbers with someone is enough to nudge me the next bit further along the path to healing, to moving on. I don’t take it but buy him a drink instead. We agree that if we see each other again, it might progress to a dance.

Baby steps.

One Saturday afternoon, I agree to take Chloe and Cassie to the movie theater to see the new Disney film. It’s getting me out of the house, according to Lu, and I know that she worries about me so I do it without too much fuss. Of course, I can’t do it without any fuss at all or she’ll ask me to do it all the time, and I’m definitely not yet ready for that.

Cassie asks if her Uncle Chris is going to come too, and I have to explain that Uncle Chris isn’t here anymore. Children are so perceptive, and she comes and gives me a hug. I’ve never been quite so touchy-feely with her; we don’t hug all that often, so it means a lot that she does it.

I spend more time with my sister. Attempt to reconcile with my parents, although that venture is dismissed after just one meeting with my mother. The miserable old hag.

The tattoo on my arm serves as a reminder, although not for what I thought it might. It’s not a reminder of Chris, or of Edinburgh, although sometimes it does act as both those things. Instead it’s a proof that sometimes when I step out of my comfort zone, good things can happen. It’s a symbol of my own strength and an indelible way of telling my own story.
This is who I am. This is where I came from.

There are moments when I think I’m managing, that I’m doing okay without him. It’s okay, he was just one lover, I can move on from him like I moved on from Brett. It’s bullshit, of course. Sometimes I cry so hard I can’t breathe and the little capillaries under my eyes break, leaving tiny red splotches.

Bloody tears.

Part Two

Chapter 14

W
HEN
January melts into February, the pain in my chest starts to ease off. I’m not breathing easy again yet, but I am breathing.

I consider updating the car. Dismiss the thought. Look at taking a job somewhere not in Boston next year as a touring lecturer, in New York, maybe. Somewhere different, just for a year. The truth is, for all of my hard work trying to get over him, Chris is everywhere I look, and it’s suffocating.

Not that I’d be able to move until the summer anyway.

That idea, too, is dismissed.

I find myself spending my evenings sorting through notes and scraps of paper, ideas for the book that were abandoned in the first draft. Most of them are good ideas, they just held me back on the direction I wanted to take at the time, and I’ve got a vague idea of reworking them into a second volume.

When there’s a knock at the door, I very seriously consider ignoring this rude person calling at such a late hour; then, sighing, I gather all of my papers into a pile and stack them on the coffee table before going to answer it.

I open the door and he’s standing there, his leathers covered in water and shaking as he trembles from the cold.

“What are you doing here?” I whisper.

“Can I come in?” he asks.

I step aside to let him in, completely baffled by his presence. We stand in silence, looking at each other, until I reach out and tug the zipper on his jacket. It seems to be the signal he had been waiting for to strip out of his protective clothing, although his shirt underneath seems almost soaked through.

“Where’s your stuff?” I ask.

“Down on the bike,” he says. His lips look almost blue from the cold.

“Get in the shower before you freeze,” I say to him. “I’ll go bring it in.”

The wind is biting cold and the rain is still hammering down as I dash out to his bike and unload the bags he has attached to it. I’m soaked too by the time I get back to the flat, and I can hear the shower is running, so at least he’s getting warm.

There’s no precedent for this, and I have absolutely no idea what to do. So I lock up, bolting the front door and making sure Flea has food, then find two pairs of pajama pants from the drawer and set one pair out for Chris, dressing in the other myself.

It’s still early, but the rain and black clouds outside are making it seem later than it really is—although it’s always been dark in this flat. I don’t want to go to bed, not really, but I want to talk to him about it all even less, so sleeping is a good compromise.

He’s wrapped in my towel when he comes out of the bathroom, and I realize that all the others are in with my laundry. I’m not upset but once again reminded of his familiarity in my home and the way he seems to slot seamlessly into my life.

Chris looks down at the pajama pants with a little frown, then dries off his hair, and the last droplets of water from his skin.

I try not to stare.

I wondered if maybe he would have put on weight or lost it since I saw him last. His absolute normality is somehow more shocking than if he looked radically different. It feels like I’ve changed so much in the months since he left that it’s left a tangible sheen on my skin, like a snake shedding the old and leaving something shiny and raw underneath. I’m shiny and raw now, but he looks just the same as I remember.

Or not the same. I’ve probably elevated him to godlike status in my memories. He’s not as perfect as I want to remember him. He’s still got chunky thighs, and his hair needs cutting, and… and… no. He’s just perfect.

After he’s pulled the pajamas on, I lift the duvet for him and he lies down next to me, still not saying anything about why he’s here… why he’s back. Why he’s home. Chris is on “his” side of the bed, and I curve my body around his and slot my knees into the bend of his and quietly tell him to lift his head so my arm can pillow it.

He sighs deeply and snuggles back into my body, taking my hand and pulling my arm closer to his chest.

“I missed you so fucking much,” he says.

“Don’t,” I tell him. “Not tonight. Let’s just go to sleep.”

After a few minutes he starts to shake, and even though his skin is warm from the shower, I think that maybe the cold has gone all the way down through muscle and sinew right into his bones. All I can do is hold him tighter until the trembling stops, and even then I keep hold of him tight until we’re both deep in sleep.

T
HE
next morning he’s rolled over and his face is pressed right up against my chest, distorting his nose and making him snore. It makes me smile, and he grumbles as I start to pull away, desperate not to leave him, but I have to.

“No,” he mumbles and reaches for me.

“I have a lecture this morning,” I say to him.

Chris mumbles something else and starts to snore again so I go and take a shower, let the cat out, and make a cup of coffee because I think I’m going to need the caffeine kick for the day ahead. When I go back into our bedroom, he’s sitting up and blinking at me, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes like a child.

“There’s more coffee in the pot,” I say softly.

“Rob,” he says, then clears his throat. “We didn’t get to talk last night.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I really do have to run, my lecture is at nine thirty. But I can get the TA to take the seminar so I should be home by twelve-ish.”

He nods, then sneezes three times in rapid succession and shivers. “You look hot, Prof.”

“And you look sick,” I counter. He smiles warily at that.

“I’ve been on the road for a while.”

I don’t want to think about that quite yet, I’m not ready to face the possibility that he’s driven halfway across the country to see me again and I’m not even sure if he’s staying. I scratch my chin absently, then pick up a scarf from the chair next to the door and wrap it around my neck.