What He Left Behind(2)
“Okay. Enjoy!”
With that, she’s gone, and we’re alone with two plates of food. Michael eyes his. I poke at mine with a fork. Well. So much for that idea. There are days when I can joke with Michael that we should start a new weight loss program. All someone has to do is say Steve’s name at the table, and everyone will lose their appetites.
“I said ‘Steve’ at every other meal, and lost twenty pounds in two weeks!”
Some days, Michael thinks that’s funny in a twisted sort of way. Today, I’m pretty sure his sense of humor has gone in the same direction as his appetite, and I don’t blame him one bit. Not if that * is still interfering with his life after all this time. It’s been five goddamned years since the night I picked him up at the emergency room for the last time, when he said he was really leaving this time and he’d actually stuck to it, and I swear there are days when Steve has a tighter hold on him now than he did back then.
The silence wears on. Michael manages to take a few bites of his pasta, so I make myself eat a bit too. We both have to go back to work after all, and if I know Michael, he’s been sucking down coffee and nothing else since his alarm went off. Just like me.
Michael lays his fork down and sits a bit straighter. My mouth goes dry. I quickly take a drink to wash down the pesto chicken before he speaks. At least I know him well enough that I can tell from a mile away if he’s about to say something important, and he knows me well enough to wait until I won’t aspirate my iced tea.
Once I’m safe from drowning, he finally asks, “You want to know what keeps stopping me from going out with anyone?”
I’m scared to death this will be as hard to hear as the myriad confessions he’s made in the years since Steve, especially if it’s taken this long for him and his therapist to pry it out of his psyche, and my stomach churns as I nod.
Michael drops his gaze and stares at his food for a moment. He takes a deep breath, and I hold mine.
“Dr. Hamilton’s helped me through a lot of the bullshit,” he says. “I can separate everything Steve did from what a real relationship should be. I’ve sorted most of it out, and I’ve let enough of it go that I think I can actually be part of a functional, healthy relationship again.”
He pauses, and I gnaw my lip. The unspoken “But…” hangs in the air. It’s making my hands twitchy, so I slide my wedding ring back and forth over my knuckle to keep them occupied.
“I think I’m okay for almost everything about a normal relationship.” He meets my eyes, and the faintest shine in his sends my heart into my feet. His voice barely carries across the booth as he says, “Except I am completely f*cking terrified to have sex.”
My jaw drops. Immediately, there’s a lump in my throat. Dozens of memories flash through my mind—our first time the summer after high school, the night we blew off our own community college graduation, that winter when he f*cked me back to life after an overly dramatic breakup—and I can’t breathe. That son-of-a-bitch ex-boyfriend of his had dimmed the light in Michael’s eyes for a good long time, and he’d put him through more hell than anyone—least of all someone as sweet and gentle as Michael—deserves to go through, but knowing he also took away that passionate, playful, sensual side is… I can’t fit it in my head. Even when Michael was young and inexperienced, he’d been so confident and full of life. He didn’t care if he performed well, or if he was porn-star perfect. That first time, I’d been all nerves and fear, and he’d seemed so…
Unbreakable.
And now he’s gazing at me from across this booth, the faintest hint of tears in his eyes, with his confession still ringing in my ears.
“Michael…” His name comes out as a pathetic whisper. I shake myself and meet his gaze again. “You never told me…” As soon as the words are out, I want to take them back, but he winces before I can, and now it’s harder than ever not to reach for his arm. “I’m sorry. I just wasn’t expecting that.”
“I know.” Michael starts picking at his food again, probably just looking for something to do. “I never told anyone except Dr. Hamilton.”
There’s a million questions on the tip of my tongue, and I bite down on the one that desperately wants to slip out: What did that son of a bitch do to you?
Because I know Michael—if he’s willing to tell me, he’ll do it without prompting. Trying to drag an answer out of him is the quickest way to get him to clam up and shut down. Dr. Hamilton has almost certainly had her work cut out for her.
And I don’t ask, because I’m afraid of the answer. The bruises have long since healed, and he doesn’t have panic attacks like he used to. The jagged scar beside his eyebrow is the only visual reminder left aside from how hard it still is for him to make eye contact these days. I’m sure he still has a few scars beneath his clothes. I knew about the physical and emotional abuse, and I’ve wondered plenty of times if that extended to the bedroom, but he’s insisted all these years that it didn’t.
What have you been carrying alone all this time?
Michael takes a long swallow of Coke and sets the glass down, the tinkling ice giving away the slight tremor in his hand. “I’m sorry. I should have told—”
“Don’t you dare apologize,” I whisper, struggling hard not to reach for him. “I’m always here, and I always have been, but you don’t have to tell me anything.”