Back to You(105)

Lauren swallowed. “I…,” she began, and then she exhaled heavily, wiping the saturated hair away from her face. “I was at your apartment. Looking for you.”
The confusion on his face was quickly replaced with concern. “I was taking a test. I got your message when I got out, and I called you a few times, but you weren’t picking up.”
Lauren pulled her brow together and shook her head, but then she realized that in her haste leaving the house, she’d not only left her jacket behind, but her purse and her phone as well. A tiny ember of relief lit in her belly, sending little sparks of warmth up through her chest.
“It made me nervous. That message, and then you not answering,” he said. “So…I came here.”
She knew she should say something, but her throat was growing tighter by the second. All she could do was stand there like an idiot, blinking against the rain and her impending tears.
His eyes were darting back and forth between hers. “Are you okay?” he finally asked.
She forced her body to work, nodding her head slightly. “Yes,” she managed. But then her breath caught on a sob, and she choked out, “No.”
“No?” he said, removing his hands from his pockets as he instinctively stepped toward her. But then he stopped abruptly, almost as if he realized he would be breaking a rule, and he stepped back, bringing his hands to his sides.
The look in his eyes was so heartbreaking that Lauren’s restraint instantly crumbled. She threw herself forward, wrapping her arms around him as she buried her face in his chest and burst into tears.
Immediately his arms came around her, pulling her into his body. “Hey,” he cooed softly as he ran his hand over the back of her head. “Hey, it’s okay. I’m here.”
She nodded against his chest, but she couldn’t manage anything beyond the sobs that kept bursting from her lips.
Suddenly her feet were off the floor, and then she was moving. Lauren curled up against him, tightening her hold around his neck as he carried her toward her front door. He reached behind his head, taking the keys out of her hand and opening her door, and then he placed her gently on the couch. Lauren brought her hands to her face, gulping for air as she tried to get her bearings, and she could hear the sounds of him in the bathroom, opening and closing cabinets.
When she heard him turn the light off, she looked up to see him walking toward her with one of the large, plush towels from her linen closet. He removed his jacket and tossed it on the floor in the entryway before he leaned over and wrapped the towel around her shoulders, rubbing the tops of her arms vigorously.
Lauren brought the ends of the towel up to her face, wiping away the rain and the tears, and she felt the couch dip as he sat next to her.
She turned then, crawling into his lap as she buried her face in the crook of his neck.
Michael sat back as he tucked her against his body, running his hand up and down her back as she continued to hiccup pathetically in the aftermath of her breakdown.
When she finally achieved some semblance of control, she lifted her head and looked up at him. “I’m so sorry. For everything@ looked "> shoulder,” she whispered.
“Don’t,” Michael said softly. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“Yes, I do,” she said. “My reaction, the way I treated you that night, the way I’ve been treating you for the past two weeks. None of that was okay.”
“Lauren,” he said, pulling the towel a little tighter around her, “you’ve been much nicer to me in these past few months than I ever deserved. Your reaction was mild, and long overdue, if we’re being honest.”
She shook her head. “I understand why you left now. I need you to know that I forgive you.”
Michael closed his eyes as he exhaled slowly, his shoulders softening in relief before he nodded. “Just know that it killed me,” he murmured as he lifted the corner of the towel and wiped underneath one of her eyes. “Every day. I kept wanting to call you, to come back home to you, to ask you to come out to me. You have no idea how much.”
He swallowed, and Lauren gently placed her hand on his chest. “But the more I battled myself,” he continued, “the more time passed. And the longer I stayed away, the easier it was to convince myself that you’d gotten over me by then. And I thought it would be so unfair to you, to worm my way back into your life after you’d already moved on, especially since I didn’t think I could be what you needed. I painted myself into a corner, and I didn’t know how to fix it, or even if I could.”
Michael looked down at her hand, and he lifted it to his mouth, kissing her palm before he placed it back on his chest and looked up at her. “But I never stopped loving you. Not for one second.”