RUSH (City Lights, #3)(47)
“Get some rest. I’m going to clean up the sink—”
“No, Charlotte…”
“Yes,” I said firmly, “it’s no trouble.”
He shook his head weakly, fatigue dragging him down, “I meant…don’t go yet. Stay with me. A little while longer. Please.”
Every part of me froze but for my heart that was thumping madly. “Okay,” I managed, and then found my composure. He needs me. Just be there for him. I climbed onto the bed.
I thought that shocked him a little; he thought I’d stay and hold his hand, maybe. But Chris used to tell me that I never did anything halfway. I slid up next to Noah and held him as I had in the bathroom. He hesitated, unsure, then relented with another sigh. He wrapped one long arm around me as I snuggled into him, letting him rest his head above my left breast, against my heart.
“It’s my fault,” he murmured. “I brought it on myself. This rage…it’s eating me alive.”
“What happened?” I asked gently, stroking the hair along his temple as I had when the migraine wracked him. “What happened to you?”
He was silent for a moment and when he spoke, his voice was brimming with old, tired bitterness. “They told me my sight might come back as my brain healed. Maybe just a little. Maybe all of it. They’d planted the seed and I just wish…I wish they’d kept their mouths shut.”
“Why?”
“Because I might not have fought so hard to live.”
Instinctively, my arm around his shoulders tightened.
“My back was dog meat, so they took a chunk of skin off my thigh and slapped it onto my shoulders, and the infection from that little fiasco nearly killed me. Then they put me in a rehab place upstate for PT. I don’t have the vocabulary to describe the hell it was to go through all of the rehab shit completely blind. But I did it. I healed up with only a few hideous scars, migraines that feel like my brain is about to explode, and uncontrollable mood swings. My souvenirs. I thought if my sight came back, it would all be worth it. But…”
But it never did, I finished silently.
“And all the while—the entire time I was recovering—people told me how lucky I was. Lucky,” he spat through clenched teeth, the anger giving him a flare of energy.
I stroked his cheek, not wanting the tension to bring back that horrifying migraine, and he relaxed slightly.
“I was lucky. I could’ve been killed, they said, as if that was some sort of f*cking newsflash to me. I could’ve been paralyzed, or made a vegetable. I could have had worse brain damage, from either striking the rocks or inhaling half an ocean’s worth of water. I could have lost my leg to the infection, I could have, could have, could have. And all the while, I’m sitting there, in the dark, wanting to just…scream and never stop. I still feel that way. But I can’t scream enough, so I listen to music too loudly and lie around hating everyone and everything and just feeling oh-so-damn f*cking lucky.”
“You weren’t allowed to grieve for what you did lose,” I said softly.
Noah’s head came up, a look of pained surprise on his handsome features, as if what I’d said was the last thing he expected. His hazel eyes went right and left; I’d never seen him try so hard to find me. To make contact.
“How do you do that? How do you know what to do and say so that I feel…?”
“So that you feel what?”
“Whole. You make me feel like I have a shot at something more than this misery.”
“You do,” I whispered, tears welling in my eyes. “You do, Noah…”
“God, Charlotte. I don’t deserve you.” His hand reached up and cupped my cheek. “Don’t cry for me. Please, don’t cry. And don’t let me kiss you. I shouldn’t…”
But he did.
I held my breath, my heart clanging madly in my chest, as Noah laid his lips to mine in the most beautifully tender kiss of my life. Just him touching me softly, sweetly, for half a heartbeat until, with a soft moan, he moved in closer, to kiss me more deeply but no less gently. I tasted the warm wetness of his mouth, the sweet softness of his tongue that tasted mine, for one precious, brief moment. A heavy warm stone seemed to drop into my belly and I pulled him closer. To kiss him again. And again. To kiss him all night, because now that we had, I didn’t want to stop.
But he was exhausted. The migraine’s pain had stolen his strength. He brushed his lips over mine once more, and then his head fell back to the pillow.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, struggling to keep his eyes open. “I’m so sorry. For every harsh word. For every time I snapped at you, or snarled, or swore. I’m so sorry for all of it, and not because you found me tonight and saved me, but because you don’t deserve it…my ugliness.”
“You aren’t ugly, Noah,” I whispered. “You’re in pain. I understand.”
He shook his head against me. “You’re in pain too and you’re not like me. You’re nothing like me. You’re sweet and kind and I’m sorry I kissed you. I can’t inflict myself on you, Charlotte.” He sighed, and I knew sleep was stealing him away from me. “I can’t promise the anger won’t come back. I’m sure it will. But I’m sorry for it. Remember that, okay?”
My vision blurred again, my eyes stinging with hot tears. “Noah…”