Reflected in You(115)

I feel like whether I explain or not, I'll drive you away, but explaining carries the greatest risk.


You think you want to know, but if I tell you, you'll regret it.


Trust me when I say there are some aspects of me you don't want to see."


"You have to give me something to work with."


I set my hand on his thigh and felt the muscle bunch, then twitch in response to my touch.


"I've got nothing right now.


I'm empty."


He set his hand over mine.


"You trust me.


Despite what you see to the contrary, you've come to trust in what you know.


That's huge, Eva.


For both of us.


For us, period."


"There is no us."


"Stop saying that."


"You wanted my blind trust and you have it, but that's all I can give you.


You've shared so little of yourself and I've lived with it because I had you.


And now I don't - " "You have me," he protested.


"Not the way I need you."


I lifted one shoulder in an awkward shrug.


"You've given me your body and I've been greedy with it, because that's the only way you're really open to me.


And now I don't have that, and when I look at what I do have, it's just promises.


It's not enough for me.


In the absence of you, all I have are a pile of things you won't tell me."


He stared straight ahead, his profile rigid.


I pulled my hand out from under his and twisted the other way, giving him my back while I looked out the window at the teeming city.


"If I lose you, Eva," he said hoarsely, "I have nothing.


Everything I've done is so I don't lose you."


"I need more."


I rested my forehead against the glass.


"If I can't have you on the outside, I need to have you on the inside, but you've never let me in."


We drove in silence, crawling along through the morning traffic.


A fat drop of rain hit the windshield, followed by another.


"After my dad died," he said softly, "I had a hard time dealing with the changes.


I remember that people liked him, liked being around him.


He was making everyone rich, right? And then suddenly the world flipped on its head and everyone hated him.


My mother, who'd been so happy all the time, was crying nonstop.


And she and my dad were fighting every day.


That's what I remember most - the constant yelling and screaming."


I looked at him, studying his stony profile, but I didn't say anything, afraid to lose the moment.


"She remarried right away.


We moved out of the city.


She got pregnant.


I never knew when I'd run across someone my dad had f*cked over, and I took a lot of shit for it from other kids.


From their parents.


Teachers.


It was big news.


To this day, people still talk about my dad and what he did.


I was so angry.


At everyone.


I had tantrums all the time.


I broke things."


He stopped at a light, breathing heavily.


"After Christopher came along, I got worse, and when he was five, he imitated me, pitching a fit at dinner and shoving his plate across the table and onto the floor.


My mom was pregnant with Ireland then, and she and Vidal decided it was time to put me into therapy."


Tears slid down my face at the picture he painted of the child he'd once been - scared and hurting and feeling like an outsider in his mom's new life.


"They came out to the house - the shrink and a doctoral candidate she was supervising.


It started out all right.


They both were nice, attractive, patient.


But soon the shrink was spending most of the time counseling my mother, who was having a difficult pregnancy in addition to two young boys who were out of control.


I was left alone with him more and more frequently."


Gideon pulled over and put the car into park.


His hands gripped the wheel with white-knuckled force, his throat working.


The steady patter of rain softened, leaving us alone with our painful truths.


"You don't have to tell me any more," I whispered, unbuckling my seat belt and reaching out to him.


I touched his face with fingertips damp with my tears.


His nostrils flared on a sharply indrawn breath.


"He made me come.


Every goddamned time, he wouldn't stop until I came, so he could say I liked it."


I kicked off my shoes and pulled his hand away from the wheel so I could straddle his lap and hold him.


His grip on me was excruciatingly tight, but I didn't complain.


We were on an insanely busy street, with endless cars rumbling past on one side and a crush of pedestrians on the other, but neither of us cared.