Page 82 of One Kiss Isn't Enough
“I feel lonely,” she tells me with her back to me and I can only watch as she pulls the sheets back, sitting on the edge of the bed.
Lonely. Lonely like the quiet halls I hate. Even though I’m right here, it’s still lonely. I know she’s right.
“Lonely?” I repeat as I drop my watch to the dresser, letting it fall where it may with my gaze still pinned on Addison as she strips down slowly, leaving a puddle of clothes at the side of the bed. She does it every night. She has for the longest time. In the morning, she’ll gather them and drop them in the basket. When she has energy; that’s the excuse she gave me when I teased her about it before. The memory kicks my lips up into a small smirk, but it fades when I catch her profile in the dark room, the pale light showing me the lack of playfulness, the lack of happiness she’s always held on to.
The months we’ve been back here have worn her down.
“There are moments when I’m okay but they’re so fleeting. Recently,” she adds quickly. “It’s been a lot to take in.”
“You don’t like being back here, do you?” I question her and that gets her attention.
Turning to face me fully, she doesn’t even bother to grab the sheets to cover herself as she answers me with shock clear in her cadence. “Of course I do.” She swallows before adding, “I love your family. I’ve always loved them.”
“Things are different now.”
“We’re all different,” she comments without sparing a second between my statement and hers. Her gaze is bold, challenging even. “Just because things are different doesn’t mean the pieces I love aren’t the same.”
I take my time pulling my undershirt over my head and dropping it to the dark wood floor. I strip down to nothing but my boxer briefs before climbing into bed. All the while she watches and waits.
Taking her hand in both of mine, the hand that still doesn’t have a ring on it, I run my thumb across its barren finger and ask her, “Did you feel lonely before we lost the baby?”
“No,” she answers me quickly and with a slight shake of her head. “It was after. Even with everyone around us… even with you, I just feel lonely sometimes. Like glimpses of loneliness. And I don’t know what to do to shake it.”
“You aren’t alone, and this will pass.”
“I know,” she admits. “I know. It will pass, but I just don’t know what to do in between. I don’t know if I’m able to handle it all.”
“Do you still want to marry me? You still want to stay here with me?”
“Yes,” she answers quickly although she’s just as hasty to look down at our hands. Like she spoke without thinking. Like there’s a but.
“Then why no ring?” I ask her quietly and then clear my throat. “Why don’t you want to wear it? I asked you to marry me weeks ago. You picked out the ring, but you don’t wear it.”
“Are you going to wear a ring?” she rebuts.
“An engagement ring?” She nods at the clarification. “Is that what you want? For me to wear a ring?”
Looking past me and out of the cracked window still bringing a gentle breeze, she admits, “No.”
“You have to help me understand, Addison.” The frustration in my voice is clear as I run a hand down my face and reposition on the bed as I pull my hands away. “It feels like…you aren’t completely here with me anymore.” Admitting the words makes my chest feel tighter, makes my hands feel colder and numb.
“I’m trying to be,” she admits with a single harsh swallow.
“I get wanting to wait to try again,” I say, and she tries to interrupt me but I stop her with a finger over her soft lips. “I understand that. It hurts, but I get it. I get that you feel lonely, because I do too. That’s what happens when you lose someone. And we did. But I don’t understand not wearing my ring. I can wait for you to come back to me and deal with this together; I just need to know that you will or what to do to help you. Losing the baby… I know it’s because of everything else. I know it has to do with being here and that you don’t love it.”
“I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“I just don’t know my place.”
“It’s next to me. That’s your place, with me.” My words are rushed and full of frustration.
She starts to speak again, but she has to close her eyes and swallow thickly first, reaching out to me. A moment passes with an uncomfortable pang in my chest. The soft tips of her fingers run down my rough knuckles, tracing scars before she kisses them.
“I want you to wear the ring I got you.” She nods once but she still doesn’t speak, and she doesn’t take her gaze off my knuckles. “I know it’s harder, being around my family when the last time you saw them you weren’t with me.” My words make her still. Every piece of her is frozen as I speak the truth she doesn’t say out loud. That’s why she’s not wearing the ring. It has to be because of that. We came back to the place where she didn’t belong to me.
“You’re mine now. You’re going to find your place and I’ll figure out how to help you. We’re going to get married. We’re going to have a baby one day.”