Page 48 of Malaise
FIFTEEN
Carver walks upthe side of the house to meet me at the garage door. I texted him after I walked outside, asking him to pull up closer so I didn’t have to walk so far in the sporadic rain with all my shit in hand. He strides over the wet lawn, hands in pockets, and seeming inches taller than his six-foot frame.
And I slept curled up in that last night.I’ve never wanted to slap myself so hard for being such a lucky bitch before in my life.
“How did it go?” he asks, throwing a cautious glance toward the laundry window that overlooks the path we’re on.
“She’s fucking insane,” I grate out, tossing supermarket bags stuffed full of my clothes out the side door of the garage. “He’s just shoved all my shit in bags, no rhyme, no reason—just shoved it all in.”
Carver leans down and places his large hands over mine. “Stop.”
“No. I need to get this done.” I struggle with a box that’s so fucking heavy I honestly can’t figure out what I own that would weigh this much.
“Meg. Stop.” He wraps his arms around my shoulders and gently coaxes me off the pile of belongings.
I break, the pent-up frustration at how fucked up this whole week has been bubbling over. He walks us backwards, my chest to his back, until he finds the side of the house to lean his weight against.
We stay like that for a solid few minutes, his arms wrapped tight around me, his right hand gripping his opposite wrist so hard that the flesh beneath turns white.
“Shh.” Gentle lips place careful kisses to the top of my head. “It’ll be okay.”
“They’re all I have left,” I sob, “and they don’t even want me.” I emit a pained cry and bawl even harder than before. If I keep this up, Mum will be out here in no time to tell us to stop making a scene for the neighbours.
“They’re not all you have left.” His arms shift so that one stays across my chest, the other sliding up on an angle so he can stroke his fingers along the side of my neck.
If I could purr, I would. Something in that simple touch sets me at ease, and my sobs die off to the odd hiccup the longer he does it.
“I’m a firm believer that things happen for a reason, that something out there knows more than we do.” He places a chaste kiss to my temple and continues. “I never intended to go to that bonfire—why would I when I’m almost ten years older than the majority of the people there? But, I’d had a shit day at work, Dad was being a cunt, and Tanya was out with her friends. I needed to get outside, enjoy the space—a by-product of too much time spent cooped up indoors with the home detention.” He slips both hands to my shoulders and gently spins me around, recrossing his arms behind my back to pull me flush with his hard body. My hands go out on instinct to keep breathing space, and find the hard planes of his chest. “Meg… it might sound crazy, but all this happening right now, the fact that you need somebody there for you, that it can be me….” He closes his eyes briefly, shaking his head. “I think that’s the work of fate.”
“You’re saying you think you were supposed to find me?”
“I think we were supposed to find each other.” He leans in and places another soft kiss on my forehead. “It….” He struggles with his words, grimacing as he fights to voice his thoughts.
I reach up with my healing hand and touch the side of his face, running my fingertips over the sharp line of his jaw. He sighs and closes his eyes, his breaths coming slower against my chest.
“When I think about what it would be like if we hadn’t met, that you’d be going through this alone, it fucking tears me up inside.” He swallows hard. “Like nothing else ever has before.” His eyes snap open as my hand drops away, my breath hard to catch as his gaze studies mine. “You’re pulling emotions from me I thought I couldn’t feel. You’re building a dangerous connection, Meg, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
“Why is it dangerous?” I whisper. What’s so wrong about finding a person who makes you feel?
“Because I’m not the kind of guy who takes lightly to people damaging what’s mine.”
I’m his? I feel adored, cherished, but at the same time I know he’s fighting the thought it could be more. He’s acutely aware of my age—he’s made sure I know that—and there’s no chance that whatever this is growing between us could ever be more. No matter how phenomenal it feels. No matter how much I believe everything he’s just said, because I feel it too.
He’s just what I need, when I need it.
I turn my head and look out over the street as I tune in to the steady beat of his heart. His fingers knit into my hair, and he holds me close before resting his mouth on the top of my head and murmuring “What am I going to do?”
I could die right now and feel as though I was never supposed to be anywhere else. I know what I want him to do, but he has to make that decision for himself, he has to want this enough… want me.
My mind was made up the moment he pulled me close on that log. He is home. He is my comfort, my reasoning, and the one who I can rely on time and again.
“Let’s get this stuff loaded.” I slip free of his hold in my hair, yet keep my hands firmly on his chest. “We’ll stash it in the Falcon until I figure out where I’m going to go, and in the meantime, I think there might be a truck stop that deserves my attention on the rest of their amazing burgers.”
He chuckles, the sound warm and rich through my soul in such proximity. “Sounds like a plan to me.”
We load my belongings in companionable silence, stealing the odd look at the house as we work together to get the stuff in the car. Mum never comes out to see how we’re going, or even if I have gone. If I hadn’t just been inside talking with her, I would have thought there wasn’t anyone home.
The last two bags in my grip, I walk toward the back of the car with Carver close behind, and toss them in with everything else. He reaches up and pulls the boot lid down, giving it a good shove to get the latch to hold properly, just like most of these old bangers require.