Inner Core: (Stark, #2) (18 page)

With my head resting atop his heart I feel his words reverberate before they leave his mouth, “I need you back home.” He pauses for a brief moment and his eyes glitter with fervent spark under the weak light of the room.

“We both know that’s where you belong. So, Hayley,
I am
taking you home.”

I nod in an emotionally saturated, silent agreement.

~~~

“Have you seen my phone?” I ask Daniel as we're about to leave the hotel room. He fetches his and calls me. When my phone rings from somewhere near the en suite, Daniel stares at me scornfully and scowls. I flush and bite my lips, looking at him from under my lashes, all of a sudden feeling utterly immature. I hurry to kill the damn tune: Kelis' “I hate you so much right now.” When it's off I tuck the phone into my back pocket.

Daniel heaves loudly, chuckles and says, “You have less than thirty seconds to change that shit.”

“What would you suggest I change it to?”

“‘My Immortal’?” He side smiles.

“Wouldn’t ‘You’re Crazy’ be more suitable?”

He rolls his eyes and tugs me by my hand out of the room, then swats my behind.

Chapter 19: Cardiac Shake, Rattle, and Roll

Daniel leaves my bag in the entry way of the house and somewhat impatiently leads me toward the bedroom.

Again?

I study his tense, furrowed brows and concerned planes carefully as he threads his fingers through mine. His grip turns firm, better securing his hold, making me think that he's afraid I’ll run away. He has good reason to suspect that: sour acid travels up my throat to my mouth with the reminder of what happened in that room. The thought makes my body stiffen and I pull back involuntarily.

Hales, forgive is forget remember?
I should
not
think of that, but how can I possibly not?
I’m only human
… I’m not sure the insecurity this episode rooted in me will disappear anytime soon, or ever.

Daniel, sensing my sudden resistance, halts briefly, glances at me, concerned, and then in a determined voice says, “I know, Hales, but I really need you to see something.”

Still ill at ease, I follow him, though with every additional step we take I grow more flustered and yes, sad. Daniel halts at the bedroom’s doorjamb, sends me an inscrutable look and gestures for me to go in first as he flicks on the lights. I look around and I am overcome with emotions, a variety of contradicting emotions. 

“What do you think, baby?” Daniel’s low voice snaps me out of my state of utter dismay. “It’s…diff… different,” I stutter and shift my gaze from him to the room and back.

“It is,” he responds, and his assertive tone makes my mind work more smoothly. As I start to catalog the vision in front of me, the odd texts from him that didn’t make any sense over the past few days start to clarify. Everything in the room has been changed, from the natural color palette, to the rug, to the bed—all changed to the fabric and shades I absentmindedly chose. Fortunately, I think it turned out well.

“Now it’s just ours,” he says, and my heart swells.

“There's more,” he adds, and takes my hand, guiding me farther in. He stops at the edge of the dark wood, king size bed and turns me around to face the opposite wall. As I take in what appears in front of me, my breath catches and my heart starts to pound. It takes me a couple of moments to regain the ability to speak. In the middle of a freshly painted carmine
wall, hung in a silver antique style frame, there is a vast charcoal sketch of … me. The sketch is a reproduction of the Polaroid picture Iris, Daniel’s mom, took of me when we visited her in Baja—the moment she captured me staring at Daniel in a way that unmistakably expressed my pure love for him. I swallow hard and turn to face him. Words are trapped in my throat, failing to come out. His eyes run warily over my face, assessing me. He grimaces as I take a deep breath, then crouches just enough for his stare to be level with mine, and watches me from a close distance, waiting.

A weak, gratified, overwhelmed, “You did all this for me?” leaves my lips. He nods silently, and the muscle just above his jaw slowly works under his skin. My eyes glass over and melt into his. “I love it all. I love you,” I say.

“It’s the least I could do, Hales.” He slides his palm up over my cheek to cup it, and the tips of his fingers thread in my hair. I lean into it and look at him silently. “I love you and I'll do everything I can to make you feel just how much I do.”

My lips stretch up in a naughty, suggestive way at the double entendre leering from the end of his sentence.

“Hey,” he scolds me playfully. “That was the first time
ever
since I met you that I didn’t have
sex
in mind.” He shakes his head and a bloom of a smile forms on his scarred lip.

I am utterly dazed.

These exact feelings, which make me want to run as far as I can with all my strength and not look back are those same ones that will never let me leave, and make me love him wildly.

“Now seriously, baby: blank page?”

“Blank page,” I repeat into his parted lips. We dissolve into each other’s eyes, another unspoken communication between us that says, 'I am completely yours'. From that moment onward we are utterly engaged in each other as we slide together into our new bed and adeptly christen it.

Chapter 20: Behind Deep Scars

With the afterglow still leisurely swirling through me, my head comfortably snuggled on Daniel’s warm skin, staring at some indistinct point on the ceiling I say, lacking any filter, “You mentioned before that you're all in, D.” I pause for a moment to collect my thoughts before resuming.
Do I really want to do this now?

“What is it, Hales?” he asks in a mellow voice as I pause.

“I don’t think that…I'm...
all
in…” I say hesitantly, inwardly taking a deep breath.
Here goes…

Daniel turns to lie sideways, now facing me, and I readjust, mirroring him. I rest my cheek on my hands. This conversation would be much easier if his eyes weren’t on mine. His stare hardens in harmony with the tightening of his jaw.

“It’s just that since I met you and fell for you I’m in this constant state of suspended anxiety, and frankly, it's exhausting.” I sigh. The planes of Daniel's face set while his eyes encourage me to go on. “I constantly feel like something's about to happen and completely wreck me… again. It's hard to put my guard down and look past everything. As much as I want to…” With a downcast stare I add, in a small voice, “D, I'm not sure we’ll survive another one.” It’s not a threat but a sad admission. A shadow of pain hovers fleetingly over his face, but he lets me continue, his eyes attentively on mine.

“There's no question of how I feel about you, but it's because of that. I just don’t feel fully secure about us.” I unconsciously hold in a breath as I let out my deepest fears of losing him or getting deeply hurt again. I'm trying to make a coherent point, but somehow in my head my words are muddled, like they're flowing through a maze without ever really reaching the end. His stare narrows and intensifies, a line forming between his brows that shows his concern about what I'm telling him.

It’s not like I ever believed in happily ever after; hell, if there was a demonstration I'd be the first to pick up a sign and protest this cliché. On the other hand, I never imagined that a relationship could come with this much heartache.

“What will make this go away? What can I do, Hales?” He studies me closely, honesty and affection in his hazel eyes.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what you could possibly do or say to have me look past everything we’ve been through so far. I want to let it go, but it's not something I can simply do.”

We exchange meaningful, gloomy glances. Fog descends over my thoughts when I realize that there’s nothing that I can think of that will let me allow myself to trust us completely. I’ve tried many times, and yet I still feel the same way. In our short history there have been too many painful, trust cracking potholes to proceed untroubled and carefree. 

I might be physically here, actually living with him, but the switch in my head refuses to flip, the switch that will let me feel at home, call his place home.

Forgive and forget, Hales.

Living together again seems to be the best
temporary
solution. I'm trying desperately to convince myself that it's far more than just temporary, but I'm failing miserably, because a larger part of me doesn’t believe this will last long. A part of me that is doubtful and scarred, a part that keeps turning over any stone we lay, constantly looking for an ominous sign. I scan Daniel’s disturbed face, digging my teeth into my cheek.

Where are those blissful, complication-free times when I thought love was an overrated, expertly fabricated ruse for hopeless romantics? Those were the easy times, D, before you got under my skin and sentenced my heart to a life of imprisonment.

“Maybe if you understood what I'm all about, what made me who I am, it might ease your mind?” I can sense the wheels turning in his brain, looking for a way to get through to me. It seems he can feel my frustrated gloom better than I can. “Cause I want you, Hales, like I never wanted anything before. All of you.”

He traces my lips with his thumb. I lean into his hand as he gently cups my cheek, his eyes penetrating to the very core of me.

“I want to be that for you. I really do want us to work,” I reply, but my wavering voice doesn’t exactly match the sternness of my words; instead it reveals my doubt.

We lie facing each other, heads resting on our hands, subtle tension keeping us at length, physically and emotionally.

“You remember asking me about my scar?” He clears his throat, taking a deep breath. Something warm and dreadful twists my insides at the expression on his handsome face.

“The one you wouldn’t talk about, you mean?” My voice is small and tender, both eager and anxious in anticipation of what's to come.

“That same one,” he says, his expression strained and brooding. I push out air that was caged inside me, waiting. He threads his fingers through his golden locks and clenches his jaw.

And he starts.

“When I found out that Iris was sick I was just a kid. My only concerns at the time, like any other normal 7-year-old, were having fun and making trouble.”

My lips pull up gently.

“It all changed when I found out by accident that she could be dying. I think I matured overnight. I saw it as my goal to protect her—I thought that if we, Mike and I, took care of her, she'd get through it.” He swallows, pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Yeah, people divorce, people separate, nothing really lasts forever even though you wish it did. But when you leave, you should do it sensibly, with respect for the person you shared your life with.” He exhales. “On the day
he
left us, I didn’t understand what was going on at first.

When I heard Iris begging him not to leave, I couldn’t believe it. I tried to talk to him and tell him that we needed to take care of her, but all he did was to ask me not to interfere. I can still clearly remember pieces of their conversation. She tried to reason with him that I might end up an orphan and that we both needed him.” Daniel pauses for a long moment. He seems to be debating something inwardly. “I don’t think I'll ever be able to forget the tone of her pleading, Hales. She was weak and broken.”

Aching deeply for him, I put my hand on his cheek and move it slowly to rest on his waist under his loose shirt. I scoot closer, entwining our legs.

“The coward’s answer was that he couldn’t stay, neither for Iris’s sake nor for mine. He said something about how he needed to get away from the two of us. About him being too young, that he couldn’t handle the burden.” Daniel chews on his cheek then snorts. “He even said something about me turning into a man soon and that I would be able to manage on my own,” he says in a cold voice. “I was terrified that it would be just the two of us, that him leaving would make her sicker. That I wouldn’t be enough to help her.

I was afraid that it would kill her. I was scared.”

I try to stop the tears that pool at the corner of my eyes.

“You know, Hales, how some moments or situations in life just change you? How it takes just one crucial thing to leave a deep mark, to screw you up. Those moments that will eventually define the kind of person you’ll grow up to be?”

I nod.

“That was one of those moments for me.” His tone mutates into frost bitten ire. “Hearing him actually say that he was leaving, and that he didn’t care about her or me, left me helpless and frightened. I closed up.

I still don't understand how someone can just wake up one day and decide to desert his dying wife.”

“And son,” I add. He rubs his hand over his face and heaves.

“When he said he couldn’t stay, not for her and not even for me, when I saw my mother shattered and fearful, I felt pure rage.”

For the longest time I just watch his jaw sawing under his skin. When he continues, I keep quiet and don’t interfere, letting him set the pace.

“I remember the anger taking over every part of me. I was so full of rage the only way to get rid of it was to lash out. I was just a kid, but I'd always been big and strong for my age.” For a long moment he focuses on something I can't see, lost in his own thoughts. “This memory is still so vivid in my head,” he says. “I recall grabbing a chair and running toward him with all my strength. I slammed him down on the floor.”

I can’t help the chill slowly crawling up my spine as the scene forms before my eyes. Goosebumps cover my skin.

“It took him a good few seconds before he snapped out of his shock. I took the opportunity to pummel him with all the power and anger I had until he pushed me forcefully off him. That push sent me crashing into the furniture, and a sharp corner cut deep into my eyebrow.”

My reaction to this is to tighten my grip on his waist. He covers my hand with his own, as though trying to soothe me.