Lost (43 page)

  “I will never know anything greater than you wrapped around me, loving me whole, Sophie.  I have never and will never love anyone else like I love you.  And I need you to know that for the rest of your life,” Peter cried against my lips as he moved slowly within me.

  During, I never once thought of the attack, and I never once had a moment of hesitation or confusion.  I knew without a doubt I was with Peter and every hurt and past trauma faded away when we were together.

  When I suddenly flashed back to that horrible night though, I asked a question I never thought would come from my mouth.  “Would you finish me from behind so you're the only memory,” and choking, I finished desperately. “The last person I remember like that?”
  Though visibly shaken, Peter nodded like he understood what I needed from him, and gave to me what I needed as he always had.
  Moving out of me, Peter gently turned me onto my stomach and settled back behind me.  Kissing my spine, Peter reminded me he was there as he gently lifted my hips, and slowly, without pain or fear entered me again.
  Moving so slowly, Peter was all I knew.  He was everything I felt, and everything inside me.  I was with Peter and I tried to release the last of the nightmare I had lived.
  Reaching around, Peter began touching me with his fingers as I pushed back to my building arousal.  He pushed me until I stopped thinking and only loved against him for the release I needed.
  He touched me and made love to me, and stayed with me.
  As time passed, Peter asked quietly against my shoulder, “Give me a number,” and I actually laughed.
  “9. I'm like a 9,” I said grinning into my pillow, as he touched me harder and moved faster.
  Moaning and moving, I found myself almost there.  I was where I needed to be, and where I wanted to be.  I was almost there, but I just needed a little bit more.  I needed just a little-
  “Oh!  Ummmm... Peter,” I gasped on a broken exhale as I released.
  Peter then turned me back around, and spread my legs wide as he entered me again slowly through my tension. 

  Staring at me with his classic Peter connective intensity, he looked at me with all the love and the adoration I had come to know only with him.  He watched me, and then he kissed me.  He loved within me and kissed me until pulling away he let me watch his own release.
  But there were no agonized faces, nor animalistic grunts from Peter.  He simply closed his eyes for a split second and then opened them as he leaned down and kissed me the last kiss I would ever know.
 

  And as it began for us, I released all the tension and burst into tears again from the intensity of everything between us.
  I cried as I always had with Peter after so deep a connection, and I said goodbye to my forever.
  I cried as he turned us and wrapped his arms around me for the last time.  Peter spooned me safe for the last time in my life, I knew.
  Minutes later I actually asked him to leave.  I said the words I never thought I could possibly say, and I felt everything I knew would be my forever from that moment on.
  “Please go now.  You're going to leave anyway, so go now when I feel like this, so this is the last memory I have of you.”
  “I can stay for a little longer,” he begged.  But I knew it wouldn't matter.
  “Please, Peter.”
  “I'm coming back.  I'll be back to love you and adore you forever,” he whispered kissing the back of my head.
  “Okay...”  But I knew he wouldn't. 

  The very atmosphere around us told me I would never see Peter again.  Whether killed on the job, or simply too much time passing to still hold on, I didn't know.  I didn't know what the end of us would be officially, but I knew in that one moment, I was witnessing our end.
  Eventually, Peter dressed to leave my room for the very last time.  He dressed and knelt on the floor, holding my face in his hands as he kissed me goodbye with tears in his eyes. 

  “There was no one before you, and there will never be anyone
but
you, Sophie,” he whispered as he stood to leave.

  Leaving me again, Peter kissed me like the forever he was, and then he left me as the forever he would always be.
                                              *****

  The following morning after endless tears and a heartache that went beyond pain, I finally attempted to rise from my bed.  I had a date with my mom at the pottery studio, and I had a date with the rest of my life.
  My forever was gone, and I decided I would try to finally let him go.
  Showering quickly and massaging my aching shoulder I honestly felt lighter than I had in 10 months, and maybe even the years before it. 
  My body was sore, but the good kind of sore.  The vaginal tear had healed enough that Peter hadn't hurt me, and my muscles were aching from our movements, not from the previous pain I had endured.
  I actually felt good as I dressed for my date with my mom.
 

  When I arrived, my mom was waiting, and I knew she knew instantly.  Without asking anything specific, she looked at me with a grin and said, “You look very happy this morning, Sophie.” 

  Smiling, I said more than I ever could with words and explanations because I didn't think she could ever understand what my night with Peter had meant to me.
  She wouldn't know he had helped heal me, and she wouldn't understand sex with Peter helped wash away the rape.  She couldn't possibly understand my room was no longer contaminated and neither was I.
  So I nodded and smiled and asked what pottery she'd like to make.
  And I just lived, like Peter told me to do.

CHAPTER 34

  2 weeks after my night with Peter I attempted to quit my job at Halton Facilities.  I tried to resign because I just couldn't do it anymore.  There was nothing holding me to the job because I had lost the happiness and excitement I once had for my career.  I also knew I needed a change.
  I was no longer stable, mature, professional Sophie Morley, and I didn't want to be anymore.  I decided I needed to change everything about my life and I needed to find some happiness within it.
  So I tried to quit on a Friday afternoon, but Deborah refused my resignation.  Actually, she vehemently refused, which was pretty funny considering I could just walk out the door. 

  After she refused, she surprised me though by saying she was filing the paperwork for a leave of absence.  She had all the paperwork ready, and upper management had already signed it.  She said she was just waiting for me to make a move before she approached me with the offer.
  Deborah handed me the contract from a folder and as I looked over it, I was still determined to leave regardless.  But honestly, I was shocked by the terms of the leave.  She had made everything so easy I couldn't believe what I was reading.  I was unable to even comprehend what I was looking at, until she explained it all to me.
  “You're an amazing employee who has been through a lot this past month, so I drafted a proposal for you to look over.  Basically, you stay as an employee, on leave for exactly 6 months from the day you sign this, and we agree to continue paying 60% of your salary while on leave.  You must sign a non-compete, only valid for the 6 months you’re on leave, but otherwise, you're free to do whatever you want.  Take a vacation, relax at home, get a part time job out of the industry,” she smirked. “But come back when the 6 months is over, or come see me if you decide you really are resigning.  Either way, you have 6 months with partial pay to figure out what you want to do.”
  Looking at Deborah and the kindness she was offering I choked up a little as I asked, “Why?”
  “Like I said, we don't want to lose you, and I think you just need a little time.  I understand you've had a lot going on personally, and though you were ridiculously professional at work, I could see you were personally struggling.  So before you came in to quit, which we didn't want, I set up this proposition for you.”
  “But I could just take a leave anyway, and file-”
  “With the government, yes.  However, you would make just slightly less than 40% of your current income.  So, by doing this, I had hoped with the larger income we were willing to pay you for 6 months, you would feel obligated to return,” she grinned again. “Look, I don't know all the details of what's going on with you, but I know you were recently sexually assaulted, according to the little bit of information your mother gave me, and I know this must be a very hard time for you.  So I was trying to make it a little easier for you to get help, get better, and then come back to us here.  And again, we don't want to lose you.  So take the paperwork, read over it this weekend and let me know what you decide on Monday.”
  “This is so generous,” I said still a little stunned by the offer. “But who will do my job?”
  “We'll have it covered.  Don't worry about it.  Worry about you,” she said kindly.
  “Okay.  Thank you.  I’ll sign it right now.  I don't need to read over it.  Thank you so much, Deborah.  I did just need a little time to figure everything out.  Thank you,” I said again already flipping through the pages to the little colored stickers where I had to initial and sign.
  And that was it.  After a hug, and a few more soothing words from Deborah, plus the offer to call her anytime, I walked out of Halton Facilities an hour late Friday night, but free.
  I was free from the stress and pressure of my job while I tried to get my life back together.
  My birthday was just over a week away and all I could think about was turning 26.  That was my first goal with my new freedom- my birthday.  I
needed
to be 26, because 25 had been awful for me.
  And financially, I was okay.  60% of my income would make everything tight, but I also had a tiny amount of savings, so if I did find a part time job to make up the difference, I could actually make it work.  I could take my little breather while I pulled myself back together.  I needed the little break Deborah offered, which was better than I would have had if I'd actually quit, which I had intended.

                                               *****

  During the 2 weeks after Peter’s visit, I had been struggling worse than ever, but I pretended harder than ever to look okay.  No one knew he had come to me, and no one knew I had let him go.  And as each day passed,
I
couldn't even believe I had let him go.
  There was a part of me, albeit very small that tried to take comfort in the fact that he was a police officer doing something more than I knew or understood to help the greater good.  That little part of me struggled every single day, fighting the depression and the sadness that threatened to strangle me in my bed, but I tried so hard to make it enough to continue. 

  I fought every single day getting out of bed, and accepting the fact that the man I loved
couldn't
be with as opposed to didn't want to be with me.  But it was hard.  Knowing he was more than just a man who broke my heart helped. 
Slightly.
  Every single day I had a pep talk with myself, and tried to reason every other person on the planet had suffered a break up.  Everyone else knew it hurt, suffered the initial pain, but then got over it.  Everyone knew what I was going through, and they all survived.  I knew that logically, but the reality felt anything but.
  No one could possibly understand the depth of my pain because I simply couldn't express it.  I was weak and broken, and I hated myself and my feelings, and my insane inability to move on.
  I was stuck in my tragic world of missing him, wanting him, and looking for him everywhere.  Peter coming to me and making love to me may have emotionally helped me move back into my bedroom, and maybe even helped me move past the rape quicker.  But his visit prompted a whole new devastation over his absence again. 
  But I tried to live, like he told me to. 
 
 

  3 weeks after I left Halton Facilities I did get a part time job, working in Pandora’s, which I loved.  Pandora’s was cool as hell and close to my apartment, and really, just an opened door away from seeing Peter again, should he enter it.
  Peter was everywhere all the time still, and I missed him with everything I was.  But at least he was helping do something greater than I understood, which was the mantra I held each and every day of my life.
 

  I still held onto the knowledge that Peter was doing something good, something worthwhile, even as I slowly wasted away looking for him.

  Driving down streets I looked, and in every window of every store in the village I looked for him.  I looked everywhere, and I looked always. 

  But I never found him, until I did.