So every day, I help him come.
And in the mornings, we walk slowly underneath the lovely trees, with my arm wrapped about his waist.
“I’m sorry I can’t hold you.”
“I’m sorry my husband shot you.”
It’s the first time such things have been said. We laugh so hard, it brings him pain, and we’re forced back inside. I tease his scalp with my nails and feed him an Orange Creamsicle. He likes eating them. I think somehow it must distract from the sensations of withdrawal. I kiss his cold, orange lips, and he whispers, “Turn around.”
I do, and there’s a strange man at the door.
“Who is that?”
He smiles.
It’s the kiln he had his father promise me when he called Tristan to invite me here.
Declan watches me at the pottery wheel in afternoons. Our precious days together stretch into weeks. His left arm heals enough so he can push his fingers into me. We shower together, eat food a truck delivers, and tuck in close at night.
Some weekends, his father visits, and we’ll drive down to Seattle. Sailor’s grown so very lean, but when we go into the city, he eats. After some time passes and he’s hurting less, we roam all about the downtown, gorging ourselves.
It’s a slow road, with his shoulders. Dutifully, with the discipline of a teetotaler, he cuts the marijuana tincture back for use for PT only. He’s healing physically, but he still has his Laurent nightmares. He holds me against him in the night and breathes into my hair.
“You’re the only thing that’s ever made me feel better. At rehab, they say it can’t be someone else. But I don’t know how to do it any other way.”
Twenty-Two
Declan
Living in the woods of Washington with Finley is a revelation.
For the first few weeks, I’m so fucked up. Withdrawal, and pain. I’m worried that she’s here…with me. There’s so much I want to say to her, but I can’t get my head on straight. I feel like a little kid—helpless. I can’t even hold her when we sleep. Can’t squeeze her back and kiss her hair. I can barely use the bathroom by myself. And when they did my shoulder, the right shoulder, the surgeon said that pitchers hardly ever come back from it.
I’m so fucking sad and tired. But Finley is a miracle-worker. She helps me get a leg up on my pain and figures out a way for us to sleep. She cooks some, and my dad helps her get a bunch of other shit delivered.
At night, she helps me get showers and re-wrap all the bandages. She’s never watched real TV, and it’s kind of funny because she likes all the things that everybody likes. HGTV. House Hunters. We lie in bed with the top part tilted up and Finley snuggled up against my side, and she watches these motherfuckers pick out houses for hours.
In the mornings, when I wake up hard, she teases me—but not too much. She seems to understand how much I like, and how much feels like too much in those days when I can’t touch her.
In the moments when I’m sick of this shit, she takes all my orders. When I tell her that she better ride my face or shove some fingers into her cunt, she lets me be a bastard—and she smiles while doing what I tell her to.
I’ll never forget the rhythm of those early days together. After we get out of bed, we eat some breakfast. I eat whatever she gives me, if I think I can keep it down, and when we’re done, we head into the woods. Finley wraps her arm around my waist, and I watch as she oohs and aahs over the nature shit. It’s all new to her, this terrain. The critters. We see a deer one day, and Finley squeals so loud, the damn thing flees in terror, and she’s sad.
“You want a deer?” I can’t help laughing. “I think we can lay some feed out, and they’ll all come.”
“Will they really?”
“Could bring deer. Could bring out the unicorns.”
She elbows me and then gasps in alarm, but it’s funny. “C’mon, you think you can hurt me with your little elbows?”
She gaps again, this time in mock offense. Her mouth curves into a playful grin. “I think they’re more threatening than yours are, tough guy.” She jumps out ahead of me and strikes a karate pose, chopping her arms in my direction. “Eh, eh, eh?”
I whoop. “Below the belt!”
“I do believe you mean in the slings.” She snickers, and somehow we’re kissing. I can’t hold her, but I want to. I’m so fucking hard. She looks around—as if someone’s hiding out here on our eighteen acres. Then she leads me over to a tree. I lean my back against it, and she goes down on me, blows me till my fists are balled up with the need to pull her hair. I come so hard, the sky between the pine needles seems to pulse.
And then I’m laughing, and she’s smiling.