Finn closed the door behind him, picking up the conversation. “Yeah, I still ski and parachute.”
Such tame words for what he really did.
“Double black diamond runs and BASE jumping?” Beah heard her words, grateful she didn’t sound accusatory or shrill. God, they’d had many arguments on this subject, about him risking his life, about his need to escape. Hindsight was a great tool and she now realized that more than wanting him to give up his pursuit for adrenaline, she’d just wanted him to give her as much attention as he did his sports. She’d wanted him to turn to her, to open up, to spend some of his free time with her.
Finn led her out of the bedroom and down the stairs to his light-filled, airy kitchen. After asking her if she wanted coffee and powering up his machine, he raised an eyebrow. “You’re not going to lecture me?”
Beah shook her head. “I’m not your wife anymore, Finn. I have no right to comment on how you spend your free time.”
A strange expression crossed Finn’s face, one Beah couldn’t decipher. Was it sadness? Relief? Confusion? Who knew? Finn turned his back on her and opened the fridge.
“But I never understood why you loved it.” And why you preferred risking your life to talking to me.
“Are you hungry? I’m hungry.”
Beah stared at the back of his head as he looked in his fridge for something to snack on. It was classic avoidance behavior. He didn’t want to discuss the matter so he changed the subject.
Some things never changed and she was a fool for thinking, hoping, they would.
Beah walked over to the cupboard, grabbed a glass and filled it with water. After taking a few sips, she rested the cool glass against her forehead, wishing she could stop wishing.
She wanted things to be different...but mentally and emotionally, she was back where she’d been so long ago. Despite her promises to herself to keep this simple and bedroom-based, she still—why?—wanted Finn to open up to her.
And she might be a hair’s breadth away from falling in love with him again—a terrifying possibility but one she could no longer avoid.
Finn straightened, closed the fridge and Beah noticed his hands were empty. He leaned his shoulder into the stainless steel appliance and rubbed the back of his neck. “Exercise takes me out of my head,” he said, his expression thoughtful. “It clears out the junk and allows me to see situations clearly.”
Wow, he was talking. This was new.
“I don’t have a death wish, Beah. I don’t go out there thinking I could die. Sure, death and injury are a risk, but it’s not something I think about because I don’t want or intend to die.” Finn hesitated a moment before continuing. “When I jump off a building or free climb, I sink or swim or fall by my own choices. It’s the only place I feel like I am in complete control.”
“I don’t understand.”
“And I don’t know if I can explain it to you.”
Beah felt Finn’s eyes on her face, heard his sigh. Beah expected him to shut down but he continued to talk. “One of my earliest childhood memories is of people asking me questions, trying to talk to me, but I never got a chance to respond because Carrick and Ronan jumped in and spoke for me. I guess my reticence started then because I didn’t, apparently, talk much, or at all. I suppose it became a habit.”
Okay, that made sense. Finn worked out his problems on his own. He never shared his inner thoughts with anyone, not even her. Stupid that it still hurt.
“I still don’t understand why you think it’s a good idea to throw yourself off buildings,” Beah stated. Finn walked over to her, took the glass from her hand, filled it up with water and downed the contents. He looked out the narrow window to the dark night beyond.
“It makes me feel alive, it reminds me to live. I’ve seen death often—my birth mom, Raeni, Thandi, even Tanna came damn close to dying—that I feel like I need to feel life. What I do requires total focus, immense concentration. I have to push aside the crap, the minutiae of life and only think about what I’m doing in the moment. And it’s in those moments that I feel I am truly one with the world, tuned in,” Finn added. He smiled his quirky, ovary-rolling smile. “And yeah, I enjoy the rush.”
“Thanks for explaining it to me. I understand better now.” Beah rested her hand on his warm forearm and squeezed. “I appreciate you opening up.”
Finn lifted his hand to push a curl behind her ear, to run the pad of his thumb over her cheekbone. “I can’t help but notice you don’t talk half as much as you used to.”
Yeah, she’d been a spiller, telling him anything and everything, thinking if she opened up, so would he.
Beah, not able to look at him, walked over to the coffee machine and opened the cupboard doors above the machine to look for cups. “I used to be a talker, now I’m a bit more like you. I tend to work things out by myself.”
“Did I do that to you?” Finn asked.
Beah shrugged. He hadn’t done it to her; nobody had that much power. But after their divorce, she’d chosen to retreat, to become more emotionally isolated. It didn’t hurt so much when you looked around for emotional comfort and found none. “We choose our actions, Finn.”
She didn’t want to spoil what had been a lovely day by talking about the past, so Beah changed the subject. “This is a really nice place.”
Finn looked around and nodded. “I enjoy it.”