Desperate to Touch

“Can’t what?” Seth questions from behind me and I turn around to face him. With his tie loose around his neck, the top two buttons undone and the one closest to the top hanging on by a thread, Seth looks rough. Rough has always looked good on him, but not tonight. Not the way he looks at me with his lips parted, still breathing heavily. He looks wounded beyond repair.

“Are you okay?” I ask him, swallowing the wretched emotions that come with seeing him like this. He nods, not telling me anything and that’s okay too. He doesn’t have to, not right now. Not ever if he doesn’t want to. We do need to talk about him reacting the way he did though. His anger; his fear.

“I think we should sleep,” I suggest, not feeling well myself. “If I look the way I feel, you know I need sleep right now,” I tell him although I can’t look him in the eye.

“Talk to me,” he urges.

“What’s gotten into you?” I question him, not liking the way he looks at me like he’s about to lose me.

“You don’t want to know,” is all he says, again shaking his head. The hand he bloodied rises to his eyebrow and it’s shaking. My strong man is trembling.

“I’m here, I’m here,” I reassure him, holding him like he held me. This time I close my eyes and I let him rock me. I whisper against his chest, fighting sleep and refusing to be anything less than a rock for him now. “I do. I want to know.”

“I have secrets,” he tells me and I don’t know if I should laugh, or maybe roll my eyes. It would be insulting if he wasn’t wasted right now. I watch his throat tighten, the stubble on it even longer without him having shaved since I last saw him, as he swallows.

“You think I don’t know that?” As I speak, my voice is soft and it’s meant to be comforting, it’s meant to make him feel better. I know he has secrets and he hides things. I accept it.

“You don’t know the half of it. You don’t know what I did,” he says and his voice goes tight and again he covers his face, forcing him to let go of me. He scrubs his eyes like he wants the vision to go away.

“Seth, tell me what’s wrong?” The unsettling, gut-wrenching feeling takes over. Something is not just wrong, it’s gotten to him more than I’ve seen anything get to him. He’s scared. I feel it rock through my bones, his fear and despair. “Seth, please,” I beg him and he only shakes his head, his hands on the top of his head, his eyes closed tight.

“Tell me,” I demand and pull at his arms, forcing him to look at me, not knowing what else to do. Not knowing how to help him and not knowing what I’m going to do. I’m so on edge.

“I killed your dad!” Seth screams and the rage and brokenness that was written on his face changes quickly.

What? His words sink in slowly, like a dark red sky late at night before it all turns black. Shock is a reality. It’s numbing.

“Laura.” He speaks my name and reaches out for me with both hands. I shake my head, not accepting his grasp.

“You’re drunk; you didn’t kill him. He—he died in a car accident. He was in a car accident.” It was an accident, but my chest feels hollow hearing Seth say something like that. There’s no skip, no beat of any sort. My heart has fled.

I rip my arm away from him and he stays like he is, hunched down with his arms out to me even though I step away. “You need to stop and go to bed,” I warn him, feeling my throat go raw with horrible emotions.

“I did.” His wretched words are spoken like they’re true, but they’re not.

“It was a car accident,” I say as I take another step back until I’m fully in the living area and he’s in the kitchen. “You need to stop,” I warn him again, raising my arm. Of all the days to bring up my dad, it would have to be this one. When he’s been on my mind the entire drive here.

Seth takes a cautious step forward and suddenly I feel like I’m choking. Just from the way he’s looking at me, like he’s about to break me.

“He was a rat. That’s why.” My bottom lip wobbles when his eyes turn glossy.

“Stop it,” I say and try to cut him off, but he keeps talking. “No he wasn’t. You’re just tired and not—”

“That’s why Vito was going to hurt you. To get to your father.” I have to blink away the shining haze of tears in my eyes as I back away. He’s lying. My father would never rat. Seth would never kill him. It doesn’t make sense.