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“I know, and I’m sorry. I regretted it almost immediately and I need you to know before it’s too late that I understand now what you were trying to tell me.” I push out of his arm and turn to him despite not being able to see his face. I reach for his hands and squeeze them in mine. “What I did before knowing you doesn’t work anymore, and I can’t deny the reason. Even in the depths of my misery, I crave a connection with you.”
“What about Takeshi?”
Shinji’s question is one I’ve contemplated over the last few days because of the hole his husband’s absence has left inside me. “We don’t work without him.”
“He needs to know that.”
“But you?—”
“It doesn’t mean the same coming from me.” Shinji exhales his frustration. “Believe me, I’ve tried.”
“Like on the nights you leave when you think I’m asleep?”
Shinji retracts his hands, leaving me bereft. “How’d I slip up?”
I lie beside him again and pull his arm around my waist. “I missed your heat.”
After the first night without Takeshi, Shinji would slip out during the twilight hours to return early in the morning.
“Takeshi needed me, too.”
I bop my head. “And it’s my fault he doesn’t have you right now.”
“What’s the point of talking about this if you aren’t ready to?—”
“I made a list today,” I stop him from saying what we both know.
“Yeah?” he deftly leans into the new topic.
I extract myself to turn on the lamp and retrieve the piece of paper I spent hours on today instead of locating more of Tommaso’s strongholds.
Shinji rises until he rests against the bed’s headboard.
I sit facing him, however, mustering the courage to look him in his eyes while I share another piece of me is a challenge. “My therapist recommended I make a list of the things I want and my progress toward attaining my goals.” After a deep breath, I hand Shinji the paper.
I watch him without breathing, waiting for the moment he lands on his and Takeshi’s name. Topping the list is revenge. Beside it is a smiley face and a note saying in progress. Other items include friendship, getting over my aversion to Tora—I have a neutral face next to that item—and at the end of my list are Takeshi and Shinji. Although they’re last, it isn’t because they mean the least but they are the hardest for me to understand. Beside their names are fierce frowning faces and the word more circled over and over until it resembles a thick border.
All day I’ve questioned what more means.
When Shinji’s eyes widen, I say, “You should turn the page over.”
Only two items are on the backside of the page, Takeshi and Shinji. Between them is one word.
“Lakeshia…” Shinji gasps, raising glossy eyes to me.
“I want to tell Takeshi. Will you come with me?”
“Now?” He looks toward the clock with blue numbers displaying the time. Two thirty.
Hope shines within his brown irises. His emotions almost match my own when I finally realized what I wanted from them.
Everything.
“You were going to leave soon, anyway.” I lift my shoulder in an unusually shy move. “And we both know he won’t come back unlessIdo my part to convince him.”
Before my last words leave my mouth, Shinji leaps toward me and kisses my forehead before leaving the bed to search for clothes. In his excitement, he pulls on a pair of sweatpants and heads toward the door.
I press the residual warmth on my skin and follow at a slower pace. Deep in thought, I skip the underwear, pull a flowy dress over my head, and press the spot of Shinji’s lingering kiss.
