Part XXVIII

Though Ronan did indeed remain asleep when I got into bed, I didn’t sleep a wink myself, and passed a long, uncomfortable night huddled miserably on the edge of the bed, as far away from him as possible.

After awhile, I realized he was awake, too. Every so often, I heard him draw a shuddering breath, and knew he wept as I did, quietly, each of us hoping not to attract the other’s attention.

I longed to take him in my arms and apologize, and comfort him, but knew there was no way to take back the hurt I’d inflicted. We would work our way through it together at some point, but for now the wounds were still too raw, and we each had to endure the pain alone. We remained on opposite sides of the bed, our backs turned to one another.

A king-size bed is a wonderful thing when two people who love each other can enjoy the luxury of sprawling out together with plenty of room to spare. Ronan and I had shared that experience for two nights, loving every moment of it. But now, working as hard as we were to stay apart, the space between us felt as cold, bitter, wide, and deep as a canyon in the bottom of the sea.

I don’t know what wretched hour it was when Ronan finally spoke, because I had turned the digital clock to the wall on purpose, so I wouldn’t have to watch the minutes ticking past. I heard the blanket rustle, then another shuddering breath, deeper than those preceeding it, and a sigh, and finally he cleared his throat.

“What I fail to understand,” he began, his voice breaking, “is why you encouraged me to propose if you had no intention of accepting. You never seemed the sort of woman who’d deliberately break a man’s heart like that.”

“Oh, Ronan—” I reached out and touched his shoulder, but he jerked away angrily.

“You’re the only person I’ve ever trusted with all of me: heart and mind, body and soul. You’re also the only person in the world who knows me as myself, without the music, without the bravado, without the goddamned image. Does that mean so little to you?” His voice went ragged, and his breath caught in his throat as he fought to suppress a sob.

“Ronan, you don’t understand. It’s not like that at all!”

“Then what, pray tell, is it like?”

“You won’t believe me now, no matter what I say. You’ve already made up your mind.”

“Not necessarily. I’m willing to hear you out, though you’ve dashed my heart to bits like some cheap plaything—”

“No, Ronan. No! Look, I know I hurt you, and I can’t take that back now, but it really was completely unintentional. I love you, and I honestly don’t know why I couldn’t say yes. I was ready to, right up to the moment, but it just—wouldn’t come out. Hasn’t anything like that ever happened to you?”

“Never. The only proposals I ever had were for one-night stands, and there was no doubt as to what answer I would give on those occasions. All those occasions, because, cuisle mo chroi,” he said bitterly, “there were many. More than I could ever keep track of. But even stronger than my innate shyness was a sense that I should remain above that sort of behavior. That someday I’d connect with someone worthy. And—Jaysus, God, I believed you were that someone! But now—och, God! How could I have been so wrong?” And then he was sobbing inconsolably.

I was crying, too, as I moved closer to him, intending to take him in my arms, to try and reassure him. My hand settled on his shoulder, and I felt him turn to stone at my touch. “Ronan—”

“Please,” he begged, his voice barely a whisper now. “I can’t get any closer to the edge without falling off the bed. Keep to yourself and don’t touch me again unless I ask you to.”

So I moved away from him and clung to my pillows and wept, and at some point my exhaustion finally rendered me unconscious, and I slept fitfully until the alarm went off.

***

Ronan looked like hell when he got up, with shadows beneath his bloodshot eyes, dark and deep in the pallor of his face. He was grimly silent and distant, and only spoke when he needed to ask for help. In addition to his usual morning routine, he required an extensive nose-blowing session, and to soothe his sore, tired eyes with a cold compress. He thanked me politely for every service provided, just as he would have thanked his hired caretaker, his voice cool and detached, as if we barely knew each other.

After awhile, I stopped trying to initiate conversation. There was no point when my questions and comments only brought about non-verbal or monosyllabic responses. In silence, I dressed him and fed him breakfast as soon as room service delivered it. Then we checked out of the hotel and got in the car for the trip back to Boston.

It was a long, dismal drive. I was having a hard time staying awake after getting so little sleep, and Ronan dozed intermittently, waking only when he happened to slump sideways and rough places in the road caused him to bump his head against the window.

I had merged on to the turnpike and was making good time when I decided I couldn’t stand the silence any longer and pulled into the next rest area.

Ronan woke with a snort and blinked, disoriented. “Where are we?”

“At a rest stop on the turnpike, and we’re not leaving until you and I have worked things out, once and for all.”

His eyes narrowed and his jaw tightened. “There’s nothing more to say. I’ll bide my time until I’ve regained the use of my arms, and then I’ll go home and never trouble you again.”

“Damn it, Ronan!” I pounded the steering wheel with my fist. “That’s not what I want, and it’s not what you want, either! Look, I honestly don’t know why I couldn’t accept your proposal yesterday. I wanted to, and you have no idea how badly, but I just—Jesus! I think what you said at first was right: that we’ve been through a lot in the past few days and perhaps the timing was off. But you have to understand that I have a history, and that history includes my former fiancé. For a long time, he was seriously ill, with no hope of recovery. I knew he was dying, but until this week, his death was something that would happen one day in the distant future. Now that future time has come and gone, and become part of the past. Yesterday I stood at the graveside of a man I loved, still wearing his ring, and tossed in my little fistful of earth, and you can’t undersand why I couldn’t give you the answer you wanted to hear?”

“I could understand it perfectly well, Sarah, if you’d not encouraged me as you did. My intuition was fairly screaming at me not to do it, that the time wasn’t right. But you urged me on and I took a chance, and it was one of the worst mistakes I’ve ever made.”

He turned away and wiped his nose on the upper part of his shirt sleeve, rather than ask me for help. It wasn’t an effective way to deal with a runny nose, so I took some tissues from the glove box and cleaned him up as best I could.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice flat and toneless. He snuffled a few times then stared straight ahead, refusing to look at me. “You never really loved me, did you? You only wanted to be close to someone so the final separation from Hal would be less painful. Any halfway decent man would have sufficed.”

Fat tears rolled down my cheeks. “At first, when we began writing to each other, yes, it’s true that I was looking for refuge and a distraction. But it didn’t take long for me to want to meet you and spend time with you. You were kind—someone I thought I could always confide in. You were everything I hoped for from the start, but by the end of our first week together I could feel the chemistry changing. It was subtle at first, but by the time we took our trip to Doubtful Sound, I had fallen completely in love with you.”

“That early on?” he asked, his curiosity piqued in spite of everything. “I thought it was just me feeling like that at the time. You weren’t easy to read.”

“Neither were you, and if had to guess I’d say that you, just like me, have spent a lot of years perfecting that air of nonchalance. People generally don’t know what we’re thinking unless we want them to. Right?”

“Right,” he agreed.

“Well, that’s why you never guessed how badly I wanted to sleep with you that night on the boat. I was afraid that if you did know, you’d think it was just physical attraction when it wasn’t.”

“That makes two of us yet again.”

“Yes.” I stared down at the steering wheel and mentally drew lines between the pock-marks in its leather cover. “I didn’t dare let you know that I believed I could have my way with you, and leave you with your head reeling and your body craving more. That would have cheapened it. Ronan, even before I knew who you really were, I felt there was something different about you. I couldn’t define it, but I knew that whatever it was, I needed to honor it and wait until the time was right. Much as I wanted to, I made no attempt to seduce you, and focused on believing that in due course we would make love until the stars fell from the sky.”

“And yet our first time was nothing like that,” he said softly. “You had a virgin in your arms that night: an inexperienced boy trapped in a man’s body, with years of a man’s desires clamoring for release. I’m still amazed that you ever let me near you that way again, after the clumsy mess I made of something that should have been beautiful. I was worse than a ram at the height of rutting season.”

I had to be honest with him, even though his metaphor made me chuckle. “Maybe it satisfied you, but I’m afraid you’re right. Our first few times didn’t even come close to what I’d imagined.”

He blushed. “Because my imagination was pretty damn limited. All I knew was that you felt a lot nicer than my hand ever did.”

“Well, you had to start somewhere, and you did learn about subtlety and nuance pretty quickly after that. It didn’t take long to lay that boy to rest, did it?”

“No.” He sighed. “Sarah, do you think there will ever be a time when it’s right for me to ask you again? When you might be able to say yes with all your heart? ’Cause I still feel it in every fiber of my being, that you’re the one. No matter how firmly I resolved to let go and forget everything that ever happened between us, I just—couldn’t. You hurt me badly last night and I’m still feeling that pain, but—Jaysus God! I love you beyond all reason, and I believe we can work through this. What do you think? Are you willing to try?”

“I am if you are.”

“Then come here and hold me.”

I unfastened our seatbelts and we turned toward each other. It wasn’t easy to embrace in the confines of the car with his arms in the way, but somehow we managed, our tears mingling as he pressed his cheek to mine.

“I wonder,” he mused, “if I would have been able to handle this whole thing better if circumstances were different.”

“What do you mean?”

“I keep trying to put a good face on it, but there’s no denying I’ve been terribly stressed out since my arms were broken. There’s the pain, for one. That would be enough to drive a stronger man than me around the bend. And you know how frustrated I get, not being able to do for myself. But it’s times like these that upset me the most. I should be holding you now, and God knows I want to. Such a simple thing, to wrap my arms around you and draw you close, and it’s been near a month now that I haven’t been able to do it, with at least another month to go before I’m out of these damned contraptions. Do you have any idea how much I fucking hate it?”

“I think so, based on the way you’re talking.”

“I’m sorry. You know I don’t generally have a foul mouth, but—”

“Ro, if cussing now and then helps you to blow off some steam, then it has a constructive purpose. As long as it’s not directed at me, I really don’t mind.”

“Well, of course it’s not. You’re not to blame for the state of my arms.” He sighed. “I suppose it really is impossible to know how I would have reacted if things were normal and I was going about my business as usual. I probably wouldn’t have asked you at this juncture, though. I would have observed a decorous interval after Hal’s passing, and I’d not have broached the subject before Christmas. You would have been able to answer from a heart that wasn’t aching. If I was smarter than I am, I would have paid closer attention to my intuiton yesterday, and found a gentle way to put you off. But you seemed so eager for it, and I was caught up in the heat of that moment. Now, you’ve apologized for your part, but I bear some responsibility in this misunderstanding, too. You weren’t the only one who exerted pressure where there should have been none. I knew better, and yet I went ahead just the same.” He raised his head and faced me. “Sarah, I’m sorry. I still want to marry you, but I shan’t speak of it again until my heart tells me it’s truly the right time. All right?”

I nodded.

“So, we’re sorted out, then?”

“Yes.”

“And you do believe a time will come when I can ask again?”

I took his hand gently and felt his fingers curl in response, brushing my knuckles. “Yes.”

“I guess that’s all I needed to know,” he said softly, and brought his face closer to mine. “Give us a kiss?”

I nodded, but embraced him first, then slowly touched my lips to his. They were so soft and welcoming, yet firm and insistent at the same time. We kissed for awhile, and when we finally stopped, things felt right between us again. I laid my hand on his cheek and stroked it, feeling the locks of his hair tumbling over my fingers, and the silky smoothness of his beard beneath my palm. “I’m sorry, Ro. I really never meant to hurt you.”

“I know that now, a ghrá. You’re forgiven, and in time we’ll both forget it ever happened.”

I nodded in agreement, though I knew we would never forget, and forgiveness was all too likely to fall by the wayside if either of us was upset enough to reproach the other. That was all part of the endless cycle of relationships. Loving deeply also meant hurting just as deeply from time to time, but if the soothing balm of forgiveness was remembered and called upon once the storm had passed, there was no pain that could not be borne and overcome.

“Take us home now, a chuisle. I’ve a longing to be alone with you.”

“Me, too,” I told him, as I traced the line of his nose with with my finger, and gently tweaked its tip.

He laughed, lightly, and smiled, his blue eyes sparkling like twin sapphires. “Och, I do love you, Sarah!”

“Back at you, Ro,” I replied, as I pulled away from him and got settled properly behind the wheel. I turned the key and the engine came to life, purring evenly. I put my hand to the shift and encountered Ronan’s knee instead, and patted it lightly. “You’ve got to move that if we’re going to get this show on the road.”

“Yes, I know, but when I feel like I can’t get enough of you touching me, I’ll take whatever I can get, however I can get it.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

“Yes. For the first time in my life.” He withdrew his knee and smiled as he relaxed against the soft leather of the bucket seat, and closed his eyes.

I put my hand on the shift and headed for home.

***

C.P. Warner
© 25 December 2007

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