I am not a boy who wants to rebel against rules or conventions. I am a man who cares more for you than for anything the world could say about it.
I could not name a single thing in this world that I fear. The nearest thing there is for me is silence from you. The idea that you don’t think I’m worth answering. So I am not quite as courageous as I claimed. No man’s measure of me matters a damn. No one’s except yours.
Answer me, and in good faith, I’ll take that answer as final. I would hate to leave off, to give you up. You told me tonight that you didn’t want me to stop. I practically ripped that from you, like I’d had to torture you to get at the truth. There’s something you’re holding closer than me, some reason you don’t trust yourself. I would give a lot to know what that is. Or to kick the shit out of whoever told you that you weren’t worth tenderness or a call back.
There is, for me, a choice to make. I can take Jer’s offer of a job and settle in here as general manager of the vineyard operation. Or I can take off, go somewhere new. It’s a good living, and outdoors. I’d take the job in a minute if it weren’t for you. I won’t stay in this town and look for you every minute of the day, only to see you by accident and have you turn from me.
I never thought of myself as a gentleman before the day I took you running—if that’s what we’re calling that sad, slow jog you did. But if I hadn’t been a gentleman, if I hadn’t felt a sense of your dignity and what you deserve, I would’ve backed you up to that tree and had you in the open air. You would have let me. Just like you half wanted me to put you in my truck the day you came to the vineyard to tell me to stay away. But I knew then and I know now, you are worth more than a quick hook up in the seat of my truck or up against a maple tree. I know it was a maple, because when you laid down on the ground, a green, pointed leaf was beside your face. And I couldn’t get enough of looking at your face. Flushed and sweaty and so pissed off at me. Any way you look is perfect, as long as you’re looking at me. So give me credit at least for not being the caveman you seem to think I am. There are a dozen times I wanted to take you in some public place, some time when you were talking and I could’ve stopped you mid-sentence or when you were helping Ben in that group and I wanted to clear the room and have you then and there.
I have more self-control than you would imagine. So when I couldn’t help kissing you and holding you tonight, when my hands mapped your body like I hadn’t touched you in ten years and it was all I’d been dreaming of, know how strong that need must be to overcome my will.
Words failed me tonight. I needed to ask you one thing. In spite of your reasons and your idea of what people would think, in spite of the fact I’m still fucked up from Afghanistan and probably always will be, in spite of the fact that you think wanting me is a weakness, you have to look at things the way they are between us and decide. Do you want me enough to hazard this?
I told you once. Maybe I’m the right one. Maybe that’s what I want.
Ty
18
Layla
I tossed my uneaten salad in the trash and brushed off my hands. I would just cut my lunch break short again. No point taking time off when you didn’t feel much like eating. Problem was, I hadn’t felt much like eating in three weeks.
Caroline came in the break room to heat up her tuna casserole. It hadn’t been in the microwave twenty seconds before I bolted for the door. The smell, my God, how could she eat that? I gagged and had to drink some water and take deep breaths before I could stop.
When I saw the meeting pop up on my calendar, I felt even sicker. The head of the health department didn’t schedule meetings with individual counselors. Not unless there was one hell of a problem. The kind of problem that came from, oh, just for example, sleeping with one of your patients. My eyes flicked to the clock. She had just sent the email request for the meeting, and it was in an hour. Son of a bitch. I looked at my desk, wondering how long it would take to pack up my stuff. I had sugarless gum and tampons and granola bars in one drawer, some lip balm and lotion in another. It wouldn’t take long at all, I realized, to leave the office without a trace that I’d ever been there.