Then the closet door swung open and I saw the silhouette of Nate standing in the doorway. He looked like he was alone, but I didn’t trust it for a second. I lifted up the lamp and began to swing it at him, but he caught it and held his hand tightly around it as he pulled the lamp out of my hand.
“Ana, what happened? Are you all right? Please come out,” Nate’s voice said softly.
I looked around him to see if I could see who was out there with him, but I couldn’t see them. Something was off though, and I didn’t like how Nate was looking at me. His eyes looked softer than usual and I felt them as they looked deep into me. Nate looked concerned for me, and it wasn’t a look I liked seeing at all.
“Whoever’s with you, tell them they can’t have me. You can’t trick me into coming out. I’ll fight them. You tell them I’ll fight them until I die.”
“Ana…” Nate said as he sat down on the ground in front of the door. “No one is out here. When I got home, the front door was open and a raccoon was going through the garbage in the kitchen.”
It took me a minute to figure out what Nate was saying. I couldn’t comprehend it at first and continued to hide under the clothes. The light from the bedroom shone through into the closet and I saw hundred dollar bills all over the closet floor.
“What?” I asked as I tried to figure out what was going on.
“Did you think there was someone out here?” Nate said softly as he started to pull the clothes off of me.
“There was. I heard him. I yelled out to him and he didn’t respond. But I heard him out there. I was going to fight him, but then there was a big crash, so I hid in here. I was going to fight him. I was going to hurt him with that,” I said as I pointed to the lamp he had pulled from my grip.
Nate didn’t answer me and he continued to pull the clothes off of me and then reached his hand out and held it there for me to grab. He waited patiently for me to decide to actually grab it and then he pulled me up from the ground and wrapped his arms around me. The pity in his eyes wasn’t at all what I liked seeing and I wished I could just make it disappear. I didn’t need his pity or anyone else’s. I just needed to keep my head focused.
He didn’t say a word. Nate didn’t offer me an explanation, we just stood there with his arms wrapped around me tightly. I felt safe right there. I was so confused though.
“Why is there money on the ground?” I said.
With Nate’s arms around me, I was facing the closet and looked down to see what appeared to be thousands of dollars all over the closet floor. It seemed an odd place to have money.
“You must have knocked my box over that I have in there. It’s emergency money if I need to get out of here quickly.”
“So, there wasn’t an intruder who was trying to kill me?” I asked.
“No. Just a raccoon.”
I stayed right there wrapped up in Nate’s arms as I tried to piece together what had happened and how I had ended up on the ground, hiding in a closet, in absolute total fear for my life. My mind couldn’t get a grip around the idea that there had not been an intruder. I had pictured the man there. I saw him in my imagination as he had rummaged through the things in the living room. I had even pictured him calling his friends and telling them I was hiding in the backroom and they should come to get me.
“My mind, I don’t trust it at all,” I quietly whispered into his arms.
“It’s okay.”
Nate stayed there with me for what seemed like forever. His comforting arms never left me and I was perfectly content to stand there all night long if he would let me. The fear I had felt thinking that someone was trying to murder me, it was horrible. And even though Nate was telling me that it had all been an illusion in my head, I still felt like I had been in danger.
After a long half an hour, we made our way out to the living room, and I grabbed a seat while Nate picked up the garbage. It was clear that there had not been a person in the house; the only things that had been touched were the garbage and the contents inside of it. I felt foolish as the realization of the situation came to me.
“I better stay with Jordan when you’re gone,” I said reluctantly. “I had hoped to stay here at least a little bit, but it’s clear I won’t be good by myself.”
“What are you talking about? You did great!” Nate said enthusiastically.
I looked at him puzzled as he sat next to me and grabbed my hand. How on earth can he think what I did was good? I hid in a closet for over an hour trying to hide from a murderer who really was just a raccoon. Nothing about that situation seemed like it had gone well at all.
“How do you figure?” I laughed.
“You were able to sneak into my room and the closet totally undetected. You had yourself very well hidden and you had a weapon there with you. That seems to me like a woman who conquered her fears but was being smart and ready to fight.”
The way Nate looked at me and spun that whole situation into something that sounded positive; it absolutely floored me. There I was being sad and putting myself down and with one simple statement he had me feeling on top of the world.
“I’m going to kiss you again,” I said as a warning before I leaned in and let my lips touch his.
This time he didn’t pull away. This time I felt his arms pull me toward him and the passion in his touch told me that he wasn’t going to stop. This time, my kiss had incited something in him that he wasn’t willing to stop or forget about. With the kiss I gave him, I didn’t care if anything else happened after that moment; I just wanted to feel the gentle touch of his lips on mine.
The passion between us was palpable, and I wanted more and more of Nate. I climbed into his lap and straddled him as our kiss continued. With a deep breath, I pulled in his scent and let my hands grab his t-shirt and pull it up over his head.