She stared at me quietly. We were both at a loss as to which direction to take, but I knew I only wanted to take the road that led me back to her. I reached out and caressed her face, and amazingly, she didn’t pull away. I ran my fingers into her hair and pulled her toward me. She braced a hand at my chest and another wrapped around my forearm. She tried to push away, but I willed her closer by looking into her eyes.

When my lips touched hers, she half sighed, half sobbed. Then she moaned as my tongue slipped between her lips and tasted her. For few seconds, I was back in her heaven, and everything was perfect. When she broke the kiss, the look on her face told me we had a long way to go before anything was normal again. I leaned my forehead against hers and caressed her neck with my fingers.

“Baby, how can I fix this? Because I can’t be without you,” I whispered against her lips.

“I can’t answer that. I just don’t know the answer.” She stepped back, and my hand fell away. “You have to go. This wasn’t supposed to lead to this. Maybe we should just… not see each other for a while.”

I stepped forward and she stepped back, holding up both hands to ward me off. I stopped, deciding to give her the space she was asking for, if…

“I’ll agree to that after you answer one question.”

She crossed her arms and waited.

“Do you miss me?”

She flinched, then stared at me for several silent seconds before she turned and went back to her desk. “Your time is up.”

I knew she wouldn’t be able to answer the question. Otherwise, I would’ve never risked the chance of not seeing her. I smiled as I turned and walked out. Everything wasn’t lost after all.

Irreversible

Avery

Three days later, I was still at a loss as to what to do about Xander. I’d spoken on the phone with Susan, and Ellie had moved back in Monday night. She was spending more time at home than she had in the last six months. It seemed like I was working things out with everyone except Xander.

As I left work, I bypassed my car and walked along the path of the small park a few blocks down. I liked to get lost in the crowd. It started years ago. Any time I wanted to clear my head, I people-watched. I walked through the crowd and fabricated what issues they were having that day based on their demeanor. It was a way to prove I wasn’t the only person with problems. Even though I knew it was all in my head, as a psychiatrist, I knew no one was without their own set of issues.

After half an hour in the park, I headed back to my car and let my heart guide me. Pulling up to Xander’s place felt bittersweet. I sat in the car for another half an hour, fighting with myself—weighing the pros and the cons of ringing his doorbell. In the end, the decision was taken away from me when Xander opened the door and stood there staring at my car with his arms crossed.

There ’s no way I’m leaving now.

I got out of the car and made my way up the stairs.

“We need to talk.”

I brushed past him and made myself at home on his living room couch. Xander stood at the door, looking out for a few seconds before following me. He knew this conversation would make or break us. When he sat with his legs spread and hands folded, I felt his unease.

“I need to know why. Why lie to me the way you did?”

“I’d like to make it beautiful for you, but it was mostly self-preservation. I loved you and needed you. I stepped over the boundary to keep you.”

“I don’t even think you know what a boundary is.” I stood, walked to the farthest end of the room, and crossed my arms.

“I might agree with you. I just don’t think the way most people do. I talk myself out of doing the right thing in order to hold on to what I want,” he admitted.

“I don’t know if that’s something I can live with. How am I supposed to trust you?” I narrowed my eyes as I gazed at him.

“I told you I’m not good at this. I told you I always make the wrong decisions when it comes to love.” He ran a hand over his face as if to wipe away his frustration. “You said you wouldn’t leave me.”

“You lied about my parents,” I threw back at him.

“I didn’t tell you because it was going to hurt you… and break us.”

“You should’ve let me decide what I could handle. How am I supposed to trust that you’ll be honest with me? That you won’t withhold information from me again?”

“I won’t.”

I shook my head. “I don’t believe you.”

He stood and held out his hands. “Everything is out. I’m not hiding anything else from you. You wanted to see my scars; I let you. You told me to stop blaming myself. You told me I wasn’t a monster because of it. Were all those lies?”

I walked toward him, stopping uncomfortably close. “No, but if you would’ve come to me and told me the truth—I’m not going to lie—I would’ve been devastated, but not as shattered. That’s how I felt when Ian told me. Like everything I knew about my life was yanked right out of me.”

He rolled his eyes. “Ian… He’ll never stop until I pay.”

“You want to know how you can pay? You own it. Admit your mistakes. Confess your secrets. Own up to the ruin you caused. Stop being a coward and hiding in the dark! Be the fucking man I thought I fell in love with. Own. It.”

“What do you want me to say? That I’m Xander Pierce and I fucked up? I’m selfish. I’m a jealous control freak. That I’m a fucking drunk who killed my wife.” He took a deep breath, then admitted, “I stole her life… and I robbed you of your happiness.” He stuttered, and though his face was stony, nearly emotionless, a single tear rolled down his cheek, betraying his true feelings. My heart broke. For my parents, for Jessica, and for the burden he’d carried around all these years

I moved in closer and held his face in my hands, wiping his tears with my thumbs. “Fate brought us here. You with your pain, me with my loneliness and heart of stone. God, I don’t want to.” I sighed, letting my head fall back and owning how I felt. “But… I still love you.”

He reached up and wrapped his hands around my wrist. The touch connected us deeper than a kiss in that moment. “I love you, too.”

I shook my head because this wasn’t what I wanted, but it was what I needed. “We need to find a way to heal—to move on.”

He took a deep breath and frowned before asking, “You won’t leave me?”

I shook my head. “No,” I said in a raspy whisper because the words were hard to admit. I cleared my throat and continued. “I don’t know how to.”

He pulled me in and held me tight, as if his arms could keep me locked to him forever.

I leaned back and met his gaze. “But we’re going to take this slowly.”

He nodded his acceptance, and I let him pull me back into his arms and let myself enjoy the feeling of being held by him again.

~*~*~

I was kidding myself thinking we could take things slowly. Xander and I have always burned hot from the first day. That heat did not evaporate when we split. If anything, distance only caused it to build into an inferno. So three restless nights later, I found myself sprawled in Xander’s bed, stripped bare in more ways than one.

“Did you fuck Matthew?” he asked while thrusting slowly into me. This had been the topic of discussion the night before, but I’d hung up without giving him an answer. It seemed he knew he’d have to resort to other means to get answers from me.

“Tell me what happened,” he insisted.

I shook my head, gasping as his cock repeatedly hit against my sweet spot. I could barely breathe between thrusts, much less speak.

“Nothing happened,” I panted.

“Tell me what the fuck happened, Avery! Tell me what you let him do.”

“Not now… please… Xander… Later.” Each word came out on a ragged breath between strokes.