Come to Me Quietly

Christopher turned up the radio and sang along to some terrible pop song, his voice raised and completely out of key. Leave it to my brother to completely miss what was really going on.

I turned at the gate to our complex. Again I lifted my face to search Jared’s in the mirror. I could feel it, him warring with whatever he’d been stricken by as he sat silently in my backseat. Punishing himself for his actions.

The protecting, I understood. One hundred percent. I would never criticize him for that. And maybe it was just the two of us who recognized it; the two of us that had felt his seething burn, the loss of control.

It scared me, and I knew it scared him, too.

Catching his eye in the mirror, I tried to convey that I understood. Ashamed, he dropped his gaze.

I pulled into my parking spot and cut the engine. Christopher and I climbed out of the car. It felt like an entire minute passed before the back door finally unlatched, resting ajar on the jamb. With his hand on the handle, Jared seemed to hesitate before he finally pushed open the door. When Jared slowly rose from the car, Christopher clapped him on the shoulder before he turned to head toward the apartment. Jared said nothing while the two of us made our way up the stairs. Walking a couple of steps ahead of him, I kept glancing back, searching for something. Jared gave me no response. And again I was silently pleading with him not to go.

All I wanted was for him to stay.

We entered into the sanctuary of the apartment, and I found myself wishing we’d never left it.

Christopher was in the kitchen, loud as he rummaged through the refrigerator on a mission to find something to eat. Just inside the door, I stopped. Exhaustion suddenly weighed down my arms, while adrenaline still knotted my stomach. It left me agitated and unsure.

Jared brushed by me and started toward the hall. Guarded, he paused and looked back on me with something that appeared to be an apology, before he disappeared into the bathroom. The door quietly snapped closed behind him, the click of the lock shutting me out.

I retreated into my room, calling, “Good night,” behind me.

It was an invitation. Please come.

I changed from my jeans and T-shirt into pajama pants and a tank, twisted my hair up into a messy tie. Sitting back on my bed, I leaned over and pulled my sketch pad from the floor and onto my lap. I turned to the last page I’d been working on, let my mind drift as I freed my hand.

Thunder rumbled overhead, shook the walls as the wind barreled and whistled through the trees.

The pencil rushed over the page, shading the perfect planes of his face, darkening his eyes because in them there was so much pain. Every time I thought maybe we were ebbing the pain away, it was only exposed how much deeper it went.

Outside my room, I listened to water running in the bathroom. I pictured him hunched over the sink as he tried to wash the night from his consciousness. Blood dripping from his knuckles, swirling through the water, tinting it pink before it vanished down the drain. But I knew even though he was erasing the physical traces of the fight, Jared would hang on to this as another scar.

I kept stealing glances at my door, willing him to come.

To come to me.

To love me the way he had done last night.

Or maybe just lie with me, hold on to me while I held on to him.

Two hours passed, and still he didn’t come.

I wanted to go to him. Comfort him. Finally, when I could take it no longer, I did. I rose from my bed and padded across my floor. As quietly as I could, I pulled open my door. I looked out into the empty hall. Blackness seeped from under the crack in the bathroom door. I stepped out. To my right, Christopher’s door was closed. Silence hovered thick in the apartment, and I tiptoed out into the main room. The couch was empty, without evidence of blankets or pillows. My pulse raced in fear, before I noticed Jared’s keys left in a pile on the coffee table. I shuffled around the couch and pressed my face to the sliding glass door.

The night sky was turbulent. Sheets of lightning sliced through the heavens, igniting the world in bright bursts of light before it fizzled out. Furies of harsh wind pummeled the thin branches of paloverde trees, slanting them askew. Frantic, I searched the darkened balcony for evidence of the one who’d always set me off-kilter, the one who’d set the standard of my beliefs because he’d been the one who’d managed to touch me so deeply. The sky flashed. It cast the balcony in transient light.

Jared wasn’t there.

I took two steps back. I fisted my hands in frustration, my attention darting all over the empty room. For a second, I studied the front door, before I swallowed down the lump in my throat and found the courage to cross the room. Quietly I opened it.

Relief washed over me when I found him sitting by himself on the floor with his back propped up against the wall beside the door. That relief clashed with the pain, this overwhelming surge of feeling that crested and rose.