Turning to me while grabbing my hands on his shoulder, he begged, “Please don't ever leave me.”
“I won't. Ever,” I replied instantly. With a conviction that was absolute, I looked him in the eyes, and told him I would never leave him. I told him what he needed to hear, and I meant it.
After a few silent moments between us, as Peter watched my face he eventually rose from the couch and followed me back to bed. Wrapping me in his arms as he always did he kissed my head, and told me he adored me as I smiled and exhaled the tension of his absence from my bed.
*****
The following morning Peter seemed much better as he hopped up to make me breakfast. Leaving me in bed to rest, he happily left me once he remembered I hadn't eaten the night before because of our quick departure from the party.
After brushing my teeth, I wore the green robe he bought me for Valentine’s Day and I joined him in the kitchen. Watching him cook with coy smiles between us, I couldn't help myself when I walked to him and hugged him tightly from behind. Holding him, I felt so much love between us I couldn't stop myself from kissing his spine.
“Sophie...” he moaned as he shut off the stove, took my hand, and led me back to my bedroom.
And that was the day I made love like they do in the movies.
Peter laid me down sideways across the bed as he stripped me of my robe. Moving slowly, Peter kissed my body from my feet up to my lips, like a slow tease made to torture me. Peter worshipped my entire body with his lips and hands as I waited for his mouth to join my own. And when we finally kissed on the lips there was so much love between us, I experienced a sensation unlike anything I had ever known.
Everything was slow and amazing with almost a dream-like quality between us. When he touched me I felt his touch everywhere inside and outside my body. When we kissed I felt it deep in my stomach. When we moved, I felt like I moved in a trance.
After endless movement and caresses between us I didn't reach and pause at my painful plateau, but I came for the first time in my life with Peter deep inside me. We came together and moved slowly within each other. We experienced a connection so deep, it would always become the moment shared that we tried to reach again. I knew we had reached a point within our relationship that would define our love forever.
We were so beautiful, I said the words I had always wanted to say.
“I love you, Peter. So much I almost hurt inside.”
“Oh, Sophie... I love you, too,” he moaned before another deep kiss silenced me.
“That was amazing. I've never experienced anything like that it in my life,” I grinned after our kiss.
“Me either. I think that's the official make love version of sex,” he grinned back as he pulled me tightly into his arms.
“I know. I felt like that, too. It was one of those the earth ended around us but we were oblivious to anything but each other moments. I wonder if we'll ever share that again.”
“We will,” he smiled with another light kiss to my lips. “Always…”
Breathing Peter deep inside me, we stilled. I laid with him beyond content and so filled with love I couldn't imagine my world without him in it.
Eventually, Peter again stood and promised to finish breakfast, but only if I didn't distract him with my sexy ways. So laughing I agreed, and I even said I'd go for coffee while he finished cooking.
When we left my bed, I took a quick rinse off shower, dressed quickly and headed for the door. Leaving, I yelled goodbye to his head poking out my kitchen door with a smile and I left for our much needed coffee.
I remember walking to the café that morning feeling giddy again and nearly delirious with my happiness. I smiled at everyone, and even found myself giggling for no reason a few times, though I quickly pulled myself together.
Walking home with our coffee and 2 chocolate-filled Danishes, I thought of what Peter had to tell me. I had waited patiently all night, and truthfully, forgot for most of it because of the time we spent together, but walking I suddenly remembered.
Peter had promised to talk to me, and had never broken a promise before, so I was ready to listen. Whatever had happened in his past was his past I had decided and I didn't want anything to touch our future. Of course I wanted to know what was going on, but honestly, I didn’t think it would matter to me in the end. Shy of being married or murdering people for a living, I really didn’t think anything could change the way I felt for Peter.
Entering my little courtyard, I decided I would listen to him and we’d be okay. We had made love and shared the ultimate connection with each other, and I knew in my heart I could handle anything for Peter.
*****
Opening my front door, I spotted first one breakfast plate filled on the coffee table, and second, Peter standing against the fireplace mantle.
“Did you finish your breakfast already? Even without a coffee?” I grinned as he turned to me, but then my heart stopped.
Peter turned to me sobbing. He was crying so hard, I thought his uncle must have died in the night, or something equally as shocking. I didn't know, but I had never seen a man display such emotion before. I was actually stunned silent for a second until I processed what I was seeing.
Slowly putting the coffee down on the end table, I whispered, “What’s wrong, Peter?” But he didn’t seem able to speak.
Walking to me, he gave me a hug and kissed my forehead. Keeping his lips against my skin, Peter cried harder until I wrapped my arms tighter around him.
“What’s wrong? Tell me,” I begged.
“Being with you scares me, Sophie,” he whispered as I flinched.
“What? Why?” I croaked through the sudden tightness in my throat.
“The way I feel about you ties me in knots and it makes me afraid of everything. I'm afraid you'll leave me, and I'm afraid you'll be taken away. So I can't really do this anymore. I know you love me and I feel the same, but I have to go now. I know something bad is going to happen to you if I stay.”
“No, it isn't!” I yelled trying to pull away, but he held me tighter. “I don't know what you're saying...” I cried.
“I have to go. I'm sorry. I love you, Sophie,” he said as he kissed my forehead again and then quickly walked away from me.
Quickly, like almost diving for the door, he walked away as I stood in my total what the fuck world.
When he grabbed his coat from the closet by the door he paused for only a second. One second in which I wished I had had the perfect words. I wished I could have said something to make him stay. I wished I could have said something. But I was stuck in a spinning, shaking, shocked world of total disbelief.
And I had no words.
As if realizing what was happening, my body jerked forward as I dove for Peter grabbing his back and smashing up against him. Moaning, I didn’t have the words. Crying, I couldn’t stop what was happening. Begging, I was desperate.
“Oh god, please, Peter… Please don’t do this,” I cried. “Please don’t leave me,” I moaned
But he wouldn’t even turn to me. Clinging to him I begged, but he stayed silent against the door with me clawing at him to stay.
“I have to go, Sophie. I have to,” he said quietly. Then he pulled away to face me, and walked me backward from him. Stopping, he held my upper arms still as he stared into my eyes like he needed to remember that moment forever. He stared at me as I held my breath, silently begging him to stay.
With tears falling from his eyes, dripping down his cheeks slowly, he ended us.
“I have to go, Sophie,” he moaned. “I’m so sorry…”
And when I gasped a breath he released my arms to turn and walk away.
Peter opened the door and closed it behind him without even looking back at me once. He didn't look back even for a second. He simply opened the door and closed it behind him as he left me forever.
Watching his back as he closed the door was the last moment I ever saw Peter as I knew him to be.
CHAPTER 20
/> After he walked out the door everything spun around me into a moving stillness.
There were no sounds, and there was no air. The world vanished behind its brown knotted escape. There was only a closed door and the world outside.
There was no life and there was no death. There was nothing but a silence screaming in its quiet agony.
There was absolutely nothing but the end screaming at me from behind a closed door.
I remember standing behind the couch for what felt like hours. I stood there waiting for him to return. I waited for him to poke his head in the door and smile. I waited for him to return to tell me he was joking- not that it was much of a joke, but I'd take it as an explanation. Honestly, I would take anything as explanation for the event that just destroyed me.
I remember standing staring at the door until I actually laughed out loud at its brown knotted smile. I laughed like a crazy person- all manic and hysterical sounding. I laughed because I didn't know what else to do.
But after the laughter faded, as I shook behind my couch staring at the door, I started talking to Peter.
I said everything I had ever wanted to say to him. I told him what he meant to me and what I had wanted to mean to him. I told him about the changes in me, and the growth I had experienced with him by my side. I told him about the Sophie I had become, and how proud I was of her.
I even told Peter about our future.
I told him I was going to marry him and have 2 of his children. I told him about our green-eyed girl and our blue-eyed boy. I told him about our busy lives with our children, and about our quiet nights with them safely asleep.
I told him about the cool, old brick house we would buy in the village and about the colorful paint we decorated our home with. I told him about the herb garden in the back and about the drying closet in the attic. I told him about the pool I wanted, and about the swings our babies needed.
I then told Peter about the sex we had for the rest of our lives, long after I got fat and carried proudly the stretch marks from our children.
I told Peter about the endless passion we would share until death took us from each other. And then I told him about our funerals and our gravestones, which held hands even in death.
I told Peter everything I had known would be our lives together, until I just couldn't speak anymore.
But when the silence hit, my world felt worse.
Talking seemed to ease some of the fear and pressure from my chest, so the sudden silence brought on the fear and pain that was quickly crushing me.
I was in agony and I was numb; I remember that feeling. I remember feeling suffocated by pain, but not actually able to feel it. The pain almost stopped my heart at one point, I remember that, too.
The pain was so great, my chest began throbbing in an unnatural rhythm, while my pulse battered my eardrums and temples. My heart sped up and beat so erratically I tried to find the uneven rhythm, but I couldn't play its beat. Every time I thought I had the rhythm down, there was a missed note, or a sped up beat that threw me off again. I remember not even being able to play my own song as my heart cried in my chest.
But the silence almost killed me, so I talked some more. And if nothing else, I found a kind of insane solace from my unheard words. No one could hear me, but I heard. No one knew I was speaking my life, but I knew.
I was talking to Peter, and the words eased the pain. I talked to Peter behind the brown knotted door until the pain of his absence became bearable, then I finally sat down.
In the stillness of the March evening I sat on my couch and wept.
I cried until I was nothing more than a gasping hiccup of breath. I cried until I was sightless; swollen from the pain of my weeping eyes. I cried until the hours passed and I fell asleep in my pain-filled misery.
When the dreams struck, so vivid and lifelike, I cried out as the orgasm Peter gave me surfaced in my reality. I cried out as I woke to the orgasm brought on by the only true love making I had ever known. I cried out at the hollow emptiness left from the hollow orgasm of my dreams.
Waking, I cried again as I stumbled to the shower. Washing, and scrubbing, and crying, I let the water cleanse me as I sat with my thoughts making me insane.
I cried until I suddenly thought to call Peter and beg him to come back to me. Slipping on the bathroom floor, banging my hip and wrist on the counter, I ran for the phone.
Dialing, I was insane with the speed and feeling of purpose coursing through me. I just had to say his name. I just had to tell him I needed him. I just had to ask him to come back to me and he’d return.
But he didn't answer. And his answering machine lay dead as the rings drove me to madness.
After I cried for another hour I knew I was still needed in the world, so I made coffee in my Bodum, dried and styled my hair, and I waited for 8:00am to find me.
I drove to work dressed and presentable and I began payroll first thing so I knew I hadn't failed at work. I worked hard through my confusion and sadness, and I made it to lunch before walking out the door with nothing said but an I'm sick to reception as I walked away from my career.
Driving home unaware of anything that made sense I found myself stopping for coffee. I actually parked on the side street of the village, stumbled out of my car exhausted and walked into the cafe I loved for my favorite French Vanilla coffee.
I couldn't understand the comfort I received from the scent of the cafe, or even the peace that threatened to consume me. I didn't understand how a cafe filled with coffee stuff could bring me a sort of peace, but it did. So I ordered my coffee, in house, in their brightly colored ceramic mug and I drank my coffee alone.
I pulled out my laptop and emailed my boss explaining I was sick and needed the following day off. I emailed Madeline to let her know I wouldn't be in, and then I emailed Peter.
I wrote to Peter everything I had spoken to the door in his absence.
For hours I wrote him and told him everything I was, everything I wanted to be, and everything he was to me. I told him everything, and then I 'saved draft'.
I couldn't hit send, but I couldn't hit delete either. I was stuck as I wrote and cried and drank my 4th coffee.
Hours later when I woke up, I was humiliated to have a Barista touching my shoulder as I raised my head. Looking around, there was only one other customer at the counter, and a few employees behind the counter. They were closing, which meant it was 7:00.
“I'm sorry I fell asleep,” I whispered as I began collecting my laptop and purse.
“No worries, Sophie. You look exhausted. Rough day at work?” She asked kindly as I nodded my head yes.
“How do you know my name?”
“Um, you always come in here. We all know your name,” she answered looking confused.
“Sorry. It's been a long day,” I mumbled as I stood up bursting into tears as I walked out the door.
Walking out of the cafe, I began my slippery trek home. Walking one block felt like it took hours. Actually, walking one block did take hours. I was unsteady in my heels on the slushy ground, and I was unsteady in my body as I struggled to stay upright.
When I finally opened my main door, I had hoped he would be waiting, but he wasn't. I had hoped I would see my door taped with blue roses, but it wasn't. I had hoped there was a reprieve somewhere from the agony I was in, but there wasn't.
This was my new life I realized, and I needed to live within it.
I slept as much as possible, broken and crying, struggling within erotic dreams and horrible nightmares. But I did sleep, somewhat.
I woke the following morning and proceeded with my day as best as I could. I noticed my hands visibly shaking as I dressed, so I forced myself to eat before I left. I also drank orange juice instead of coffee for the first time in my life.
I eventually left for work, realizing too late to be on time that my car was in the village, so I hurried to it trying to lessen the late I was probably going to experience at work.
Through all t
he stress of rushing, I arrived to people welcoming me, albeit looking confused because they all thought I would be off sick for the day. People greeted me warmly, but kept away, whether because I looked like shit and they were afraid to catch it, or because I looked like shit and they were afraid to experience it, I didn't know. But I was left alone on Tuesday to work quietly in my office, and I did.
Every single time my phone rang early in the day I admit I found myself jumping and hoping. I would pray and beg for him, but Peter never called. So by the afternoon I was numb to the phone’s potential to save me from the darkness I was living in, until somehow I made it through the day, leaving at 5:00 because I had left early the day before 'sick'.
Finishing another day, I continued.
By Wednesday morning at 11:00, however, I was finally tracked down by Steven.
Steven finally got to me through my direct line somehow even though I had casually asked Madeline to block all my calls from him. And when she raised her eyebrow at my request, I remember smiling with a sigh and saying, 'family drama' which was apparently enough to make her drop it with a knowing nod.
But Steven reached me Wednesday morning when I picked up without thinking.
“Soph! Where the fuck have you been? I've called you since Friday and nothing! What's going on?”
“Nothing at all,” I lied to my brother. Lying, I held my voice calm and I made sure to sound completely together.
“Sophie. Why haven't you called me back? Are you mad at me?” Steven asked with a sadness I knew only my neglect could cause him. There was a sadness in his tone that made me break.