Gazing over my shoulder, deep in thought, he adds, almost absentmindedly, “We did it to ourselves. Blaming Marie is a convenient outlet, but it’s our fault.”
“How about we reclaim that day?” I say. “Run off alone. Get married with just the two of us. Not even Andrew and Amanda there.”
“You’re sure?”
I nod. “You’re right. We made the marriage less important than the wedding. We let Mom and James take over and turn us into pieces on a chessboard. We forgot our own power.”
His smile is radiant. As he bends to pick up the marriage license application, I drop to the ground and kiss him, hard, interrupting him. The press of our mouths and the warm invitation to be with him whenever the need arises closes some circle inside me that has hung open and empty, all its energy drained by not being finished.
For the next minute we are nothing but caresses and kisses, the rasp of stubble on skin, the feel of fingers threading in hair and seeking the warm asylum of a lover’s embrace, a partner’s welcome, a friend’s ever-present hello. We are more than two when we cleave, or so religion says, and in this pinpoint in the long, eternal flow of time, I fuse with Declan McCormick and become more to him than any piece of paper can ever declare.
The edge of my engagement ring scrapes along the back of his neck as I play with the thick waves, our mouths saying I’m sorry in the way only a kiss can confer. As the kiss deepens, his warm mouth reluctant to pull back and give even an inch between us, it’s as if the frayed threads of our souls are weaving together to form a patchwork quilt to warm the heart.
We’re warm and comfortable, enveloped in whatever our sequence of touch, sight, taste, and sound generates for that layering Declan mentioned earlier.
Our inner lives have to merge for our love to flourish.
Undressed in what feels like wisps of time stolen from breath and worry, we’re under the covers and luxuriating in the sheer joy of having access to so much of each other. As my hand caresses his chest, the hard, molded lines of his ribs, the small hills of his abs and the delightful strength of his back, I marvel at how he’s both familiar and new.
He’s given me more of himself.
And it didn’t cost a penny.
“I’ve never met anyone like you, Shannon,” he murmurs against my neck as his hands bring me to places where blood runs wild, the anarchy of pleasure destroying all the rules.
“You say that all the time.” My voice hitches at the end as he breaks a rule again and again and again and oh—
“I mean it. There’s only one of you in the world. The universe. The multiverse, if you believe in quantum physics. And of all the worlds and millennia in which beings have existed, I’m so lucky to find you.”
“Declan?”
“Mmmm?” My own hands decide to do a little chaotic good in Declanland.
“Shut up and make love to me.”
“God, I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
And then we stop talking.
* * *
In the quiet that always descends after making love, a spiritual cloud that hangs over us like a protector, watching and guarding, my throat tightens, an emotion so visceral I can only experience it in the fiber of my flesh, in the clench of muscle, in the open pores and the closed eyes.
“I love you so much,” I whisper. He stirs beneath the sheets, reaching for more of me, making us connect as much of our bodies as possible without having him inside me.
“I know.”
“I can’t do this without you,” I add, my throat filling with a sadness that tastes like regret.
“Can’t do what?”
“Live. I mean, I can. If something happened to you, I’d—” A sob cuts off my words.
“Shhhhh. Shhhhhhh, honey,” he soothes, his voice filled with concern and consternation. “Where’s this coming from?”
“I—I—I just think about how hollow I felt when we fought. And how, for a few minutes, I wondered if you didn’t want me any more.”
“Never. I could never not want you, Shannon.”
“But it felt like that. And even just a few minutes of feeling so separate from you made me want to die. Not in an active way. Passively, like I just wouldn’t want to exist in a world without you in it. You’re my anchor. You’ve become part of me. I can’t handle the thought of that part being ripped out.”
“You tore me apart, too, you know.”
“I did?”
“I don’t show emotion the way you do, but I feel it just as deeply. Spending so much time fighting over our differences made me feel so distinct from you, so separate. All of our relationship has been focused on what we have in common, which is so much. Arguing about money seemed trivial in the beginning, but then the issue grew and grew, and soon if felt so much bigger than the two of us combined. And I couldn’t find a way out.” He sighs. “I can always find my way out of a problem. But not this one.”
“Because it wasn’t a problem. It was just life.”
“Maybe.”
“Sometimes the structure of life works against us.”
“What do you mean?”
“I come from a family with limited resources. You don’t. We have patterns ingrained in us, and emotional realities imprinted on us by our parents. It’s not your fault that I’m the way I am. And it’s not my fault that you’re the way you are. These institutions—family, financial management—clash sometimes. It makes the people who are part of those systems clash.”