Revive Me: Part Three (New Haven #2)

by J.L. Seegars

To the fierce and formidable women who sink the kingdoms they aren’t allowed to rule.

“Have enough courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.” MAYA ANGELOU

There was nothing simple about that first kiss or any of the ones that came after. Hell, there was nothing simple about us. About the way we began or ended. About the way we loved or lost. About the way our hearts were made to beat together only for us to keep ending up apart.

Time does not heal all wounds.

Every second that I live without Mallory feels like a new one. Tiny knives that slice into me, forcing me to wear my heartbreak like a second skin. Tonight they are all burning, protesting because the meeting I took earlier, which resulted in a job offer that would take me back to New Haven, had poured salt into each of them.

Pools of amber and gold so deep and warm I want to wade in them for eternity. Those eyes are my home, and I want to return to them.

Actually, want isn’t the right word. Going back is a need that grows inside me every day.

Betrayal. Violation. Heartbreak. Unimaginable loss. All of those things are in my ledger, dripping red, an angry slash of a check mark beside them. Each one a reminder of my suffering, stirring up the pain I try my damnedest to keep a lid on because I can’t allow it to touch the three people I love most in the world. Especially not now, when we’ve finally found footholds in this life without Eric. The first two years were rough for all of us, but by the time the third anniversary came around, I think we’d gotten used to marking the years, to living with the cracks in our collective hearts splintering just a little more. And this year, we got through the day with more happy tears shed than sad ones as Nic, Sloane, and I flipped through Eric’s baby book with Mama.

That balance is delicate. Precarious. And any shift in the collective effort to shoulder it would be detrimental to the whole. A fact that makes it damn near impossible to feel okay with looking too closely at the root cause of my apathy or exploring any of the options my therapist has given me for expelling it.

But now that I’m closer to him than I have been in years, it, and everything else I’ve ever felt for him, has come rushing back to the surface, threatening to overtake me.

was ours. Him being there, it means something.” A resurgence. A resurrection. A revival I didn’t ask for and don’t want any part of. “What does you being there mean?”

“Because this is your home, your safe place.”

You could make something beautiful, fill the hole losing Eric left with love.”

You know it’s the only thing standing between you and the second chance you deserve, and yet you can’t quite bring yourself to begin the climb.

second chances,” I say, holding his gaze so he knows I’m serious. “And third ones, too,” he replies.

I watch big, fat raindrops land on the sidewalk in quiet splashes that remind me of tears. The ones Mallory shed because of me. The ones I’ve cried for her. There’s so much hurt between us, a painful history that would make anyone with sense scared to try again.

“It is, isn’t it? Because there’s no avoiding the rain. Sometimes it lasts for days, and sometimes it only lasts for a few seconds, but either way, it’s going to come, so there’s no sense in letting it ruin your day.”

“Have a good night, son, and remember: the rain will always come, but it’s what you do in the midst of the storm that matters.”

In fact, the absence of his touch seems to amplify the electricity, sending

“Because I came here to build a future with you, Mallory, and when I thought about what that looked like, all I could see was this house. The light in your eyes the first time we rode by it. Do you remember?" The muscles in my thighs tense, demanding that I walk toward her. "You made me pull over so you could take it all in, and you fell in love with the porch swing. We talked about spending lazy afternoons on it, watching the kids—”

“I love you, Mallory, and I’ve never had a choice in the matter. But, even if I did, I would never choose differently. Even if I lived a thousand lives, my soul would seek yours out. No matter what form I take, what name I'm called by, or what part of the universe I'm designated to, it'd still belong to you. I'd still belong to you. I’d find you in the depths of the ocean, in the darkest part of the night—”

“No, you don’t get to have me. You don’t get to say you’d find me in the darkest part of the night like we don’t both know that you’re the one who keeps leaving me there!” She’s vibrating with energy, her features a kaleidoscope of volatile emotion. “You buried me. With your secrets and your hope and your promises that you can never seem to keep and then you come back here after four years of silence and expect me to be thankful that you remembered how to find my grave?”

There aren’t many things I’m sure of in this world, but I am sure that I was made to love Mallory Kent, to guard her secrets and her truths, to kiss her scars, and ensure that nothing, not even me, causes her pain again.

And I’m a fool because I want him to unravel me, if only so I can wrap the pieces of myself around him to make sure he never gets away again.

Four years since our last kiss, and nothing has ever come close to the taste of Mallory’s lips. I’ve drank the finest wines, eaten the most decadent desserts, and still, she’s at the top of my list. Her pleasure, the best thing I’ve ever had the honor of putting in my mouth, the soft column of flesh that makes up her neck, the greatest thing I’ve ever sunk my teeth

into.

Nothing compares to h...

Because whether she knows it or not, Mallory has just added another item to the list of things I owe her: an orgasm so fucking

intense she forgets she ever knew another man, let alone let one touch her.

response. “Because your experiences with those other men didn’t leave any room for doubt, Mallory. They might have satisfied you for a moment,

maybe even a night, but what they gave you isn’t as important as what they taught you.”

“Every time you walked away from one of them, you took a step closer to me, Mallory. And when you’re done running, when you finally come home, when you believe me when I say I’m sorry, and you trust that I’m not going anywhere without you ever again, you’ll agree that every man who’s touched you has only served as a reminder that you were made for me.”

“There will be nights when you wake up in our bed, remembering every time in this very hallway when the lust faded away and the disappointment set in, when your pussy was wet for him, but your heart was desperate for me. You’ll panic at first, thinking you’re back there, in that empty place, but then you’ll realize you’re in my arms, and you’ll know, princess, you’ll be certain you don’t belong with anyone else but me.”

“Tell me how lucky I am to have this right now. To have you right now.”

the site of our beginning. I know what I want it to mean, and the need to ask her if I’m correct is strong, but I don’t do it.

Nothing we do will turn back the clock or get us back all the years we lost.”

All of it still lives inside me. He still lives inside of me. His promises are embedded in my skin. His fingerprints are etched into my bones, his words an ancient spell that awakens parts of me I’ve hidden from everyone, even myself. They ache for him, yearning for his soothing touch and loving whispers, for hope inspired by the earnestness in his eyes when he does things like ask me to let him try to fix us.

“Yeah, I’m walking around with half of my heart missing.”

“Both of you need to be the hero. The person making all the tough decisions, protecting everyone, and sacrificing himself no matter the cost.”

benevolent savior complex that was probably brought on by the dysfunction that plagued my family and the trauma of losing my mother.

The need for control. The desire to make things right for the people I care about. The exhaustion caused by carrying the responsibility of fixing things I didn’t break and could never repair. The tendency to act instead of listen. All of it was written in my history with Mallory. A checklist of destruction with boxes I ticked off on my own. No matter how much I might have wanted to, I couldn’t deny it, so I accepted Ben’s assessment and began the hard work of unlearning the behaviors I’d been practicing for far too long. It’s been over three years now, and I still fuck up sometimes, but not like before.

“I know I can live without you, Mallory. My heart will keep beating, my lungs will keep drawing air, but I won’t be alive. Not really. Not the way I am with you.”

“No, princess, I won’t give up because even though I know I can live without you, I don’t fucking want to.”

But that was before I kissed Chris Johnson. That was before I fell in love with him, before he broke my heart and came back promising to kiss it better once and for all.

“My therapist always tells me emotional complexity is a part of the human condition.” She’s also always encouraging me to explore it, the duality of emotion, the way my actions tend to contradict my feelings, and how I use those contradictions to protect myself. I haven’t been doing a good job of that lately, especially with Chris popping up everywhere, making me feel things I don’t want to feel and say things I shouldn’t say.

To find a man who not only wants to take accountability for what he did wrong but also wants to relieve you of the burden of carrying the hurt he caused you?”

“Not erase it,” Mama continues. “Not sweep it under the rug and tell you it never happened or that you overreacted. But carry it. Work every day to fix it. Pour enough love into you that you don’t even remember what it was like to hurt. That’s not the kind of man you run from, baby.”

Quiet intensity flows between us, filling my kitchen with tension that’s too much for this space. And I’d be overwhelmed by it if this wasn’t always us. Fire that burns too bright, too fast. Love that remakes you, over and over again. The journey just as painful as it is gratifying.

happy memories we never made replacing the images of what we now know wasn’t the last day of his mother’s life, stealing my breath.

“Every night. These days yours is the only face I see when I close my eyes.”