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.

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.

Just thinking about the time we’d lost, the time that had been stolen from us, made me want to break something. To crush it between the same hands I use to usher life into this world day in and day out. I want that time back. I want her back.

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.

Whenever I think of giving in to that need, I manage to talk myself out of it by remembering the last thing Mallory said before I walked away four years ago: Move on with your life. Give me a chance to move on with mine. Any other day, her request would kill the hopeful images of a long overdue reunion flitting through my mind, but today it just doesn’t feel like enough.

Some men have mouths that were made for eating pussy. It’s in the lips. In the plumpness of the bottom lip or the curl of the top one. The pink of their tongue and the firmness of the tip of it when it passes over soft flesh you want to skim over the insides of your thighs as hungry hands push up your dress only to find that you aren’t wearing any panties because you were anticipating this exact moment.

He’d eaten me out thoroughly, enthusiastically. Treating me to teasing kisses and languid licks before bringing me to orgasm with his index and middle finger holding the skin above my clit up so he could access the swollen bundle of nerves directly. Lashing at it with quick, gentle licks that have me considering taking him home for the night.

“You got yours, baby. Now it’s time for me to get mine.” When I don’t respond, he scoffs. “Don’t worry. I’m not trying to fuck. You can just suck me off real quick.” My jaw drops. “I’m not sucking you off.” His face contorts. The features I was just admiring turning into something ugly. “You ain’t leaving me hanging after I just ate you like a five-course meal.”

Eww

Everything in me demands that I turn around and kick him in the balls for that blatant lie—my ego isn’t overinflated, it’s huge like my ass—but I don’t want to waste any more of my night on him.

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. I steel myself, battling against the surge of emotion that wants me to get out of the car and go to him. Part of me begs for the comfort of his embrace, while the other, louder part replays his last words to me. I’ll be back, princess. I promise.

I’ve been seeing her long enough to know that’s therapist speak for ‘I can’t listen if you don’t talk.’ A small bubble of frustration spawns in my chest, and I blow out a long breath to try and dislodge it. “Because he’s not supposed to be here.”

“You know that’s not how this works, Mallory.” I throw my head back, groaning. “I know that you’re working my nerves, Erica.”

Lmao

“Curly’s was our spot. It’s the place he took me to on the first night we…” I pause, the memories flooding my mind. The fear that threatened to take me over when I ran into him on the path, the soft and serious ocher gaze that promised me things I was afraid to want, the leather and earth scent of him and the easy way he folded me into a part of his world he hadn’t shared with anyone else. “It 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.

“If Chris being there means something, then it stands to reason that your presence there means something as well. What does it mean that you return there so often? Most of the time, after the hookups you say leave you feeling empty?”

We’ve spent the past four years together, creating our own little world in New York that didn’t include anyone from our life in Boston besides Margaret’s niece and my best friend, Vanessa. After the divorce, they were my lifeline. The only thing besides work keeping me sane while I navigated disentangling my life from Giselle and my father. I was hesitant to leave them, to abandon the safety of our unit for the uncertainty of a life in New Haven. One I haven’t even started living.

I’ve always felt a strong sense of responsibility for Ter, my need to protect and nurture her at direct odds with her strong will and self-sufficiency. In my head, she’s still that angry little bundle of soft skin and black hair wrapped in a pink blanket. Small. Delicate. Breakable.

They told me I owed her that much, and even though I knew that was a massive understatement because I owe Mallory Kent so much more than a phone call, I just mumbled my agreement and stepped outside to do it. I still remember how my hands shook as I lifted the phone to my face, how my heart stopped when her voice came through my speakers.

My heart twists as memories of the months she spent putting me back together after I left Boston for good assail me. She saw me at my lowest, helped me wade through pain she didn’t understand, or know the source of, until I was able to stand on my own again, so it makes sense that she has a vested interest in my happiness. And even though the way she goes about it is less than ideal, she doesn’t deserve to be snapped at.

“And I’m sure she still loves you.” Ter’s faith is infectious, and I take it in, letting it settle deep inside me where all the doubt and worries that this move, this mission, might have been a mistake live. “I hope so.”

My ears perk up at the sound of her name, and I can’t even find it in myself to be embarrassed because I love her. I love her in this desperate, yearning, aching way that makes it impossible for me to care about dignity or shame. I’ll take whatever I can get of her. Pieces. Fragments. Scraps that fall from the lips of the only other man on this planet who knows what it’s like to love a woman this way.

Period #realyearners

I don’t even try to act surprised. “I know. You’ve been back for almost a month.” What I don’t say is that I’ve felt him. In this city, in my bones. His presence a beacon for my broken heart.

I turn the question over in my mind. Letting myself imagine, for just a second, what it would mean to be seen by him. To sit in front of him and try to hide, to fail miserably because he’s too good at rooting out the truth of who I am even when I’m hiding from myself.

He sighs. “Mal, you don’t have any reason to trust me. I know that. I get that. But things are so different now from how they were before. I can prove it to you if you give me a chance.”

After handing over my ticket, I step back under the awning, taking a spot beside an older Black woman hiding from the rain that’s just started to fall. 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. But I’m scared not to.

“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.”

My lungs are empty, and there’s a dry, aching anger brewing inside of me, but even still, my eyes are greedy for the sight of him. Taking in every changed feature I missed when I saw him at Curly’s almost two months ago.

“Mallory.” He draws out all three syllables, savoring each letter before he releases it from his lips, and I feel the pull deep in my belly, heat stoking in my veins as he turns this public reunion into a private moment that exists only for us.

“Because it’s too late, Chris! The damage is done. It’s been done, and there’s nothing you can say to undo it, so just leave me alone.”

He shakes his head, and I see it in his eyes. Resolution. Stubborn, impossible determination. “I can’t do that, princess.”

I’m out of my seat before the word even leaves his lips, pulling my purse over my shoulder as stupid tears blur my vision. Of all the things he could say, all the words he could use to address me, he chose the one that means the most. He slid it past me when he called that day at Sloane’s, but today, when we’re face to face, and I can read every emot...

I know he’ll come after me, and that certainty makes my heart twist. Chris has always chased me, through mountain forests and across slick wood floors. He’s run headfirst into my nightmares and carried me out. Our relationship has been a constant pursuit, a race towards what has always ended up being a detrimental end.

I snatch my arm away from him, tucking the affected limb back against my body and praying that the abrupt end to the brief contact will be enough to dull the sparks skittering across my skin. It doesn’t. In fact, the absence of his touch seems to amplify the electricity, sending it zipping up my arm and then down my spine.

I watch his hands turn into fists and wonder if it’s frustration or need that’s caused them to clench. Then, after studying his features, and the storm brewing behind his eyes, I decide that it’s both. He’s frustrated because he needs to touch me, and I won’t let him.

Normally, I’d draw comfort from this uneven dynamic, relish the power of having the upper hand, of denying a man something he wants from me, but with Chris, it doesn’t matter. Because his hands don’t have to be on me for him to touch me. Every pass of his eyes over my body is a caress. Every breath leaving his lungs passes through the air just to invade mine.

“You,” he says simply, and I expect him to stop there, but he doesn’t. “And I know that I shouldn’t be here. You asked me for time, and I gave it to you. You said you were going to try and move on with your life and told me to do the same, so I did. I gave it four years, and nothing has ever come close to us. I went to therapy to deal with my shit, the parts of me that felt like I never deserved you, and probably worked silently to ruin us because of it. I gave you time, Mallory."

He swallows hard, like the words he's about to say are uncomfortable on his tongue. "Years of knowing that you were out there possibly loving someone else. I thought I would come back and find you walking around here with some other man's ring on your finger.” His eyes drop down to my hand. "Imagine my surprise when I see that you're not, when I see that your attempts at moving on were just as unsuccessful as mine."

I open my mouth, and where I expect to find a scream, there’s only laughter. A poisonous, violently wounded sound that only grows more shrill as I close the space between us. My hand comes up, and my index finger becomes a dagger, the tip digging into the expensive fabric above his heart. If I loved him less, I might want to destroy him more. I might wish for claws sharp enough to shred him, but today I’ll settle for my words.

“I didn’t want time, Chris. I wanted you to keep your promise. I wanted you to come back, and like a fucking fool, I waited for you. Hoped for you. Believed in you, in us.” The tears I’d managed to fight back when running out of the restaurant come back with a vengeance, rolling down my cheeks gracelessly as my lips wobble. “And now it’s too late. The only thing I learned in the time you gave me is that I was right to ask for it. I should have never let your promise rob me of my sense because this is always going to be us. More pain than happiness, more heartache than love.”

Chris sighs, and it’s clear from the look on his face that he isn’t going to accept the truth I’ve just laid out for him. “I’m sorry. I was an idiot for waiting so long, but I swear, Mallory, I swear to you that this time won’t end up like all the others.”

Nigga how can she trust you?!

Every step that carries me away from him is a hardship I have to endure for my own sanity and well-being, an exercise of self-preservation that feels more like tearing myself apart.

Is he searching for that same feeling? Our uniquely ephemeral love. The kind that burns bright but dies fast. A burst of unsustainable energy. A brilliant blast of color with radioactive fallout that lasts for years, the aftermath felt long after evidence of the bomb has been cleared away.

“There it is,” I whisper to myself, and I’m so excited about finding the two-story home with white brick, dark trim, and large windows that reflect the warmth of the exterior lights tucked into the hedges that I don’t realize it’s my destination until I’m turning into the driveway.

“You bought this house? You bought our house?”

My laughter is involuntary, a result of bone-deep exhaustion and elation fed purely by her presence here, in this house that I bought because I knew she would come, and I wanted her to walk into a tangible representation of my commitment to our future. Unfortunately for me, that commitment doesn’t include furniture just yet.

“No.” I move over to her, unable to stay away any longer. This close, I can catch the small changes to her expression, her reaction to me. “You don’t trust me, and I understand that, but don’t lie to me. Don’t say you don’t want me. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t.”

Oop

Shaky exhales swirl around us, and they’re Mal’s and mine. I can’t stop myself from leaning in, mouth open, jaw slack, as I drink the sounds of our collective unraveling. I rest my forehead against hers, and her grip finally tightens on my hand.

Requests for truths have always been a common theme in our relationship. In college, I prayed for her secrets, craved them like I craved the taste of my name on her lips. Nothing has changed. I still want to know everything about her. Everything she thinks, everything she feels. Everything she wants. And more than anything, I want her to want to give them to me, for her to trust me to hold them like she once did.

“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!”