Page 25 of Redeem

That was the question I asked myself over and over again as I sat in my truck waiting.

No answer was forthcoming.

I struggled to contemplate what the answer to that question could even be.

I was used to being a contradiction to myself, but this was something I didn’t understand. I had shunned contact, didn’t want to be close to anyone. But I’d almost kissed him, still wanted to after he’d all but pushed me away. And even more, here I was, waiting for him.

My common sense told me not to.

The rest of me would accept nothing less.

I knew this was a mistake. I’d sought connection before, believed that I had found it. Had it ripped away from me. The loss had shattered me.

Yet here I sat, anxious to let him in. Knowing that doing so would cost me my hard-sought solitude, willing to do so, all for the chance to be with him, the chance to spend more time in his company.

And that was the crux of it. Ciprian had offered me help, something I detested, rejected on principle. But I’d accepted it from him, and all because I wasn’t quite ready to go back to my silence and solitude, something I had thought was my everything, my only thing.

Pathetic, but true, and I decided in the next instant to accept it. There was no way I’d deny myself this. There was no reason to beat myself up for it either.

Less than five minutes later, Ciprian emerged from the hotel room, a small black bag in hand. He opened the truck door, set the bag on the floorboard, and then got in.

I looked down at it, frowning.

“Is that it?” I asked.

He nodded. “I travel light.”

I frowned deeper, but not out of anger, not exactly. More like confusion.

Ciprian struck me as a kindred spirit. He was like me, obviously alone, and he seemed to have made peace with it, something I hadn’t quite mastered, despite my unending efforts. Yet, he was giving it up, just as I was.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked.

I heard the suspicion in my voice, the disbelief, and from his expression I saw that he did as well. I wanted to be sorry for that, but I couldn’t be. None of this made any sense, and I needed to understand.

“I’m not entirely sure,” he said a moment later.

It seemed a straightforward enough answer, but it didn’t placate me. I didn’t trust straightforward anymore, didn’t trust anything. Or at least I could have said so before I’d encountered him.

Ciprian was making me trust him, and that was making me nervous.

“That’s not good enough,” I said. The strain in my voice, the anger underlying it was something I didn’t even bother to try to hide.

I couldn’t.

He was throwing me off balance, making me want things and believe things that I hadn’t for years. I needed answers.

One look at him, and I could see Ciprian wouldn’t supply those answers I so desperately sought.

He locked eyes with me, that awareness, that calm still there. “What do you want me to say?”

“The truth,” I said.

That made him smile, which only caused me even more consternation.

“You find my need for the truth amusing?” I asked, my voice low now.

“No, not your need for it,” he said, his eyes not leaving mine. “I find the concept amusing. The truth. Like it’s one simple thing.”