Page 74 of Between the Lines
“Cal was diagnosed with leukemia when he was three years old. It was pretty hard on all of us. Treatment worked the first round, but he relapsed when he was five. At that point, my parents looked to a stem cell transplant. I volunteered. I helped save my brother. And then, after our parents died, I took over as his sole provider. I can’t fail him, Claire.”
My heart has stopped, swelled to a hundred times its size, and is now sitting in my throat.
He hasn’t touched his dinner, and neither have I. But his breathing is heavier, his gaze pinched as it trains on his clasped, white-knuckled hands that are rigidly laid across the island. He sits like a marble statue; David, the independence and strength that comes straight out of a childhood of trauma like this.
When I lay my hand over his forearm, it’s warm but stiff. He doesn’t flinch, but I can hear the sharp, shallow intake of breath.
“Do you want to keep sharing, or take a break?” His arm flexes beneath my touch, the muscles in his face twitching either to keep things in or keep things out. “This is really heavy, Nathan. I just don’t want you to exhaust yourself.”
He nods, so stiffly that I can hear the whine of metal against metal, and he finally lifts the sandwich to his mouth.
As he takes the first bite, he moans.
“Good?” I ask, tucking my hair behind my ear. Nathan finisheschewing and swallowing, and I watch the muscles of his jaw and throat work as he does so. He nods, the slow up and down pull of his chin a little less robotic.
“I haven’t had a homemade meal this good since… Well, since my mom.”
That single sentence deflates Nathan. He doesn’t seem fragile anymore. Just tired. Worn down by the uprooting of his trauma, stemming all the way back to the phone call in his office.
I move behind him, snake my arms around his waist, and fold my upper body over his back, resting my cheek against his shoulder. We inhale in tandem, and after our long exhale draws out, I kiss his shoulder blade, squeezing gently around his waist.
I let him lead me. I didn’t think that my first time in Nathan Harding’s bed would be holding him while his demons circled, but here we are.
thirty
nathan
Nothing could have preparedme for this.
Nothing could have prepared me forClaire Benson.
We’re laying in my bed, her head on my chest, and I realize that despite the trauma I’ve dumped all over our night, this is the most relaxed I’ve felt in quite some time. I wonder if that says something about keeping your past locked up tight.
“Tell me a good memory.”
I inhale, watching as her head rises and suspends with that movement. She doesn’t stop stroking my hair, doesn’t stop the idle movement of her fingers on my chest. I’m wrapped in a warm cocoon of her and the simplicity of that—her and me wrapped in my bed with the knowledge that she won’t leave—makes it easy.
“My mom introduced me to reading. I remember seeing one of those PBS ads duringSesame Streetfor books that would teach you how to read, and Ibeggedher to take me to the library. We got the first four kits, and I was reading small chapter books by the end of the month.
“She would read aloud to me from the larger stories.The Fellowship of the Ringwas my favorite. We’d probably read it five times, in front of the fireplace in our living room, by the time I couldread it out loud to her. And then, Cal started cancer treatment. I would read while he slept, and one day, she brought Frodo and Bilbo along to keep me company. It was our time, stolen moments while my brother battled for his life, while I fought alongside him. They made me feel brave, and in the moments when eventheycouldn’t, they at least took me somewhere else for a little while.”
She stiffens, but her ministrations don’t stop. This is the part that I hate about telling my story. Pulling back my layers only reminds me of the way that people treat you like an eggshell when you show your vulnerabilities.
But not Claire.
Claire’s hand worms its way from massaging my scalp to laying over my heart. Claire rubs her palm over my chest, and I swear, my heart begins to beat to a cadence that synchronizes with hers, like it’s trying to leap from my chest and rest in its rightful place in the palm of her hands.
Claire says,She sounds lovely,and,Tell me more about her, and for once, I don’t hold back.
It isn’t until much later that my voice grows hoarse. I spoke the sun into the west and the moon into the sky, and not once did Claire leave my side.
“Is that why you were rereading it?The Fellowship of the Ring?” she asks after a stretch of silence, while I give myself a break. “Because you were waiting on a call from Cal’s doctor?”
I hadn’t even made the connection yet. I simply stroke her hair through my fingers and kiss her temple.
“That story makes me feel connected to her. It brings me back to a time when I had my mom by my side. These characters who were always so much braver than me always gave me confidence; when I felt like life was tearing my world apart in the most unfair of ways, I could put myself into their shoes instead. Well, theoretically—Hobbits don’t wear shoes.”
“Cracking jokes, Mr. Harding?” Her voice is rough, and the feelof her smile turning up against my skin is something I’d like to wear as a tattoo.