Page 66 of Crave the Love
“I never wanted to make this difficult on either one of us, but I couldn’t remain in a place where I felt as though I was only good for one thing,” I explained. “I needed more from you, from our relationship, than I was getting.” He nodded his understanding, and I continued, “And hearing that out loud makes me sound like an awful person.”
“No, it doesn’t, Kiera,” he insisted. “I’ve known from day one what you like and what you need. I gave it to you for a long time. Then I stopped, so it’s no surprise that you’d stop giving me what I needed, too.”
Intimacy.
Physical intimacy, to be precise.
Johnny never hid his need for it from me. Just like him, I’d known pretty much from the start that the one way Johnny often expressed his love or felt that he was loved was through our physical connection. It didn’t always have to be sex—though, he certainly wasn’t going to turn that down. Sometimes, it was just needing to have me close, so he could touch me, hold me, hug me, or kiss me.
I’d taken that away from him.
“I’m sorry, Johnny,” I lamented.
“For what?” he asked.
“I had something that was bothering me in our marriage, and I decided to take physical intimacy off the table for you,” I told him. “I was hurt by what was happening, frustrated that you didn’t seem to care about me or that everything had changed, and I did what I could to punish you, too. I’m not sure that it was the best way to handle it.”
Disappointment washed over him. “Baby, I’m not going to lie and say that I wasn’t a dick to you about it, because I know I was,” he started. “At that time, I wanted what I had been craving with you, but looking back at it now, it wouldn’t have been good. Would I have gotten off? Yes. Would I have made sure you did, too? Of course. But I know now that you would have just been doing it for me, not because you were being treated the way you deserved to be treated in our marriage and wanted it just as much as I did. That’s when it was the best. If I have any reason to be pissed about the fact that the sex stopped, I only have myself to blame. And I’m sorry for the things I said to you about it.”
I tightened my arms around my shins as my focus returned to the sea. So many horrible things had happened in the months leading up to my divorce request, and in the months that followed, things were even worse.
Sitting here now and talking things out had me feeling a gamut of emotions. Regret was the one at the forefront of it all. Why hadn’t I tried harder to get him to sit down and talk to me? I always waited until things were already heated between us to say anything about how I was feeling, and then there was no hope of us ever resolving anything.
“So many moments on this trip have left me feeling a battery of emotions, but I think what I feel the most now is confusion,” I revealed.
“Confusion about what?” he asked.
I remained silent for a long time. It wasn’t because I didn’t know the answer to the question or that I was struggling with how he might react once I answered him. The problem was that I didn’t think I could share it without breaking down into tears again. I’d already cried so much today.
Recognizing that there wasn’t anything I could do to prevent myself from feeling all that I felt about it, I decided to just go for it. Whatever happened, happened.
“I wasn’t lying when I said I wanted to love you until the day I died,” I started, my throat already painfully tight. Swallowing past that tightness and the lump that formed there, I shared, “There was no way for me to be able to do that with things being the way they were back home in Dogwood, and so I knew that as painful as the decision was, divorce was the only option. Or, at least, it seemed that way to me. But these last few days here, being in the place we first met each other, have brought up so many emotions, memories, and questions. But the only thing I can seem to focus on is the longing I feel. There have been moments since we’ve been here that I’ve told you I can’t handle having you touch me or hold me. I mean, I nearly crashed into Margot and Simon on a jet ski because of it. At the end of the day, I’ve realized that it’s not about not wanting you to touch me, but it’s about the feelings that I feel when you do. Because I still want it. I still crave the love we used to have between us, and my heart hurts knowing that it’s gone.”
The silence stretched between us for quite some time. In any other situation, I might have realized that perhaps I was worried how Johnny might react to whatever I had to say, but that wasn’t the case here. I realized what I’d just revealed, and I didn’t think it was the kind of thing he could just take in and respond to. He needed time to process it.
When he finally did, he said, “I’ve felt a lot of things over the last few days, too, but mostly, I’m feeling particularly conflicted. There’s no question that I regret all of the stupid decisions I’ve made when it comes to our marriage. So, it comes as no surprise that my immediate reaction is that, more than anything else, I wish I could go back in time just so I can fix it. But there’s this other part of me that doesn’t want to do that.”
It felt like he’d sunk a blade into my heart. I’d been feeling longing, wanting him more and more with each day that passed, but he, even if he realized this wasn’t where he had wanted to wind up, didn’t want to be able to go back to fix it. Maybe I’d been right to assume he had already moved on.
Tears welled in my eyes. Either Johnny didn’t notice them, or he didn’t care, because he didn’t let the sight of them stop him.
“It’s not about me wanting to see you hurt, Kiera,” he began again. “That part of it, I wish I could fix. I wish I could take away all of the pain and heartache I’ve put you through. But for me, I think that if there’s even a small chance of us being able to reconcile, I’m glad we went through this. Because this will always serve as a reminder to me of what’s important and what I nearly lost. I know I’ll spend the rest of my life doing what I have to do to make sure I never risk losing you again. This has been brutal for the both of us, I know, but if we can somehow get past it together, I have to appreciate the lesson I’ve learned from it.”
A small chance of us being able to reconcile.
Getting past it together.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Johnny hadn’t yet moved on. He couldn’t have if he was saying things like that.
The moments that followed were tense. I’d already felt so confused about everything, about my choices, about where Johnny stood, and about the future. Now, it seemed as though everything I’d been attempting to prepare myself for over the last six months might not come to fruition.
If Johnny was being truthful, maybe the end of us wasn’t just a matter of days away.
But I had to be realistic.
It was easy for us to feel all that we were feeling here for a multitude of reasons. Not only were we both aware of what would happen when we went home, but this was the place that we’d fallen in love with each other. Nostalgia certainly had to be playing a role in all of this.
If Johnny was serious about us reconciling, could we survive it? Would it be as he said? Would we wind up using this as a reminder to put our marriage and the life we wanted to have with each other first before anything else? Or, would we go back home to Dogwood and fall back into the same old habits? If that happened, would deciding to reconcile now just be us prolonging the inevitable, making the pain of a divorce only that much more difficult for the both of us down the road?