I gasped, unable to say anything in return, even though I had a million thoughts racing through my head.
Why are you here?
What do you want?
Why do you need me?
But nothing came out. Not a single thing.
"I need you to show me what beauty means," he continued with a raspy voice, almost as if he didn't trust his own words to make it to my ears.
"Why?" My own tone was just as shaky, if not more than his.
"Because I don't believe in it anymore. I don't see it. It doesn't exist … unless I'm looking into your eyes. But only when you don't know it."
He stepped closer to me, slowly, as if he were a lion and I the timid prey.
"Because when you're looking at me, and I look at you, it's not there. You know as well as I do it doesn't exist in me. And I need you to show it to me, if only so you can see it when you look at me." He stopped less than a foot away. His panting breaths fanned my face. "Please," he begged like a lost child looking for his mother.
Without conscious thought, my hand reached out to cup his face, his warmth running through my palm, up my arm, and straight to my heart, giving it a reason to beat. "You are exquisite," I whispered without thought. The words came out all on their own, yet I meant every one of them.
He was, in fact, breathtaking. Whether he believed it or not. No matter how many times I tried to convince myself otherwise, his eyes held a magnificence I had never seen before. It was also what I found most dangerous about him. He had the ability to wipe my thoughts clean of any damage he'd ever caused me.
Nolan took a step back, causing my arm to fall to my side. His fingers quickly worked the buttons on his shirt until they were all undone. "I'm far from it," he said as he pulled the shirt from his body and let it fall off his arms and land on the floor at his feet. He then proceeded to draw the white undershirt over his head until it, too, landed silently in the pile of discarded clothing.
I couldn't breathe as I watched him disrobe before me. I couldn't look anywhere but his face, watching as the torture unfolded through his darkened eyes.
"You still think I'm exquisite?" He made quick work of his black slacks, starting with the belt until they fell to his ankles with a soft thud, but he didn't step out of them.
Nothing made sense as I took him in. Flawless, tanned skin morphed into thick, colorless flesh beneath his armpit. It spread down one side of his chest and vanished beneath his boxer-briefs. My eyes continued down until they stopped at the hem of his boxers. They formed around his thick thighs like a second skin. Where his right leg showed defined muscles down to the pants around his ankle, the left ended just below the fabric of his underwear. A white, sock-like cloth hugged his thigh … and then there was steel. Mechanical rods and robotic joints took the place of his leg, and a metal box filled the space where his calf should've been.
"You can deny it all you want, Novah-lie to me, lie to yourself-but no matter what you say, I'm looking at you right now. And what I see is pity. You feel bad for me, just as I'm sure you felt bad for my friends this weekend."
My gaze snapped to his. I held his stare with such desperation I worried I'd been frozen in time, unable to move. Unable to process what was right in front of me. "I don't understand." It was all I could say. My brain had lost all connection to the world, lagging minutes behind real time.
"What don't you understand? I'm a fucking cripple. I'm damaged, ruined … hideous. And don't even try to deny it. I can see it in your eyes as you look at me."
I shook my head, attempting to force my thoughts to catch up as I blinked rapidly. "No. You're wrong. It's not what I think of when I look at you."
"Then tell me what you think."
I couldn't. I had no words.
"I thought so."
"Why did you come here? Why did you do this?" I begged for something, anything to explain it. To explain him, his injury, his motive behind ambushing me with this.
"You said you found your answers. I'm merely letting you know you didn't. You didn't want to believe my words. You continued to think I was lying to you. You believe I lied to you in high school, and I'm lying to you now." He straightened his arms out at his sides, as if showing himself off. "Am I lying, Novah?" he asked with such a broken tone, so shaky and cracked I worried he'd shatter in front of me.
My words had failed me once, and I wouldn't allow it to happen again. Instead, I closed the gap between our bodies and threw my arms around his neck, allowing his hot flesh to consume me. His warm breath hit me right before my lips sealed to his.
"You're beautiful," I whispered, and then I inhaled and covered his mouth with mine once again. "You're so fucking beautiful."
Six
His mouth assaulted mine. His tongue swept out and licked my bottom lip. I opened for him. And then he took over with warm, hungry kisses. Moans and deep guttural groans filled the space between us, circling around our heated bodies like a cocoon.
My body softened against his, and then his hand traveled up the front of my shirt until his callused palm wrapped around my face. With his thumb on one cheek and the rest of his fingers on the other, he applied enough pressure to make it hurt, and then he pushed me away slightly.
Shocked, I couldn't move. I couldn't speak or form a single thought. I could only gaze into his eyes, waiting for some hint from him. The way he took control seemed as if he'd wanted it, too, but then abruptly changed his mind.
"Beautiful?" The softness in his voice swept my face like storm-forced winds, and my insides nearly crumbled into a cluster of chaos and confusion. "What about me would you consider to be beautiful?"
I was taken aback by his question. I couldn't put into words what I saw in him. There was just something there I couldn't quite put my finger on … but it was something.
"Is it my fake leg? The metal rod sticking out of my thigh? Is that beautiful?" He motioned to the artificial leg that, up until a few moments ago, had been hidden beneath his clothes. He bent down to pull up his pants, never taking his eyes from mine. "Or is it my scars? The ones that will never go away?" His pants were fully up and buttoned, even though his belt hung from the loops. "Maybe … maybe it's visions I play on repeat in my mind of the IED blowing up my Humvee. Or the bullets that took my brothers. Or the blood they shed as I carried their bodies to safety?"
I stood in complete silence as he started to pace the room, his voice getting louder and louder with each and every word he spoke. My heart broke with the memories of a war I had no idea he'd even fought, and all I wanted to do was comfort him.
Yet I didn't know how.
"Tell me, Novah!" he shouted, half in anger and half out of desperation. "Don't just stand there! Tell me what it is. I need to know what you find so appealing about me."
I thought about running to him. I yearned to hold his face and make him look me in the eyes. But I couldn't. The idea of touching him scared me. And the fear of rejection kept me firmly rooted in place as I opened my mouth to answer his pleas.
"I wish you could see what I do, Nolan. I wish you could see the survivor standing in front of me right now. The one who lived through an IED. The one who came home when so many of his brothers didn't." I wanted to know more, but the idea of hearing what he'd experienced frightened me. "You were given a second chance at life … and that, in and of itself, is what I find so magnificent."
"A second chance for what? What did I live for?" He took a step back, adding more cold distance between us. "Over there, I saw the absolute worst things imaginable. Pure evil. Mindless killing and senseless hate. And then I come home … and I see the same thing happening here."
My foot moved and inch, but then I stopped when he angrily ran his hands over his face. When he spoke again, his voice was heavy, dark, and gritty, and it commanded my full attention.
"I see men, like me, who've lived through war, only to be left on the streets, begging for food and shelter." He dropped his hands and stared right at me, piercing me with his intense gaze. "I see people walking past them, their noses stuck in their own worlds, turning a blind eye to the very people who have risked their lives to give them theirs."
I tried to swallow, but it became stuck around the large knot lodged in my throat, and my eyes prickled with the tears caused by his vivid depiction of war.
"Fights and war are happening here, on our turf. Only it's not between enemies. It's our own people, killing each other-shooting up schools and video taping fights." He paused, and the complete despair apparent in his tortured eyes gutted me. "There is nothing beautiful in this world. Nothing worth getting a second chance for."