Beautiful Boy(15)

No longer worried, I moved toward him, getting as close as I could  without scaring him away. "That's when you have to be strong enough to  see past it and find the good. There is plenty to live for. Plenty of  things to find importance in. You only have to open your eyes to find  them. You may have lost a leg, but you didn't lose your sight. You  didn't lose the ability to see what's right in front of you. Don't close  your eyes, Nolan. Don't waste your second chance. You're not guaranteed  a third."

He grabbed the sides of my face and dropped his forehead to mine. His  eyes were closed. He refused to show me the emotions that riddled him,  but I could hear it the second he spoke. "Then show me, Novah."





My nerves ramped up the closer I got to the condominiums at Cape Harbor.  When Nolan suggested I go to his place for dinner, I had been elated.  Hope filled me at the prospect of spending time with him, getting to  know the man he'd turned out to be. It took an hour and thirty minutes  for the nerves to hit me, but even then, they were giddy. After hearing  him recount personal, horrific things to me, all I wanted to do was heal  him. Take away his pain. Remove the darkness from his life and fill it  with peace. And I knew just how to do it. But once I got in my car,  heading for his condo, apprehension began to set in.         

     



 

I worried he wouldn't see the same things I did.

I feared he'd be too broken.

All I could picture was the boy behind the camera, taking pictures of  flowers and nature. And it troubled me to think of him being too far  from reach. Too far gone to bring back.

But I had to stay positive. I had to push the negativity out of my  head … otherwise, he'd see it. He'd pick up on my hesitation, my doubts,  my concerns, and I'd lose my opportunity. He'd given me this chance, and  I would not mess it up.

I stoned my expression once I pulled into the parking lot, stepped out  of the car, and opened the umbrella to shield me from the heavy downpour  I found myself in.

With a bottle of wine in hand, I ran into the fancy lobby, hoping to spare my shoes from the puddles forming on the pavement.

Nolan said he'd meet me at the elevators, so I stood against the wall,  the marble cool against my back, and waited for him to come down. My  mind drifted to how we'd gone from fighting to dinner in one evening.

"Then show me, Novah." The way his forehead pressed to mine, the tips of  our noses touching, sent a wave of peace through my veins. My heart  slowed to a bearable beat, and my breathing evened out, oxygen no longer  rushing in and out of my lungs.

I grabbed his forearms and kept his hands trapped in place on my face.  "Give me a chance, Nolan. Stop arguing with me. Stop fighting me. Let me  show you what I see when I look at you. When I'm around you. When you  touch me. Let me show you that."

He flexed his hands against my head. His thumbs dug into my cheeks and  his fingertips burrowed into the back of my neck. His breathing turned  harder, labored, and the heat rushed across my parted lips.

A war had been waged in his mind, and I prepared to go to battle with him … for him.

"I'm not who you see," I said quietly, hoping I had enough strength left  in me to get it all out. "I am not the person you've accused me of  being, much like you are not the person I've pictured since you left me  all those years ago. We are not the same. And I want to know the man  beneath the scars. The one who walks around with all that pain. I want  to know him. And I want him to know me, too."

"Why?"

The desperation and pain in his tone gutted me, nearly impairing me on  the spot. But I couldn't give in. Not when I had him so vulnerable and  open. "Because I've spent fifteen years hating him. And I don't want to  hate him anymore."

"Then come to my place tonight and have dinner with me. If you really want to know me, there is no better place than my home."

A loud bell sounded and the reflective elevator doors opened before me,  bringing me back to the present. The butterflies and nerves took hold  the moment his face came into view. A smile spread across my lips,  pulling my cheeks tight, but quickly fell when his expression remained  unchanged-tight and thin.

"I didn't think you would come." His rich eyes bore into mine and caused me to shift on my feet before taking a step toward him.

"I told you I would." I waited in silence as he turned a key on the  panel and pressed one of three buttons: PH. The other two were for the  lobby and garage, and it suddenly hit me we were in a private elevator,  leading to his private room. "Is this elevator only for you?"

"Me and the two other suites on the top floor. I don't like to be bothered."

"I can see that." It was a poor attempt at a joke, one he didn't find  funny. After moments of watching him stare at the closed doors, I began  to fidget in place. "I brought wine."

A short nod was all he gave me in response, and I suddenly became  extremely insecure. I no longer wanted to be there, wishing instead I  had turned around and gone back home.

The doors opened and Nolan stepped out into a long, softly lit hallway.  He didn't bother to see if I followed, only stepped out and began  walking, leaving me to timidly trail behind him with caution.

His place was on the far end of the hall, large double doors on an  otherwise empty wall. I lagged behind by about ten steps, wary to follow  him further. But then he opened the door and stepped through, not once  glancing behind him. Without a word, he left the door wide open, but  kept his back to me.

I wanted to turn and run. Flee from the twisted emotions running through  me. My fingers itched to touch him, to pull him close and hear the  sound of his breath as it left his lips. Feel the pounding of his heart  beneath the palm of my hand. I sought to find the flecks of gold shine  through the intense green as his eyes searched mine, as if sifting  through my soul for the pieces that were missing in his. Yet my heart  yearned to shut down, protect itself from the inevitable break. My  defenses wished to reconstruct the wall that had been indestructible  prior to his sudden reappearance in my life. I fought the need to  protect myself against the desire to protect him.         

     



 

It came down to him or me.

My heart or his.

And then he turned around. Standing just beyond his doorway, he pivoted  on his heels to face me for the first time since the elevator doors  opened in the lobby. His gaze caught mine, and my choice had been made.

He won.

My feet moved and my heart followed. I didn't get two steps inside  before the air stilled in my lungs, causing them to burn in my chest. It  left me with the sensation of being scorched by a thousand fires. The  entire place seemed lifeless, empty, void of existence. Walls were bare,  the furniture seemed stiff and unused, the floors gleamed as if they  had never been walked on. The silence in the room grew stifling,  suffocating, and hot.

"Did you just move in?" I asked as my eyes fell on the emptiness around me.

"Six months ago."

"And you haven't unpacked yet?"

He didn't answer, so I turned to look at him, hoping he hadn't heard me.  But his eyes scanned his living space; his brow furrowed as if deep in  thought. Then his gaze met mine as his shoulders pulled up and then  dropped. "I've unpacked."

"Where's all your stuff?"

Nolan took the wet umbrella from my hand and placed it outside the door  before closing it. "This is all my stuff, Novah. I'm sorry, is this not  enough for you? Do I not own enough fancy things for your liking?" His  tone became harsh and it hit me hard, as if being lashed with a whip.

"You're misconstruing my words," I argued defensively. "I only meant it  seems like no one lives here. It's practically empty aside from a table,  a couch, and a TV." My gaze trailed to the open French doors opposite  me, leading out to a large, uncovered terrace. "You don't even have  curtains hung. No rugs on the floor. No pictures on the walls."

"Maybe I don't like those things. Maybe I'm a simple man with simple tastes."

"Or maybe you're nothing but a shell of a man, living in a shell of a  home. I know where you grew up, Nolan. I saw the things inside your  parents' house, the one you lived in all your life. How do you go from  that to … this?" I held my arm out, waving it around the room as if I were  Vanna White and his living area was the board of half-filled letters.

His scrutinizing gaze narrowed and his jaw grew tight. The muscles in  his cheeks flexed as he closed the distance between our bodies. "Then by  all means, princess, redecorate for me. If this isn't to your liking,  then go ahead and fix it. After all, isn't making things pretty your  MO?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" My grip tightened on the bottle of wine  in my hand. I had to fight the urge to push him away-physically and  metaphorically.

"You want to fix me. You want to fix my home. Is there anything about me  you like? Is there anything about me you don't want to change to fit  your fucking mold of perfection?"