The Lie(52)

We can’t go back to what was.

But we can go forward.

After I compose myself, I head back out into the lobby.

Natasha is standing there grasping the bag of popcorn for dear life and peering at me with so much worry that it’s fucking adorable.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers.

“So am I,” I tell her, walking right up to her until I’m so close, she has to take a step backward. “I’m sorry for being inappropriate, and I’m sorry for this.”

I quickly lean down and kiss her. Her soft cry of surprise is muffled by my lips pressed flush against hers for a long, hot minute. Then my mouth opens and my tongue slides across hers.

The bucket of popcorn drops beside us.

My lungs evaporate in a kind of heady infatuation.

I grab her now, my hand at the back of her head, at the small of her back, pulling her to me, wanting to get deeper, hotter, as flames lick along my skin and my desire is more painful than ever.

It doesn’t matter that I’m in a cinema lobby, in public.

We could be on Mars, for all I care; she’s all the oxygen I need.

She’s feeling it too. I know she is from the way her mouth moves with hunger, the tiny, breathless sounds she’s making, the way her body feels underneath me, wild and tense and ready to explode.

With a gasp, she suddenly breaks away, and the bright, effervescent cord between us snaps, leaving me empty and stunned.

“I can’t do this,” she cries softly. Panic is etched clearly on her face.

She tries to pull away, but I’m grabbing her arms, holding her in place.

“Can’t do what?” I demand.

“This!” Her voice is choked, her eyes are growing wet and brimming with pain. “You kissing me, me being with you. Any of this.”

My chest grows cold. “Why not?” I manage to say, even though I know her answer. I know exactly why “why not?” because it comes from that same dark place where guilt buzzes like flies.

“Because we’re dishonoring the dead!” she sobs. “Don’t you feel that?”

I immediately let go of her, sucking in my breath.

She’s breathing hard and staring at me like she knows she’s done wrong.

I can barely speak. “They were my family, Natasha. Don’t think I’m not thinking about them every single day, that I won’t be thinking about them for the rest of my life.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, shaking her head, a tear falling to the floor. I’m barely aware that another theatre is emptying, people coming out of the doors. “Brigs, I’m sorry. I just look at you and…”

“You think I’m a mistake,” I offer flatly.

“Don’t you?” She looks around wildly then closes her eyes. “I just don’t know what to do.”

Frustration builds at the back of my throat. I want to be patient, I want to be understanding. But if she has more problems with us than I do, I’m not sure what I can do to change her mind. I’m not even sure if it’s right for me to feel this way.

But I do.

She bends down to pick up the spilled bucket of popcorn, but I reach it before she does, and walk over to the trash, tossing it in. The lobby is crowded now and people are walking between us. Any chance for a serious conversation is over.

But we can’t be over.

I walk back over to her. “Let’s get out of here. Let’s go somewhere and talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” she says, practically pleading. “Thanks for the movie, Brigs.”

She turns and walks away. I stand there for a second, dumbfounded that she’s actually going to leave it like this. Then I jog after her, fighting through the crowd until I’m at her side, out on Baker Street.

“What happened? What changed?” I hiss in her ear as I hurry alongside her. “Monday night you were feeling fine, we were doing good, I was the happiest I’ve felt in years!”

Her brows shoot up. “What happened?! You just kissed me.”

“So what’s the difference?”

She stops, walking back a step to get out of the way of pedestrians. She blinks at me. “The difference is everything. Being friends is difficult enough, but anything more than that…”

I take a step toward her, bearing down on her. “You used to be in love with me. And I was in love with you.”

“And look what that love did! It ruined both of our lives.”

My pulse hammers against my throat, but I can’t look away from her. So much of me wants to agree, does agree, and yet that’s not the whole story. It’s brutal, but it’s not that simple.

“Natasha,” I say quietly, my eyes roaming her face, searching for something to latch on to. Her cheeks are flushed, her lip worrying between her teeth. “I’m not sure when I’ll stop feeling guilty. I’m not sure when you’ll stop feeling guilty. But the fact that both of us have come out a dark hole, to emerge here,” I throw my arms out, “where we are now, says we’re capable of letting go. Capable of moving on.”