"Oh..." Emily said slowly, softly. "Oh..." She clapped a hand to her mouth, eyes suddenly wide as she struggled for what to say, what to do next.
"Yeah," he said, just as slowly, just as softly. He stared down at his sandwich for a few moments, just as lost, then pushed it away from him, no longer hungry.
"What...what happened?" she dared to ask, voice barely there at all.
He didn't respond for so long, his eyes vacant and unseeing, she felt sick with awkwardness and anxiety. The last thing she wanted to do was pry, to make him relive something he wasn't ready to face, but she was so desperate to talk to someone who had gone through it and come out the other side. Most days she wasn't sure there was an other side at all...
"Please," she whispered, desperate. "I need...I need to know there's, I don't know, hope? Life afterwards? Please..."
He sighed like every fibre of his being was exhausted. "His name was Hank – for my father. We never planned on having kids, not with the life I lead, but when we found out, everything changed. I cleaned up my act, got a real job...I did everything to give my son a better life than I had.
"You have to understand...my mother tried her absolute hardest to give me a good life, to set me on a good path. She might have succeeded, if my father hadn't died. She did her best as a single mother raising three children, but we needed money and the local gang offered me cash to run errands for them. It started out small, like delivering drugs, but they slowly started asking for more and more until I was a full-fledged member.
"Then, almost a year to the day after he was born, they came looking for me. 'Blood in, blood out' – that was the law and I had broken it. They shot my girlfriend, my son, and very nearly killed me too. Some days, I wish they had."
She reached a hand towards him, then faltered because what comfort could she offer in the face of such immense suffering? She bit down on her lip hard, then, feeling braver, she closed the distance and wrapped her hand around his.
He stared at his hands until she started to worry she'd crossed a line, then looked up to meet her eyes. She attempted a smile, but all there was was sadness, was pain.
"Does it get better?" she asked. "Everyone always says it does, but..." She shook her head. If there was a 'better', she hadn't found it.
"No...and yes," he answered vaguely, his hand still tightly gripped in hers.
"Please, tell me it does. I need to know there's something better," she begged. If she couldn't see the light, she just needed to know it was there, waiting for her to find it.
"It will, but it's going to hurt for a really long time. Sometimes, it will feel like it's been forever and all around you is an ocean of pain. There will be times it hurts so badly you'll wish you would die so it can just end. But then you'll start to see good in the world again, feel happiness again and it will start to feel like it's okay, that it's okay to be okay."
"When?" she asked desperately. "Because right now, it's just...not."
"I wish I had a good answer for that," he said with a helpless shrug. "It just happens one day. You just have to keep living your life, knowing that it will get better if you just give it enough time."
A pink sliver of tongue flicked out to moisten her lip, her eyes lifting towards the ceiling as tears collected. "It doesn't feel like it will ever get better. It just feels like all there is is pain as far as I can see," she said hoarsely.
"I know, Em, I know." He wordlessly folded her into his chest as she cried silently breathless tears.
In retrospect, she couldn't have said how or why it happened, only that one moment he was consoling her and the next, he was kissing her.
And she knew she should stop him, stop the kissing – she was a married woman, for God's sake – but something inside her stalled and all there was in the world was the two of them, intertwined, until they were almost one being.
She moaned softly against his lips, fisting her hands in his shirt to keep him flush against her as he backed her into the counter. His fingers combed into her hair, tangling themselves in the strands, and she couldn't have escaped even if she'd wanted to. She'd forgotten what it was like to feel passion, to feel anything...
It took her longer than she was proud of to remember herself, to remember her husband but a floor above, grieving for their son... She felt herself wilt in his embrace. She turned her head, nose brushing along his cheek, but she remained wrapped tightly into his chest until she could feel his racing heart keeping time with hers.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, wanting words when there were none. "I'm just...I'm sorry." She kept her eyes closed, afraid of looking into his eyes and seeing what was reflected there.
"Don't be. I'm the one who should be sorry. I knew you were married and I kissed you anyway. It was inappropriate of me and I hope you'll forgive me, but I'll understand if you no longer feel comfortable employing me," he apologized.
She attempted an awkward smile, but knew it looked as forced as it felt. "It was my fault as much as yours. As long as Ian never finds out, I see no reason why this needs to be a big deal."
"Thank you," he said softly as they backed apart. But there was a note in his voice that made her stomach twist into knots, a note she pretended she didn't hear.
