- 9 -
"So, how was the first night home?" Tara asks me, as she follows me down the hall from the coffee room a couple mornings later. I glance at her and grin. "It was good." Tara looks at me and raises her eyebrows. "It was just good?" She asks. I smile, and then say, "Okay, maybe it was better then good." Tara raises her eyebrows again. "Okay fine. It was... amazing." I say. "Sex?" Tara asks. I look over at her and laugh. "Yeah and pizza and a movie. What do you want from me?" Tara finally laughs. "That. That's what I wanted." I roll my eyes at her and we walk into my office.
"So, not trying to change the subject 'cause believe me, I could talk about sex for hours, but what did Adam say was the reason for not telling you he was sick?" Tara asks, sitting down. My smile fades and I close my eyes. "What?" Tara asks. I open my eyes to see that she's looking at me, a slightly concerned look on her face. "I started to ask him at the hospital, and he told me that he didn't want to talk about it when we where there and I could ask him when we got home." Tara licks her lips, and then says, "Forget I asked. I don't want for you to get mad at Adam." I shake my head and say, "No, I need to know." "Why?" "Because, I just need to. Anger will build up because of it and after a while, I'll just blow up at him and I don't want to do that. I hate being mad at him, so I need to know now." I say, finishing. Tara just looks at me and she nods.
"How's your article going?" Tara asks, obviously trying to quickly change the subject. "Good. I turned it into Lorelei this morning when I got here." I reply. "Cool. How'd it turn out?" Tara asks. I shrug and say "I liked it. I spent the day with them when I wrote the article and I just got to see them being themselves. Iris and I went back to see them a couple days later and that's when she took the pictures of them. The 5 of them are so amazing and funny and everything. I'd gladly do an article on them again." I reply.
Tara smiles, and then turns and walks to the door and goes into her own office. I sit there at my desk, not doing anything because I can't decide if I should call Adam and yell at him, or if I should wait until I get home. I decide to wait until I get home. I'll be upset all day if I call now and I know myself well enough to realize that I know this for a fact. So, I just return to my computer and try to get him out of my head. And guess what? I suck at it!
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The ride home it feels so strange. I've been on my own for a couple days now and I hate every second of it. I'm noticing how cold it really is in the train and I hate the feeling of not having Adam's arms around me keeping me warm. How did I stay warm a year and a half ago? I didn't dress any warmer then I do now. I miss Adam. I miss our daily rhythm.
I almost miss my stop because I'm so deep in thought. I shake my head and stand and exit the train. I walk across the street and into our apartment building. I'm at our door a couple minutes later and I take out my key and open the door.
Adam's sitting on the couch, sock-covered feet on the coffee table, his sketchpad in his pad and the lead tip of a pencil in his mouth. He's biting down on the leaded point of the pencil, which is what he does when he gets into a creative stump.
He seems to have heard me come in, because he glances over at the door and his eyes light up when they land on me. "Jane, your home." He puts his sketchpad down on the coffee table and stands up and walks over to me. He leans in to kiss me and I hesitate to kiss him back for a moment, but then I decide to do so. He must have felt something odd in my kiss, because he pulls back and looks up at me.
"Something wrong Jane?" his eyes are filled with concerned as he looks into mine. "I want to know." I simply say as I pull off my suede jacket and give him a stern look. "You want to know what?" Adam asks, that familiar confused sound in his voice. "I want to know why you didn't tell me." I say. Adam squeezes his eyes closed, and then takes a deep breath and looks at me. "Jane..." he starts to say, but I cut him off mid-sentence. "Don't even try. I need to know Adam." I say, crossing my arms.
Adam puts his arms over his head for a moment, and then pulls them down and looks at me. "Well?" I say, trying to drag it out of him. Adam licks his lips and then says "I didn't want you to worry." I crinkle up my forehead and ask "What?" "I didn't want you to worry." Adam says again. "Why didn't you want me to worry?" I ask, starting to get frustrated with him. "You were looking forward to that night and I didn't want you to worry about me. You were already kind of wound up and I didn't want to make it worse." Adam replies, finally giving me something that sounds like an answer. "That's bull. That's complete and total bullst." I say, pulling my arms tighter around myself.
Adam looks at me as if I've just slapped him and after a moment he softly says "It's not bull." "Then just tell me the truth." I say feeling that I might start to cry. "I had felt something a few days before that and I thought I was just getting a mild version of your cold and then it didn't feel like that. It seemed that it had gone away, so I didn't say anything. Now looking back, I guess that it wasn't going away." Adam says and it looks like he's about to cry. "You should have told me. If you had, I could have gotten you help before it came to that. You really scared me that night." I say as a tear finally dislodges itself and falls from my eyes. "I know Jane and I'm sorry for it. You have no idea have sorry I am for that." Adam says, a tear falling from his eye as well. "I can't lose you. After last September, I can't stand the thought of it." I say, tears free falling now. "Me either." Adam says, almost mumbling.
We're just standing and looking at each other crying now and neither one of us sees to know what to do. Adam sees to have decided as he pulls me towards him and tightly wraps his arms around me. My tears start to subside as Adam starts to run his fingers through my hair. I can tell he's trying so hard to comfort us both. His body's still shaking as tears keep coming out and trying to comfort him, I pull him even tighter. Pulling away a moment later, Adam reaches for my face and starts to dry the tears on my cheeks with his thumbs.
For some reason I start to smile and this makes Adam smile. A moment later my smile turns into a soft laugh. I reach for Adam and I kiss his mouth and Adam happily kisses me back several times before giving me a closing peck. We're both still sniffling, but now it's blending in with our smiles.