For Valentinas, who always, always reviews. Also for traceit, without whose support and advice this chapter would completely suck (and who also reviewed, despite having read the chapter before it was posted).

17

It really worked, you know. I lay there with him, my head on his chest, his fingers gently toying with my hair, and I felt perfect, invincible, unbreakable, real and alive for the first time. All of my senses were heightened, attuned to him, and I was feeling in superlatives: his heart beating in his chest was the most beautiful and important sound I'd ever heard, the feel of his skin on mine the most necessary sensation I'd ever felt, the taste of him on my lips… I could go on and on, because for this short span of time the world was perfect, and anything that wasn't just faded, and he was the only thing that existed suddenly and no wonder I had been terrified of this. It was fucking terrifying. But it felt better than anything, including signing my first record deal, including winning my first Grammy, including all the drugs I experimented with back when I thought I was punk rock. And I was convinced somewhere inside that if I could just keep my mind clear, push everything so far away that it disappeared completely, I could feel like this forever.

But a high like that, a feeling like that, is obviously not sustainable. As much as I tried, the real world slowly intruded, tiny thoughts flitting through my mind like hummingbirds, reminding me to doubt myself, which was one of the things I'd managed to forget. There was nothing to remind me of why quite yet, nor that I should doubt him, too, for which I was grateful. And when Will startled all my little darting hummingbird thoughts away with the sound of his voice, I was grateful for that too.

"Can I tell you something?" he asked, and his voice was soft and drowsy; he sounded just the way I felt, and I smiled and nodded against his chest, hoping he'd understand I was too tired to actually say Yes.

He placed a finger under my chin, tilting my face up until our eyes met, and his were warm and melting and almost gold and his smile was the same, golden and shining somehow and seriously, seriously I couldn't breathe. "I know we don't know each other that well, and I know we didn't exactly meet in a normal way" (pretty normal for me, actually) "but this past week I've just… Enjoyed your company. And I know things are complicated for me right now, but I hope… I really want to keep seeing you. I really… I don't know, really like you… And whatever… And this isn't coming out right at all." He laughed ruefully, gathered his thoughts, trailed one finger gently down my cheek. "I want to be with you, Honor. That's all."

This is probably the speech every girl wants to hear after what we'd just shared, and for a split second I felt something soaring inside me, something I suspected might be hope but was too unfamiliar with the emotion to define it properly, and anyway it disappeared far too quickly for me to analyze. Because all my doubts, all my apprehensions flooded back full force, extinguishing whatever that little spark had been and I felt… As if I was being tricked into something. There was no way I was being freely offered what I wanted most in the world at that moment with no catch. And then there was an amazing sense of clarity, and my mind became almost perfectly blank as all the thoughts I'd been thinking came together and solidified into one unavoidable bit of logic: if Will thought he wanted to be with me, it was only because he didn't really know me, and if he knew me at all he'd certainly change his mind.

It was better, I realized, to change it for him. Any other way would hurt too much.

I sat up abruptly, pulling out of his embrace, pushing away from him. "You don't really," I said, and my voice was strangely mechanical, strangely unemotional considering all the emotions I was feeling.

He looked up at me, confused. "I think I'd be the expert on what I want, here."

"You want whatever it is you think I am," I told him, the words coming quickly because the underlying thought had been in my head for so long and it was undeniably true. "You don't know anything about me, anything about my life. And you… You're good and kind and just… Good and you think everyone else is like that but they're not. You'd know that if you knew anything about me, anything real."

"That's not true," he protested, sitting up and facing me, and inside I was wishing he'd just give up, just bow to the inevitable, because this was so hard for me. This was the definition of self control, looking into his eyes as he offered me something completely invaluable and refusing it. But it was better. It would be better than accepting it and then having it taken away. "That's not true at all. I know everything I need to."

I thought about everything I was hiding from him and laughed. "Like what?" I demanded, scornful. "What do you think you know about me?"

He took my hands in his, wouldn't let me pull away, and spoke as quickly as I had, urgently. "Look… When I confronted my very-soon-to-be-ex-wife about… everything, she said something that really struck home. She told me that our marriage only worked because I didn't feel good about myself-"

"Yes, well, she is a horrible human being," and it's not fair that you should end up with another one.

"She was right," he continued without acknowledging my interruption. "She made me feel awful about myself and she used that to keep me with her. But you… Whenever I'm with you, I feel like I can do anything. You tell me I can do anything. Most of the time, I hated who I was when I was with Terri. The person I am when I'm with you… He's who I want to be."

His voice was so earnest, his words so touching, and he was just so beautiful that I wanted to cry, which is noteworthy in and of itself, but I didn't. I gently freed my hands from his, shaking my head. "Will, you were trapped with that woman for so long, you think I'm special. But anyone, anyone would treat you that way, make you feel that way. I can't imagine anyone could help it."

Despite the seriousness of our conversation, Will smiled. "I know for a fact that isn't true. And even if it was, I wouldn't care."

I could feel panic clawing at the inside of my chest, the blood rushing to my ears, and he was killing me with this. "You don't understand-" I began, only to be cut off.

"I think I do," he contradicted.

"You don't," I repeated forcefully, trying to think of something that would make reality clear to him. And the truly horrifying part, the part that in my mind validated everything I'd been telling him, was that there were so many illustrative episodes that I knew could cause him to turn away. But one stood out to me, of course, and it was perfect, the worst thing about myself, the thing even I hated. The thing I pushed away more than anything else, the ghost I ran the fastest from.

"Would you like me to tell you something real? It's a long story but the punchline really makes it worth it." I twisted my lips into something that may have passed for a smile, something cold and hard and cruel to match the secret I was about to reveal.

"Honor," he said, voice soft. "You don't have to tell me anything."

"I do. I have to tell you this, because you… Have no idea what you're talking about, Will." I laughed bitterly because it was so true, not that it was especially amusing, before closing my eyes, purposely bringing up my least favorite ghosts, my worst memories, my biggest regrets, my most horrible, horrible mistakes. Purposely reliving them.

"Ten years ago I ran away from home." It seemed like such a pale description of what had happened, accurate enough, but it didn't reveal any of the emotions that surrounded the act: the fear, the anger. But maybe that was best, maybe I didn't want him to see them.

"I had a huge fight with my mother, and I stormed out, and she told me that if I walked out the door, I could never come back. She said I'd be dead to her until I came crawling on my hands and knees begging for her forgiveness." That's an exact quote, by the way; it's not like I'd ever be able to forget something like that, no matter how hard I tried. "But I left anyway."

Will looked at me sympathetically. "Honor, that's not-"

I held up a hand to silence him, slightly amused that he'd think that was my big confession. If only. "I'm not done. I ran away, I made a new life for myself, an amazing life… But the beginning was hard. I missed her. I wanted so badly to hear her voice that I'd call just so she would answer the phone." I've never forgotten the way she always said Hello? Hello? Is anyone…? Hello? because to me those words were comforting and I'd smile and then gently place the receiver back in its cradle and cry. I cried a lot back then.

"She must have known it was me because one day I called and the number was disconnected." Drawing a deep breath, I remembered that night, could perfectly recall the despair I felt standing at a payphone in the midst of one of Los Angeles's rare storms- whoever first said it never rains but it pours was undoubtedly referring to LA- and hearing the pre-recorded message: This number has been disconnected or is no longer in service.

"It was worse than the night I left, I think," I continued, feeling the ache deep in my chest that never fully disappeared, no matter how much I ignored it, no matter how much I thought about anything other than. "Because she'd planned it, she'd known what would happen, she'd known someday I'd call and discover I was cut off from everything, in every way, that she didn't care about me at all."

Will moved closer to me, wrapped one arm around my shoulders, not saying anything, just comforting. And strangely, despite my panic and all the other dark emotions just thinking about what I was telling him caused, I was comforted. I burrowed close, inhaled deeply, enjoyed it while I could, because I knew soon enough he would not be able to stand to touch me.

"Several years later, she was dying. She tried to call me, sent me letters, apologized over and over, cried on my answering machine, begged for forgiveness. Begged to see me just one more time, to speak to me." I closed my eyes, hearing her voice in my head, the desperation of her cries. If she'd ever said Hello? Hello? I think I might have been swayed, but she never did. It was always my name, always broken pleas, and those words had no effect on me, no power. Will tightened his embrace, and I could feel his body tensing as though he knew was I was about to say.

"I wouldn't speak to her. I sent her letters back unopened, erased her messages, ignored her calls. I disconnected my phone number," I whispered this, because it was the thing that had given me the greatest sense of triumph at the time and was now the thing of which I was most ashamed. "And after 18 months, she died. And I felt nothing at all."

He looked at me for a moment, his expression very shocked and very serious, and I looked at him with my hard, bitter smile. And then, turning my head, I buried my face in his chest and did something I hadn't done in years: I cried. Not deep, soul-wrenching sobs, nothing dramatic at all, just a few tears running silently down my cheek, but they felt just like a Los Angeles storm, like a downpour out of a clear blue sky that lasts for days and leaves everything flooded. Destroys roads, destroys bridges. Those tears were for my mother, for the forgiveness neither of us would ever gain or give, but also for what I had just thrown away, what I had just given up. Because no one, no one could hear that story, could realize just what kind of person I was, and still want me.

But Will… He placed his hand under my chin, tilted my face up, brushed the tears away.

"Obviously that isn't true," he murmured, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together as though the liquid wetting them was evidence. "And it doesn't change anything."

I looked at him in utter bewilderment. Apparently, he hadn't been listening. "I don't think you understand-"

"I don't think you understand," he interrupted forcefully. "That isn't who you are; that's something you did. Something bad, something horrible. But you're paying for it now. I just wish you wouldn't let it make you hate yourself, because you are so… Everything you said about me, Honor. You are. Just… You're good, at least as good as I am."

And I think those were the words I had always wanted to hear. Because while everything that had happened in the end had been recent, it had all gone exactly according to the plan I'd been making for years. Until the second I'd heard she was gone I'd thought it was what I wanted and I'd known that wanting it was a dark, sick, twisted thing to be ashamed of. I felt the warmth of his embrace seep into me, spread throughout me, and there was that soaring thing in my chest again as I suddenly thought… This could be okay. If he could still care about me, still want me, after hearing that, then surely everything else, even Norah Castle, even the 2,200 miles of land between us, was surmountable.

I wanted to make the rest of my confessions right that very second, get everything out of the way, but he was kissing me, and touching me, and everything was so intense. He was trying to use his body to prove his words, to prove them over and over, and I let him because I wanted to believe it. I wanted so badly to believe that everything he'd said about me was true, and what he was doing to me made everything he'd said real. And afterwards, we were both exhausted, too physically and emotionally drained for any more confessions. So I fell asleep in his arms, believing, really believing, that everything would be alright.

Have I mentioned before that I'm an idiot?

TBC

I don't usually beg for reviews, but I worked super hard on this chapter, and so did traceit, so if you have any feedback at all, I know I would really appreciate it.