“But Echo, don’t you get it? I care about who you are right now, regardless of what you think you have to offer or not.”
“That’s because you’re a better person than I am.” I breathe slowly and deeply in an attempt to sound halfway intelligible. “Maybe this is me still being selfish, but I don’t want you to be with me when I’m like this. I want better for you from me, for myself. God, that doesn’t even make any sense. It sounded better in my head.”
“No, I get it.” He grabs my hand, his big, rough, tanned palm engulfing mine. “I’m here, though, okay?”
“You’ll wait?” I pull at him, wanting his proximity, now that he’s here and he’s real and he doesn’t seem to hate me. “You’ll wait for me?”
He nods. “I’ll wait.”
I gaze up at him. I feel so needy, all of a sudden. Like all the years of holding myself rigidly strong and never needing anyone have left me empty inside and hungry for whatever I can get.
“Kiss me?” I ask, feeling small and hopeful.
He stares at me for a long moment, and then his brows draw down and his expression shifts to reflect some inner pain. “No, Echo. See, I’m selfish too. I want all of you. I don’t just want one kiss because you feel bad about yourself.”
He crouches at my bedside, and I roll to face him, and he has both of my hands in his. Tears stream down my face. “Ben—”
He ignores me and keeps talking. “I want more than one kiss. I want more than one night, more than one tumble in the sheets.”
“But I don’t know how—”
“It’s simple, Echo. You just have to learn how to be totally vulnerable, that’s all.”
I laugh. “Is that all? Just bare all my secrets, just like that? Just…be totally vulnerable?”
“That’s all.”
I sniff and roll onto my back, stare at the ceiling through blurry, red-rimmed eyes. “Let me just rip my chest open real quick, then.” I say it with a laugh, but the laugh turns to a sob, and then I’m sobbing hard, and then I have to twist to the side so he doesn’t see how terrified I am. I’m crying because it’s impossible, because I just don’t know how to do what he wants.
“Do it, Echo. Rip your chest open, and let me in. Let me see you bleed. I can’t promise I can make it all okay, because I can’t. But I can promise to be there when it’s not.”
I look at him over my shoulder, my body still facing away, and my hair obscures my vision, so I don’t see him coming, I smell him first—soap, shampoo, cologne, and that otherness of Ben-scent—and then I feel him, an all-consuming presence over me, fingertips brushing my hair away, hand cupping under my neck and lifting my head, and his lips touch mine softly, briefly, gently.
It’s not a kiss; it’s a promise of kisses to come.
He goes, then, and I let him go, even though I want to scream and cling to him and cry and beg him to carry me away and wrap us back up in that bubble, where nothing mattered and nothing hurt.
He goes, and I need whiskey with a vicious desperation that has me clawing at the sheets.
And that’s when I know I have a problem.
* * *
A lot has happened in the last two weeks and while I still don’t completely have my shit together, at least I know it and I’m trying to do something about it. Bray is sitting next to me on the couch, shirtless, hair messy, eyeliner from the night before smeared across his eyelids. He’s in a “gay phase”, as he puts it, which means he borrows my skirts and wears my makeup—poorly applied, usually, but whatever. Maybe I should give him makeup lessons. He has a bird tattooed on his chest, on the left side, over his heart. It’s a lark, he once told me, but wouldn’t explain its meaning. It’s a gorgeous tattoo, done life-size in photorealistic detail and color. The lark is perched on a branch, crest raised, mouth open to sing, wings spread as it prepares to take flight.
He leans forward, touches the record button on the GoPro that faces us, set up on a tripod. “Hey, hey, ya’ll. I’m Brayden and this Echo, obviously. Since Echo the Stars is on temporary hiatus, we know all ya’ll need your fix of Echo’s singing, and possibly my magical mandolin. So, here we are. This is a personal project, I should probably point out. No filters, no polish, just Echo and I as we are. I haven’t even slept yet, and it’s six a.m. I’m still wearing last night’s makeup, and I lost my shirt at some point, but I don’t care. We’re just gonna make some music and put it out there. This is for us. And hopefully, ya’ll will like it, too.”
I glance at him. “Bray-bay?”
“Yes, my dear?”
“You’re rambling. Shut up and play your mandolin.”
He sticks his tongue out at me. “Meanie-head. But alas, you’re right. Without further ado…” He flexes the fingers on his chord-hand, closes his eyes and ducks his head, and then begins strumming a slow, mournful melody.
I sing:
“Forgive me, forgive me…forgive me,
But I just can’t get those words out,
Those two little words, can’t set ’em free,
Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me,
I should be able to say it, should be easy,
But those words, they get stuck
And anyway it’s not like you give a fuck
If I say I’m sorry, they’re just words, two little words,
That mean so little,
Too little, too late,
And they just can’t erase the hate I pile on myself,
Can’t bury the guilt I keep on my shelf,
Can’t bring down these walls,
Can’t tear down these halls,
Even if I beg you on bended knee,
Forgive me, forgive me,
Forgive me,
I should be able to say it,
But those words just get stuck,
And anyway it’s not like you give a fuck,
And it’s just my luck,
You’d forgive me, you’d forgive me
Like it’s just that easy,
Because we all know the truth,
We all know the hardest part,
The thing that’s really an art,
Is when I say forgive me, forgive me,
Forgive me,
Is to say it to myself,
To take the guilt off the shelf,
To bring down my walls,
To tear down the halls,
To beg myself, to plead with my own soul,
Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me.”
“That was, obviously, a song called ‘Forgive Me’.” Brayden tilts his mandolin so the rounded bottom rests on his thighs, leans his chin on the edge of the headstock, and then gazes at me sidelong. “And Echo? Just so you know, I forgive you.”