I took a moment, trying to think of the best way to explain it. “When you haven’t experienced loss directly, it’s like… well, you drive the same road home you drive each night. You know it as well as anyone can. Then one night you decide for the hell of it to drive a different road home. You think nothing of it. It’s merely a change of scenery.
“But if you’re someone who has lost someone or come close to losing yourself… and if you take that different road, there’s this second after you’ve made that decision, just a second, in which you wonder, worry, if taking that road means changing your life irreparably – you don’t know the curves in the road as well, you don’t know the blind spots. In that second you imagine a crash, a collision. Just a second, until you tell yourself to stop being so morbid. Yet no matter how silly it makes you feel, every time you make a decision to take that different road, you can’t help that instant of questioning if your choice will end in loss.”
He was quiet as he processed my words, and then his lips were in my hair, his whisper a promise. “Life’s fragile, Hannah. You know that and that’s what those seconds are a product of. You’re allowed to have those seconds, just as long as they don’t mean you ever shut me out.”
Relieved that he understood, I closed my eyes and held on tighter, giving him a silent promise in return.
That night I slept next to Marco in his bed for the first time. He held me close, keeping me warm and safe through my sadness.
I was just drifting to sleep when I heard Jarrod’s voice in my head, a memory from weeks before.
“Just saying. Nice to know a big guy like that is watching your back.”
From his voice came peace.
CHAPTER 28
“I
’ll get your short essays back to you next week,” I promised my literacy class as they all began packing up for the evening.
“Have a nice weekend, Hannah,” Duncan said, throwing me a kind smile as he headed out the door.
The others followed his lead. They’d been somewhat subdued this week and I had a feeling they knew the reason why I hadn’t been there to teach them last Thursday.
I was packing up my own things when to my surprise Lorraine made her way over to me. Trying to mask my disbelief at her willingly approaching me, I stilled, waiting for her to say something.
She shifted a little uneasily. “I, eh… I heard aboot the wee laddie fae yer class. Sorry tae hear it.”
I blinked rapidly at the unexpected condolence. “Thank you.”
“Aye, well, ye seem like ye probably give a shit, so, I imagine it hus’nae been easy fur ye.”
I nodded in silent agreement, honestly not knowing what to say.
Lorraine shrugged, looking anywhere but at me. “Aye, well… thote ye might like to ken that I, eh… got a jobe.”
“That’s brilliant.” I grinned. “Where?”
“Fur one eh the sport bookies chains.” She flashed me a smile and I was almost knocked over by the extremely rare sight. “It’s awright money, like.”
“Lorraine, I’m so pleased for you.”
She shrugged, shuffling back from me, seeming all too uncomfortable again. “Well, just wanted tae tell ye ’cos I probably widnae huv got it if it wisnae fur this class. I’ll see ye later.” She dashed out of the room before I could say anything else.
I stared after her. Lorraine was as rough as they came and prickly as hell. She didn’t like me, or at least she didn’t understand me, but she was the first student since Jarrod’s death to make me feel like there was still a chance to make a difference at all this.
Marco’s muddy riggers were sitting on a folded-out newspaper just inside the door to my flat. I felt something pleasant shift in my chest at the sight of them, and after I shut the door behind me, I cocked my head to listen for the sound of him.
I could hear the shower running.
To prove to him I was serious about us, I’d given him a key to my flat a few days ago. I knew, despite his determination to keep us together, that I had a way to go in reassuring him that I wasn’t going to do a one-eighty and come up with another reason for us not to work it out. My suspicion that he wasn’t quite over my defection sprang from the fact that this weekend was his weekend with Dylan and he hadn’t suggested I stick around for it.
I could live with that.
For now.
Dropping my keys in the bowl on my side table, I kicked off my shoes and then moved into the sitting room. Marco’s empty coffee mug was sitting on the table, his jacket was hanging over the back of the armchair. Shrugging out of my own jacket, I draped it across the arm of the chair and began making my way out into the hall, unbuttoning my shirt as I sauntered toward the bathroom. For the last eight nights Marco had stayed with me, but he’d given me space sexually, allowing me to deal with Jarrod’s loss, and the ramifications of it upon my kids at school. Marco didn’t want to push me into the physical stuff, and that was thoughtful and considerate and, ironically, sexy as hell.