Kinsley: Trust

I woke up a couple hours later and felt the weight of Damien's arm across me still.  My shoulder was sore from laying on it but I didn't want to disturb him, so I very slowly and carefully shifted onto my stomach.  Damien didn't move.  His arm was still draped over me--now it was on my back.  I got comfortable again and fell back to sleep.

The next time I woke up, the room was bright.  Damien only had blinds on the windows in here, no curtains.  I groaned and rolled over, then realized that Damien was gone.  Anxiety welled up and I wondered why he'd left.  Had I imagined him coming in?  No, I'd woken up once and he was still there.  Did he wake up and decide he didn't want anything to do with me?

There was only one way to find out.  I pushed back the blankets and blinked a few times.  My eyes felt raw and swollen.  A quick trip to the bathroom confirmed that they were red and puffy.  I looked terrible.  I splashed some cold water on my face but it didn't help.

I pulled on Damien's sweatpants, cinching the drawstring as tightly as I could.  They still hung low on my hips and were comically long. I completed the amusing picture with Damien's hooded sweatshirt, which I had to fish out of blankets.  Sometime during the night it had migrated out of my arms and down towards the end of the bed.

I made my way downstairs and found Damien in the kitchen, making breakfast.  "Coffee?" he asked me.  I nodded.

He poured me a cup and I thanked him when he handed it to me.  "Do you want help?" I offered tentatively.

He shook his head and said, "No, sit down.  Is it okay if I talk while I cook?"

"Sure," I replied, pulling a chair away from the table.  I wrapped my hands around my coffee mug and stared at the dark liquid inside it.

"First," he started, "I want you to know that I trust you completely and I believe what you told me last night."

"You do?" I asked, surprised.  I don't know what I was expecting him to say, but that wasn't it.

"I do," he replied.  He turned and looked at me.  "Should I not?"

"No," I said quickly.  "You should.  I just...wasn't expecting this conversation to start that way."

"I should have told you last night, but I was so thrown off by your reaction to the situation that I didn't know what to think," he admitted.  "You were so uncharacteristically upset that I didn't know what to make of it.  It seemed like an out of proportion reaction to some guy kissing you and you stopping it.  It was really confusing."

I considered this.  "Well," I said, rocking my coffee mug around on its bottom edge, "I think part of it is that something like that has never happened to me before.  I mean, hell, I've never even been in a relationship this serious before, so I've never even had the opportunity to cheat or be cheated on.  But it's one of those things that everyone else has such strong feelings about that I think I just panicked."

I paused, and decided if I was going to be honest and vulnerable, I might as well really do it.  "And you're not going to like this, and I'm sorry, but seeing him after so long was really confusing.  Our...breakup, I guess, destroyed me.  And he was there to help me deal with my feelings the best way I know how, which is sex.  So suddenly seeing him again stirred up some sort of feelings that were weird and confusing and uncomfortable and really threw me off."

Damien had been looking at me, and I caught his grimace as he turned quickly back towards the stove.  "I'm sorry," I apologized, for what felt like the thousandth time, but it also didn't feel like it was nearly enough.  Now that I was talking, I couldn't seem to stop myself.  The words just tumbled out. "I didn't ever want to be in a relationship with him.  You're the only person I want to be with.  Fuck, you're pretty much the only person I've ever wanted to be with in my entire life. And we'd just sort of talked about the future and... And it was scary to me how quickly and easily it all happened.  I never should have let him walk me to my car.  That was stupid."

"I don't agree," Damien said emphatically, turning to look at me.

"With which part?" I asked, confused.

"That it was stupid for you to let him walk you to your car.  A man should be able to walk you to your car without losing his sensibilities and making a move on a woman that he knows is in a relationship.  You didn't 'owe' him that kiss for his presence.  He's the one that fucked up, Kinsley."

"I kissed him back," I pointed out, then instantly wanted to kick myself.  I really could not seem to shut the fuck up to save my relationship here.

"Yeah," Damien said wryly.  "You told me.  And I kind of wish you hadn't.  But you stopped it and were honest--really honest--and that's important to me."

"This is weird," I blurted.  "You should be mad."

"You know that's not really my thing," he replied.  "Look, I'd be lying if I said this didn't suck.  It sucks and it's confusing and it hurts a little too.  I'm not happy about it.  But I trust you and I appreciate you telling me what happened.  I really appreciate this entire conversation, I know it's probably been really hard for you."

I looked at him, not sure what to say.  He turned back to the stove and finished what he was doing, then got out plates and put pancakes and sausage on them.  He brought both plates over the table.  "One of the things I fucked up in my last relationship was holding on to things that upset me for too long.  There's nothing I can do about what happened last night.  I can either overreact and break up with you again and regret it again, or I can trust you and move on.  So I'm choosing to trust you and move on."

"Okay," I said, still baffled by how this conversation was going.  "Well...okay."

We ate our breakfast mostly quietly.  It was awkward and weird and even though he had said he trusted me and was moving on, the tension in the room was heavy and kept me on the verge of tears.  Damien let me wash the dishes after we finished, then said, "I know we were going to run today and spend the day together, but I think I need to be by myself today."

Anxiety gripped me and I looked up at him, worried.  "But I thought you said..." I trailed off and pushed my hand into my hair, tugging on it nervously.

"Nothing has changed," he assured me.  "I love you.  I'm not mad.  But I just need some space today.  I'd like to take you out to dinner tomorrow, if you'd like to go."

I stood there quietly.  The logical and rational part of me (it exists, I swear) knew that this was reasonable.  Hell, if the whole day was as tense as breakfast was, I didn't even want to be here.  But the emotional part was terrified that he'd spend the day by himself and decide that maybe he didn't trust me as much as he thought he did.  It was also really hard to have been as vulnerable as I was and then get kicked out.  Finally, I nodded.  "Yeah, I'd like that.  I'm just going to change quick, if that's okay."

"Of course it is," he said.  "Take your time and do whatever you need to do.  If you want to shower before you go that's fine too."

I shook my head and hurried upstairs to change.  I pulled on yesterday's clothes, made the bed, and left Damien's stuff folded carefully on the end of the bed.  It would have felt weird to go into his room to leave them there.

When I came downstairs, Damien stood and met me by the door.  He pulled me into a fierce, tight hug and my anxiety decreased slightly.  "I love you," he said.

"I love you too," I replied, pressing my face hard against his shoulder.  We stood there for a really long time.

Finally, he loosened his grip on me and we separated.  He touched my hair and said, "I really like your haircut, by the way."

"Thanks," I said, feeling almost shy.  "I do too, but it still feels weird."  I ran my fingers through it and smiled awkwardly at him.

"It doesn't look weird," he said, grinning genuinely.  My face relaxed into a more normal smile.  He stepped closer to me, took my face gently in both hands, and kissed me.  I reached up and gripped his wrists tightly as I kissed him back.  I wanted desperately to try to escalate our kiss, to try to fix the tension the best way I knew how, but I knew it wasn't a good idea.  So after several seconds, I pulled back, ending the kiss before I lost my self control.

"I'll see you tomorrow?" Damien asked, studying my face.

"Yes," I agreed.  "I'll see you tomorrow."