The Love I Need

Chapter 10

When my lips make contact with warm skin, it's not his lips that I'm kissing. I open my eyes and move my hands from his face as I pull back. I find two of Cal's fingers covering his mouth, the rest of them curled under his chin.

"Emy..." he whispers my name and moves his hand from his mouth to tuck some of my hair behind my ear. "I meant what I said, I want you to stay. And I know we have so much to talk about, but you need to understand... April is my wife." He searches my eyes, looking desperate to be understood. "I do want you here, but that's not going to change."

"But... but Adam lied. If he hadn't, we'd still be together, Cal."

He sighs and nods once. "That may be, but that's not what happened, Emy. We're not together. I'm with April. I took vows, and I won't break them."

"So what do you want from me then?" Bitterness hangs on each of my words.

Cal's eyes plead with me. "I don't... I don't know. But I care for you, Emy. I never stopped. I miss you so much, and I want you around. I want to know that you're okay. I want you close, so that I can talk to you and see you and—"

"Okay," I answer, but the tiny bit of hope that lives in my heart is choosing to only pay attention to half of the words he's saying.

He cares about me and he wants me around.

He may not be ready to end things with April now, but he will. He just needs to be reminded that I was made for him.

And he was made for me.

"Thank you for understanding," Cal says with a soft smile. "I know this is probably..." he drifts off, looking for the right words.

"Fucking weird," I fill in for him, causing him to once again smile.

"Yeah, I still haven't wrapped my head around it myself, and it's already been a few months," he says with a soft chuckle.

"You only got married a few months ago?"

My heart drops into my stomach. If I had only found him a little sooner...

Cal nods. "Yeah. I met them a couple of years ago, but I was in a bad place, and April..." He chuckles and smirks, like he's thinking of a fond memory, "Well, let's just say, she really didn't like me much for awhile, and she wasn't afraid to let me know it."

I'm surprised by his words. "Really? She seems so... Well, fuck, I'm just going to say it. She seems like a fucking push over, Cal."

It's Cal's turn to look surprised now. "April? A push over? Shit, no!" he exclaims with a laugh. "She's the strongest woman I've ever met. She doesn't put up with anything. She—"

"She doesn't seem that way to me," I interupt, sick of hearing the praise coming out of his mouth for a woman that isn't me. "She pulled a Mrs. Scott in there! She just stared at her fucking plate like an oblivious idiot whenever things were uncomfortable. That doesn't look like strength to me."

Cal seems taken aback by the name. He glares at me while he shakes his head. "You don't know what you're talking about, Emy. She is nothing like that woman. She just doesn't want to upset you, because she knows how much you mean to me. She let my ex-girlfriend sit down and eat dinner with her family. She's inside while I talk to you, right now."

"Exactly, Cal! She's not even fighting for you!"

Cal lets out a quiet laugh. "You don't get it, Emy. She knows she doesn't have to fight for me. She's strong enough to be okay with this, because she knows..."

I feel my hopes starting to crumble again. "Knows what?" I ask in a soft voice, even though I don't think I want to hear his answer.

He frowns, then reaches for my hands. He gives them both a gentle squeeze, and continues to hold them while he speaks. "Emy, you need to understand that I thought you left me. I was so broken. I really hit rock bottom, and I ended up with nothing. April... she found me." He looks to the side at the porch swing, and a small smile pulls at the corners of his mouth.