“Yes. In the dream, it was a basement. Part of it was carpeted, part was wood. The stairs went up. At the top of the stairs, there was a bare bulb in the ceiling.” She described the Baltimore house where they found her to a T. “Oh, I was holding a stuffed animal—a bunny maybe? That’s how the FBI made the connection. Something about a neighbor seeing grown men with stuffed animals. I remember clutching it when I was being whipped.”
Nathan made a pained sound, almost a growl.
“I don’t remember the pain. I just remember the sound.”
“That’s normal. Your body doesn’t remember pain.”
“Wait. Something about me is normal?” She leaned back and looked into his glowing eyes.
“Nothing about you is normal, Emily Webster. Nothing ever has been. I would never insult you by calling you normal.” He leaned in to kiss her and tugged her bottom lip with his teeth.
“It goes a way toward explaining why I hate the word perfect.”
“That’s okay; I have a long list of adjectives I can use instead.”
“Do you now?”
“I do.”
“And what’s at the top of your list?”
“Mine.”
“I love you, Nathan.”
He sighed.
“Emily, I need you to listen to me.” She turned on the towel to face him and pushed her shins into the space under his bent legs. “I don’t say those words. Ever. I have my reasons, but please understand that I just... can’t.” He scrubbed his face with his palm and seemed to rethink. “My father,” he hesitated, then plowed ahead, “he had this ritual on Sunday nights when I was a child. He would call me into his study and review my behavior of the past week. Then he would strike me with a switch. The number of hits depended upon my behavior.”
“Oh, Nathan.”
“The bothersome part for me was after the whipping, I had to stand at the door of his office and thank him and tell him I loved him.”
Emily sat still and silent and rubbed his arm as he had done for her.
“It was like vomiting nails getting those words out. In my mind, I changed the definition. To me, they mean the exact opposite of what they mean to everyone else. It doesn’t mean I don’t feel what you feel—exactly. In fact, even if I weren’t fucked up about it, I’m not sure ‘love’ is the word I would use for you. I have loved in my life. I love my mom and my brothers. I loved my dog.” He stopped to run the backs of his knuckles down her face. “But you... it’s like ‘love’ isn’t a big enough word for what I feel. Like they need to invent some new word for it because what I feel for you makes love seem very small.”
She touched her lips to his. He kissed her tears. They both turned to the ocean, only the white caps visible against an endless starry night.
“I sky you, Nathan.”
He smiled and met her violet gaze.
“I sky you, Emily. And I may be shit at telling you, but I’m fucking great at showing you.” And with that Nathan lowered her onto the beach towel peeled her camisole over her head and her boy shorts down her legs. She wrapped her legs around his hips and urged him toward her. He groaned into her neck.
“Someone’s getting the hang of it.”
“I’m getting the hang of you.” He pushed inside her, stretching her, filling her.
“You always did.”