From the Heart

Surprised?” She drew bothhands over her cheeks to push away tears. “But you’re the first who ever left payment.”
    “Kasey, no, it was nothing like that.” Her words left him shaken. “Let me explain.”
    “I don’t want explanations.” She shook her head and walked away from him. “I want you to go. I asked you once before to leave me alone. Now I’m asking you again.”
    “I couldn’t then, I can’t now. Don’t you understand?”
    “I don’t want to understand.” She took deep breaths. “I don’t need to.” Her voice was calm again, but she didn’t turn to him. “I’m sorry I hit you. I’ve never done anything like that before.”
    “Kasey, please.” Gently he touched her shoulder. “Just sit down and listen to me. You loved me once. I can’t leave this way.” She didn’t move. She didn’t answer. Jordan felt the panic rising up and forced it down again. “Just hear me out, then I’ll go if that’s what you want.”
    “All right.” She moved away from his touch and sat down. “I’ll listen to you.”
    He didn’t know where to begin or how. Where were his words? “When I woke up that last morning . . .” He hesitated. His mind was so crowded with all he wanted to say, and his emotions were hammering at him. She carried his child inside her. Right now she had her hands folded over her stomach as if she would protect what was partly his from him.
    “When I woke up,” he continued, “I hated myself. I remembered that I had come into your room. I remembered everything I had said to you, what I had done. You were still sleeping. I left the note because I thought you wouldn’t want to see me again.”
    “Why did you think that?”
    “Dear God, Kasey, I . . .” He had had to deal with it for half a year, and now he had to say it. “I raped you. I woke up and there were bruises on your arms that I had put there.” Now it was he who turned away. He walked to a window, and his knuckles whitened on the sill. “I’ll have to live with that for my entire life.”
    Kasey sat in silence for a moment. An honorable man, she thought and laid her hands on the arms of the chair. And an honorable man can’t bear knowing he could contemplatedoing something dishonorable. Perhaps if she hadn’t hurt so badly herself, she could have read his pain in the note he had left her.
    “Jordan.” She waited until he turned to face her again. “What happened that night was a long way from rape. I could have stopped you or fought you all the way. You know I didn’t.”
    “It wouldn’t have made any difference if you had.” He walked to her again. “I was drunk and crazy. I hurt you. You told me from the very beginning I would.” He paused again but never took his eyes from her face. “I think you should know that I was going to ask you to marry me that night.” He saw the shock fill her eyes before they closed.
    “When I got back from seeing Harry and found you’d gone, I couldn’t believe it. I got angry quickly; it was easier to deal with that way. You opened me up, forced me to feel again, and then when you meant everything to me, you walked away. I wanted to hurt you.”
    She still sat with her eyes closed, and he studied her face as he spoke. “For weeks, those first weeks after you walked into my life, I had told myself I couldn’t be in love with you. It was too quick. I was just attracted, intrigued. If I hadn’t been such a fool, I might not have lost you. You gave me everything freely, and I took it, but I was afraid to give too much back to you.”
    She opened up her eyes again and looked at him. “There’s too much in the way even now, Jordan. Please don’t say any more.”
    “You told me you’d listen. You’re going to hear it all.” He watched her hands slip back over the baby. Something ripped inside him, and he took a moment before continuing. “After that last night together, when you’d gone, I tried to forget. I told myself you’d lied to me. I told myself you’d been playing a game. Then I’d remember how you looked that first time you told me you loved me. I knew you had gone because I hadn’t given you anything back and because when I’d had my last chance, I’d hurt you.”
    “Jordan, it’s done,” she began. “Don’t—”
    “I tried to live without you.” He shook his head and crouched down in front of her chair so their eyes were nearlylevel. “There was no color. You’d taken all the color with you. I came after