"Jeez, if the greetings get any warmer I'm going to melt. I'm starting to feel like no one wants me here," I said instead of giving him a direct answer. What I came to say couldn't just be blurted out.
"What are you doing here, Walker?" Nick repeated.
"I'm gonna see if I can find Marcus," A.J. said, inching towards the door.
"Freeze, buddy. You are not allowed out of this room. Sit down and call your wife back. Nick and I will go back to his room and talk. If that is all right with you?" I asked Nick. I watched his face, his eyes, everything about him for some positive sign that he was happy to see me. It didn't look like he was too happy.
Maybe coming to Paris wasn't the best idea I had ever had. Maybe I needed to just walk out that door, grab my bags and go home. Maybe there were a million things I needed to do and maybe there were a million things I should have done. What I did was take Nick's hand and walk out of the room.
He led me down the hall and into another room similar to A.J.'s. Suddenly the words that I had been so perfect in my head were gone. I didn't know what to say or how to say it. For a moment I couldn't even remember why it was I had come.
"Are you all right, Walker? What are you doing here?" he repeated once again. This time a gentle hand against my face accompanied his words.
"I'm fine. In fact, I haven't been this good in a long time," I told him, smiling as I covered his hand with mine.
"You scared me. Again," he added, with a wry grin.
"I seem good at that, don't I?" I teased. "I'm sorry, Carter. I didn't know how to handle my life for the last few months. Everything was so new, so painful. I've never faced anything like that before. Manny was my heart. When he died I thought I was dying with him. I couldn't image living a life without him. So instead of asking for help in dealing with it, I scared the hell out of everyone who cared about me." I laughed and turned to walk across the room.
"I didn't think showing up here would scare you but I can see now why it did. You thought I had come running to you because something was wrong," I explained, looking back at him.
Hanging his head, he only nodded.
"If this is going to work there are a few rules. Rule number one, I don't run to anyone, Carter. Not even the people I love. I may turn to you and I may lean on you, but I will not run to you every time my life falls apart," I explained. "Understand?" I asked, tilting his chin up so he looked in my eyes again.
"Understood," he agreed with a smile.
"Now sit down because I have a lot of things to tell you," I directed, pushing him down on to the bed.
"Where to begin? I guess the beginning. I didn't want you in my life. I didn't want any part of you. I knew that if I let you anywhere near me you would do exactly what you have done and I couldn't let you. I didn't have the strength to live through that. Somehow, someway, you did it anyway. Without me allowing it or even knowing it. Then Manny died and I couldn't have cared less about you. In fact, I hated you because some part of my brain thought that if I didn't have you in my life then maybe somehow Manny wouldn't have died."
I knelt down in front of Nick and took his hands. "See you were asking the impossible of me. You were asking me to accept the way the world worked and I've never been able to do that because I'm not like the rest of the world. I always thought I was smarter, better able to get through life. So when you started asking me to trust the world when it had stabbed in the back my only option was lock myself away from you. Away from you and my family and the others."
With a soft laugh, I stood up and moved across the room again. "Then I got this phone call from a man who saved my life. You know you guys are good at that. A.J. called me and in a nicer way told me to get off my sorry ass and stop hurting everyone else with my sulking. He said I was breaking your heart and it suddenly occurred to me that I couldn't do that to you after all you had done for me." I ran a hand through my hair and sighed. "Something is missing in what I'm saying."
"How about just I love you?" Nick suggested from behind me.
"Because I don't know how to say it. I've never wanted to say it. You've opened up this place inside me I didn't know could be opened. I don't know how to deal with this like I didn't know how to deal with losing Manny. You helped me through that, Nick. Now I need you to help me through this. You saved my life and my heart and all I've done is hurt you. Is that what love is?" I asked, turning to look at him.
"Love is knowing that no matter how much it hurts that someone will never leave you alone. Love is knowing how much you belong to someone when you feel like the rest of the world has abandoned you. Love is knowing that no matter what happens I will always hold your hand and love you in return. Don't you get it, Jack? Love isn't about how much it hurts if it ends. Love is about how much it makes you happy while you have it. If you knew Manny would have died like that would you have given up loving him all your life to avoid that pain?" he asked me, turning me to face him.
"No," I admitted. "I couldn't not love him no matter how much it hurt to lose him."
"That's love. That's knowing he belonged in your life and that's knowing I belong in your life. All you have to say is I love you, Jack, and everything else will fall together. It'll be hard, that I can promise. We'll hurt each other, that I can promise. And we will love each other till the end of time, that I can promise. Please, Jack," he begged, tears glistening in his eyes.
"I can't hurt like this again, Nick," I cried.
"If you love me enough you'll take that chance. Do you love me, Jack? Do you love me that much?"
He asked my question. The question I had flown all that way to ask him. Did I love him? He asked my question, but he gave me my answer as well.
Pulling his face down to mine, I kissed him. Our tears mingled together as I held on to him.
"I love you, Carter," I whispered.
"I love you, Walker."
Two months later we got married. Who would have ever guessed? A woman like me and a man like him. We belonged together though. So much so that we had two of the most beautiful kids in the world, Emanuel Gene and Nichole Willa. They have their father's smile. They steal my heart a little more every day.
There you are wild and free
Reaching out like you needed me
A helping hand to make it right
I am holding you all through the night.
"The One" by the Backstreet Boys
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