Save My Soul (20 page)

Sadness flickered across his face, and Maggie regretted the marital reference. She hadn't talked seriously with Carlos in days. With Jordon home, Carlos kept his distance, but now that Jordon was gone, the silence was going to change.

“Are you going home to tell your mother you're gay?” she asked.

Carlos looked surprised, like the thought had never crossed his troubled mind, but Maggie knew better. In her professional experience, the how and when of telling a parent became all-consuming.

Carlos wrinkled his nose. “I'm not telling her. Nobody's proud of a gay son.”

“That's not true.”

He rolled his eyes. “Name one.”

She couldn't think of anybody, not because it didn't happen but because she didn't have the privilege of knowing anyone. “I know you're gay, and I'm proud of you.”

“You're not my mother.” He puckered his lips and cocked his head. “And Jordon … did you tell him?”

“I told you I wouldn't. He's happy enough with your progress on the mound that he hasn't asked about our conversations or how you got there.”

“Good. Don't tell him. There's no gay in baseball. I play baseball,” he said with a sharp nod.

Maggie felt miserable. She hated to see Carlos closing off. Enlightenment required openness to learning about the self and the world without judgment, without attachment and without fear. After more than a month of treading the waters in her own spiritual void, Maggie understood she might not be the best guide to enlightenment, but she was the only guide Carlos had.

“You can't hide your feelings,” she said.

“I won't. Not forever. Just for now. When I retire, nobody will care what I do.”

It was true. Was she wrong to feel relief? If Carlos believed what he said, then she'd done her job. She helped him come to terms with his sexuality and make a comfortable decision.

They both knew he couldn't be openly gay in baseball without suffering a tremendous amount of pressure and ridicule. A pitcher's greatest asset was his steadfast mind and unshakable confidence. She didn't see how Carlos could maintain his on-field performance with off-field stress. He'd be singled out and mentally tortured for being different. This was the easiest way — for everyone.

Maggie stared at the shirtless young man. “You'll still need to talk to someone. Hiding your feelings won't be easy. You're only twenty. That's a lot of years playing baseball without love and support from a partner.”

He seemed to think about his lonely future. His forehead bunched, and the corners of his lips dropped. “I can talk to you.”

“Yes, you can. But you need a support network bigger than one person.”

That was always the hardest part for a client to understand. After the initial breakthrough, life seemed doable as long as Maggie was there to guide them, but that wasn't the goal. A good therapist wanted her clients to fly the proverbial nest, stronger and more capable, not remain dependent.

“What about your sisters? Can you talk to them?”

“No.” He shifted the basket to his other hip and shuffled to the stairs.

While on the surface Carlos sparkled with a ninety-nine-mile-per-hour fastball and an engaged personality in Jordon's presence, he lacked plausible direction and risked another breakdown. Despite that, some psychologists would walk away, claiming success for Carlos's return to the mound. Maggie wasn't one of them.

“I think you should tell Jordon.” She knew the suggestion was controversial.

Carlos turned and narrowed his eyes.

“Follow me on this, okay?” Not a muscle in his body flinched. He stood ready to fight, and Maggie felt unsure of her approach for the first time in years. “Jordon's your agent. You trust him with the smallest details of your life, and from what I see he's a father figure to you. So if you can't talk to your mother, talk to him.”

Carlos scoffed and tackled the first three stairs before Maggie's voice stopped him. “If you're committing yourself to baseball, then what's the big deal if he knows you're gay? We can tell him together when you get back, and then he'll have a better understanding of who you are, and you'll have someone else's support.” She hoped … but a part of her worried about Jordon's reaction.

Carlos hoisted the basket higher on his hip and disappeared.

Two days later, he was gone, and Maggie tried to fill her days. When she wasn't conducting virtual therapy sessions with her girls, she thought about Jordon, hoping everything was okay. By now she was used to his narrow focus when he was away from home. She didn't expect to hear from him, and somehow she'd come to accept it. Abbreviated telephone conversations did nothing but leave people longing for more words and face-to-face contact. Maybe that's why she made no attempts to call Crystal. Maggie couldn't imagine anything her mother saying putting her mind at ease.

When the temperature turned unseasonably cold, Maggie thought about asking Bernie for a ride to the shopping mall to buy a warmer coat. Then she could at least go for walks outside. But when it came down to it, she didn't want to interrupt his family and study time. So she stayed locked inside Jordon's house, and when the rain pounded against the skylights, she unrolled her yoga mat, unfurled her tense body and stared at the droplets rolling down the glass. Cultivating her inner silence felt better than spending another minute thinking about Carlos, worrying about Crystal and missing Jordon.

When she meditated on the sight of the rain drops long enough to feel her breathing slow, she switched to meditating on sound. She listened to the thump of droplets hitting the window glass, and then she reached beyond the house to the rustling leaves.

Maggie welcomed the increasing focus and clarity, until the warm calm gave way to a chill. She was alone with the house all to herself. Space as far as the eye could see.

Wasn't that what she wanted? Space? A house of her own?

The trip to North Carolina provided distance from Crystal, whose teachings no longer ran amuck in Maggie's head. That was a good thing, right? Now Maggie had silence and independence enough to make her own decisions about her future, a future which might or might not include Jordon. She expected to feel happy about that. Instead, she felt restless, unstable … exhausted.

Maggie curled in the overstuffed chair nearest the lake view. Crystal taught her to look inside for answers, but Maggie was tired of being alone with her thoughts. She wanted to talk to someone, to share with someone, to feel connected to someone, even if that connection would eventually break. She touched her hand to her pounding heart as chills engulfed her body. All the time she spent searching for detachment, a solitary peace, she should've spent making connections. Even Crystal ended up going against the teachings she held so dear.

Tears streamed down Maggie's cheeks. She chastised Jordon for not knowing what he believed, but she was no better. Her beliefs were convoluted and didn't stand up to the slightest test. What if everything she ever believed in was wrong? What if Jordon was right? What if in the end there was nothing?

Once again, she lamented being too old for a quarter-life crisis, but too young for the midlife variety. And yet as she sat there, staring through tears at darkness descending upon the lake, she knew existential crises didn't pay attention to age. Plain and simple, she'd fallen apart. Could she put herself back together again?

Gripping her throat, Maggie milked the skin of her neck to aid a swallow. Breath became harder. Noises threatened from outside the house. She curled her knees to her chest, sliding down and deeper into the cushion of the chair.

Save me.

The saddest part was, she didn't know who she was praying to anymore.

When Maggie woke, Jordon was leaning over her, stroking the skin on her cheek. “Hey.”

She blinked, yawned and reached for him without a word. He lifted her enough to settle his own body on the chair and cradle her in his arms.

She was his. He claimed her that night on the pier, and tonight she admitted it freely. Without him, the present lost its colors and the future loomed cold. Burying her head against his chest, she let a tear escape along with a quiet sob.

He lifted her chin. “What's wrong?”

She felt foolish, childish. Days of cluttered emotions and jumbled words pushed against her lips until she released the first thought in her head. “I don't want to be alone anymore.” She gasped between snivels.

“I'm here.”

Such sweet, simple words of reassurance, but frustration built inside of her. Did he understand the magnitude of what she was trying to say? Did she?

Maggie sat up in frustration. “I'm a mess. Things I thought were true probably aren't true. Maybe it's a nervous breakdown. At the very least, it's a personal crisis, and … ” his bunched facial muscles reminded her she was expecting too much from a man who couldn't possibly understand her, “ … I should go.”

“What? Why?”

“Who wants to be around an unstable flake who cries herself to sleep, pondering the deeper mysteries of the universe? I don't even want to be around her, and I'm her.”

Jordon cradled her throat, smoothing his thumb along her tightened jaw. A touch of humor curved his lips, but then the darkness in his eyes stole the smile. He looked away, over her head and out to the flashes of light bouncing off the lake.

Anger at her selfish behavior, overshadowed her frustration. “I'm so sorry. How is he?”

“Paralyzed from the neck down.”

The lump in her throat thickened. While she was rambling on about her whacky inner-turmoil, Jordon had his own worries. “Maybe the doctors are wrong,” she said, lacing the words with hope.

He slipped his hands to the back of her neck and rubbed his thumb over the bumps of her spine. “They're the best doctors in the business.” Sadness clouded his eyes. “He'll never play ball again, but that's not the worst part. He got married last fall, and they wanted to start a family.”

Maggie withered at the amount of hurt pooling in Jordon's eyes. Resting her head on his chest, she wrapped her arms around him, hoping that by holding him close she could assume some of his grief. The gesture made him shudder.

“He'll never feel his wife's arms around him again. Never be able to touch her … like this.”

He smoothed a hand over Maggie's back, sliding along the bend of her shoulder and the curve of her hip. She rode the waves of his chest with the scent of his cologne stirring her desire.

“I need you.” He brushed his lips to her forehead, burning away the fog on her brain, leaving one thing clear. She was done pushing him away.

Arching her aching body against his chest, she raised her lips in search of his. Jordon's eyes locked with hers moments before their mouths met, and truth flashed behind the pain. He loved her, and she loved him. Maggie couldn't deny him any longer.

The kiss confirmed the love. Instead of guided by desperation, his mouth softened, and his tongue glided over her lips, as if lapping her up one lick at a time was the only thing that mattered.

She brushed his jaw, and his tongue made another slow, gentle sweep inside her mouth. He dropped a hand from her shoulder and flicked a thumb over her nipple, moaning into her mouth when she nibbled his bottom lip. A strong, steady passion built in her chest, and Maggie knew it could be like this forever.

He pulled away and stared into her eyes, his thumb circling her nipple. “I can't live without feeling you like this. I can't imagine it.”

She stood and pulled him by the hand through the living room to the bedroom. Inside the door, he gripped the hem of her ruffled tunic and drew the cotton over her stomach, skimming past her breasts. With the fabric gripped between his fingers, he slid his palms over her arms until the shirt disappeared.

She reached for the buttons of his shirt.

“Not yet.”

Sinking her teeth into her bottom lip, she willed herself to let go, to take without giving and to enjoy every minute. He smoothed his hands over her tingling skin, first her shoulders and arms and then her face. Her very essence demanded more, moving her body toward his touch until her head swayed in his hands.

Maggie fluttered her eyelids open, and in the soft glow of the bedroom she saw him watching her move with each stroke of his hand. He leaned in and kissed her, letting his hands drop lower until he cupped her breasts.

She'd never begged a man for anything, but standing before Jordon, her independence shattered. “Please.”

“Please what?”

The hoarseness in his voice and the sleepy circles of his thumbs around her nipples made the need unbearable. “Love me.”

Like their first kiss in the kitchen, he grabbed her and drove her backward until they both collapsed on the bed. She reached for his shirt buttons again, but he caught her wrists and shook his head a moment before his fingers dipped underneath the waistband of her pants.

Seconds stretched to minutes, and the minutes dragged on. Maggie sprawled across the bed without clothes, but she had the overwhelming feeling he wouldn't be happy until she was completely transparent. Jordon refused to cover her with his body, and each time she closed her eyes, he demanded that she open them. His hands possessed every curve until her greatest task was to breathe. And then he slid a hand between her legs.

Maggie reached for his neck, but he pulled away. “Jordon, this is unbearable.”

“Then I'm doing it right.”

No argument there. She closed her eyes and moved against his hand.

“Do you want me to stop?”

“No.”

“Then open your eyes.”

She tried. She sent the message to her brain, but the heat between her legs spilled into her gut and threatened to burn a hole in her heart.

“Maggie, look at me.”

His voice was little more than a whisper, and her reflex to please him forced her eyes open. Despite the lusty haze and the dim lighting, preventing her from focusing on the details of his face, she watched him watching her as his fingers continued to slip rhythmically over the swollen flesh between her legs.