Resolution (Saviour) (36 page)

“
This song Lauren.” Gabe laughs and looks down at his guitar, then up at me and swallows, oh my god, he’s fighting not to cry, my hand goes to my mouth and Jemma reaches for my free hand.

“
This song is a favourite of Ava’s and she said to me the other day in the car that every time she hears it, she thinks of me singing it to you…And I’ve got to say, despite the fact I am not and never will be a fan of One Direction, this song really could have been written by me, for you.”

He nods his head and counts the girls in
the three of them start to play their guitars and Gabe starts to sing a song about how much he loves my belly and my freckles and the fact that I can’t fit in my jeans and how I was made just for. I cry like a baby and so do Sam, Stella and Jem, I even see Ryder wipe a tear from under his eye; there is complete silence when Gabe finishes singing, until Ava lets out a big sob and throws herself into her Dads arms, I get up slowly and join the pair of them in a group hug.

“
I’m so happy Lauren, I love you so much and I love that you make my Dad so happy.”

I’ve cried so much my head is pounding and my eyes are sore, I really want my bed but everyone else now seems
to have decided that they want to party; Stella finds the karaoke show on one of the music channels and we all take turns singing into empty bottles to our favourite tunes; the kids are all either sent to bed or inside the house to play on the play station and the adults, except for me of course, all enjoy a little smoke of something that has been grown hydroponically. The sun is starting to rise and the kookaburras are laughing by the time Cooper and Jake help me get Gabe into bed, there are blankets and bodies everywhere as I leave them all to it and I crawl into bed, exhausted, beside my very drunk, very stoned, very happy, gorgeous husband to be after what has been, quite possibly, one of the best nights of my life.

I’m dragged from sleep by the unusual sound of chatter coming from the house and garden and I can also hear splashing in the pool; I force my eyes open, for a change Gabe isn’t wrapped around me but is lying on his back, one arm bent at the elbow and covering his eyes, the other lying across his hips, his hand over his crown jewels, as if protecting them, he’s kicked the doona completely off himself in the night and apart from his boxers, he’s gloriously naked and I take my time looking over him, I can see his lashes fanning out across his cheeks, I push myself up on one elbow to get a better view, his nose is very straight, his nostrils quite wide, his philtrum is quite deep as it runs down to meet the perfect bow of his full top lip. Lips that have kissed and sucked every inch of my body. My face burns at that thought and for a few seconds I fight to control the anxiety that starts to crush my chest. Why? Why does the thought of him kissing and sucking and licking every square inch of me almost bring on an anxiety attack? I’m a grown woman, we are a pair of consenting adults, and we are in love with each other.

There, there it is again, the little rush of panic and as much as it pisses me off, even to admit it to myself, it’s because of the
self-doubt I still have. I know that he loves me, he’s fought for me, for us, he’s begged me to come back to him when I left and he begged me to marry him until I agreed and last night in front of all our friends and family, he stood up and told them how much he loved me and how happy he is that I have agreed to become his wife and then he sung me the most beautiful love song, in front of everyone, no shame, no embarrassment, he sung to me. So what more do I need, what more can he possibly do to convince me that it’s me he loves, me he wants to spend the rest of his life with? And finally, finally it starts to sink into my stupid, self-doubting brain, that there is nothing more he can do, he’s done what he can, the rest is up to me, up to me to finally accept that I am worthy of this second chance, worthy of this beautiful man and the life and love he wants to share with me and I resolve to myself, that from this moment, I will no longer question or doubt him, I will accept and enjoy everything he wants to throw my way. From his inexperienced words of love, to his absolute expert sexing skills, I will take it all and enjoy, every word, every look, every touch and every thrust he wants to send my way, without question. I let out a big sigh, well that’s that sorted then.

M
y brain still doesn’t want to shut up. Perhaps it’s because I’ve had so few of these moments over the last couple of months, moments where I have him here beside me but he’s not distracting me with his words and looks and his touch or his thrusts but instead he is silent and sleeping and looking content, his hand isn’t scratching over his stubble covered jaw, I am actually getting the chance to study him and consider all what I feel for him. Then I get that panicky feeling in my chest again but this is a different kind of panicky. I am happy to admit and live with the fact that I love him beyond measure, I do wonder why though, in such a short space of time that has come to be the case?

I loved
Jason passionately, from the very beginning I would get butterflies every time I thought about or saw him and then as the years went on, it was still there, when his key went in the door at night, when I answered the phone and it was him calling me unexpectedly, I would still get butterflies as I always did, I’m not even sure when it started to change. I know with mobile phones things were different, if we had an argument the night before and he called, I could choose whether or not I wanted to speak to him and then as the boys got older I could decide whether or not I wanted to be home when he got in if we had fought that morning or the night before and then it had eventually changed so much that I didn’t actually want to be there when he came through the door, ever, I didn’t want to speak with him on the phone. I deliberately ignored 90% of his calls and only answered if I really had to. For the past few years he made my belly flip more from fear than from love or passion, or any kind of desire but none of that was my fault, he, Jason had caused that, I would have loved him till my dying day if he hadn’t of become so violent and aggressive towards me, even when he apologised and begged my forgiveness, it eventually meant nothing to me, I had heard it all before, I knew the pattern, he would lash out at me either verbally or physically, or both, then he would be sorry and we would cry and have the best sex ever and all would be good and calm and happy for a few months and then there would be a gradual build up again, weeks of me not being able to do anything right, weeks of him arguing with me over the smallest thing and me being me, always had to make things worse by coming back with a smart answer, despite knowing what the likely outcome was going to be, I still had to open my smart mouth and give back as good as I got, verbally that is, physically I could never match him, but then gradually, I stopped fighting back, I stopped wanting to, I no longer cared about his spiteful words, I no longer cared about the backhanders, the throat squeezing, the hair pulling, I didn’t care about him and I certainly didn’t care about me and for about a year, I just let it go on, I lost myself, I stopped being me and just accepted the situation.

I have no idea why, I have never been shy in coming forward, I grew up in a house as one of four kids
, where you had to shout to be heard, I moved to the other side of the world and was picked on at school for being the new kid with the funny accent, I was always short for my age, then my boobs grew and grew and I had red hair, all of these events had made me the object of name calling and sarcastic comments, in return, making me an expert at the quick witted comeback and not scared of standing up to anyone! But that side of my personality went, he wore it away, he ground me down and for almost a year I let him.

T
hen one day at the end of last summer, after enjoying a lovely dinner out with Jemma and Max, we came home, laughing and joking, him telling me what he wanted to do to me once he got me to bed, but first we decided to sit outside and enjoy a night cap and because I put cubed ice into his Baileys and not crushed, he completely flipped, what had been a perfect evening was now ruined because of his vicious tongue telling me how useless I was, that if I couldn’t get something as simple as the right kind of ice in his drink after all these years, then what was the point? I remember his words so clearly. “Why the fuck do I bother with you Lauren? You used to be so perfect, now you can’t even make me a drink without getting it wrong, everything about you has gone to shit. Fuck off to bed; I can’t stand to look at you. And forget any ideas you might have had about me fucking you later because it won’t be happening, you repulse me, your saggy tits and that fucking ugly stretched marked gut of yours just don’t turn me on.”

I actually couldn’t believe what I was hearing
. It was like a different man had come home with me from the restaurant; where had the man gone that had been running his fingers up my thighs under the table, whispering in my ear in the taxi about how he couldn’t wait to taste me? We had got home, he had gone to the toilet while I made our drinks. I had forgotten to press the crushed ice button on the dispenser on the fridge and had instead pressed cubed. Ice? I was now being subject to this abuse because of the consistency of the ice in the drink that I had just made him, how fucking dare he? I have no idea where it came from but suddenly everything came to the surface, every thought and feeling I had pushed down and supressed for almost a year bubbled up to my chest and in a split second, I found myself again.

“
You know what Jay? If you don’t like the way I serve up your Baileys, how about you get up off your arse and go and make your own fucking drink. And while you’re at it, take a long look at yourself in the mirror because you ain’t such a fucking sex god yourself these days, with your greying hair and your moobs. And don’t kid yourself either. The last thing I want anywhere near me tonight is you bouncing on top of me with your shit attempts at shagging with that sad little excuse you have for a dick.”

I tried to get up after the first crack to the side of my jaw but as I did he hit me again and this time my head hit the tiles on the patio and I really saw stars, I don’t think I even cried at first, he dragged me inside by hair
. Obviously not wanting to disturb the neighbours if I did make any kind of noise, he dragged me right through the house to our bedroom where he lifted me off the floor by my hair and by my throat, I couldn’t really hear what he was saying through his gritted teeth as my ears were still ringing from the last blow to my head. All I focused on was the froth at the corners of his mouth, that’s how much he hated me, that’s how angry he was, he was actually foaming at the moth with rage, he swung me back to the floor by my hair and then walked away.

That was the first time he had ever actually struck me, he’d pulled my hair
. Dragged me by hair in fact, squeezed my throat, my cheeks, twisted my wrists, bent my arms back, but never had he full on smacked me around the face like that. I didn’t see him for the following two days after but in those two day, I had time to think and that was when I came to the conclusion it was over, there was nothing left of my marriage to save, nothing I wanted to save but for some reason it had taken me another whole six months and that final beating on the night I met Gabe to actually walk away for good; why? I will never know!

I wipe the tears from my face that I hadn’t e
ven realised I had cried, just as Gabe scratches at his nuts and adjusts himself, he rolls towards me and throws his arm over my hip, a small smile plays across his lips as he moves his hand under the T shirt of his from last night that I am now wearing, his hand dips into the curve of my waist as it slides up my body and I watch as he lets out a sigh or is it a hum as he moves his hand around to my back and pulls me into him? He opens his eyes and blinks slowly, twice, and my heart stutters as his smiling eyes meet mine, his hand slides up and cups my boob.

“
I fucking love you woman. Shit, I’m so happy Lauren, you have no idea baby, no idea how you make me feel.”

“
Good morning. Somebodies woken up in a good mood, I thought you might have a hangover, after the beer, the wine, the bourbon and the weed you consumed last night.”

He closes his eyes and snuggles in as tight as he can to me, inhaling my hair and my skin
.

“
I feel shithouse, but as long as I wake up with you baby, I can deal with anything.”

He nips me with his teeth, tiny little bites, all along my jaw,
sending goose bumps right across my skin, his nose is still sniffing my hair, in my ear, over my temple.

“
You smell of sleep and our bed.”

“
Well that would be because I have been sleeping. In our bed. Do you need some Panadol?”

He opens his eyes again and looks down at me
. “Are you okay?”

“
Why wouldn’t I be?”

He leans away from
me and studies my face for a few seconds then leans in and takes me by surprise when he licks over my cheek. “You’ve been crying” It’s not even a question, it’s a statement of facts, how did he know?

“
What’s wrong, why were you crying, why didn’t you wake me up?”

I laugh at him and shake my head.
“I’m fine. I was just having a moment. And why would I wake you up to watch me cry?”

“
I don’t know? It’s my job. If you’re sad then I should be there to cheer you up, not snoring next to you, why were you crying?”