His face crumpled.
“Oh God.”
“I thought you didn’t touch me because you didn’t want me anymore.”
Robert stood and came toward me, but stopped a few feet away.
“I wanted you the entire time.”
“Then why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because every time you came close to me, I was terrified I would disappoint you.”
That sentence broke something open inside me.
Not anger.
Something sadder.
I started crying.
Robert did too.
“For two years,” I whispered, “I thought you saw an old woman when you looked at me.”
He shook his head.
“No. For two years, I was afraid you would look at me and see an old man.”
Neither of us spoke for a while.
Then I started laughing through my tears.
Robert stared at me.
“What?”
I wiped my eyes.
“You idiot.”
A small smile appeared on his face.
“I know.”
“Thirty-one years, and you still think you have to hide things like this from me?”
