We stood there, facing each other. It was raining harder now, and the big, fat drops were running down my face, and his too, as he loomed over me.

"Just say it." His voice was tight and his teeth were clenched and I could see the muscle in his jaw working.

"What?" I lifted my shoulders, cocked my elbows, raised my palms to the weeping sky. "What do you want me to say?" Trying hard for insouciance.

"You're sorry. Just say you're sorry."

"Sloan, it's too late for apologies-"

"Fuck you!" He slammed his fist into the brick wall next to my head. "Fuck apologies. I don't want apologies. I just want to hear it. I want to hear once that you are sorry, like you really mean it. No fucking excuses. No explanations. Just once, that you are as sorry as I am..." He was crying, I think. I was too. I sank back against the wet brick and covered my face with my hands, then slid down the wall, like a body shot through the heart.

"I'm sorry," I sobbed. "You don't know how sorry-"

And then suddenly he was all around me, gathering me up and crushing me against the wet brick, kissing the rain. And I realized I'd never been gathered up before, never been so broken apart or so recovered, and it was shocking, but before I could think about it, we were walking really fast through streets that flowed like a river, to arrive, dripping, at the stolid Peabody. Up the brass elevator, across the densely carpeted hall, to the door where I fumbled for the key (remembering the last time I stood at a door at the Peabody, fumbling for a key), but before I could think about it, the door swung open and Sloan backed me through, across the room, and onto the big, redeeming bed.

It wasn't easy. It wasn't like we made love and it was this enormous flood that washed away all our sins and insufficiencies, although from time to time that was how it felt. Rather, we had to negotiate a way through layers of nakedness and conjunction, stopping and starting, asking questions, filling in gaps and testing the waters. But we did it. Dove, then rose again to reach a plateau where we could rest, breathing deep and easy. Until another accusation surfaced. A doubt insisted on address. And so we would start again, and so we continued, off and on, all night, until morning.

My Year of Meats Ruth L. Ozeki