by A. R. Breck
“What?” I ask.
“Are you really happy?” He murmurs, asking me again. Again.
Why does he keep asking me? It’s like he can tell how unhappy I’ve been this past year.
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
“Are you?” He asks again.
“I, uh…here, take this.” My eyes start to water, because he’s bringing up emotions I thought I’ve already worked through, but it’s obvious I’m not over them.
It’s obvious I’m not over him.
I shove the towel at him and go to run away, when he calls out my name one more time.
“What?” I say exasperatedly.
“Letting you walk away from me was the singlehanded worst mistake I’ve ever made in my life.”
I bite my lip so hard I draw blood. I silently whimper, and when I walk away this time, he lets me.
30
Aeron
She’s so beautiful.
I’ve been with enough women in my life to know beauty. And Mercy is the most beautiful human I’ve ever met. Seeing her again was like waking up. It’s like I’ve been in a dream this last year. Ever since she walked away from me, I promised myself I’d do better. That I’d get better.
It was a long road. A hard road, but I’m there. Finally, I’m there.
Ten months of jail. Two months of a halfway house and treatment.
It took a long time, but once I was out of jail and in the halfway house for a bit, I finally reached out to my dad. It took a while for him to come around, but I think he finally realizes that this is it. There’s no turning back now. He didn’t think it would be a good idea for me to come here today. He warned against me coming to see Mercy, but I couldn’t stay away.
Not anymore.
I’m totally in love with her.
When someone walks away from you and it feels like your heart is literally getting torn out of your closed chest, you realize your feelings.
Being on drugs makes the edges of life faded. You don’t realize the reality of every single situation in life. Sitting in a cement cell for more than half of my day with the worn letters that bled the feelings of Mercy, clarity came.
Clarity of Mercy. Clarity of my life. Clarity of my mom. Clarity of Aric.
I dealt with my shit. One day at a time. One fucking hour at a time. And here I am. To beg for forgiveness and to make my life right.
If she doesn’t want me to be in her life, then I’d walk away from here and live my life in a miserable—albeit sober—existence. But I’ll only do that if she’s happy.
She’s not happy.
She’s not, because when I asked her the first time, her eyes dimmed. When I asked her the second time, she told me she wasn’t happy. Not her verbally, but her eyes screamed her unhappiness. When I asked her the last time, she couldn’t even answer me. She avoided my answer all together.
She’s not happy.
So, I can’t walk away.
I’ll pick.
And I’ll pick.
And I’ll pick.
Until she cracks.
And then she’ll see clarity. That it’s supposed to be us together. It’s always supposed to have been us. And we’ll finally be happy.
Together.
31
Mercy
My hands shake as I finish cooking tacos.
Aeron has been holed up in his new room most of the afternoon, but since I start cooking, he’s been sitting in the living room, alternating between messing around his phone and staring at me. More so staring at me, and it’s making me crazy nervous.
“What?” I laugh, staring down at the food so he doesn’t have to see the blush coating my cheeks.
“I just can’t stop staring at you. You’re beautiful, Mercy. I don’t think I’ve ever told you that before.” He sounds so sure. His voice is strong, like he’s aged and matured so much in these last twelve months.
I don’t say anything because I don’t think I could speak any words even if I tried. It’s like he sucked my words right out of me like Ursula did in the Little Mermaid. I feel like he does this to me all the time, takes my breath and my words away.
I take a deep breath. “Okay, dinner’s ready.”
He gets up off couch, walking over to me and silently sitting down across from me.
We work silently, preparing our own tacos and taking a few bites.
“So,” He says, pausing to finish his bite. “What’re you going to college for?”
“Teaching.”
His eyebrows raise. “Really? That’s awesome.”
I nod my head, thinking about earlier. “So, have you been out to the cemetery at all? Or was today your first time?”
A frown takes over. “I’ve been out there a few times.”
Silence.
“Mercy, about Aric…”
I put my hand up. “I really don’t want to talk about it right now.” Or ever.
“We need to.”
“No, we don’t.”
“How are we ever supposed to move on if we can’t talk about what happened? The three of us?”
“What makes you think I even want to move on? With you?” It’s harsh, I know. But he can’t come in here and bring up his brother to me and assume stuff out of the blue.
“Cut the shit, Mercy. You don’t have to be a bitch about it.” He scowls at me.
“I’m sorry.” I push my plate away from me, suddenly having lost my appetite. “I just don’t want to talk about it.”
He pushes away his own plate. “We’re going to fucking talk about it, Mercy. I can sit here and pretend to be some meek pushover, but I’m not. What happened between Aric, you, and me was fucked up. It never should have gotten to be like that. I honestly probably should have just stepped back and let you be happy, but I’m too much of a selfish asshole to allow that. Yes, a part of me blames myself for his death. I’m sorry that I blamed you, it never was, and it never has been your fault. I hope you realize that. But I’m over that now. I’m over the drugs, I’m over doing the stupid, juvenile shit. I’m here because I want to be. I’m here because I’m finally grown enough to start something. With you.”
“You really screwed me up.” I wipe underneath my eyes. I’ll never forget the look he gave me when he told me I killed Aric. Never.
“Baby, that was never my intention. Well, I mean—fuck. The type of person that I was is not the type of person that I really am. I was so fucked up on drugs that I couldn’t even see straight half the time. I blamed life for my mom dying and I blamed my brother for taking the spotlight after she died. I hated life, Mercy. I was a fuck up and an idiot, but that’s not who I am. Let me just prove it to you. Let me show you who I really am.”
I push my chair back and stand up.
“Where are you going?” He barks at me.
“I just… I need a minute.” I walk to the door and slip on my shoes. When he realizes I’m leaving, he moves his own chair back and stands up. “You’re not leaving, are you?” He asks in shock.
I put my hand up. “I just need a minute to breathe. Please, just give me some time, okay?”
He falls back in his chair, and with a deep line between his eyebrows, he nods.
I quickly walk out the door, closing it softly behind me and walking down the street. I don’t know where I’m going or what I’m doing. All I know is that I needed to get away. I need to think and think some more. I don’t know what the right decision to make is, but I knew I couldn’t make it with Aeron looking at me like he was. Like I’m the light of his life and the answer to all his questions.
I walk down the road to a random park bench and sit down.
What the hell am I supposed to do?
What is the answer here?
I have two choices.
I can go back there and tell Aeron that we can’t take the leap. I can keep my heart locked away and take the easy and safe choices for my entire life. It would suck, because I’d never fully allow myself to be in love with anyon
e else. I’d always be lacking, and probably forever alone. The good thing about that would be me never having to deal with heartbreak ever again. On the off chance that me and Aeron did get together and didn’t work out, I’d never have to deal with the repercussions of losing him again.
Or… I can go back there and just give in. I can listen to Aeron and trust his words. I so badly want to believe him, but understandably, our past makes me hesitant. But giving into him means giving into him fully, and I wouldn’t hold back this time. There’s no person on the sidelines I have to worry about. There’re no drugs that make me faded. There’s absolutely nothing from keeping me away from him this time. I think that’s why I’m so hesitant. There are finally no barriers blocking us from each other.
The extent that I could get hurt is limitless. I could crash and burn and there would be no picking up the pieces this time.
There would be no next time.
Am I ready for that?
Am I ready to be vulnerable to the man who can obliterate me at the snap of his fingers?
I take a breath and stand up. Resolved, I start walking back to my house.
I know what I need to do.
32
Aeron
I stand in front of the window, biting my nails as I wait for Mercy to appear down the road. Or a call on my cell phone.
Anything.
I watched as the woman I’m in love with run out the door. Run away from me. It tore my heart in half, but there was a light in her eyes that made me think it won’t be the last time we’re together. Something in her look reassured me that our book hasn’t ended.
I know she feels something for me. It’s embedded in our veins. We’re meant to be together, and it just took a while for that to come true.
If she walks back in this door and wants nothing to do with me, I’ll walk out the door and never come back. I’ll let her be happy, because at the end of the day that’s all I want for Mercy. I might slam my fist into the wall on the way out, but I’ll still go.
I didn’t come here to ruin her life. I came to see if there was still a ripple between us.
I didn’t expect the entire wave.
It blows me over, to be honest. It makes me a little nervous because as I stand here, there’s nothing more that I want then to run to Dirk’s house and hit a line of blow. My nerves make me vulnerable, which is why I usually keep my shit locked up tight.
I’m not going back down that road, though. I refuse to let Mercy down again.
I’ll drown myself before I let that happen.
When I see a shadow of a girl turn the corner, my heart rate kicks up. I can feel it in my chest, huge thumps that reverberate through my entire body. I inhale and let out a massive breath. No matter what happens, I’ll be happy for her.
I’ll be happy for her.
I step away from the window. I don’t want to seem like a creep watching for her. I sit down on the couch and pull out my phone, fiddling around and waiting for her.
I’ll always wait for her.
“Hello?” Her eyes rush around the room in panic until they land on me. They settle, turning to relief.
Then resolve.
“Hey.” I say from the couch. Nerves rush through me. I have to shout at my muscles to keep still. I so badly want to rush over to her, but I can’t.
Not yet.
She walks over to me, sitting down on the couch and staring at the floor.
“So.” She starts.
“So.” I mimic.
She puffs out a nervous laugh. Looking up at me, she starts. “Okay.” The word tumbles out of her like a simple lyric.
“Okay?” I hesitate. My insides start shaking. I’ve never felt this way before. Life could go two ways, but I need it to go the right way.
I need her.
“You want to start something with me? You want to show me who you really are? I’m telling you okay. I’m in.”
“You’re in?” I whisper.
“I’m in.” She smiles at me.
“What made you change your mind?” I have to ask. I need to be certain she’s really in. Because once we take this step, I’ll never let her go.
Never again.
“Because when I first met you, I knew we were different. I knew that there was something about you that I’d never be able to get away from. I tried to run from it from the longest time. But I’ve been alone for a year, and I’ve realized it’s nothing I can run from. I can’t hide from you, and I don’t want to, Aeron. I’m tired of running from you. That day in that pool last year, you told me I can hide from you, but that you’d find me every single time. Well you know what, Aeron? I ran, and you found me. Game over. You win. I don’t want to play anymo—”
I cut her words off and smash my lips to his, taking away her words and her breath with it. I cup her face, my tattooed fingers feeling every dip and groove in her soft face. I pull her close, wanting her to sink into me. I bask in her scent and her taste, growing hard at her small moans.
I release her, wrapping my arm around her shoulders and pulling her against me. We lean against the couch, breathing deeply as we stare at the ceiling. Thinking. Contemplating. Basking.
She turns her head towards me. “Why do you think this happened?”
Confused, I look towards her. “What do you mean?”
“Us. Aric and I. Why do you think the stuff with Aric happened if I was meant to end up with you anyway?”
“Mercy. It didn’t work with you guys because it wasn’t meant to be.” Sadness hits me when I think about my brother. It always will.
She looks up at me, her eyes bloodshot and the tip of her nose red. “How do you know, though?”
“Because you’ve been mine from the start.”
“I met him first.”
“You were still mine, even then.”
Her eyes change, from eyes of sadness to eyes of hope.
Hope.
I love the hope.
I revel in the hope.
“So where do we go from here?” She asks, tears finally dry as she looks at me with wonder.
“Well, I think first I need to show you something.” I get up and walk to my room, grabbing the bundle from deep in my bag and bringing it back to the living room, hiding it behind my back.
“What is it?” She looks at me skeptically.
I walk right up to her. “I just want you to know, I’ve been a jackass in the past. A real loser, honestly. But deep down inside, I always knew there was something about you. It’s always been you, Mercy.” I take out the stack of letters, wrapped in rubber bands to keep them compacted together. “I’ve read each one of these at least a million times. Memorized each word by heart. You bled your feelings into each word, and I’m going to spend the rest of my life showing you that I fucking love you.”
She cries, shoulders shaking as she looks at the bundle in my hands. “You kept them? You told me your cell mate used them as toilet paper.”
“Yeah, I’m a real piece of shit sometimes. I never let another soul even look at them.”
“You love me?” So glad she caught that.
“Yes, Mercy, I love you more than you could ever know.”
“I love you too, Aeron. So much.”
I sit down, dropping the letters onto the ground and pulling her into my lap. “Will you love me even when you hate me?”
“I’ll love you even twice as much then, because you’ll spend each moment fighting for me. Fighting for us. And to me, that means you love me. Completely. Irrevocably. Forever.”
~
Dear Aeron,
I haven’t received a response from you. Have you received any of my letters? I sit at this table in the corner every evening while we take our showers and make our phone calls, and I wish I could talk to you on the phone. Listen to your voice and hear your rasp as it dances into my ear and fills my heart. I’m losing hope that you still want me. I’m holding out hope, but as the days grow shorter and the nights grow longer, so does my opti
mism that you’re still holding out hope for me. I hope that you stay warm in your bed at night and I hope that my letters can give you some warmth until the next time we see each other. I know we never truly decided on what we were, but as every second goes by, this muscle beating in my chest aches and I know it’s because without you, I feel like a piece of me is missing. I feel… incomplete. This might be jumping the gun and you might run for your life the next time you see me, but I finally have to get this off my chest.
I love you, Aeron Reid. I love you so fucking much, and I hope you feel the same.
Please write back. I wait for your letters every day.
Please. Write back.
-Mercy
Epilogue
Mercy
Five years later
“Are you ever going to tell me where we’re going?” I ask him, vision dark.
“Nope.” Aeron pops the P on the word, and I just about tear the blindfold off.
“Can I just take this off? This is kind of ridiculous, it’s almost been an hour.” I huff.
“I told you, it’s a surprise.”
I make a face at him, and he just chuckles.
We’ve been driving for most of the day, and although I know we’re driving west, Aeron made me put on the blindfold about an hour ago, and I honestly have no clue where we are in the country at this point.
He kind of just threw this road trip at me last second, and he’s lucky that it’s summer, because otherwise I wouldn’t be able to get out of work. I just started the other year at Pineview Elementary School in Lake City. I’m a kindergarten teacher, and I can honestly say I love it. Some days I hate it, but those are the days the kids want to be a pain in my ass. Most of the days, I love it. Like, really love it.
I’ve been with Aeron for five years. It’s been five years of chaos. It doesn’t really surprise me, since I’m sure this is how our entire life will be.
I love our chaos.
When I graduated last year, I was just finishing up being a teaching aide at Pineview when the principal came up to me and offered me a position.