by Jessica Roe
In unison we turn our heads to face each other, so close our noses brush. I feel the heat of his breath on my lips. If only I could keep that feeling, bottle it up and never let it go.
I want nothing more than to lose myself in Nathan; to numb the pain with his lips, to use his body to make myself forget. I can tell he feels the same. But we can’t. Even as drunk and ridiculous as I am, I know we can’t. Not just because of Seth, but because we can’t bring ourselves to be that destructive with one another. What we share, have always shared, is beautiful. To use each other to numb the pain would mar that, would destroy that beauty forever. Besides, Nathan would never take advantage of me while I’m so drunk – not even if I wanted him to.
He’s the first to move closer, pressing his forehead against mine. His eyes squeeze tightly shut as his head presses harder against my own. “Tell me you didn’t mean it,” he begs softly, his hand coming up to cup my cheek.
I don’t have to ask what he’s talking about. He wants me to tell him I didn’t mean any of those awful things I said to him that day back at his place. If I weren’t so drunk, if my defenses weren’t lowered, perhaps I’d be able to keep up the charade. But I am drunk; drunk, exhausted, and completely wrung out. So instead of lying to him again, I press my cheek against his and whisper, “Of course I didn’t mean it. You were never a mistake. How could you be? You’re my Nathan, and I’m you’re Phee. Always.”
He lets out a sigh as the relief seeps from him, his shoulders sagging. His fingers link with mine and his head drops to my shoulder. “Thank you.”
+++
TIME PASSES. MINUTES, hours, I don’t know. Eventually I get tired of sitting. I stand so quickly it makes me dizzy and startles Nathan, who falls back with a laugh. It reminds me so much of the day we first met that for a moment I can’t even handle it.
“Come on,” I encourage, reaching down for his hand to yank him up.
“Where?” he wants to know, but I ignore his question because it should be obvious. I drag him by the hand after me as I dart through the woods.
A knowing grin takes place on his face when we arrive at the lake. It’s still very cold out so it’s empty of people today – not even a dog walker has braved it out here. But his smile soon fades when I pull the black dress over my head and toss it to the ground. “Phee, what the fuck are you doing? It’s freezing out here, dumb ass.”
“Let’s go swimming!” Suddenly it seems like the best idea I’ve ever had. I laugh joyfully as I spin in a circle, dancing towards the water.
“It’s fucking freezing. We’ll get frost bite and all our good parts will fall off.” But the smile is back, tugging at his lips.
I take a step back and my feet hit the water. He was right – it’s fucking freezing. The water is cold enough to shock even my drunken system, but though I know I’ll probably regret it when I’m dying of flu tomorrow, I like it. It makes me feel alive again. “Chicken!”
“What are you, twelve?” he demands, but he’s kicking off his shoes. The shirt comes next and I don’t bother to hide my appreciation. What’s the point? Boy knows I like what I see.
Another step back. I gasp when the icy water laps against my knees.
“What are we even doing?” Nathan asks exasperatedly. The pants are off and discarded, and now he’s wading into the lake after me, wincing as the unforgivingly cold water attacks his skin. Not half filled with wine like I am, I imagine the temperature must be much harder for him to bear. And yet he keeps on following me.
“Skinny dipping!” I yell with a laugh at the top of my lungs, splashing the surface of the lake with my fingers as the water reaches my thighs.
“Does it even count as skinny dipping if we’re still wearing underwear?” He smirks smugly at his own question.
“Maybe.” I spin in the water, not caring about semantics. I just need. . .I just need to be free, like I was when I was a kid. Just for a little while. Free of responsibilities, of heartbreak, of death and grief. Just free. And right now I can think of nothing more freeing than this.
Most people would have called me an idiot and frog marched me right out of the freezing water with a lecture and a disapproving tone. But Nathan isn’t most people; he’d follow me anywhere if I asked him to. Nathan gets me, just as he’s always done. He gets why I need to do this right now. He understands.
His eyes meet mine and he looks at me. Really looks at me. It’s that look, the one amused and exasperated and full of love, all at once. It’s the look he only ever gave to me. That look was mine. Is mine.
I take another step back, and Nathan follows me deeper.
Chapter 30
Nathan
WHEN PHEE’S TEETH start to chatter so violently I genuinely worry she’s going to crack them and her lips turn a pretty shade of blue, I reluctantly accept it’s time for me to take her home to her family. I have to give her back now, before she goes and gets herself ill. My time with her is up, and God do I hate to admit that.
She doesn’t protest when I gather her up in my arms and carry her cute ass back to shore. As I wade to the surface I try to memorize the feel of her body next to mine, but the icy water has left me numb and my senses are all shot to hell.
“It’s wet,” she protests sleepily when I slip the dress back over her head. She’s shivering hard and it makes the task difficult.
“No, idiot, you’re wet.” My heart swells with love for her when she goes and falls asleep right there. It fucking swells.
The fiancé looks understandably worried as hell when I get her back home thirty minutes later, after traipsing through that damned forest and getting lost twice. He takes a look at her tucked up in my arms, her hair wet and her black dress clinging to her body, and then at me, just as wet and covered in scratches and pieces of forest.
“Thank God!” He reaches out his arms for her. I hesitate for a moment, unwilling to hand her over. But then I remember she’s no longer mine, so it’s with a heavy heart that I allow him to take her from me. “I’ve driven around town twice now. The rest of the family are still out looking for her – I was just about to call the cops. She was supposed to be in bed!”
I bite back the comment I want to make about how he can’t know her all that well if the lake wasn’t the first place he looked for her. It takes all the fucking restraint in the world, but I manage to keep my mouth shut. I deserve a damn medal.
“She wanted to go for a swim,” I tell him with a wry grin. If he understands Phee at all, he’ll understand this.
But I can tell from the look on his face that he doesn’t. His brows furrow in suspicion. “Right.”
My hands go up in the air. “That’s all, I swear. Come on, man. I wouldn’t take advantage of her - girl was drunk out of her goddamned mind.”
The suspicion doesn’t entirely fade, but he no longer looks like he wants to kill me. His expression softens when he glances down at her sleeping face, softly snoring away. “Thank you for bringing her back to me.”
A white hot lash of pain slices my heart, and for a second I can’t swallow around the thick lump in my throat. “Get her to bed,” I eventually manage to reply. “Make sure she’s warm. She’s gonna feel like shit tomorrow, and not just ‘cause she drank her weight in booze.” I don’t know why I’m even telling him this – the guy’s a doctor, he knows his shit. But I need to say something.
“I’ll take care of her.”
I know he isn’t only talking about tonight. I’ve never believed anything more in my whole life.
A car pulls up on the gravelly drive behind us, and Ellie and a woman with a mane of dark hair climb out, the relief on their faces when they see Phee safely home evident.
“Where the hell was the bitch?” the younger of the two demands to know, barely sparing me a second glance. She folds her arms across her chest as she comes to a halt. “Swear to Satan I’m gonna wring that little neck of hers when she wakes up. In fact, wake her up now so I don’t have to wait.”
“Nellie,”
Seth admonishes quietly. The name rings a bell. “Her mom just died.”
“Yeah, well. . .” The anger on that stubborn face fades away and her shoulders sag. “Yeah.” Turning to me, she looks me up and down, appraising me thoroughly without shame. I see recognition dawn when she figures out who I am, and I remember then where I heard her name before. She’s the best friend, the one Phee told about me in college. “Shit.”
“Don’t worry, I’m just leaving,” I assure her. I’m not her to cause trouble; I’ve done enough of that.
“No,” Seth says, surprising me. “Come in for a moment.”
Well if that doesn’t sound like the most awkward fucking plan in the history of mankind. “I-”
“Please.”
There’s something about the guy that is very hard to say no to, which is funny, because I don’t usually have a problem with it. Sighing, I reluctantly agree and follow the trio inside.
Seth drops Phee off in her room, and Ellie and Nellie follow him in to dry her off and change her clothes. He’s on his phone when he leaves them to it a minute later, joining me where I’ve been waiting in the kitchen, standing awkwardly to one side of the room.
“I’ve just let her dad and brother know she’s okay,” he fills me in, placing the phone down on a counter. Everything about him just screams ‘responsible adult’. He makes me feel like a fucking kid standing next to him. “They’re on their way back now. To be honest this was the last thing any of them needed today.”
That’s true, but I hope he doesn’t try to guilt Phee about it when she wakes up in the morning. She’s going to feel shitty enough about it as it is. “Then I need to get outta here. I’m the last face either of them are gonna want to see today.”
He doesn’t deny it, which I appreciate. I hate bullshitters. Mighty hypocritical of me because I’m bullshitter of the fucking century, I have to admit. “That’s fair. I just wanted to thank you for bringing her back safe. I know that can’t have been easy for you.”
“I’d never let anything happen to her.”
“I know.”
We stare at each other for a long moment, both of us searching for something. And then it passes between us and I realize what it is. It feels a lot like. . .understanding.
“I should head out,” I say, breaking the silence.
“Yeah.” He stands up straighter. “Yeah, okay.”
I move to the front door, but before I leave I turn back to him. “I’m sorry,” I tell him sincerely. “for the way I’ve acted. You’re. . .you’re a decent guy and you didn’t deserve it.”
Most men would have sneered at my apology, would have treated me with hatred and disdain after everything I’ve done, after the piece of shit way I’ve behaved. Most men probably would have thrown a punch of two my way, and it would have been deserved. But not Seth. Phee was right – he’s a good man. Better than me.
“Thank you. I accept your apology,” he answers carefully. And then he admits, “I don’t like you. I’ll never want to be your friend and as far as I’m concerned, the sooner Ophelia and I are back home and far away from you the better, but I understand why you’ve behaved the way you have. Because I understand what it’s like to love Ophelia more than life.”
I give him a jerky nod. It pains me greatly, but I can’t help but feel like if I ever had to lose Phee to anyone. . .
Well I can’t even finish the fucking thought.
Pulling open the front door and stepping out, I turn my head and spare one last glance at Seth over my shoulder. “All I’ve ever wanted was for Phee to be happy. I. . .wish you both the best. I really do.”
He doesn’t answer for a long moment. And then, “Thank you, Nathan.”
I leave. It takes everything I have, but I leave.
Chapter 31
Ophelia
WHEN I AWAKEN the next morning it’s to find the entire population of Hell have taken up residence inside my head; they’re attacking me with little pickaxes and pitchforks, tearing away at the walls of my brain in their determination to escape. Or to drive me crazy. Either seems logical. After only seconds of being awake I quickly determine that this is the worst hangover I’ve had since my days in college with Nellie. For real.
A bright shaft of golden daylight shines determinedly through a gap in my bedroom curtains, making its presence known. It’s too damned bright and it’s hurting my eyes, but I lack the energy or the will to move my head even an inch left or right.
Ah man, what did I do yesterday? It’s all so hazy.
I glance up, barely able to raise my heavy head, when my bedroom door is pushed open softly by Seth. One look at his handsome face and I get a flash of the wake; Seth disapproving of how much I was drinking, him blushing with embarrassment when I talked too loudly or stumbled through the room in search of more wine.
And then like an awful movie reel playing inside my head, the rest of it comes back too, bit by bit. Nellie putting me to bed like a child. Escaping through my bedroom window. . .like a child. Nathan. The lake.
I come up empty when I try to remember what came after that. Hopefully it’s because I fell asleep and not because I did something soul destroying enough that my brain was forced to expel the memory.
“Hey, you’re awake,” Seth greets, smiling while I blink up at him. Moving deeper into the room, he places a plate of toast and a glass of water on the nightstand next to my bed. I whimper pitifully when he pulls the curtains open wider and the rest of the light spills in, lighting up every surface of the room. Turning back to me, he chuckles at the look on my face and says, “Daylight will wake you up a little, make you feel more human. Besides, I need to be able to see you properly. I want to memorize every last freckle on your face.”
I’m confused by that, but I lack the strength to even ask.
Sitting on the edge of my bed, he looks down at me with fondness.
Though food is the last thing I want, Seth spends the next fifteen minutes helping me to nibble at the toast, and holding the glass of water up for me while I take tiny sips. I feel like an invalid, but it’s so nice to be taken care of that I have no complaints.
“My throat is on fire,” I croak when the toast is gone and I admittedly have a little more strength – enough to half sit up, anyway. This isn’t exactly the serious doctoring Seth is used to, but I appreciate it all the same.
Pressing the back of his hand to my forehead, he grimaces sympathetically. “Got yourself more than just hangover there, kiddo. Your icy swim has gone and gotten you ill.”
My efforts to sit are forgotten and my head drops back down to my pillow, my eyelids slamming shut.
Uh oh. He knows about that then.
I expect for him to want to talk about it some more, but instead he says, “Here, you can have these now there’s something in your stomach.” My eyes open when he hands me a couple of pain pills, and I swallow them down gratefully.
“You’re so sweet.”
“I know.” The rakish smile seems odd on his face; it shakes up the good guy persona, and I’m not sure he can pull it off.
“I’m lucky to have you taking care of me.”
His smile fades, replaced by something guarded, careful. “So. . .I talked with Nathan last night after he brought you back here.”
I glance quickly up at him, my heart beating double time. I don’t know why because he knows all my secrets now, but I panic. “You did?”
“I did. And I realized something.”
“What’s that?”
“I realized that he might just be the bravest man I’ve ever met.”
Well that. . .I was not expecting.
Stunned into complete silence, my mouth drops open, though I’m yet to come up with any sort of reply. My deathly hangover is momentarily forgotten.
“I mean it.” Seth is no longer looking at me, but out the window into the woods, his face pensive. Beams of sunlight catch him; causing him to glow. His voice is low and even, but I can tell it’s a struggle for him to keep it th
at way. “Because I see how much he loves you, I feel it. Even though you’re not together you’re still his whole world. And I know what it’s like to love you that way, to love you with my whole heart, which is why Nathan letting you go the way he has is the bravest act I’ve ever seen. He sacrificed his own happiness to do what was right by you.”
His words hurt my heart in unimaginable ways.
“I’m beginning to understand how painfully hard that must have been for him. The idea of letting you go, even though it’s what’s right by you, isn’t something I ever could have imagined having the strength to do.”
I’m starting to find it hard to breathe. There’s a pressure building within my chest, constricting me, suffocating me. Something is happening right now, something big, and I don’t understand what. I’m finding it very difficult to catch up. Or maybe I just don’t want to. A current of something hopeless and sorrowful runs between us.
Seth finally turns his head to look at me. One corner of his lips turn up, but it’s sad more than anything else. His eyes are wet. “Which is why I’m letting you go.”
A pained, surprised gasp escapes me. I gape, pushing myself up into a sitting position. “Seth, what. . .”
“It’s my turn to be a brave motherfucker.” In any other circumstance, hearing language like that coming from his mouth would have been comical. But not now. Never now.
He drops his head to stare at his thighs, his shoulders hunched.
A panicked feeling begins to claw away inside my chest. Moving to my knees, I cup his jaw and force him to look at me again. “Seth, I love you!” I haven’t been working hard enough to show him. I should’ve. . .I should’ve. . .I should’ve tried harder.
Twisting his body to face mine, he clasps both of my hands in his frantically, kissing my knuckles. “I know!” he replies earnestly, like he really needs me to understand this. “I know you love me, Ophelia. But. . .but you’ll never love me the way you love him. You’ll never look at me the way you look at him. And claiming to love you as much as I do yet keeping you from a love like that would be the most selfish thing I could ever do.”