by Nicky James
“But you don’t want to go with him?”
Iggy buried his face in his hands and groaned. “That’s not it. I’d follow him anywhere. Do anything for him. I love him. He’s it for me. I’d go to Alaska if he asked me to. But, my mom is here, and she needs me. I’m all she has. She can’t live on her own without my help. She’d have to move into a supported living environment and that would break her heart. I don’t know what to do. It feels like my heart is being torn in half and I’m gonna hurt someone I love without meaning to. So I haven’t given him an answer one way or another.
“Arden’s young and a bit impulsive. He’s jumped to conclusions, and I haven’t corrected them because I don’t know what to say. Because I’ve stayed quiet, I think he’s decided I just don’t love him enough to go with him which is the furthest thing from the truth. But I don’t want to tell him it’s because of Mom. He’ll turn down the offer and stay, and he needs to take it. This is a once in a lifetime kinda thing. He can’t say no. I’d hate myself for the rest of my life if I was the reason he turned it down. Fuck! I don’t know what to do.”
He bent in half and buried his face in his lap, hands clasped behind his head.
It was one of those moments where I knew a friend needed support, a physical touch—a pat on the shoulder, a hand to hold, a hug—and I just didn’t know how to break through that barrier I’d created in my mind and provide it. With Raven and Erin, it was easy. Outside of those two, it took a concentrated effort.
So I blew out a breath, held my jaw tight, and rested my hand on Iggy’s back, rubbing a few times before giving his shoulder a squeeze. I ignored the buzzing under my skin insisting I let go and fought to maintain the connection.
“Have you talked to your mother?”
“No. I’ve been battling with options and coming up dry. Last time we talked about assisted living she got angry and said she didn’t need that and was fine on her own. And she is. To a point. I don’t think she realizes how much I do and how lost she’d be if I wasn’t there.”
“Well, for starters, I think you need to tell Arden the truth. Him believing it’s because you don’t love him enough is probably cutting him pretty deep.”
“I know it is. I see it.” Iggy sat up again and palmed his eyes. They glistened with unshed tears and were strained. “We just had dinner with some friends, and he did all he could to ignore me. He wouldn’t touch me. Barely talked to me. After, he stormed off, and I got the hint I shouldn’t follow.”
“He needs to understand what you’re struggling with. I know what it’s like to be responsible for a parent. I know how impossible it would have felt if someone had presented me with the same thing a year ago, and my mother was in a home and didn’t know me from Adam. Still, I don’t think I could have walked away. Maybe your mom would move with you. Would Arden be opposed to having her live with you? Would she be okay with that? Or, maybe you could hire a nurse to go in a few days a week to take care of her. If your mother knew what you were facing, would she still be opposed to assisted living? She’d want you to live your life too, Iggy. Not be tied down. She’d want you happy.”
“I don’t know.”
“Talk to Arden. Don’t let him give up his dream but don’t let him think it’s because you don’t love him.”
Iggy nodded and let out a long, tired breath. “I know. You’re right.”
I clasped his knee and gave a small squeeze of encouragement before letting go. “I have to run. My sugars are crashing, and if I don’t eat, I’ll be a mess. Will you be okay?”
“Yeah. I’ll… I’ll talk to him.”
“Good stuff.”
I rose, and Iggy copied. “Thanks a lot,” he said, shoving his hands in his pocket and rocking on his feet.
“Anytime. I mean it.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Arden
I read and re-read my notes for the following day, practicing what I wanted to say and imagining all the different questions people might ask and how I might respond. Except, I was having trouble focusing. Ever since dinner, I’d been a ball of nerves. My skin prickled and my heart fluttered every time I thought about Iggy and the things he wasn’t saying.
My frustration had been building and building since the plane ride until it overwhelmed me and I couldn’t help reacting. I’d been purposefully indignant. I think he got the message I was pissed when I stormed off the minute Finn and Aven were out of sight. He didn’t follow me and hadn’t returned to our room.
It’d been over an hour.
If our relationship was over, I wished he’d just say so and quit dragging me along. If it was simply that he didn’t want to move to Toronto, then he needed to speak the fuck up so I could give Vortex my answer and look for work locally.
It would hurt giving this job up, but if Iggy really didn’t want to go and it wasn’t because he didn’t love me enough, then I’d stay. Simple as that.
For him, I’d stay.
He was worth more than a job.
Even if this was the best job a new graduate could get.
It was after eight before Iggy returned to our room. The minute I heard the unlocking click of the door, my muscles stiffened, and I snatched my notebook off the bed again and pretended I was busy—even though I’d given up on my presentation ages ago.
He didn’t speak, but I felt his presence at the foot of the bed. I couldn’t look at him. Foreboding hung in the air, thick and strangling, and I knew, I knew it would all be over if I moved a single muscle.
So I stayed frozen, staring at the blurred words in the notebook, unseeing.
We were different in a lot of ways. Iggy was older and softer spoken. As an only child, he grew up different than me. Iggy wasn’t a fighter. He wasn’t aggressive or prone to anger. He had a gentle, kind edge to him that made him easy to like. His heart was huge, and his smile could improve even the shittiest of days.
I had grown up in a large family. I competed for attention all the time with my siblings. I fought to be heard. If I wanted to be noticed, I had to stand out. It’d made me feistier and more obstinate. Quicker to respond. Easier to anger. Rougher around the edges and a little vindictive when I was pushed too hard—just ask my oldest brother Phoenix. We’d gone at it more than a few times.
Not my finer qualities. But I was aware of them.
No matter how moody or selfish or indignant I was, Iggy always seemed to understand. What would bother most people didn’t make him flinch.
He loved me regardless—or so I thought.
Maybe he didn’t. Maybe I’d been wrong this whole time.
I was in limbo at the moment. Stuck in a silent standoff. The future unknown.
“Can we talk?” he asked, his voice soft and warm but lined with a thread of worry.
“I’m busy,” I mumbled, sneering at the notebook in my lap like it was to blame for all my problems.
To make my point, I flipped a page rather dramatically, almost ripping it, and grabbed my pen, jotting down random notes that made no sense. Gibberish. Nonsense. Anything to look distracted.
“Arden—”
“I really need to work on this.”
I really didn’t.
He breathed sharply out his nose and sat on the edge of the bed with his back facing me. He rested his elbows on his knees and cupped the back of his neck as he bent forward, dropping his head.
Rigid.
Unmoving.
Only his labored breaths filled the silent room.
I stared at his back. Wondered what he was thinking.
We really did need to talk, but if this was it, if it was the end, I wasn’t sure I was ready to hear it. Not when I had to be put together for tomorrow and talk in front of a room full of doctors.
If Iggy shut the door on our relationship, my heart would shatter. I couldn’t do it. Not here. Not in Alberta. Not two thousand miles away from my family.
Not when we had to share a room.
A bed.
I refocused on my notebook.
The words blurred as I fought back the flood of emotions swamping me. Their meaning was lost in the chaos of what ifs. I sat perfectly still, studiously aware of Iggy’s presence.
He didn’t move.
His back rose and fell.
His fingers dug grooves into the back of his neck.
He kept his face hidden.
I wanted to scream. Ask him why. Ask him what he meant when he’d said he knew it would come to this.
The minutes ticked by. The silence was deafening.
At nine-thirty, we still hadn’t spoken.
Ten o’clock came and went.
Ten-thirty.
Eleven.
I yawned. We’d both had a long day of travel. This couldn’t go on.
I put my notebook on the bedside table and inched toward the edge of the bed. My goal was to use the washroom, undress, and crawl under the covers to sleep.
The minute I moved, Iggy tilted his head to the side. Our gazes caught and locked. His eyes were rimmed with red and strained at the edges. He looked wrung out. Exhausted.
Sad.
Before I could escape to the bathroom, he was on his feet, crowding me, clutching my upper arms, searching my face.
I crushed my molars together to avoid speaking. My eyes stung. My heart pinched. I held my breath.
His lower lip quivered once before he stopped it. Then he kissed my forehead, once, twice, a third time, lingering longer. The final kiss was more wet than the first two and was accompanied by a sob that choked in his throat.
“Take the job,” he whispered. “Just… please take the job.”
My blood boiled when he didn’t go on. He didn’t say, “I’ll come with you” or “I love you” or “Mi corazón” which meant my heart in Spanish. He whispered that in my ear all the time. When we made love, when we woke in the early morning, when we came together again after a long day. I was his heart, his soul, his life.
But not today.
Today it was simply, “Take the job.”
I shoved from his hold and glared daggers. Hurt and angry and gutted. “And then what?” I snapped. “Go alone? Leave you behind? Is that what you want? Or are you coming too, Iggy? Which is it? Because you haven’t said a damn thing. Where the hell do we sit? What happens to us? Is there an us? Do you even—" I choked off the rest of that sentence, unable to finish.
My heart thrashed. My skin itched. I couldn’t keep the wobble from my voice. Terror engulfed me. My breathing hitched.
“No… No. You know what?” I said before he could say a damn thing. “Don’t answer any of that. Not here. Not now. You do not get to dump me when we are two thousand miles from home.”
“Arden—”
“Stop!” I yelled. “Just shut up.” I covered my ears and backed toward the bathroom. The first tears broke through and spilled down my cheeks. “Just not here. Not now. Please.”
The horror on Iggy’s face was all I needed to see. It was too much. I slammed the bathroom door and slid down to sit on the other side, knees drawn up and hopes shattered.
Then I cried.
Iggy knocked and called my name. Begged me to open the door and talk to him, but I didn’t want to. If we didn’t say the words, then I could at least live in this bubble of lies for one night longer.
After a while, Iggy gave up.
Still, I remained in the bathroom.
I didn’t know how much time passed, but when the walls pressed in on me and my muscles cramped from being on the floor, I stood. I had a long shower, brushed my teeth, and cracked the door open, peering into the dark room beyond.
Iggy lay on our bed, facing away from me, curled in a ball on top of the covers, fast asleep.
I tiptoed into the room and slinked under the covers on the far side. A huge part of me wanted to curl around Iggy or slip into his arms so he could hold me while I slept, the way he’d done every night before today.
The distance between us was like a canyon. He couldn’t have been further away.
It was after midnight according to my phone. Two in the morning back home. I thumbed through my contacts in the dark and pulled up my brother’s number. Phoenix and I had become a lot closer in recent months, so it was his name where I paused.
Not only was he my oldest brother but he was Iggy’s best friend.
With my heart in my throat, I typed him a message, unsure if he’d answer since it was so late.
Arden: I think Iggy is going to break up with me.
It was silent for a long time. Typing the words, seeing them written in plain text made my bottom lip quiver. I stared at Iggy’s back, wondering at all the things he’d said. Of all the love he claimed to have for me.
He was perfection in my eyes. He had been since I was ten years old.
My phone vibrated with an incoming text.
Phoenix: It’s the middle of the night! Why is he breaking up with you? What did you do?
Arden: I don’t know. Nothing, I don’t think.
Phoenix: Then why would you say that? Iggy fucking loves you. Enough it’s disturbing when he talks about it.
But not enough. Not enough to ask me to stay or to follow behind me.
Arden: He told me to take the job in Toronto, but I don’t think he’s going to come with me.
Phoenix didn’t respond for a long time, and I worried he’d fallen asleep. The minutes ticked by and I held my breath. Had Iggy talked to Phoenix about this? Did Phoenix already know?
Phoenix: Did he say that? That he wasn’t coming with you?
Arden: No. I wouldn’t let him. We got in a fight. I yelled at him and told him to shut up because I didn’t want to hear it. I was afraid of what he’d say.
Phoenix: Maybe stop being a little fuck head and let the man talk. Iggy doesn’t do well when he’s attacked. He’s not me. He needs calm, rational conversation and time to form his words. Don’t jump to conclusions. Listen.
I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. I hated when Phoenix made sense.
Arden: Yeah. I know. He’s asleep now. Tomorrow.
Phoenix: Keep me posted.
Phoenix: It will be okay. Trust me, he loves you.
I read Phoenix’s last two texts three times each, wondering, hoping that he knew something I didn’t. Defeated, I tossed my phone on the bedside table and shimmied closer to Iggy, needing his comfort and warmth.
His love.
He stirred and rolled over. Sensing my close proximity, he reached an arm out in his sleep and drew me against his chest. The blankets were tangled awkwardly between us since I was under them and he wasn’t, but I sank into the embrace. If all I was going to get was one last night in his arms, I would soak it up, savor it, and remember it forever.
His lips met my forehead, and he kissed me. He brushed his nose along my hairline and inhaled.
“Te amo,” he whispered in his sleep. “Siempre. Mía.”
I love you. Always. Mine.
My tears fell again, and I clung to him, buried my face in his chest and cried myself to sleep.
I woke before the sun, still in Iggy’s arms, still tangled in blankets.
He didn’t stir when I crawled out of bed, nor when I dressed in a pair of jogging pants and a hoodie. I gathered a few baggies of items we’d packed as grab-and-go snacks for me to eat while I was here, added a bottle of Ensure, and tucked them under my arm.
For a heartbeat, I thought of waking him, kissing him, touching him, but I refrained.
We needed to talk. I needed to allow for it.
I closed my eyes and prayed for strength.
Then I left.
There were lots of places downstairs where I could sit and eat my breakfast. Places where Iggy couldn’t confront me before I was ready because they weren’t private.
Later.
Later, we could talk, and I hoped my world wouldn’t crumble.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Grayson
“Sunday, Mom. Our flight leaves here at three in the afternoon. That’s four your ti
me. It’s a two-hour flight.”
“Send your father the information, and I’ll be sure we’re at the airport to pick you both up.”
“I will. Mom, I’ve gotta let you—”
“How’s the conference?” she asked, cutting me off.
I fell back on the bed and covered my eyes. I knew answering her call would mean a prolonged conversation Beck and I didn’t have time for. Mom was impossible to get off the phone.
“It’s fine. The event I’m part of isn’t until this afternoon. Look, Beck and I were just ducking out to do some antique—”
“How is Beck? Is he there? Can I talk to him?”
I peeked out from behind my arm. Beck waited impatiently by the door to our room, arms crossed, glaring. We’d been five seconds from walking out the door when my phone rang.
He’d hate me for this, but maybe he’d have better luck getting her to say goodbye.
“Yeah, he’s here. Hold on.”
Beck’s eyes bulged from behind his glasses, and he waved his hands frantically, warding off my attempt to hand him the phone. Relenting with a quiet grumble that wouldn’t travel beyond the two of us, he snatched the phone from my hand and plastered an irritated smile on his face.
“Hey, Ma. So good to hear from you. How're things?”
Good thing Mom was oblivious to sarcasm.
While they chatted, I rolled off the bed and fixed my clothes. I pocketed my wallet, grabbed our room key and indicated for Beck to head out the door.
“Yeah, I’m looking forward to seeing you too,” he said. “Haven’t been back to the old neighborhood since we left.”
We wandered toward the elevator, and Beck shoulder-bumped me, sneering playfully. I’d been smothered by two overprotective parents growing up, and Beck had somehow found himself lost in the mix too. Mom called us at least once a week to check up, and there were days the attention got tiring.
“Yup, almost thirteen years… I bet it is.”
I punched the button for the underground parking, and the doors slid shut.
“Oh, shit—I mean crap. Ma, Gray and I are just heading out. Reception is kinda bad in the elevator. I’m gonna have to let you go.” He grinned at me as he nodded. “Yup. Love you too… See you soon.”