Release

by J , Louise

  “But it is. We’ve been here so many times, the only thing different now is that you think you have evidence of something. You’ve been expecting things to go wrong, something to get in the way, so naturally you see that picture and you think the worst. You weren’t even open to the possibility of anything else. You still harbor the same feelings and uncertainties, and there’s only one way for me to stop having that effect on you. We can’t do this anymore, Brooklyn.”

  She has no idea what she’s done; she’s reminded me of exactly why I shouldn’t even want to be with her.

  This has to be it now.

  Fifty Six: Brooklyn

  Dane’s like a robot right now, programmed to feel no emotions. He’s only inches away from me, but with the way he’s looking at me there may as well be a stone wall between us.

  The worst thing is, I witnessed the moment that wall came up – the second after I told him he still loves Nadine.

  I never meant to say it that way; I wanted to ask if he did.

  I flinch slightly with surprise when he suddenly stands. He starts to walk away, without a single word.

  “Dane, I want to talk about this.” I get up and follow him to the balcony. I just want to understand.

  “There’s nothing more to say.” He unlocks the door and walks out. Everything about him is distant, unwavering; his movement, his tone, his presence.

  I’ve lost him.

  Silently, I stand at the door. The sun is setting and the early evening chill prickles my bare arms with goose bumps. I hug myself to gain some warmth. Dane’s by the railing, gazing straight ahead to the park across the street. It’s as though I’m not here.

  How do you keep someone if you’ve already become nonexistent to them?

  Walking out on to the balcony, I stand behind him. “Talk to me, please.” I’m hoping that it’s only to my own ears I sound so pathetic.

  You see, I’m torn right now. Part of me wants to cry, part of me wants to beg him to keep me, and part of me wants to accept his choice, hold my head high, and walk out the front door feeling nothing. I can’t do any of those things. I love him too much to let him go. I refuse to cry or beg. All I can do is wait for him to talk to me.

  Moments later, he turns to me. I see nothing but restraint. It’s in the tension of his posture, the edge of anger about his face, and the distance in his gaze as it locks with mine. He cups my cheeks. His stare softens a fraction along with his hold, but everything else about him remains ridged.

  “You make me feel everything to the extreme, Brooklyn, the good and the bad. I can just about tolerate the bad, even if it does drive me crazy, but I can’t take you doing this to yourself. And I can’t take the degree of your doubt. In ways you will never understand, for me, you are heaven and hell at the same time. If you could be happy and secure with me it would be worth it, you would be worth it, but you can’t be. It’s time we both recognized that. We stop this now.”

  He is so fucking serious, he means every word, and I can’t find the words to change his mind.

  How do I keep him?

  He pulls my face to his chest with my cheek pressed directly over his heartbeat. It’s strong, slightly accelerated. I can feel the resistance in his hold, like that first night I spent with him. There’s some kind of internal struggle.

  I feel desperate. “Don’t do this, Dane,” I say against his chest, fighting the urge to breathe him in, seeking the comfort his scent provides me with.

  For a second his hold tightens. The signature squeeze I love so much, but it’s not entirely the same. It’s too final. Then he lets go altogether. He’s still close, but he isn’t holding me.

  “I want you to go, Brooklyn,” he says with too much certainty.

  I raise my gaze up to his, and he looks away. “Dane?”

  He closes his eyes, closes me out. “I never wanted this in the first place, Brooklyn.”

  “Bollocks! I don’t believe that.” Finally, I find my voice, a voice with strength and purpose and not a feeble flipping mumble. I’m not letting him go. I won’t beg, no way will I beg, but I’m not letting him go, either.

  Dane’s eyebrows twitch in surprise, no doubt from my tone. His gaze connects with mine.

  “You might not have been actively seeking a relationship, but you wanted me. I might not have been more than a potential shag when you first approached me, but we both know that soon changed – you told me that yourself. Don’t waste your time trying to make me think you don’t want me, because it won’t work. Clearly you have issues – no one stays away from relationships without cause – but name me one person who doesn’t have issues. We’re all a bit fucked up.” I soften my tone, because this doesn’t need to be aggressive or mean. That’s not how we are.

  I take a deep breath. “I don’t doubt you. I know that sounds like crap, but I don’t. When I have had doubts, they were more about me – I didn’t know how to be enough for you. I didn’t know how to keep you. I don’t expect you to understand it, I don’t entirely understand it.”

  Having someone fucking with your head for two years and making you feel worthless goes quite some way to making you question whether you’re good enough. It isn’t easy letting that go, even when you can logically acknowledge it as wrong.

  “It’s like having this tiny fraction of my brain, a place where his poison still exists, that just sabotages my thoughts and feelings when they’re good. I got scared the moment I realized I was falling for you, and my fears got worse the deeper it got. Loving you made me feel powerless, because it meant you could hurt me, and I didn’t feel capable of taking anymore hurt, especially not from you – that’s what I’ve been so afraid of, and the same little portion of my head reminded me constantly that I’m not good enough. I thought that if you felt the same for me as I did you, we’d be equal and I’d be safe. None of that mattered to me anymore after that night you came to L.A., I let it go.

  “Then I found an ex who mattered to you hidden in a book. I shouldn’t have accused you of loving Nadine the way I did, and I’m sorry for that, but I needed to understand, I still do. Maybe I’m not completely unafraid if it affected me enough to have me questioning her place with you now, after all this time, which means I still have work to do. I don’t doubt you loving me, though, Dane. I want you to believe that if nothing else.”

  He turns away from me and braces his hands on the railing. I move to stand beside him, leaving no more than an inch between us, and grip the metal rail as well.

  “If loving me makes you powerless then I’m just as powerless for loving you back, Brooklyn. We’re both taking a chance here; I can and do hurt, too.”

  Some silent moments pass.

  “Nadine wasn’t hidden.” He turns to face me. I turn to face him. “That was her book. It was the only thing I wanted to keep. We read it together.”

  “Why would you keep her book just because you read it together? That’s quite sentimental.”

  “Because she died.”

  “She’s …?” I whisper. The entire surface of my skin becomes a mass of goose bumps and deep into my core I’m cold. I shoot up on my toes and wrap my arms around his neck, holding him as tight as I can. “I’m so sorry.” The words rush out. They’re not only for him, but for my way off assumption. I’ve never meant an apology more than I do right now.

  Dane returns my hold, his arms firm around my waist. For a long time we stay just so, in silence. Our body heat suppresses the cold, though I’m aware of the light chill against my back. Still, I remain. We remain.

  “I’m sorry, Dane. I’m sorry you lost Nadine that way, and I’m sorry for getting it so wrong.”

  “Brooklyn, baby, in the blink of an eye so many things can change.” His voice is barely audible. “Seeing someone you never knew existed and very quickly loving them more than you ever thought possible. Getting in a car that ends up upside down on the freeway and leaving behind your two children. Deciding to stay fishing instead of going home to do what you originally planned t
o do. Making a decision that means a simple activity you’ve carried out countless times before results in that decision becoming a life or death one.”

  “Nadine?” I whisper in reference to the last statement. “What happened to her?” I ask, and instantly wonder if it’s even appropriate.

  “She was out rollerblading with her friends. She fell and hit her head. I was out of town. We spoke after and she told me about it. She just had a bump and some scrapes. I was pissed at her because she didn’t wear her helmet. The next day, Elizabeth called me to come home. Nadine had a stroke and slipped into a coma. She had bleeding on her brain. By the time her mom found her it was too late.”

  I close my eyes against the sting of tears. We fall back into silence, still tightly bound.

  When I tore my Achilles it was the most excruciating pain I’ve ever experienced in my life. The type you can’t possibly describe, there are no words that fit. It’s brutal, debilitating, hell. I still feel like I haven’t done the experience justice. I find it amazing that, even though I was in agony, in a tiny portion of my brain I was able to acknowledge that I was fucked. Not because I’d have to withdraw from All about the Dance, but because I thought my dance career would be over forever. The pain told me I couldn’t possibly ever work my body, my foot, in all the ways I was used to, would need to.

  I remember specifically thinking, if I can’t dance again I want to be dead. Being a dancer was my dream, nothing else would’ve sufficed.

  When you think you are going to die, you want to live more than anything else.

  You want to live at any cost.

  When I thought I was going to die, I wanted to live more than I’d ever wanted anything else in my entire twenty-seven years before that. Nothing else, not even the career that felt like my lifeline at one point, mattered as much as living did. I can’t begin to imagine the hurt the people who loved me would’ve experienced if I hadn’t survived; it was bad enough witnessing the pain they went through just knowing how close they came to losing me. I saw it in their eyes and felt it every time they hugged me.

  It’s so easy to take things for granted, because the truth is we don’t really know what it’s like to be without something until we experience it. Being appreciative, grateful, is easy to fail at and let slip by unnoticed. Even during my worst moments this past year, I’ve been grateful for my life every day.

  I was given the chance to live. Nadine, Ray, and Dane’s parents weren’t.

  And he’s had to live through the pain of losing them all.

  Tonight, my heart has broken for him.

  Fifty Seven: Brooklyn

  When Dane and I came in from the balcony last night, all traces of daylight had gone. We laid on the bed together, entwined and fully clothed. We didn’t really speak. We were surrounded by a thoughtful silence. I was the first to fall asleep.

  As I started to drift, Dane’s whispered words were, “What did he do to you?”

  I wasn’t sure if I was meant to hear that, but sleep consumed me almost in the same moment.

  The first thing we did when we woke up this morning was shower together, in the same thoughtful silence. It wasn’t uncomfortable, it was just clear that there are things waiting to be said. When I met Dane’s gaze through the steaming spray, I knew then that he was waiting for my answer. I was meant to hear his whispered words.

  Now I stand in front of the full-length bathroom mirror, fresh from the shower, looking into my green eyes. My body is moisturized. My face is moisturized and makeup free. My hair is shiny and hangs loose down my back. Every single part of my physical self is exposed.

  I’m naked.

  Dane has seen me naked almost every day since we got together, and I’ve allowed him to handle my body in any way he’s desired, feeling comfortable and physically safe.

  On a deeper level, I’ve stayed mostly covered up. I’ve given Dane my whole physical self, but only partially my inner self. Not only for fear of vulnerability and hurt.

  Shame is the reason I’ve restricted how much I’ve given of myself to Dane.

  It’s a feeling I haven’t been able to let go of this past year.

  I don’t, and never did, need to worry about Dane judging me badly. I don’t need to be ashamed, not with him.

  Movement appears in my peripheral. “You okay?” Dane asks, entering.

  He stops behind me, his head showing over mine. He’s in gray tracksuit bottoms and nothing more.

  I could close my eyes and know exactly what Dane looks like standing behind me; muscular back, chest and arms, tight, defined abs, the exact point where his dreadlocks end, little, random scars he’s acquired over the years – I actually have a favorite scar; the one on the inside of his right wrist – and every single tattoo that covers his faultless body, making something I consider perfect even better. I know the significance of all his tats. Some of them make more sense after last night.

  Fifty Eight: Dane

  “I was just thinking about how easily I let you see me naked,” Brooklyn says looking into the reflection of her eyes. “And how, on a deeper level, I’ve stayed covered up. Same as you have, really. We’ve both held something back – something that really matters.”

  Those words lead my imagination down Brooklyn’s naked form, without the need to use my eyes, every detail precise. I know her body better than my own, yet, as she said, there have been limitations, on both sides, beyond that.

  Brooklyn’s gaze lowers to her navel, her focus becoming distant.

  “The first time a man tells you no one will ever love you the way he does, it’s easy to think aww, how sweet is he…? When he’s told you it a hundred times more it’s no longer sweet it’s what if it’s true? Because it no longer means they love you so much no other man could possibly match it – it’s said in a way that makes you feel you’re not worthy and that you’re lucky he at least loves you, which in itself is confusing, because he seems so scared of losing you. He seems threatened by anyone who might get in the way of you being together.

  “I didn’t even notice the transition. When we met, he seemed perfect. Then he turned into this … Jekyll and Hyde, mood changes and behavior I couldn’t keep up with. Suddenly, he had control over me; my every move, my clothes, people I spoke to. Instead of saying things that made me feel good, he said things that confused me or made me feel like crap. At the same time he made me feel like I was everything to him and all he needed.

  “He made me hate the words I love you. He used them like a weapon against me, to fuck with my head, to keep me with him, to make me feel like I needed him as much as he needed me. Someone who loves you shouldn’t hurt you. Someone who loves you shouldn’t like to see you cry.” She laughs without humor, a wet sheen appearing over her eyes. “How weird is it that I met you and, before I knew it, more than anything, I craved hearing you say those words and meaning them. Who in their right mind expects that from a man who doesn’t even have relationships?

  “… I was one of those women who said that if a man ever raised his hand to me I’d be out the door like a shot.” She crosses her arms over her chest and bows her head. “God, I definitely do feel naked now.”

  Tucking my thumbs into the waistband of my sweats, I lower them until they reach my ankles and take them off. I drop them on the floor. Behind Brooklyn, I stand bare, in the hope that she’ll feel equal with me, less exposed, less vulnerable. I don’t touch her, I fight so damn hard not to touch her, but I stand close.

  Brooklyn meets my gaze through the mirror. The small smile that makes an appearance is genuine, but she doesn’t move her arms. Watching her this way makes her seem so fragile. It’s taking all the strength I have not to hold her right now.

  “Trust you to go and do something like that for me. You are so easy to love, Dane.” She sighs, maintaining eye contact with me.

  “I like to think the reasons I stayed with Adrian for nearly two years are more complex than me just being weak and stupid. I like to think it was a bad case of perfect
timing when I met him. Perfect for him, the worst for me.

  “I was waiting for my physio appointment at the hospital. I was back in the UK, not long after my surgery here. Adrian was sitting next to me; he had a problem with his wrist. We spoke and he made me laugh. I needed that. I was so down about my injury. I missed the dancing and convinced myself I was never going to get back to the standard I’d achieved. I was losing muscle tone, I felt out of shape, and I was worried about gaining weight. I worried about everything, even insignificant things. I was struggling and he was so nice to me. I agreed to see him again. He just seemed to say all the right things and made me feel better. He built my confidence and distracted me.

  “It’s quite a skill, even if a devious one, to be able to build someone up and then slowly break them down without them realizing it. I was crumbling and I didn’t even know it.”

  A single tear rolls down from her left eye. Her gaze follows its descent, and so does mine. Others follow. She doesn’t try to stop them, but she closes her eyes.

  Moving in closer, I wrap my arms around her upper body, around her own arms still crossed over her chest, and press my lips to the back of her head, inhaling the scent of her hair. I don’t know how to process what she’s telling me.

  Her wet lashes stay sealed. “It goes without saying that I don’t always sleep well. Most nights are fine, but it’s the one time he can still get to me.”

  “The nightmares are because of him?”

  She looks at me, nodding slowly. “Random snippets from the night I left him, but sometimes weird stuff that doesn’t make sense. You know how dreams work, we can’t control them.” She takes another deep breath. The tears have stopped, but her cheeks hold wet streaks.

  “I never understood what went on in his head; crappy, silly thoughts and major paranoia. He could make the most innocent scenario seem seedy. He was always accusing me of flirting and leading other men on and not really loving him, needing me to somehow prove that I did over and over again. It got to the point I wouldn’t even speak to other men, I was a nervous wreck. I stopped going anywhere because that felt easier than dealing with his shit.