by Jen Meyers
With Josh, it had been forever.
He held still, lowering himself to kiss me, making me writhe under him, needing his movement, dying to feel his thrusts. As he started to move, I met him, riding the waves of excitement together.
He whispered my name as if it were some deep-seated secret, something close to his heart that he’d never told anyone before. As he reached his own heights of ecstasy, something inside of me collapsed, came crashing down, and I could feel a gush of emotions flood through me.
Sweating and breathing hard, we clung to each other, and I just breathed.
Breathed him in. And didn’t let go.
It was the most perfect night of my life.
twenty-two
I only wished I could have held onto that feeling the next morning.
Panic.
That was the first thing I felt when I opened my eyes and found Josh’s arm draped over my breast, his bare body pressed against mine.
Okay, maybe the FIRST thing I felt was how warm and cozy it was to be curled up all naked with Josh. How right it felt. But the panic obliterated that as soon as my brain kicked in, remembering where we were, why we had come.
My dad, and how close I might be to losing him.
And all I could think when I looked at Josh was that it would kill me to fall head-over-heels in love with him and then lose him. That I didn’t have the inner strength to go through that. And that I needed to stop things now, because it was going to hurt a lot less than if I lost him sometime in the future, when I loved him more, when I needed him completely.
Basically, I’d fucked up. Made the mistake I KNEW I shouldn’t have made, and it was going to cost me dearly. I had no idea how—or even IF—our friendship could survive this, but I knew I couldn’t have my heart broken again.
My heart was already cracking at the threat of losing my dad.
I couldn’t do this.
Very carefully, I slipped out from under Josh’s arm, put on an old robe, grabbed my clothes and hurried out to shower and get dressed.
Then I went downstairs to the kitchen.
Cursing my mom for having a pristinely clean kitchen, I set about cleaning it anyway just to have something to do. I made coffee, baked muffins—what? if I’m going to send someone packing, the very least I can do is feed him—scrubbed the sink, unloaded the dishwasher, and then swept the floor. Twice.
As I was putting the broom away, I felt a hand snaking around my waist, and jumped away, startled. I hadn’t even heard him come downstairs, the thoughts in my head so loud they blocked everything else out.
He pulled his hand back and his forehead creased, causing a little line to form in between his brows. He looked like he wasn’t sure what to do with himself.
I knew the feeling.
“Will?” he said. “You okay? Is your dad—?”
“Fine,” I said quickly, then added, “At least as far as I know. Maybe I should go check in with my mom.”
Avoiding his gaze, I maneuvered around him, headed for the hallway and the stairs, but he reached out and grasped my arm.
“Hey.” His voice was soft and sweet, full of everything I wanted and couldn’t let myself have. “What’s wrong? Are you regretting last night? Because I’m no—”
“Last night was a mistake,” I said, and he flinched like I’d slapped him. The look on his face as he dropped my arm sent a knife through my heart, so I closed my eyes. Cowardly, yes. But my self-preservation instinct had kicked in full force. “It was just another one-night stand in a long line of one-night stands. Nothing more.”
“It wasn’t to me.” His voice was quiet, intense. Like he knew I was lying and was willing me to tell the truth.
But I was telling him the truth. I mean, sort of. It was my truth. Or the truth I wanted—that I couldn’t have it mean more, not if I was going to save myself from certain heartbreak.
I swallowed, grasping for anger but coming up empty handed. My entire body was screaming at me to say fuck it and let my heart lead me where it would, but my mind had been made up. This was for the best. For both of us.
Even if it didn’t feel like it.
I opened my eyes again, looked at him and forced the words out. “I’m sorry. I just…can’t.” My eyes were stinging and I blinked them a couple of times, but stayed stone-faced.
His jaw tightened and he shook his head slightly, like he was having some inner argument with himself. Or maybe me. But then his eyes snapped to mine, and the anger and hurt I saw in them made me take a step back.
“I love you, Will, but I can’t keep doing this.” He stared at me, his feelings clear on his face, but all I could do was stand there frozen in fear. I couldn’t handle this. There was too much at stake. At my silence, he looked defeated. His words were quiet and intense when he spoke. “If you decide that you want me, that you want this—” He pointed back and forth between us. “—you’re going to have to come to me.” He sighed, shaking his head a little. “I just hope I’m still here when you do.”
Without another word, he went back upstairs. I could hear slight sounds of him moving around, and less than five minutes later he was back, his duffel slung over his shoulder. He stood in the entryway, his hand on the doorknob, and stared at me, still shaking his head, maybe waiting for me to change my mind.
But I didn’t.
Finally he said, “I hope everything goes okay with your dad.”
Then he opened the door, stepped out, and shut it behind him. I stayed in that spot as I listened to his car start up, back out of the driveway, and then drive away, the sound fading to nothingness.
My breath started coming in gasps once I could no longer hear his car, and my eyes welled with tears as I slid down the wall to the floor, my legs unable to hold me. The pain in my chest was crushing my heart, squeezing my lungs so that I couldn’t breathe. Sobs clawed their way up my throat, and I curled up into a ball of misery, my forehead against my knees, my heart shattering into a million pieces.
It was for the best, I kept telling myself. If it hurt this much now, just think how much worse it would hurt later on.
I was saving myself. Just as I always wanted to. Just as I always knew I could.
So why didn’t it feel like saving?
Why did it feel like losing instead?
twenty-three
“Where’s Josh?” my dad said that afternoon. “I was hoping to talk to him about your desk.”
I was doing my best to hold it together, which felt near impossible. Especially if my dad was going to talk about Josh. Which, of course, he did. If only it wasn’t like a knife to the heart every time I heard his name. As it was, there was this throbbing ache in my chest where my heart used to be.
“My desk?” I hadn’t told him yet that it had been ruined, and my heart sank at having to give him the bad news when he was lying in a hospital bed.
“I’m guessing it’s damaged beyond repair,” he said, looking serious. “It must be warped and cracked by now, the drawers stuck shut. Did you get all of your stuff out of it?”
I nodded. “Basically everything needed to be replaced.”
“Including the desk.”
I nodded. “Yeah, about that…”
“This was going to be a surprise, but just in case anything happens—”
“NOTHING is going to happen.” I cut him off, squeezing his hand. “I already made a deal with every entity that may or may not exist. Just to be sure all our bases are covered.”
His eyes clouded, but he forced a smile. “Well, this is me covering this base, too. I want to commission Josh to build you a new desk.”
A lump rose up in my throat.
“Oh, Dad.” The room blurred as my eyes overflowed. “He already did.”
His eyebrows tilted toward each other as he pressed his lips together. Then he shook his finger at me. “That Josh of yours is a good man.” He placed his hand over his time-bomb of a heart. “It makes everything better for me knowing that he’ll be there to take c
are of you for the rest of your life.”
Oh. God.
Closing my eyes, I said, “What if I want to take care of myself? Is that so bad?” I had to get him to understand without telling him what happened…because there was NO WAY I could. “What if I like being alone?”
He reached over and patted my arm. “Of course you like being alone—you’re just like me. You always have been. But that doesn’t mean you don’t spend your life with someone.”
“Why not?”
“Because your life will be better, brighter, fuller if you have someone to share it with. The person you love most in the world, who knows you better than anyone else—even the bad stuff—and still they love you. Still they want to be with you. That’s why not.” All joking was gone, he was more serious than I’d seen him in a long time. “You don’t think I know your fears? Of course I do because I was you.” He looked me right in the eye, and I could not have looked away if my life depended on it. I’d never heard my dad talk like this. “I was going to live my life on my terms. Alone. I didn’t need anybody, I didn’t want anybody.” His voice softened as he said, “And then I met your mother and she ruined everything. Being with her made me realize that being alone was just that—being alone. But with her…I was finally alive.” He smiled and tapped my arm with one finger. “I see that happen to you when you’re with Josh. From the moment he walked into your apartment for dinner that first night. You come alive around him, Willowbee.”
The urge to tell him everything—to just spill it all out—was overwhelming. The lies, the fake engagement. Because he was wrong, I kept telling myself. Josh and I didn’t have what my dad and mom had. I mean, how could we? We hadn’t even dated.
But even as I was trying to convince myself of all this, Dad’s words were running through my mind, calling up image upon image of Josh and me together, how good it always felt, how comfortable.
How right.
“Honey,” my dad said, “don’t look so worried. I just want you to have the best life you can possibly have.”
“I already do. All on my own.”
He shook his head. “What if Josh weren’t in your life anymore? Would it still be?”
No. Not even a little bit. Josh was a huge reason my life was so great. I mean, I didn’t know what I was going to do when he moved, I couldn’t even imagine him being gone from my life entirely. I’d be devastated if I lost him.
Of course, I may have just lost him this morning, and I was trying REALLY hard not to be devastated.
But if I wasn’t dating him, I couldn’t really lose him. Could I? We could always be friends still. We didn’t ever have to break up. I mean, eventually we’d forget about what happened last night or it would become some funny story we’d tell at parties.
Remember that one time we slept together?
Oh yeah. God, what a disaster!
Except it hadn’t been a disaster at all. It had been incredible. Mind blowing.
I, on the other hand, was a complete catastrophe.
“Without Josh,” I said, being truly honest with my dad about Josh for the first time, “my life would be…less, in every way.”
Even if I hadn’t wanted it—to find the one person I really did want to spend the rest of my life with—it was looking like it had happened. All when I wasn’t looking.
And I’d just thrown it all away.
“Oh, god, Dad.” Putting my head in my hands, tears overwhelmed me again and I started to cry. I couldn’t help it. “I think I screwed everything up. Josh is gone and I don’t think he’s ever going to talk to me again.”
“Of course he will, Willowbee. He loves you. You always give those you truly love just one more chance, no matter how many chances they need, don’t you know that?” He gently patted the back of my head. “Why don’t you go call him now? I’m getting tired anyway.”
His eyelids were already heavy, and he smiled gently as I leaned over him and kissed his cheek. I watched sleep overtake him, listened to his even breathing, the machine beeping out his heartbeat, then I pulled out my phone.
ME: I’m so sorry. About everything. You were amazing, and I was…decidedly NOT.
I waited for his agreement, the witty remark I knew was coming, staring at the screen as the minutes ticked by.
The longer I waited, the worse I felt. God, I’d so totally fucked everything up.
Sitting there with my sleeping dad, my phone silent in my hand, all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball and cry. But I didn’t have the luxury of falling apart. My dad was slated for surgery the next day and what he needed from me was support and strength, not drama.
My crisis would have to wait. I swallowed my feelings, pushed them down deep and told them to stay put until I had the time and energy to do something about them.
Then I gave myself a mental shake. This whole thing was my fault. I should have seen it coming. I should have known our friendship was too good to be true, that there was something more there. That I was eventually going to get too close, feel too much.
But I hadn’t.
The other thing I hadn’t seen coming?
My dad dying the next day.
twenty-four
I couldn’t believe he was gone.
The morning of his surgery we’d been there to see him before he went in, and he’d been forcibly cheerful. Almost like he had a feeling something was going to go wrong, but was hoping for the best.
That, more than anything, haunted me.
But even if he’d said something, if he’d asked to wait and do the procedure another day, that something felt off…would he be here now? There was no way for us to know.
Even so, the surgery had gone smoothly, and he’d recovered well enough in post-op for them to move him back to his room for the night. Even though it was usually an out-patient procedure, they’d wanted to keep an eye on him a little longer since he’d already been admitted.
Mom and I had stopped for a quick dinner, but as soon as we’d gotten home, I’d felt this dire urge to get back to the hospital NOW.
That’s when the phone rang.
And I got chills.
Which wasn’t that unusual. Every time the phone rang I’d worried it was the hospital, that something was wrong.
But this time, I knew. Could feel it in my bones.
I was already running when my mom’s gentle voice said, “Hello?”
There was a complication, they said. We needed to come back right away.
White-faced and freaking the hell out, we’d raced back to the hospital only to be met by a solemn-looking doctor as soon as the elevator doors opened on his floor.
Even before he spoke, my mother’s legs gave out and this horrible, primal wail spiraled out of her body. I’d wrapped my arms around her, my pain mixing with hers, eclipsing all else in our world.
My dad was gone. Like that.
Just…gone.
I could feel him everywhere around me, in every room, every book, every corner of my parents’ house, and yet…he wasn’t there. He never would be again.
My heart splintered, a jagged piece fallen away, and no amount of time was ever going to fill that hole.
The following week was a blur of despair. Arrangements had to be made, a constant deluge of people flowed through the house, and it all culminated in the funeral.
Of course The Girls came because that’s what best friends do.
But I felt Josh’s absence like a second gaping hole in my life.
In my heart.
Which just made everything feel that much worse.
God, how could I have let this happen? THIS was exactly why I hadn’t wanted to love someone. I didn’t want to depend on him. I didn’t want him to make things better. I wanted to make things better for myself.
After the service, I’d sat in my parents’ backyard, hiding from everyone but The Girls.
Lucky, clad all in black, her long dark hair twisted into perfection on the top of her head, slipped her polished fingers thro
ugh mine while we watched Harmony dig through her purse for the crystals she’d brought me.
I was desperately trying not to roll my eyes. I loved Harmony like crazy, but her penchant to push magic rocks on us was a little too out there. At the moment, she was babbling about these crystals having special healing properties.
“You think she makes this stuff up?” Lucky whispered to me. Aloud, she said, “Hey, Harmony. Don’t you just have some Super Rock that will cure everything? Because THAT would be convenient. Maybe you could make one?”
Harmony’s head snapped up and she glared at Lucky. “I don’t MAKE these. They just ARE. And they each have their own metaphysical attributes—oh! Here it is.” And she pulled out a little fine mesh pouch that almost sparkled in the sunlight.
Giving the little ribbons a gentle pull, she opened the bag and poured the crystals into her palm, holding them out to me. Two dark stones and one purple one wrapped in swirls of gold and threaded through a chain.
She paused for a moment, just staring at me, her big brown eyes full of emotion. “I don’t have the right words,” she said finally, “because there aren’t any. And these won’t take away your grief, but they’ll help you get through it.”
She nodded for me to take them. Throat tight, vision blurry, I opened my hand and let her rain the little rocks into it.
“So, this is black tourmaline.” Harmony pointed to a shiny, coal-black stone. “It protects against negativity, and will actually transmute it into positive energy. And this one is champagne tourmaline.”
“Ooh, champagne…” Lucky said. “Who else is in desperate need of a drink? Let’s see a show of hands.”
Summer, Ever, and Bliss catapulted their hands skyward, but then dropped them immediately when Harmony shot them a look. I stifled a giggle as Harmony continued.
“It will help you feel more at ease. It’s really great for finding your emotional strength and it inspires courage. It’s also a really calming stone.”
Her words washed over me, and even though I didn’t believe these rocks could actually do anything but sit there and be, you know, ROCKS, the ideas and meanings behind each stone were hitting me hard. Harmony’s love, generosity, and deep caring were infused in her gift, and that was filling my heart to overflowing.