Carry Your Heart

by K. Ryan

My eyes flew over the words he'd underlined, "no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) no world (for you are my world, my true)/and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you."

  I had to squeeze my eyes shut because it was just too goddamn painful. Tears poured from my eyes and onto the naked mattress, leaving salty stains in their wake.

  This just wasn't fair.

  And this just didn't feel right.

  How had I ever talked myself into believing I'd really be happy here without him?

  Because next to the schools in New York and Chicago, I told myself, this is one of the best art schools in the country. You got into the number seven school in the country and you'd be stupid not to go.

  I'd earned the right to go to art school.

  So many years of doing what everyone else wanted me to do and not once had I really given much thought to what would actually make me happy. Duke hadn't been the answer and I'd just gone through with it because it was expected of me. I'd wanted to believe that this, VCU, was the answer, but now that I was here, nothing about this appealed to me anymore.

  I was starting to understand it never really had in the first place.

  Because I knew, instinctively, that every moment I spent here away from Caleb would be every moment I'd begin to resent this choice.

  On some level, when had this actually been my choice?

  When I'd gotten my acceptance letters, Caleb pretty much decided VCU was it and I'd went along with it without putting up much of a fight. He had the best of intentions and that just made me love him even more, but I'd taken the choice away from myself, for the most part, the second I shoved those unopened acceptance letters into his chest.

  If it was truly my decision and my decision alone, would I have really chosen VCU, in a city five hours away, over UNC, in a city 45 minutes away?

  None of this was Caleb's fault. That wasn't the issue here. All he was guilty of was wanting what was best for me because he loved me.

  But what was best? What was actually the right decision? Because the longer I sat here, the more I realized that maybe this wasn't it either. This wasn't where I needed to be. This wasn't where I wanted to be and I think, deep down, I'd always known that.

  So, I had a problem on my hands.

  I could suck it up at VCU because, well, I was already here—I'd already enrolled in classes and I'd sent in a tuition payment already for the spring semester, not to mention set up student loans to cover the rest. I could go back to Claremont and wait it out a semester to give myself a little breathing room. Or I could go back to Claremont, try to get my spot back at UNC, and commute to Winston-Salem.

  The bottom line was: what was going to make me happy? What was going to take away this excruciating, gut-wrenching, agonizing feeling?

  Being five hours away from Caleb wasn't going to make me happy. Nothing worked without him. Nothing made sense without him. Nothing felt right without him.

  There was no way I'd be able to feel good about anything I achieved here if he wasn't really here to share it with me. Besides, he was the main reason I'd even considered applying for art schools in the first place. There was no way I would've had the guts to even acknowledge this dream if it weren't for his strong and supportive guidance. Doing any of this without him here to experience it with me, to share in my successes and support me in my failures...

  No, I wasn't doing this without him.

  But I also knew that if I put off school, even if I told myself it was only for a semester, what were the odds that I would try again?

  If I didn't do this now and waited too long, would I miss my chance to become a professional artist? One who showed their work in galleries and had people pay money to not only see their work, but had those same people actually buy it? A few years ago, that hadn't even been a remote possibility, but the more I'd thought about art school and the whole art scene in general, the more I realized that that, too, was where I wanted to be.

  I would always regret it if I didn't do it. I would always look back at this opportunity and wonder what would've happened if I'd had the strength and the courage to realize my dream and my passion.

  And then the answer was simple. There really was no other choice.

  Why couldn't I have both? Why couldn't I seek out one dream while living out another? There was really only one thing I could do that would satisfy everything I wanted and Caleb's note was the wake-up call I'd needed to get my ass in gear.

  Caleb had said VCU was a once in a lifetime opportunity, but he was also my once in a lifetime love.

  Ever since I'd left Duke and come home to Claremont, I'd been so adrift, searching for some sort of direction, some sort of meaning and purpose in my life. I'd wanted to take control of my life and to start living my life by my own rules, not someone else's.

  Now the chance was right in front me and I could feel myself sliding into the driver's seat, revving the engine, waiting for that green light.

  I'd never felt this in control of my life before. Everything had always seemed to just happen to me and all my actions as a result were just reactive to circumstances I'd never had any control over to begin with. But in this moment, I was the master of my own destiny. I was the keeper of my dreams and the pursuer of my passions.

  I was done sitting on the sidelines, watching the game and cheering on the players. I wanted in. I wanted to live. I wanted to be happy.

  The way I saw it I could choose to be miserable or I could choose to be happy. I was going to choose happy.

  Anyone that disagreed with my choice could go fuck themselves.

  With my resolve strong and my mind firm in this decision, the first one I'd truly made for myself in way too long, I leapt off the bed and tucked Caleb's note in my back pocket for safekeeping.

  I had some calls to make and some serious work to do.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Carry Your Heart

  Caleb

  Every step that took me further away was just another nail pounding right into my already shredded heart.

  Leaving the other half of my soul in room 207 was the hardest thing I'd ever had to do in my life and my only real comfort here was knowing I'd done the right thing. She had too much talent and too much potential to just waste away in Claremont and work at the shop for the rest of her life.

  And I knew, as I unlocked my truck and dropped heavily into the driver's seat, that eventually, the distance would probably end up killing us.

  I hadn't allowed her to even broach that subject before she left because I knew it would only make her think about staying. She wasn't giving this up because of me. Sure, she could go to school somewhere else, but this was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

  All the hot galleries to showcase new artists working anywhere near here were based out of D.C. and from what I could tell and what Eli had been able to dig up, if she wanted a decent shot at getting a spot in any of those galleries, she needed to be at VCU so she could start networking. Not in Claremont and not even in North Carolina.

  If someone had told me last September that I would find myself in the exact same position as when Ariel left with Isabelle Martin of all people, I probably would've bought that person a shot just for the good laugh.

  I guess if I was being really honest with myself, I knew it all boiled down to the fact that I just didn't deserve to have someone like her in my life. She was too good, too sweet, too innocent, and too trusting to be with someone like me.

  And that wasn't even the tip of the iceberg of the danger I could potentially be putting her in because of the club. Marcus' words at Dom and Lexie's reception still haunted my sleep every night since and even though I knew my old lady was strong and could handle whatever came our way, there was only so much a person could take. Someone who wasn't born into this life naturally had a lower tolerance for all things club-related and I couldn't take that for granted.

  But in spite of all that, I still wished things were different. Go
d, I would give anything to be able to spend the rest of my life with her. To be able to call her my wife and the mother of my children. For the last two months, I'd tricked my brain into only thinking optimistically, but now that reality had reared its ugly head, the trick was wearing thin. The reality was that maybe it was all just wishful thinking after all.

  And the cruelest trick of all was that I'd had a taste of what my life would be like if I'd be able to actually keep her. I knew what it was like to wake up with her in my arms, to be able to kiss her in the morning and hold her at night, to be able to show her off as mine and parade her on the back of my bike, to hold her hand and revel in the time she was giving me, to laugh with her, to dance with her, to sit happily at her side as she went after her dream...it was torture knowing all this and knowing that my time with her might have an expiration date now.

  She needed to leave.

  It was right for her to leave.

  Past experience had taught me there was a huge difference between wanting to leave and having to leave.

  Despite initial appearances, her life had never been easy and even though I knew a little something about having a legacy to follow, it was different when the legacy wasn't one you actually wanted to follow. She'd spent the better part of her life doing everything her shitty-ass father wanted her to do and I hated that it had taken her mother's death to make her snap the hell out of it and finally find her own way.

  That way, coincidentally, was going to clear her out of Claremont and shred my heart in the process. Her leaving for art school was really just the punctuation on a sentence that had already been written.

  And as much as it would slaughter my heart, I wasn't angry. I wasn't bitter. I wasn't going to scream and yell. I wasn't going to beg and plead. If she was happy and safe, then that was all I could ask for and I was at peace with that.

  I didn't know exactly when the tears started during my trip back to Claremont. At some point, I just stopped wiping them away altogether and let them carve a salty path down my face. No one was here to see these few hours of weakness anyways, so as long as I could pull myself together before pulling back into the shop's lot, I just didn't give a shit how much I was sobbing like a baby right now.

  I'd hung on to Ariel for so long, all but chaining myself to her leg as she dragged herself out of town and now here I was, in the exact same position, but had driven Isabelle to VCU myself.

  If that wasn't irony, then I guess I didn't know what was.

  The real difference here, though, was me. With Ariel, I'd clung to old memories, desperate to keep my life exactly how it was and refusing to change. But the life I'd had with Ariel was a fantasy. Living in rose-colored glasses blinded me and now that I'd smashed those glasses and tossed them in the garbage, I could see what my life with her really was—absolutely painful.

  There was always an argument, always something to prove, and a feeling of worthlessness always trailed after me when she was around, even though I'd never understood why I wasn't ever enough for her. The fact was: I just didn't know who I was without Ariel back then. My whole life revolved around her, almost more so than the club, and that obsession had pretty much made me miserable every second we were together.

  With Isabelle, none of that mattered. She made me feel invincible and a foot taller. And when she told me she loved me, I believed her.

  Loving her was like breathing. It was just instinct. You don't question breathing and you don't question instinct. You just do it.

  And I loved Isabelle enough to realize when I needed to let her go, which meant selfishness and immaturity had no place in my life anymore. I needed to be strong for her, I needed to be supportive of her, and I needed to be willing to let her go if that's what was best for her.

  My eyes drifted down to the compass tattooed on my left forearm and squeezed my eyes shut. I'd never regret loving her. I'd never regret the time I'd gotten to have with her, even if that time had to be short.

  I wished there some way we could make this work for the long haul. The time apart, the distance...when life got crazy, I knew seeing each other every weekend just wouldn't be possible either...it could all slowly chip away at even the most solid foundation, and I knew ours was already pretty strong.

  But now that I'd had her, now that I loved her, the course of my life had been forever altered and I just didn't know what I was going to do without her.

  And with that thought, I pulled back into the shop's parking lot, my focus resting sullenly on the empty passenger seat next to me.

  My mom was already waiting for me outside the clubhouse and I pushed out a weary breath. The last thing I wanted to do right now was deal with people, especially my mother. She'd want to comfort me and reassure me that everything was going to be fine, but I really didn't want to hear it. Still, I knew my mother and I also knew she wasn't going to leave tonight until she at least checked on me. Might as well get it over with now.

  "Baby," my mom's soft voice called out to me as I shut the truck's driver side door. She was already moving towards me, so I just met her halfway. "I'd ask how you're doin' but..."

  I'd never been so grateful for a loss of words in my life.

  "How was your drive?" she asked finally, draping an arm around my shoulders and pulling me into a tight hug.

  "It was fine," I shrugged. My voice was hoarse and heavy, which just made the fact that I'd been crying that much more obvious.

  "Oh, Caleb," she whispered into my ear. "I wish there was something I could do or say to make this better for you."

  "There's not," I muttered. "There's nothin' you can say that I don't already know, Ma. But thanks, though. Hey, listen, I'm tired and I just wanna go to bed. I'll call ya in the morning, alright?"

  She nodded sympathetically and carefully released me, like she wasn't sure whether or not she should let me walk inside the clubhouse on my own. I shot her a weak smile in a lame attempt at reassuring her, but I knew better. My mom probably wouldn't sleep much tonight either because she too had become more attached to Isabelle than she'd ever intended.

  Yeah.

  I knew the feeling.

  Finally, she let me walk away and after pushing through the crowd and brushing past the watchful eyes of my club brothers, I collapsed on my bed. I almost thought about grabbing the half-empty bottle of Jack buried somewhere in my closet and finishing it off, but past experience had also taught me that wouldn't solve my problems either.

  If anything, it would only make this worse. I was better off just passing out face down in my bed and sleeping as far into tomorrow afternoon as I could.

  As I settled back onto the mattress, my nose found the pillow Isabelle slept on the night before. It still smelled like flowers and vanilla and I immediately rolled over on my side to put myself out of my misery.

  Somehow, my weary body sank deep into my bed and just, mercifully, shut down for a few hours.

  . . .

  I'd drifted away into a black, dreamless sleep. It was numbing and fantastic. And that was why, when loud pounding on my door jerked me awake, I just rolled over and planted face first in my pillow. I didn't care if the clubhouse was burning down—I wasn't moving from this spot.

  Whoever was pounding on my door was relentless. It just wouldn't stop. One eye squeezed open and flicked over to the clock on my nightstand. Jesus Christ, it wasn't even 10 in the morning yet. What the hell was so goddamn important that they just couldn't wait until later? Couldn't even give me a full 12 hours to adjust. They just had to pound on the damn door and wake my ass up when I just wanted to be left alone.

  "Caleb, open up!" Dom's voice called through the door.

  I just moaned and rolled onto my back. Maybe if I ignored him, he would go away.

  "Caleb, open the door!" Dom called again, his voice way too animated for this hour and that pounding just would not stop.

  "What the hell do you want?" I hollered back and pulled the pillow over my head to block everything out.

  "Seriously, bro
, get out here!"

  "Go away," I yelled back. "It's too early for this shit, Dom."

  "I'm tellin' ya, Caleb, you're gonna wanna get your sorry ass out here," he laughed through the door. "Trust me, you won't be disappointed."

  It was clear this wasn't going to stop until I finally surrendered.

  "Alright, alright," I flung the covers off me and swung my legs over the side of the bed. "I'm comin'. Jesus Christ."

  After stepping into the first pair of sweatpants I could find and throwing on a random Horsemen T-shirt from my floor, I jerked open the door, nostrils flaring at Dominic's shit-eating grin staring back at me. "What?"

  He just gestured with his head towards the hallway, that grin just spreading deeper across his face. I had half a mind to punch it the hell off.

  "Parking lot."

  I stared back at him. "What?"

  "You heard me," Dom pushed me into the hallway. "Parking lot. Go. Now."

  Even as Dom shoved me again, my lead feet stuck right to the greasy, stained carpet. I was too exhausted to keep fighting it, so when my best friend gave me one more playful shove, I finally put one foot in front of the other and got on with it already. The sooner I got this over with, the sooner I could get my ass back to bed and sleep for the next week until Isabelle came home for the weekend.

  The clubhouse was still completely dead, minus the two hang-arounds passed out in one of the booths next to the pool table, so there were no problems maneuvering around the main floor until I pushed through the front doors. Shielding my eyes to fend off the sun's glare, the only thing in the parking lot was a yellow cab.

  Whatever Dom was smoking, I think I really needed a hit of that shit...and then I caught a flash of tanned legs and familiar long, shiny blonde hair.

  What the—Isabelle was coming around the side of the cab with her duffel bags in hand as Dom moved to the passenger window to pay the driver. All the breath rushed out of my lungs and my feet cemented me right into the hot pavement.

  I blinked. And I blinked again. I needed to pinch myself. This wasn't a mirage. This wasn't a figment of my overactive imagination. This was real. She was really here. What the hell was she doing?