Anything Between Us (Starving Artists Book 3)

by Mila Ferrera

  I slide it onto my wrist and look into the box. Swallowing hard, I pull out the note.

  He’s leaving. On Monday.

  As I open the thin piece of creamy paper, I realize I’ve never even seen Nate’s handwriting, but here it is. Cramped little letters printed in neat rows. Before I read what it says, I run my fingertips over the words, knowing he held this paper in his hand and pressed the pen to it. My heart won’t slow.

  He’s leaving. This is meant as a goodbye.

  Sasha,

  To me, an anchor means hope and strength. It’s something that holds you steady even when there’s a storm. It’s heavy and real, and it keeps you from being carried too far from the place you want to be. It might seem stupid, but this is what I wanted to be for you, once I finally got strong enough.

  Even though we’re not together anymore, I still want you to have this. Maybe it can remind you of a few things: You’re not alone. People can’t help but love you, and there will be plenty of us in your life, if you let us in. And you’re strong. You’re so strong. You were my anchor when I needed you most. So finally, I’ll leave you with this—a memory of us, and how I love you, and how that love made me better and stronger than I was. I wish I could have done that for you.

  All my love,

  Nate

  I read it twice, and then a third time. It’s so wrong, in so many ways. It all comes down on me at once, the mistakes I’ve made. The damage I’ve done. The chances I’ve destroyed.

  My plan for the night goes out the window in that instant. My plan for everything else follows it through the glass. With only one thought in my head, I grab my purse and coat, and I head for the door.

  I can’t let him go without setting this right.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Nate

  I pull into the parking lot of my building just past midnight. Thanksgiving Day, technically. I sit in my car and try to think of what I’m thankful for. My parents. My brother. Sam’s friendship. Every breath I take. That gratitude comes easy.

  Then there are the things that I know I should be thankful for, even though I don’t really feel it. A second chance. A clean slate. Maybe I should even be thankful that she pushed me away. This pain now? It’s wrenching and black and awful, but isn’t it better sooner instead of later, after I’d fallen even deeper?

  I rub my hands over my face. Yet again, I don’t know why I’m thinking about this. It’s not like I had the choice.

  I think I know, though, what I would have chosen.

  With a sigh, I step into the bitter night and tread the path to my apartment. I don’t have to be at my parents’ place until two, so I have some time to sleep even if it takes me a while to get there. Right now, that kind of oblivion feels miles away. Maybe I’ll stay up and pack. Maybe I’ll stay at my parents’ for a few days and not come back here until it’s time to move the furniture.

  Because she left her mark in that apartment, too, and I can’t be here with the reminders of her. I’ve tried for the past few weeks, and it’s like her presence here is sinking in instead of fading, leaving an indelible mark on everything I see and touch. Or maybe the mark is on me, a tattoo directly on my heart.

  I trudge down the stairs and go still at the silhouette slumped against my door. Slowly, I move toward it, my heart already beating out a furious, hungry rhythm. I half-wonder if I’m seeing things.

  She’s asleep. Like that moment on the sidewalk a few days ago, she’s pale. She looks fragile and tired. She’s huddled in her coat, her black hair half-covering her beautiful face.

  I squat in front of her and allow myself the simple luxury of drawing my fingertips along the smooth skin of her cheek. “Hey,” I say softly.

  She jerks awake with a start, looking around like she doesn’t know where she is. But then she focuses on me, and her eyes go wide. “I was afraid you were already gone,” she says, her voice cracking over the last word.

  I help her to her feet, wondering what the hell happened. Nora was supposed to leave the bracelet in Sasha’s studio. I figured she couldn’t be there again until next week because of the holiday, so she wouldn’t find it until after I’d left. And nothing in the note I wrote her says that I’m going anywhere. I didn’t want to have to tell her goodbye. I didn’t want to see the relief in her eyes, honestly.

  “What are you doing here?”

  She pushes her hair away from her face, though a few stubborn strands immediately slide back over one eye. “Can I come in? I need to talk to you.”

  I’m completely torn. Half of me wants to tell her no—she’s already got my heart in a fucking bag, so why give her the chance to hurt me again? And the other half of me—that’s the half that wants to carry her into my apartment and show her exactly how much I’ve missed her. Which I don’t have the right to do. So. All my options suck. “I got the impression you’d said everything you needed to a week ago.”

  She grimaces. “I may have said what I thought I needed to, but your letter, what you wrote—listen. You can tell me what a bitch I am. You can tell me you’re leaving just so you don’t have to see me ever again, or that it has nothing to do with me because I was never that important. But let me in, and let me say a few things. Please.”

  I unlock my door and push it open, then warily follow her inside, thinking of the last time she was here, and the damage she did.

  She walks to the kitchen table, then sheds her coat. She’s wearing the bracelet. The sight of the delicate silver cuff around the olive skin of her slender wrist does things to my heart. It’s like a caged animal, pounding against my ribs. I tear my eyes from the anchor, focusing instead on a spot on the wall.

  “You were right, all those things you said about me that night,” she murmurs. “You were so right that it was like a scalpel, carving me open and leaving me exposed.”

  I hang my head back, the weariness of sorrow heavy on my shoulders. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. That wasn’t what I was trying to do.”

  “I was trying to hurt you,” she says. “While you said all the hard truths about me, I spewed vicious lies to drive you away. I guess that’s the kind of person I am.”

  I lower my head and meet her gaze, incredulous. “That’s the bullshit that brought you to my door?”

  She flinches. “It’s not bullshit. You know how many people have come up to me in the last week to basically remind me that I’m an asshole and an idiot for treating you how I did?” She ticks them off on her fingers. “My aunt. Nora. Your brother. The freaking lady at the nursing home—”

  “Stop. My brother?” Eyes narrowed, I look up at the ceiling, where two floors above me, Daniel is probably sleeping soundly, thinking he’s going to live to see tomorrow.

  She bites her lip. “Oh. I was supposed to warn him.”

  “That won’t help him now.” At my lowest, barely able to hold myself together around the gaping fucking hole she left in my chest, I told him that shit in confidence. And apparently he fucking went and told Sasha she broke my heart and—“Fuck.” I walk to the door. “Is that why you’re here? Because he made you feel fucking sorry for me? You can leave right now. Last thing I need.”

  “No,” she says, waving her hands. “No. Nate, that’s not why I’m here, and it’s not what he said. He was just one more reminder, you know? One more reminder of how amazing you are, and what a shit I was for treating you that way, when all you’ve ever done was be this steady, helpful, patient, selfless person.”

  “That’s bullshit, too. I wasn’t always steady, and you know that. Hell, if I was, we probably wouldn’t ever have gotten together.” What would have happened if she hadn’t found me by the shore that night? Would she have ever looked in my direction again? “The whole reason you agreed to be friends with me was to push me into therapy. The whole reason you spent time with me was to make sure I was all right. And I will always be grateful to you for that. But we both know that’s how it happened—you felt sorry for me—”

  “S
top saying that,” she shouts. “I felt something between us the first moment you walked into Lee’s bar. I wanted you from the first second I saw you!” Her dark gaze is piercing, and I feel it deep in my chest. “And I’ve wanted you every single moment after, more and more, as you showed me who you really are. Whether I felt like I could handle it, or that I deserved it, or that it was best for either of us, I wanted you. I still do.”

  Her fingers drift to the bracelet encircling her wrist. “You were right when you said that I’d used Ryan as an excuse, and that it was an affront to his memory. He deserved more from me than that. Me being alone, that wasn’t because of him, though I’ll feel the weight of his death for the rest of my life.”

  I let out a breath. “I didn’t mean to make you feel shitty about that, either.”

  “I know, Nate, but you were right. When my dad was diagnosed, I knew that might be my future, too. And I was terrified. Paralyzed, actually. Everything was falling apart—my relationship with Ryan, my relationship with my mom, my future. And the one thing I had—my relationship with my dad, who had always made me feel safe—I knew I was going to lose it, too. Long before I was ready.”

  She swipes her palms over her cheeks to knock away the tears. “The only way I could control it was to pull back. To manage everything like a checklist. To keep away from anything that could hurt. I didn’t want to lose anything else or anyone else ever again, because it already felt like I’d lost more than I could ever take.”

  “I get that,” I tell her. “I don’t blame you for that. I never blamed you for any of it, really. I was angry and hurt because your feelings for me weren’t big enough to make everything okay.” I chuckle, dry and sad. “But now I know that was selfish. Childish.”

  “Nothing could make this okay, Nate.” Her expression crumples, her eyes alight with tears. “And I’m so scared.”

  “I know,” I whisper. “It scares me, too.”

  “You don’t have to worry about it—”

  “Don’t,” I snap. “You get to decide how you feel, and what you do about it. But you don’t get to tell me how I feel or what I worry about.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way. Obviously, you decided. You’re leaving. I don’t blame you, but I didn’t want you to leave because of anything that has to do with me. I’m thinking of giving up my studio space and—”

  “What?”

  “I won’t be at the co-op anymore—I can work out of the house. I’m alone there now. I’m thinking of moving down to Dad’s bedroom and using the upstairs space as a studio. It would save money.”

  “And it would isolate you even more than you are now.” Fury tears through me. “Are you fucking serious? This is your plan? Withdraw from the world, cut off every connection, and become some kind of fucking shut-in? Goddamn it, Sasha!” My hands curl into fists as the heat of my anger shudders along my limbs. “You’re not dead! You’re not even dying! You got this news and you’re using it like another excuse!”

  “You don’t know,” she yells. “You don’t know what this feels like—to know what’s going to happen to me, and how I’m going to die.”

  I stalk toward her. “But I know death. I know it in a visceral, ugly way that I pray to God you never understand. I’ve felt the warmth of blood on my hands and face that one split second before had been running through my best friend’s veins.” And this is something that a few months ago, I never could have said without feeling sick. But right now, it’s the steel in my spine and the certainty in my bones. “You don’t know when you’re going to die, Sasha. You don’t know when I’m going to die. I could choke on the fucking wishbone at Thanksgiving dinner in a few hours. I could get hit by a bus crossing the street. So could you. We don’t know our future, not really.”

  “But I—”

  “No. You know you have this gene. And you think that tells you the future. But with medications and all the research—”

  “It’s still unlikely,” she cries. “Can’t you understand that, Nate? There’s no cure. They can’t defuse this time bomb in my brain. And it could start soon—did you know that? I won’t necessarily be spared until I’m fifty. It can start earlier.”

  “I know.” I take her by the arms. “And is that your excuse now? That you might get symptoms in five or ten years instead of twenty or thirty? You see that, and you say to yourself, well, why bother living? What’s the point?” I lean down so I’m right in her face, the fury shaking my voice. “This is your one fucking life, Sasha. This is it. This moment. This minute. Nothing else.” My hands slide to her shoulders. I take her face in my hands. “What if this is all we ever have? If you knew you would lose it tomorrow, are you saying you’ll choose to walk away to spare yourself the pain of that loss?”

  Her eyes close, but not in time to stop the tears from streaking down her cheeks. I brush them away with my thumbs.

  “You said you know me.” Her voice is husky. On the verge of breaking. “I know you, too.” Her hands close over mine and she pulls them away from her face. “I know you’re good, and you’re selfless, and you’re brave and strong. But I don’t want you to have to be all those things for me. You didn’t want me to be with you out of pity. I don’t blame you. I couldn’t stand that, either. I won’t.”

  “You honestly think what I’m feeling right now is pity?”

  “I don’t know what you’re feeling right now, Nate. But I know it would change. And I don’t think I could stand seeing that. Knowing you were only around because of obligation.”

  “Okay. First—who’s to say you wouldn’t get sick of me much sooner than that?” I laugh. “We don’t have to decide anything right now. What did you say to me that day you brought me lunch? ‘It’s a pair of sandwiches, not a lifelong commitment.’ Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

  “You’re right.” She winces and puts her hand over her heart. “But I’m so tired of losing people.”

  I wrap my arms around her. “I understand that, too.”

  “I don’t want to lose myself,” she whispers, her body shuddering against me. “I don’t want the people around me to see it, and to think of me as dead before I’m even gone. I don’t want to hollow out until I’m a shell of who I am now. I don’t want to lose my memories of this, or you, or myself, or my art. I don’t want this to happen to me, but it’s going to. And I can’t stop it.”

  I grit my teeth and hold her tight as she starts to sob. I feel something break inside her in that moment, some wall of reserve, of denial, of hope, I have no idea. But I sense it give, and when she buckles, I hold her up. I slide my arms around her back, under her knees, and I scoop her off the ground. She coils her arms around my neck and holds on like I’m the only thing keeping her from being lost.

  Like I’m the anchor.

  Cradling her, I carry her to the couch and lay us down. I keep her close and contained while the waves of this terrible sorrow crash against the shore, threatening to pull her out to sea. My eyes burn with tears of my own, with fears and grief of my own. Because for all I said about not getting ahead of ourselves, I’m already way fucking out there. I have been since the moment I met her, I think. And that means, one way or another, I’m going to lose her. I don’t know how yet, but gaining the privilege of this moment means accepting the devastation of the future, no matter what form it takes.

  My hands slide into her hair. I hold her head against my chest. She clings to me, her arms shaking, her fists balled in my shirt. Through its fabric, I feel her tears on my skin. She’s crying for that future, and all the things she might have dreamed and wanted. She’s trembling with the fear of how it’s going to feel, and the knowledge that it’s happening. She’s grieving the loss of years and moments and people she might forget long before she’s gone. She doesn’t want to feel so vulnerable. She doesn’t want to lose her strength. She’s afraid no one will be there to protect her. She already knows nobody can save her.

  I don’t know what’s going to happen. She doesn’t either. But she has to
let herself feel it. I’d be stupid and cruel to try to stifle these feelings, to tell her it’s going to be all right. So I hold her. I’m strong enough. And the longer I feel her weight against my body, the stronger I feel.

  If this is all I get, I think, if this is it, I’ll take it. I’ll take this moment with her over a year with anyone else. I’ll take this chance with her over a shot with someone else.

  Silently, I surrender my heart to her, opening my fingers and releasing it once again into her care. Not because it feels like the safe thing to do, but because it feels like the only thing to do. Nothing has changed. She never said she’d made a different choice.

  But I already know I’m not going anywhere.

  I kiss her forehead and settle in. I’m still holding on when her sobs go quiet, when the shudders of pain grow few and far between, when her limbs go slack. I’m still holding on when she slips into sleep, heavy on my chest with exhaustion and grief. Finally, I follow her there, lulled by the rhythm of her breaths, the citrus and earth scent of her, and the knowledge that for tonight, at least, I have her in my arms.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Sasha

  I surface slowly, lulled by the gentle motion of his chest, rising and falling, and his heart, thumping strong and steady in my ear. We’re wrapped around each other, squashed together on his couch, our limbs bent like the bones of a collapsed building, buckled under the weight of everything we said last night.

  Despite all that, I know I’m safe here. I don’t want to move, because it means ending this moment. And it means giving him up again. I don’t know if what I did last night was selfish or good; I only knew I had to do it. I couldn’t let him leave without understanding why I did what I did.

  I think he already knew, though. He seemed to get it long before I did. He saw it much more clearly.