I’ll always be here.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
I say flatly, “Thanks again. Bye.” I hang up and turn to stare at myself in the mirror. My eyes are wild, my face is pale, and I’m still shaking. I think Dr. Singer wasn’t being honest when he said I was only a two point five on the nutso scale.
I’m a full-on ten. Maybe even an eleven.
“Megan?”
A gentle knock on the ladies’ room door makes me spin away from the mirror, my heart lurching. “Yes?”
“You okay in there?”
It’s Coop. Pull yourself together. Go face him. Try to act normal.
I smooth a hand over my hair, straighten my sweater, then plaster a fake smile on my face as I head to the door. I open it and find Coop standing there awkwardly, looking worried.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to disturb. Just makin’ sure you’re okay.”
“You should tell her how you feel,” I blurt, and instantly want to smack myself on the forehead.
Coop wrinkles his brow, confused. “Who? What?”
Well, the pitch has already been thrown. Might as well swing for the rafters. “Suzanne. You should tell her how you feel about her.”
Coop wears all his expressions the same way I do, like laundry hung out on a line for the whole neighborhood to see. Right now, his face registers astonishment and pain.
“Shit, Coop. I’m sorry. I’m not myself today. Ignore me.”
“You think she might…?” He leaves it hanging there, his eyes hopeful.
“I think she’d be a fool if she didn’t.”
That makes him look bashful. He shoves his hands into his pockets and contemplates his shoes. He says softly, “I’ve always…she’s just so…she’s outta my league, is what she is.” His small laugh sounds embarrassed. “I never worked up the nerve to ask her out in high school. I started datin’ my wife our senior year, got married pretty quick after that. The kids came.”
Coop squints into the distance. He shrugs. “Y’know. Life happened.”
“It keeps on happening too,” I say softly. “It’s never too late to start over.”
Until it is.
Coop shifts his gaze to me. His eyes take on a look of worry. “Theo told me to watch out for you. Said to make sure you were okay. Somehow I don’t think you’re okay.”
“Oh, Coop,” I say softly, touched by his concern. “I’m not even in the same universe as okay, but I’m surviving.”
“You gonna call him?”
Now it’s my turn to look into the distance. “I’m probably the last person he wants to hear from right now.”
“Trust me, you’re the only person he wants to hear from.”
Surprised by the vehemence in his voice, I shift my gaze back to Coop.
He says, “Look. I don’t know what the hell the root of all this is, this problem he has with you. All I know is that the thing that breaks you is the only thing that can put you back together.”
If that’s true, all the antidepressants in the world can’t help me.
I’m overwhelmed with sadness. “I told him to stay away from me, Coop. And I called him a coward.”
“Did you mean it?”
My throat tightens. The hot sting of tears prickles the corners of my eyes. “No. I was just…afraid, I guess. Afraid and confused.”
Coop settles his hand on my shoulder. “Call him. Leave him a message. Write him an email. Tell him what you just told me. Please, do it as a personal favor. I think it would help.”
Music swells inside the sanctuary. People begin to sing, their voices carrying past the closed doors. It’s a hymn, one I recognize well.
When I start to laugh—softly, brokenly—Coop asks, “What’s funny?”
“This song.”
“‘Amazing Grace’ is funny?”
“My mother sang it at my wedding.”
Coop frowns. “I don’t get it.”
I sigh, shaking my head. “That makes two of us. C’mon, let’s go inside before Suzanne sends out a search party.”
I link my arm through his, and we walk through a pair of double doors into the sanctuary. It’s packed with people. Everyone is standing, singing “Amazing Grace” so robustly, it’s like a group audition for a reality show about church choirs. I find Suzanne in the front row and give her a quick smile as I slip in beside her.
Standing behind a wood podium on a large, carpeted dais, the pastor is a woman in her mid-fifties with beautiful silvery-white hair. When the hymn ends and everyone takes their seats, she surveys the crowd with an air of serenity. Then she speaks in a voice that carries to the last row.
“Love isn’t born of the flesh. It’s born of the spirit, and so can transcend the bonds of flesh, and life, and time. The poet Rumi said, ‘Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes around in another form.’”
It isn’t until every head in the room turns toward me and two hundred pairs of startled eyes fix on my face that I realize I’ve begun maniacally laughing.
21
When I burst through the outer church doors, the sun has vanished behind clouds, and it’s begun to rain. I walk home barefoot, carrying my heels, wet and miserable, ignoring the constant buzzing of my cell phone in my handbag and the much louder buzzing inside my head.
Theo’s note was referring to my text about closed doors. The bible quote has nothing to do with Cass, and neither does the hymn. Or the sermon. Or the seventeenth of May. They’re all coincidences.
Sure they are. And I’m Elvis Presley.
Shut up.
You shut up!
I take it as evidence of my mental deterioration that my nagging inner voice now has split personalities that are arguing with each other. Magical thinking has dug its tentacles into my brain. No matter how many times I tell myself it’s all bullshit, that Dr. Singer’s explanation is valid and my grief is making connections where there are none, my heart doesn’t care.
My weak, stupid heart. And my poor, broken brain. Between the two of them, it’s a miracle I’ve lasted this long.
By the time I get home, I’ve got a bunch of messages on my voicemail from Suzanne. I’m not surprised. I ran from the church as if I were being chased by lions. I text her an apology, say I’m not feeling well, and make a joke about the shadow of the cross. Then I shut off my phone, strip out of my wet clothes, and crawl into bed.
I’m still there when the cloud-shrouded sun sinks into the ocean, turning the room from gray to black.
Black as his hair. Black as his eyes. Black as the shriveled-up husk of my heart.
The thing about depression is its weight. It’s so damn heavy. Every breath is a fight. Every step takes so much effort. It’s like trying to move through wet sand. It’s so much easier to lie down and let the sand fill your mouth and ears and eyes, to let it seep into your soul and obliterate all the nothingness.
As I lie in darkness, sinking into that sweet relief of letting go, I keep hearing Coop’s words.
The thing that breaks you is the only thing that can put you back together.
When the clock reads 12:02 a.m., I rise from bed, get my laptop, and compose an email.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Broken pieces
Dear Theo,
When I was six years old, I fell in love with a boy. He was smart and sweet and the best person I’ve ever known. He was my best friend. I married him when I was twenty-four. Three years later, he died, and so did I, in all the ways that matter.
I don’t know who I am without him. He was all the best parts of me. The person you met is a ghost, a ghost walking around in the guise of a woman who has a beating heart and blood running through her veins. But my heart is a stone and there’s nothing but dust in my veins. Everything inside me is ashes.
Don’t let a ghost drive you away from your home. If that’s even what happened. I find it hard to believe I could be the cause of such a thing, but what do I know? As it turn
s out, absolutely nothing.
There are people here who love you. Coop does, you know. He’s a good friend. He’ll help you through whatever hell you’re dealing with. My husband used to say, “If you’re going through hell, keep on going.” I think he meant keep going until you see the light on the other side. I’d like to believe there’s a light, but I’m finding that almost impossible. Hell is so damn big.
I’m sorry I make all your broken parts bleed. If it makes you feel any better…ditto.
A confession: I’m the coward, not you. If I had any courage at all, I’d put an end to the wasteland of misery that is my life, but I don’t have the strength. I hate myself for my weakness. To be or not to be. That’s not a question. Stupid Shakespeare.
I’m not drunk, if that’s what you’re thinking. I’m just tired. I’m so tired of trying to make sense of all this confusion. My point—and I do have one—is this.
You’re the first thing that has made me feel alive in years.
My terror about what that means is huge. My therapist says my attraction to you triggers my guilt, like maybe I’m betraying the memory of my husband, but honestly, I think my therapist is full of shit. I’ve tried and tried to believe that nothing means anything at all, that life is just one big shit show of chaos, that belief in fate and God and a benevolent universe is for suckers, but wow. Meeting you sure changed all that.
There’s also the distinct possibility that I’m crazy, so take the compliment with a grain of salt.
I’ll make you a deal. You don’t ask about my crazy, and I won’t ask about yours. Don’t ask, don’t tell. It worked fine for the military for years, it should work for two nut jobs like us.
I saw a sticker on the back of a stop sign today that read, “Sometimes following your heart means losing your mind.” It made me smile, right before it made me cry.
Come back, Theo. If I’m the reason you left, come back. A wise man recently told me that the thing that breaks you is the only thing that can put you back together. If we’re each other’s hammers, maybe we’re also each other’s glue.
Megan
After I hit Send, I feel a strange and overwhelming sense of relief. I fall asleep as soon as my head touches the pillow, and I don’t dream.
I wake with a jolt sometime in the still black hours before dawn, my skin prickling with the recognition that I’m no longer alone.
I sit up in bed, listening hard into the darkness. My body floods with adrenaline. My heart starts pounding, and my hands begin to shake. I hear nothing but the gentle patter of raindrops against the windows and the restless sigh of the surf.
And then…
That familiar crackle of electricity skitters over my skin.
He’s here.
I can’t see him, but I know straight down to the marrow of my bones that Theo is somewhere nearby.
I’m struck with a wild elation that makes me feel as light as a feather, as if I might at any moment shirk the bounds of gravity and float up to the ceiling like a balloon.
Some part of me was expecting this. I summoned him, after all. I cast a spell with my letter, one I knew would work its magic and bring him to me in the night, my midnight valentine who stalks the darkness outside my house and inside my heart.
With shaking hands, I push aside the covers and slip out of bed. I walk barefoot from the room and down the twist of stairs, my nerves screaming, a roar like thunder inside my head. At the foot of the stairs, I pause with one hand on the banister. I close my eyes and open my mind, waiting until I feel it again.
I open my eyes and look at the front door.
And it strikes me, the sight of that closed door. For all our cryptic back and forth about the damn things, there was one thing Theo and I both missed.
Some doors have to be opened from the inside.
I cross the foyer, open the lock, turn the handle, and pull—
And there he is.
Soaking wet and shivering, standing with his head bowed and his arms braced on either side of the frame, rain dripping from the tip of his nose. His wet hair is plastered against his skull. A puddle of water shimmers around his feet.
He raises his head and looks into my eyes. His face is wet from more than just the rain.
He’s crying.
Without a word, I take hold of his jacket and pull him into my arms.
He collapses against me with a groan, shuddering violently. He hugs me so tight, I’m breathless. His clothing is freezing cold, but his skin is hot. His face pressed to my neck feels feverish.
“It’s okay,” I whisper, holding him. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
I’m not sure which of us I’m reassuring.
“Come inside. Come in out of the rain, Theo. You’re wet. Let me help you. Let me help you.”
He reluctantly allows me to coax him through the door, though he refuses to release me. He’s like a terrified animal, starving and afraid to be caged, but desperate for the food inside. I kick the door shut, and we stand in the shadowed foyer, clutching each other, shivering and breathing erratically, the rain growing louder until it sounds like a hail of bullets on the roof.
His hands are in my hair. He takes big fistfuls of it, buries his face in it, breathes it in. When he makes an inarticulate sound of anguish, I gently shush him again.
Calm descends over me, a serenity so powerful, it disorients me for a moment, but then I realize it’s the same thing I felt upstairs in bed. That feeling like my soul is filling with air and I’m rising.
That feeling of finally being able to breathe after spending so long suffocating on hopelessness.
“We need to get you dry. Okay? Can you stay here for a minute?”
He drags in a breath and nods, though his hands stay in my hair and he makes no move to step away. I have to gently peel myself out of his arms. I leave him standing there like a statue, staring at the floor, and hurry upstairs to find some thick bath towels. When I come back down, he hasn’t moved from the spot I left him.
I ease off his soaked jacket and let it fall to the floor. Then I drape one of the towels around his shoulders. When I put another over his head and start to gently rub his hair, he closes his eyes and sighs.
The weight of the world is in that sigh. I can tell by how his shoulders sag after he releases it that he’s feeling what I’m feeling too. That strange unburdening of spirit. The aching bliss of finally letting go.
We’re quiet as I blot the water from his face and hair, my hands as reverent and tender with him as if he were a baby. His fragility is so unexpected, his vulnerability so raw, I’m moved almost to tears. He could crush me with those big hands of his, all those powerful muscles, but instead stands emotionally naked and allows me to care for him.
His trust is devastating.
“You have a fever,” I whisper, my brow crinkled with worry as I touch his forehead. “Theo, you’re burning up.”
He tilts his head into my palm and presses his hand against it. It’s such a sweet gesture, and so intimate. I can’t stop myself: I rise up on tiptoe and softly press a kiss to his lips.
He takes my face in his hands. Cupping my jaw, he touches his forehead to mine. He’s trembling all over, his hands as feverish as the rest of him.
I kiss him again. I have to. There is no choice. His mouth is the oxygen I need to survive, and I no longer care about anything else but this:
His soft, trembling lips.
His low, sweet groan.
His heat and his taste and the astonishing intensity of how much I like all that, how quickly addicted I become to the feel of his mouth against mine.
Everything disappears. The rain, the night, and every ounce of my hesitation, every fear for the future or what might happen next. There is only now. Right now. Here, us, this.
I pull my T-shirt over my head and drop it to the floor.
Theo sucks in a startled breath. Wide-eyed, he stares down at me, his gaze raking over my naked breasts. He’s frozen, unwilling or unable to m
ove, so I take matters into my own hands and grip the hem of his wet shirt. I pull it up and over his head, pulling it past his chin, yanking harder when his hands get caught in the sleeves. The shirt and towel tumble to the floor.
Then he’s standing bare-chested in front of me, his eyes incandescent like some nocturnal animal’s, silvery bright in the dark.
I place my hands on his chest. With my fingertips, I trace his scars, the snarls and puckers of flesh, his roadmap of ancient trauma. Suzanne guessed right: he was burned, and badly. The left side of his body from shoulder to hip is a testament to the accident that stole his speech.
But to me, his scars are beautiful. So eloquent, these monuments to his pain. It’s perverse, but I wish I had scars like these. I wish I could look at my body in a mirror and think, Yes. There is the physical evidence of my suffering. It can’t be all in my head, because there it is, carved on my skin like etchings on glass.
I have nothing so concrete. All my wounds are on the inside, hidden in places they can never heal.
I press a kiss to his chest, right above his throbbing heart. Then I tilt my head back and look up into his blazing eyes. “I don’t care if we’re crazy. You make me believe that all the things I stopped believing in might actually exist. You give me faith, Theo. Until I lost it, I had no idea how impossible it is to live without.”
His lids drift shut. He slowly exhales. Then he opens his eyes, picks me up in his arms, and heads toward the staircase.
Effortlessly, he takes the stairs two at a time. I cling to his strong shoulders, watching his profile, my mind clear, the nagging voice inside it mercifully silent. When we get to the bedroom, he strides straight over to the bed. Then he lays me down on the mattress, kneels beside the bed, slides one arm underneath me and the other around my hips, and rests his head on my stomach.
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