by Unknown
“You’re a very whole person. You’ve become such an incredible man. I knew you would. I just didn’t know if I’d get to know the man you’ve become.”
I spin toward her voice. She’s a beautiful mess. Her vivid dress is pasted onto her body. I wonder if she’s been chewing her blood-red lips like she does when she gets nervous.
“I’m actually not whole,” I say. “I’ve been waiting ten years to feel whole.”
She comes to stand a few feet from me, keeping a distance that has me wondering if she’ll share anything at all.
I add, “I won’t be until I can claim all of you.”
Sloan wrings her hands. “You know what fear does?” she whispers to the ground before she lifts her head a fragment to gaze at me. Her eyes are tired and filled with years of something I know nothing about.
“It pushes you away,” I answer. “You know what love does?” I ask, not willing to wait for her answer. “It brings you back.” I take a step toward her.
She takes one back. That small step starts a tornado inside me. Maybe in her too.
“What does guilt do?” she asks, looking down again.
“It asks questions.” I take a step toward her for a second time, tipping her chin up.
She stays put. Progress, I think.
“Then it answers them.”
“Could you hold my hand while we talk?”
What’s under her skin? How deep is this thing I know nothing about? Is it some sort of sin, and am I hidden inside of it too?
I take her hands and clench them in mine. She offers me a frail smile in return, carving another line in my heart. It’s a smile that, although weak, scared, and haunted-looking, holds answers of all shapes and sizes. It says that she’s about to give me a little bit more.
“Did I tell you I read all of your letters the night before I left Amsterdam to come home?” She swallows over a lump of something then huffs out a breath.
“I’m glad to hear that. I wanted to reach you in any way I could. I tried.”
“I love the way you see me. I’m so beautiful in your eyes, so…everything. I wonder if I still am.” She chokes on her words as her lips quiver and eyes fill.
Two blinks later, tears are washing down her face, hiding in the rain that’s already formed tiny streams. What exactly is hiding in those tears?
“You’ll always be beautiful in my eyes.”
“I’m so glad you don’t see me through my eyes, because sometimes, my eyes see a girl I don’t like, and I don’t think you’d like her, either.”
“Why don’t you change the picture you’re seeing? Tell me what story you’d like to be in, and…” I walk one more step toward her.
She walks one back, letting my hands go.
“And please let me know if I’ll be there with you.”
“I don’t think you’re going to like the taste of what I’m going to tell you. But I know you’re ready for me. A little more anyways.”
“Why don’t you stop assuming you know everything about me and what I may or may not like? We’re not kids anymore.”
“I’m not saying that. It’s just, we can’t reinvent our past.”
I’m clearly not doing a good enough job connecting. Her body language is screaming back off. I don’t know how to connect with her anymore. It’s a skill I used to have, but somewhere along the line, I’ve lost my ability to reach her.
“I’m well aware. So let’s try to find our future. I want you in mine—do you want the same thing?”
“It’s not that simple.”
I bring her chin up again so she’ll catch my gaze, see how much love I hold in my heart for her. “Actually, it is. You just need to get out of our way and let us happen.”
She meanders away from me. I want to shake her. I want to pin her down and force her to see us. She tugs some fruits from a tree then whips them at the trunks. Each plump ball bursts open on impact. I’m pretty sure she’s about to leave again. I figure I have one, or two more chances at reaching her.
“Cricket, what sort of reality are you living in that mind of yours? Looks to me like you’re trying to escape something. So, if it’s not me, then what is it? Or who is it?”
She brings her hands to her face, then tips her head to the sky, screaming some kind of animal sound. She’s not crying, she’s yelling, and then she’s swearing. It’s a string of words that make no sense, but she’s evidently yelling at someone.
“You…goddammit…left me like this. Fucking hell. Swimming in this! I’m sorry… It… Oh my God… The accident… I didn’t mean to hurt you…I didn’t mean…” She falls to her knees and pounds the ground, sobbing out the same words. All of them filled with pain, guilt—no question—and a boatload of other things.
I kneel in front of her, my knees squishing into the muddy grass pressing against her goose bump-covered knees. “I’m guessing it was a guy…”
Her face is wet with mud, and a few pieces of grass pasted on her cheeks resemble cut marks. I wipe her skin with my thumbs.
“Did you love him?”
She sobs. “Very much.”
Her words pierce through me.
“Do you still?” I ask, praying to every molecule in the world that she’ll say no.
Her eyes catch mine for an instant. “I would,” she says as her face crumbles. Her pain is beyond anything I can touch. “Would if I could.” She’s barely whispering, but I hear her. “If he were here, I would love him more than anyone.”
My heart can be a fickle bitch to deal with sometimes. One day, she’s open and letting the sun shine in. The next, she’s locked herself away and no one, not even I, can get to her. Most people, if they heard my story, would say I’ve earned that right. Most people might not have made it through what I did. Anyway, that’s what Oma says. Funny thing is, Oma doesn’t know the half of what I’ve gone through. No one does. My guilt has prevented it. The one person in the world who will need to hear the whole story from start to finish is Hawke. He deserves to know.
We sit for a long while in silence. I can only imagine what this dear man must be thinking. How do I tell him? Where do I start?
How, when he leaves me, will I survive?
“What kind of message would you put in a bottle, knowing it would never be read but said something about you that you’ve never shared?” he asks.
“That’s a sneaky question,” I say in challenge.
“Fine. You caught me.” There’s a warm smile on his face.
And, for the life of me, I don’t know how, based on what I’ve just told him. Maybe he will love me through anything.
“How ’bout you tell me a secret,” he says as he helps me stand. “Then I’ll tell you one.” He walks us under the tree—our tree—positioning his back against the trunk and pulling me onto his lap.
We’re a wet mess of emotions, literally.
“You have a secret?” I ask.
“Yes, one,” he answers as his arms wrap around me.
“You first, then.”
A smirk slides across his lips. “My secret is I want to know what yours is.” He chuckles.
“You suck,” I answer, leaning into him.
“That’s your secret? I suck?” Then he says, “You’re lost, aren’t you? Where?” His hands hold my face. “The past? The future? In us?”
God. His question, it’s so fucking innocent. I cringe. “In forever. I’m lost in forever. Crazy, yeah?”
“You don’t want to be lost in forever?” He wipes my cheeks with the bottom of his wet T-shirt as his eyes search my face.
“No, I want to be found there, with you.”
We both smile. I’m getting closer to telling him something more. Enough, at least, to allow him to trust that I adore him. That he’s the one for me. He deserves something more, just as Daddy said.
“Start spilling some ink, darlin’. Tell me what’s going on. You say you want me, but you still love another guy—still would if you could? ‘More than anyone’ were your exact
words. Help me here. Another piece, I’m willing to work for answers. I’m really trying. I love you this much.”
I let out an anxious breath. Where do I begin? How do I tell him half of a story he deserves to know the whole of?
“He was beautiful. Strong. Courageous.” That’s as far as I get. Then the dam of tears breaks loose and finds me again.
This is a hard story to tell, one I won’t for the life of me be able to tell without tears.
“Hey, Cricket. I’m not going anywhere. Tell me about him. It’s okay.”
If only I really could. Soon, I say silently. Soon, I’ll tell you all of it. Please wait for it.
“He loved me so much. I think. He didn’t know what I’d done to him, that it was my fault. He wouldn’t have understood anyway. Couldn’t have understood. For seven years.” I swallow hard, unable to get many words out. My tears are a river I can’t stop without a structural change in my tear ducts.
“That’s a long time. No wonder you loved him.”
“He owned all of me.” As those words fall from my tongue, I gaze into Hawke’s eyes and see the pain I’m already causing him.
“All of you?” He looks away, his face holding nothing but hurt.
“He was my baby,” I sob out, not believing that this is the first time I’m telling Hawke this story. “My son died when he was sev-en… He was seven.”
Hawke grabs my face and gazes into my eyes. It’s all understanding—at least, as much as he’s capable of.
“Oh, Jesus. Sweetheart, you had a baby?”
“Yeah, I did.” My head explodes in pain, following the path of my heart.
He wraps his arms around me and rocks us. He’s lovely. He asks me nothing else, and I’m so grateful for the silence. For no more questions. No more answers for me to figure out how to serve up. This is enough for now.
The rain stops, and many minutes go by until, finally, Hawke breaks the silence. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I kept bugging you. I thought you were in love with someone overseas. So selfish of me.” He whispers that last part.
And all I think is, So selfish of me.
“I’m sorry that’s where my head went,” he says. “I’ve wanted you so much that, I never considered it might be something else. A bigger-than-life kind of thing. A child. No wonder you’re working through some things. If you want to talk more, I’ll sit here with you as long as you need me to. Tell me what to do. I hate seeing you cry.”
“Thanks. Um, I can’t.” My mouth is open with no words coming out.
He kisses me. Thank goodness he knows what to do. It’s soft and tender, filled with all the love he has for me.
“It’s okay. You don’t need to say another word. Forgive me, please, for digging at you the way I did. I’m embarrassed that I—”
“Hawke, please don’t.”
“Let’s get out of here,” he says as fresh drops of rain hit our faces. “Hop on, darlin’.” He squats.
I jump on his back. He grunts and stands, then walks us to his truck, singing Van Morrison’s “Crazy Love” all the while. He doesn’t know it, but I’m soaking his back with tears as he sings. Tears of love, hope, and a future, I pray.
We drive to the lake in silence. The only noise comes from rain pelting the truck. I’m nestled into Hawke’s side, driving myself into his armpit as he wraps my shoulders with a comforting grip. It’s all man, sweat, and pure Hawke; it’s sexy and country. And, yes, it’s soothing. It’s his personal elixir, which I want all over me. When we park, it’s still pouring.
Hawke shuts the engine off. He gazes down at me, snuggled against him, not wanting to let go.
“You want to come in for a cup of tea?” I ask, hoping the rain, our raw moment, and the wholeness of us stir the same sorts of things in him they do in me.
“Tea?” He chuckles. “A whiskey and a hot shower—that would possibly include a side of you? I’ll come in for that.” His smile is indescribable. So wide it cuts straight into me.
“Oh, yeah. I don’t know if I have—”
“I’ll grab mine,” he says before planting a shrine sort of kiss on my lips.
Maybe he can help heal me; maybe this is a good start. Little bits. I can handle little bits if he can.
She makes pain look beautiful, like a springtime blossom trapped in an ice storm. Maybe she’s right; perhaps I really do see her differently than she sees herself. Maybe I’m blinded by the pact my heart made with hers more than a decade ago. And maybe because she’s here in my arms again that’s all the proof I need to see her kind of beautiful. Pain or not, all I see is shine.
A baby. My Cricket was a mother. Christ, if that doesn’t rip my heart out for her, what the hell could? I have miles of questions, none of which I’ll be asking any time soon based on the amount of ache she is still dealing with. A baby. And that yelling she was doing at the sky—what had she said? It was my fault, the accident? Something about her not meaning what happened. The death? A car accident is all I can think. I can’t ask her to tell me more. I have questions for everyone in her family. I could strangle the whole lot of them for having left me in the dark.
For all the doors that have closed in the last twenty-four hours, some are opening. Somewhere in here, there’s a lesson. There is in everything, tucked in a crack or sitting amongst the shattered parts of us. I’m hoping to hell it’s not a wake-up call.
I grab a bottle of whiskey and the eggnog I picked up for Sloan in LA. Only one place in Silver Lake carries eggnog year round; only one person I know drinks that crap year round. I can’t help but assume she still does. A drink made of eggs. I’d more likely drink my piss.
I step out into the rain and look up. Shit, a rainy wedding day. Where the hell is the silver lining in that? I jog over to Sloan’s cabin and head in.
She yells out for me after the screen door slams. “I’m in here.”
I grab two glasses from the cupboard and fill one with eggnog and a shot of whiskey, the other with straight whiskey.
The bathroom door is open a crack. Sloan is singing to Led Zeppelin’s “Fool in the Rain.” I’d call it our song if ever there was one. I wonder how many times I’ve played it since she left. I wonder how many times she has. I knock. “Hey. Okay if I come in?” I inch the door open with my hip.
“Hey,” she says, spearing me with a smile.
She’s dancing, wearing a sexy robe. I desperately want to attach words to the way her smile affects me.
She points to the tub, which has a few inches of water in it, and School Bus. Must feel better to float than struggle on land with only one leg, is all I think while peering in on the fluff ball.
“That little thing is cute as all get-out.” I squat in front of the tub.
Sloan kneels next to me. No wonder she glommed on to this duckling. She was a mother. Was. Maybe this miniature addition is good for her.
“Sweetest thing ever,” she says, stroking the duckling’s head with her forefinger.
I stand and grab the drinks I set on the vanity.
“Remember this song?” she asks. “It’s still my favorite, just like you. I’ll never forget the first time you played it for me. How long you must have waited for rain.” She chuckles as she stands and saunters toward me.
I hand her the eggnog as she keeps talking.
“How long you must have practiced on that drum set my folks bought you for your eighteenth. How many times did we have sex while this song played on your boom box?”
I smile, remembering all of those times as I sip my whiskey, enjoying the burn it pursues down my throat. She’s thankfully animated now—compared to earlier—as she talks, dances. Shines. I want to lick the space between her words when she speaks because so much beauty sits there. I’m rabid in her presence when she shows me her beautiful insides. Reckless. The push-pull of every fiber inside me makes me feel starved if I’m not touching her, smelling her. I grin when I think it, and I realize I might actually do that: Starve myself of anything essential for the promi
se of her.
“How did I live without you in my life for ten years?” she asks before she kisses my cheek.
My heart responds to her question; I’d love to hear the answer, too, but I’m sure I won’t. What would her answer be? Loud and screaming like a child looking for attention, hungry like a starved dog chained inside a deserted slaughterhouse, my heart beats faster. I’m sure she can’t hear what I feel, but not for a second are my heartbeats wordless. No. A word is wrapped around every beat, and if I’m the lucky sonuvabitch I want to believe I am, her heart is feeling and receiving every beat like a gift. Hearing every word, and what those beats are saying.
Love. Me. You. Now. Forever.
“You know it’s happening, us all over again.” I set my whiskey on the marble vanity top of the sink. “I love you, Sloan.” I pull the sash on her robe, allowing the front to fall open and sending goose bumps racing on her flesh. “This time, though, it’s deeper. This time, it’s forever.” My lips feather her neck as my fingertips find her hips. “This time, I want it uninterrupted,” I say against her ear.
“Endless,” Sloan says, grabbing the bottom of my still-damp shirt and gliding it over my head. “I want to be enough for you. I hope I can be,” she whispers as she pushes my shorts and briefs down.
I kick off my shoes and slide her robe off her shoulders. Our lips meet after a never-ending gaze. Her hands hold my face as mine find her ass and haul her against me. Sounds of release fall from her throat, a craving that digs into our kiss and my gut.
“You’re my plus-one, my this time. My only ever.”
Our mouths come together in hungry pursuit. Her tongue slides deep into my mouth, and I mirror it, taking all of her. Every lick and breath.
“I could kiss you for a thousand days then pray there would be a thousand more. You’re the reason for the skip in my heart.”
She draws a heart in the fogged mirror and wipes the middle clear as we stare at our faces in the reflection.
“You.” My arms are wrapped around her middle in a fierce hug as I kiss her neck and hope to hell that everything I’m telling her picks the lock of our future. “You’re the eyes—the only ones I see. I’ll give you access to everything, my whole fucking shebang, so don’t keep telling me you might not be enough. Because you are, always have been. My every little thing.”