Unglued (Holding On)

by Rachael Brownell

  I hop to my feet, trying to find the strength to reach in my bag and pull out a racquet. They were probably in need of restringing, or at least the strings needed to be tightened. That was the least of my concerns right now. Right now, all I could focus on was the fact that I was going to do this, that I needed to do this, that I wanted to do this.

  With my racquet in one hand and two balls in the other, I slowly approached the practice wall. It’s not much, two very large pieces of plywood attached to the fencing, but I knew every square inch of that wall at one point in time and could predict exactly where the ball would go. Now, it looked like two very large pieces of plywood that were as unpredictable as I was. It scared me, plain and simple.

  Some people say the first step to recovery is the hardest. For me, the first step was admitting that I was injured, beyond repair, beyond my control. I gave up control. I gave up tennis in hopes that it would help me move on with the rest of my life. For me, the first step was not the hardest, it was the easiest.

  Coming back here, picking up a racquet and attempting to play again...this is going to be the hardest step for me. It’s not step one but it’s not the last step in the process for me either. Today is going to go one of two ways for me. Either I will be able to handle this, physically and emotionally, or I won’t be able to.

  Time to find out. Time to take my first swing and see which way this was going to turn out. Time to see how strong I am. My physical and mental strength are both in question, and I need to know how strong I am. For me. For my sanity.

  I give the ball a bounce. Once. Twice. It still feels natural. The time that’s elapsed since the last time I even held a ball is gone. Everything around me is gone. It’s me and the ball and nothing else right now.

  One more bounce and I find myself swinging. The ball sails towards the boards and back towards me just as quickly. I’m not ready for it and I swing late, missing the ball completely.

  My determination is overwhelming. I can feel my sense of pride bubbling over. I will hit the ball. I will not let one miss determine my abilities.

  Bounce.

  Bounce.

  Swing.

  It sails towards the boards and bounces back toward me. This time, I’m ready. I swing and my racquet connects. The ball sails back toward the boards again and then back toward me. I connect a second time, but my swing was a little too early. I was a little too eager. The racquet connects and sends the ball sailing over the left side of the boards and outside the court.

  I walk with determination to where my ball has landed outside the courts. That’s when I feel it again. I can feel someone watching me again. My body shudders as I bend down to pick up my ball. I glance around as I make my way back to the court, but I don’t spot anyone. Am I going crazy?

  After playing in front of crowds for years, I am starting to feel self-conscious. Never once did I feel anyone watching me. Except Ethan. I always knew when he was close, when he was watching. I could feel him then and I can feel him now. He was close, too close.

  I close the gate behind me and approach the practice boards again. I feel the first drop as I bounce the ball. I look up to the sky and it’s clear, perfectly clear. I am going crazy. I feel another drop and this time I ignore it.

  It’s the middle of July. Monsoon season is approaching, but we have yet to have our first massive rainfall. All the washes are dry and there have been no reports of rain yet. There was no way it was going to rain today.

  I hit the ball and it comes back to me quickly, but I’m ready. My timing is perfect. I hit it back to the boards and it comes right back to me. I’m starting to feel comfortable after it comes back a third time and try my backhand.

  The moment I reach across my body and pull the racquet back, I instantly regret my decision. The pain starts in my shoulder and travels down to my hand. I drop my racquet before the ball even reaches me. I grab my shoulder and a silent scream escapes my lips.

  The pain is so intense that I drop to my knees. I’m holding my shoulder with my left hand and trying to rub the pain away, but it’s only making it worse. I know that I’m done for the day, but I don’t want to admit it to myself just yet. I want to keep going, to push through the pain, but I can’t even manage to stand up.

  Then the rain comes. It’s not a light shower. There is no warning, no preface to the massive storm that’s coming from the fluffy white clouds above. The rain is coming down hard and fast. I’m soaked to the bone and can barely see two feet in front of me. I need to stand up and gather my things. I need to get out of the rain and to my car as quickly as possible.

  I feel a set of hands pull me up by my waist. I don’t need to turn around to know who’s standing behind me. I can feel his presence. My heart rate has sped up, and my body betrays me by shuddering the second he touches my shoulder.

  I turned to see him standing only inches from me. His shirt is soaked, plastered to his chest, and I can see his nipple ring. I want to reach out and touch it. It’s almost like his body is calling to me. It wants to be touched. It wants me to tug on it.

  I averted my eyes to the court below my feet. What do I say to him? Why is he even here? No one knew I was coming here today. I didn’t even know that I was coming here today. How did he find me?

  “Why don’t we get out of the rain? You’re shivering.”

  “I’m fine. I actually need to get to work.”

  There was so much more I wanted to say, so much I wanted to ask him. I chickened out. I reached down and grabbed my racquet with my good arm and walked away. I knew that he was watching me. I knew that he would follow me. I didn’t care at that moment. His pull was strong, almost too strong. I needed to get away. I needed distance so I could breathe.

  I walked in to work and went straight to the bathrooms. I did my best to ring out my hair and quickly changed into my work clothes. I was officially five minutes late when I finally clocked in. I guess it was my day for being tardy. Luckily, the girl I was replacing was too busy at the moment to notice that I was late.

  I took over for her at the counter and tried my best to focus on my job. My thoughts kept drifting back to Ethan, his shirt soaked, and his nipple ring taunting me. By the time I turned the sign to Closed and started to clean up, I was mentally exhausted. My shoulder was killing me, and all I wanted was to go to bed.

  I was in the back filling my mop bucket when I heard the front door chime. I instantly went on alert. I thought I had locked the door, but I don’t remember actually doing it. Someone was inside. Someone let themselves in, and I was the only one here. I needed something to protect myself. I needed a weapon.

  I went into the office and grabbed a pair of scissors. I knew that they wouldn’t scare anyone away, but they would hopefully be able to cause enough pain to allow me to escape. There was only one way in and one way out of the coffee shop, and the intruder was between me and the exit.

  I heard someone say hello. I heard someone call my name. They knew I was here, there was no use hiding. They knew who I was. I grabbed the scissors and put them in my back pocket. If nothing else, I would have them if I needed them.

  I peeked around the corner and into the cafe. I instantly froze. What was he doing here?

  He scared the crap out of me. I couldn’t believe that he had the nerve to come into the café knowing that I would be by myself and knowing we were closed. What kind of idiot does that to a person, especially someone they are supposed to care about?

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I just wanted to check on you and see how your shoulder was feeling. You looked like you were in quite a bit of pain earlier and I wanted to check on you.”

  Of course he would show up here. There was no escaping him. I knew that we needed to talk, it was evident, and he was being quite persistent. Following me around was not making me want to talk to him more. It was actually making me want to talk to him less. His constant presence was making me scared. Scared of what I was feeling, scared of what I still felt for him
, and scared of finding out if he felt the same way.

  “I’m fine. I told you that earlier.” I was being cold. I knew it, but there was no stopping it. I was trying to save myself from heartache again. I wouldn’t survive losing him again.

  “I know. You’re fine. Anytime I ask you how you are, you say that you’re fine. Why not try telling me the truth for a change. How are you, Becca?”

  “I’m...What do you really want, Ethan? I know this is not about my shoulder. You watched me play today. You were there. Now you’re here. What do you want?”

  “You. That’s all I want. I want you back in my life. I want things to go back to the way they were before I messed them up. I want us again.”

  That was what I was afraid of. I felt the same way, but I knew that if I gave in, that he could hurt me again. Self-preservation.

  “I don’t know if I can give you that. After you left, I fell apart. It took me a long time to pull myself back up, and I can’t go through that again. I won’t be able to recover this time. Natalie...well, she was a large part of my recovery. She helped me out of a very dark place, and she’s not here to save me if that happens again.”

  I barely got the last part out. I hadn’t said Natalie’s name since her funeral. I hadn’t allowed myself to really let it sink in that she wasn’t here anymore. I had read and re-read her letter every day, more than once a day, since her funeral. The pain was still present and her words were still fresh.

  Don’t waste any more time not being together. Life is way too short for that.

  “I can’t promise you that I won’t hurt you again, or that it won’t be hard, but do you know what I can promise you?”

  I knew it was a trick question. Promises were made to be broken. No one can promise anyone anything and know that they will be able to keep that promise. I wanted to hear this, though.

  “What? What is it that you think you can promise me and keep?”

  “To love you. I promise to love you until the day I die. I’ve loved you since the moment I laid eyes on you, and I’ve never stopped loving you. The moment I left was the worst moment of my life. I was angry and sad and confused, but I still loved you. I loved you then, I love you now, and I’ve loved you every moment in-between. That’s what I can promise you, that’s all I can promise you.”

  Wow! That’s all? I want to tell him that I love him too, that I’ve never stopped loving him. I want to tell him that every moment we’ve spent apart, every second of every hour of every day, I spent loving him because I don’t know how to not love him. That’s what I want to say.

  “Oh.”

  I am once again speechless. My voice is absent and in its place is a bewildered expression and an empty shell of a person who is trying to become whole again, one step at a time. His words fill my heart, and all of a sudden my feet are moving my body in his direction.

  I stop just short of where he’s standing. I can see that his breathing is as labored as mine. Standing this close to him is making my knees weak and my pulse race. My heart is beating loudly in my chest, and for a moment, I think that I might faint again.

  I close my eyes and just breathe. I need to breathe. Once again, his presence is making my head swim. His presence is all I feel and it’s beyond overwhelming. I want him to wrap his arms around me, to hold me, and to tell me that this will really work. That everything will be okay. That no matter what, things will work out. That’s what I want him to tell me, but I know that it won’t be okay, no matter what kind of promises he makes me.

  “I believe you. I believe that you would never intentionally hurt me again. I believe that you still love me, that you will always love me. I believe you, but you broke my heart. You broke it into a million pieces the day you left, and I still haven’t found a way to piece it back together. I wouldn’t survive if you broke it again. I wouldn’t know how to move on, to live. I want to give you my heart, I really do, but I can’t. It’s still shattered.”

  He’s speechless. I knew that as hard as it was for me to hear that he still loved me, that it would be harder for him to hear that I was still hurt. Was I still in love with him? Absolutely! That didn’t change the fact that I was still broken and scared. That didn’t change the fact that I was unsure of everything involving him. That didn’t change the fact that I needed to guard my heart and that was what I was doing. I was guarding my heart.

  “I leave tomorrow night. I have to get back to work, and I don’t want to leave things between us like this. I thought...well, I thought that maybe we could try again.”

  I could hear the disappointment in his voice. I saw it in the way his shoulder slumped forward and his head bowed towards the floor. I felt awful, but I knew that this was it, the way it had to be. There was no other option.

  “I’m sorry, really. I don’t know what else to say.”

  “Me too.”

  He turned to walk away but paused when he got to the door. I knew what he was going to say even before he spoke. I felt the same way. It was the end.

  “I love you, Becca. I always will.”

  I closed my eyes and felt the tears running down my cheeks. The door chimed and when I opened my eyes, he was gone. I was wrong. I thought that by keeping him at a distance, by shutting him out, that I was protecting my heart. I thought that if I let him go that I wouldn’t feel the pain. Opening my eyes to find that he wasn’t standing there anymore, broke my heart all over again.

  Chapter 17

  “I can’t believe you let him go. Why? You still love him don’t you?”

  “Of course I still love him. I never stopped loving him.”

  “Then why didn’t you give him another chance?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why, Becca?”

  “It hurts. It hurts so much.”

  “What hurts?”

  “My heart. It hurts without him. It hurts when I’m around him.”

  “That’s not pain, at least not the kind of pain you think it is.”

  “What do you mean it’s not pain? It hurts!”

  “Your heart doesn’t hurt, Becca. Your heart yearns. When he’s not around it yearns for him. When he is around it yearns for him. Your heart wants what you’re denying it. It wants Ethan. It belongs to Ethan.”

  “That doesn’t even make sense. How can my heart want him after what happened. He broke my heart, Natalie. He destroyed me.”

  “The heart wants what the heart wants. It doesn’t have to make sense.”

  “Why? Why would my heart want him?”

  “Think about it. You love him. You love with your heart. Your heart loves him. It’s simple. Don’t overthink it, Becca.”

  “It’s not about what my heart wants.”

  “Trust me. You need to listen to your heart. It’s trying to tell you something.”

  “What?”

  “Listen to your heart, Becca. Listen to your heart.”

  “But Natalie...”

  I awoke with a start. The dream was so real. I was talking to Natalie. She was standing less than five feet away from me. We were sitting at our normal table in the cafeteria. There were people walking around us. I could hear their conversations, the sound of the espresso machine at the coffee stand as it steamed the milk. It was real, too real.

  She was arguing with me, debating as she would have said. This can’t keep happening. I can’t keep dreaming about her, having conversations with her that aren’t real. Why is she stalking me in my dreams?

  I turned over and my alarm tells me that I have five more minutes before I need to get up. I need a cold shower and a cup of coffee. I need to shake this off. Ethan leaves tonight. Maybe Natalie will leave me alone once he’s gone. Knowing her, not a chance.

  My shower did little to erase my dream. Everything Natalie had said, in the dream, in her letter, was the only thing I could think about as I was getting ready. I heard my mom come in from work and head into her room to go to sleep. I thought about going in and talking to her, asking her for her opinion, but st
opped myself once I realized that I would have to tell her about my dream, about talking to Natalie. I would sound crazy and I knew it.

  I heard the coffee machine beep, letting me know that it had finished brewing. Just the thought of a cup of coffee put a pep in my step. I quickly finished getting dressed and pulled my hair back in a ponytail. With the heat and possible storm headed our way, there was no point trying to straighten it today. The first drop of rain would cause instant frizz.

  I bounced down the stairs with a sense of purpose, but stopped dead in my tracks when I saw Brad waiting for me in the kitchen. He was leaning against the counter with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and what looked like a letter in the other. My eyes were drawn to the letter when I saw the handwriting on the front.

  Natalie.

  I knew that I was not the only one who had gotten a letter. She had written one to Ethan, Morgan, her parents, and Brad as well. She may have written more than just that, but no one else had said anything.

  His smile was tentative as best. It barely reached his eyes and his body language told me that whatever was about to happen, I was not going to like it.

  “Morning.”

  “Hey. What are you doing here?”

  “I came for the coffee.”

  “Right. So, why are you really here because we both know I make my coffee strong and you take it weak?”

  “You’re right. Your coffee is awful. I actually need to talk to you.”

  The way he said it...I knew. I knew that something was wrong. I knew that whatever we were about to talk about was serious. His posture gave him away. He stood up straight like he was trying to find his confidence, or maybe his inner strength. His smile was gone, and in its place was an expression I’ve only seen a few times throughout our long relationship.

  “Okay. What’s up?” I try to sound nonchalant as I make my way around him to the coffee pot. I reach for a mug and slowly fill it with the steaming caffeine that I am in desperate need of right now. I add two spoonful’s of sugar and a little creamer before I turn back around to face him.