If we leave early enough?
Had I been completely imagining the night before? How tender he was with me? How every movement of his body seemed to be a plea, asking me to reconsider?
That was how the next hour went. Briggs was quiet but polite, and I was going crazy wondering why I was the only one dreading our separation. I packed my duffle bag, trying to remember everything, all the while thinking about how, after everything, he was going to just do a drive by my parents’ house and slow down just enough so I could jump out of his truck without getting seriously injured.
He carried my bag downstairs, tucking it behind the bench seat of his truck, and helped me climb in even though I was fully capable at that point. He settled into his own seat, buckled up, and let out a big sigh.
“Ready?” he asked, looking over at me.
“As I’ll ever be,” I replied with a forced smile as my stomach turned.
He drove us silently to the coffee hut and ordered my coffee with familiarity, not even bothering to ask what I wanted. It was what I wanted, though, and that only irritated me more. He handed me my coffee and muffin and I took it silently, not even thanking him. He didn’t seem to notice, though.
This was a new feeling for me, especially around Briggs. I wasn’t usually petulant, but the idea that my leaving wasn’t affecting him at all drove me crazy. I was considering giving him the silent treatment for the entire two-and-a-half-hour drive. But then it occurred to me that it was our last hours together and my irritation with him was overpowered by the realization that our time was up.
We’d been on the highway for about thirty minutes before I finally broke down. Sighing, I turned toward him and spoke.
“Can I be honest with you for a minute?”
Without taking his eyes off the road, he responded, “I hope you’ll be honest with me always.”
“It’s just, well, I’m a little upset that you don’t seem to care that this is over,” I said, motioning between us. “I know this is what we both knew was coming, but you’re being very aloof about the whole thing.”
“Aloof?” he said, and I could have sworn I heard him try to hold back a laugh.
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“You’re not upset at all? That this is over?”
“Are you?”
“Of course I am!”
“Listen, firecracker, I’m trying to give you exactly what you asked for. You know I don’t want to lose you, but I’m willing to give you the space you asked me for. So, yeah, I’m acting like I’m not upset because I thought it would be easier for you that way. But this,” he said, waving his hand around in front of him, motioning toward the road, “this is the last thing I want to be doing.”
“Well,” I said harshly, crossing my arms over my chest. “You could have been a little less chipper about it.”
He let out an exasperated breath and out of the corner of my eye I watched him run one hand down his face.
“Come here,” he said, finally, after a few minutes of silence.
“What?”
“Come here.” He reached out and grabbed my hand, practically dragging me across the bench until I was sitting right next to him. “We’ve got two hours left and I want you right next to me.”
“I’m sorry I snapped at you,” I whispered as I let myself relax into him. The difference in how it felt to be just a few feet from him to being in his arms was staggering.
“It’s okay, Talia. I’m just as upset as you are.” He rubbed his hand up and down my arm, holding me close. It was ridiculous how much better I felt knowing I wasn’t the only one anxious about being apart.
“I’ve had a really great time with you this past week,” I said softly, running my hand over his knee, trying to touch him as much as I could.
“Same here, baby,” he said against the side of my head.
Eventually we slipped into normal conversation, the kind that seemed to only take place during car rides. He told me about his brother and a few stories about his childhood. I regaled him with the tale of my junior prom where my brother punched my date when he caught him groping me on the dance floor.
“It’s a brother’s duty to stick up for his sister. I would’ve done the same thing if I ever caught someone’s hands on my sister. You know, if I had a sister.”
“Hmmm. Macho chivalry isn’t dead after all.”
He laughed. “It’s not chivalry when it’s your own sister. It’s just, I don’t know, instinct. Protect the women in your life. Punch bastards who touch them. Simple.” He shrugged as though his statement was common law.
“Okay,” I said, trying to change the subject from punching people. We still had another hour left in our drive and I was desperately trying to distract myself from counting down the miles as they passed. “Let’s play two truths and a lie.”
“I’ve never played that one.”
“It’s easy. You list two things that are true and one that’s a lie, then the other person has to guess which one is the lie.”
“Sounds easy enough. You go first.”
“All right, let’s see.” I tapped my pointer finger on my chin, contemplating what to share. “I’m afraid of spiders, I’ve never been out of the country, and I’m allergic to mangos.”
“Okay, so one of those is a lie?”
“Correct. You have to guess which.”
“Well, I think you’re probably telling the truth about the spiders—haven’t ever met a woman who didn’t scream at the sight of a spider. And mango is kind of a weird thing to be allergic to, right? I mean, that’s an odd allergy. So, I’m going to guess you’re lying about never leaving the country.”
“I’ve never had a mango in my life, so I wouldn’t know if I’m allergic to them,” I say with a smile. “And it’s true, I’ve never been out of the US. Hawaii is the closest I’ve ever come.”
“Not even Mexico? Or Canada?”
“Not even.”
“And you’re afraid of spiders?”
I shivered involuntarily in my seat. “I loathe spiders.”
“Interesting, but not surprising.”
“All right, your turn,” I said as I pulled one leg up under me, turning to face him. He was smiling and I wanted to remember what he looked like when he was happy.
“Hmm,” he said thoughtfully, resting his hand on my thigh and giving it a gently squeeze. “Okay, I hate camping, my nickname when I was a kid was Moo, and my thumbs are double jointed.”
I narrowed my eyes at him as I contemplated my options. “I don’t want to jump to any conclusions here, but I’m pretty sure if any of your digits were double jointed, I would have figured that out in the last week.” His face was like stone and he gave nothing away, just kept driving, eyes on the road. “But, I secretly hope you’re telling the truth about camping because, I too, hate to camp.” I watched his face for any kind of tell, but there was no reaction at all. “Moo seems like a reasonable nickname.” Not even a twitch of his face. “So, I think you’re lying about the joints.”
His response was to hold up his hand and I watched in horror as he brought the tip of his thumb up and over the back of his hand without the aid of his other hand at all. Then he looked over at me and with a straight face said, “I love to camp.”
“Oh my God,” I said through laughter. “First of all, don’t ever show off that trick with your thumb. It’s creepy. Second, I should have known you liked to camp, what with the fires on the beach.” I let out a sigh. “So, what’s with Moo then?”
He shrugged, putting his hand back down on my thigh, spreading his fingers wide as though he was trying to touch as much of me as possible. “I guess my parents worked really hard on the whole barnyard animal thing when I was a baby and all I said for a few weeks was moo.” A smile crept across my face picturing a tiny Briggs toddling around imitating a cow.
Suddenly, I realized we’d only spoken about his parents a little, and he hadn’t mentioned much about them. “Where are your parents now?”
“Camping,” he said, no fluctuation in his voice at all, face emotionless.
“Seriously, Briggs.”
“Seriously. They camp for a living.”
“Shut up,” I said, laughing and smacking him on the arm.
“When they retired they sold their house and bought a camper. They hop around from campsite to campsite as hosts. I’m not kidding.”
“Oh,” I said, waving a hand in the air. “I can do a camper.”
He laughed and it made something inside my chest open up. I loved hearing him laugh. It was the best sound. That and the way he said my name.
“What did they do before they retired? And if you say camp, I’ll kick your ass.”
He laughed again and my heart sputtered.
“Mom was a secretary at a high school and my dad was the foreman at a mill in town. The mill shut down, forcing my dad into early retirement, but he and my mom had always been ridiculously frugal. So, they both retired, and now they run campsites together.”
“That’s really interesting. I didn’t even know that was a job people could do.”
“It is a little unorthodox.”
“But still pretty cool. How long have they been married?”
“Almost forty years now. They met in high school and married right after. Mom was only seventeen.”
“Wow.” It seemed as though both Briggs and I had been products of couples with good marriages. My whole life I’d wanted what my parents had. Sure, they fought and argued, but they always made up. I watched my father dote on my mother, and I watched my mother go out of her way to make my father happy. I’d always wanted someone I could love like that and someone who cared for me the same way. Perhaps that was what made me complacent. Maybe I wanted what my parents had so badly, I couldn’t admit to myself when it became obvious we were lacking something real. “Can I ask you a question that might come across as insensitive or rude?”
“Shoot,” he said, eyes still on the road.
“Did you feel like you’d failed at your marriage? I mean, with your parents’ marriage as an example, were you disappointed when you realized yours was over?”
“Well,” he said at first, but then was quiet for a few moments. Finally, he continued, “Regardless of how long or successful my parents’ marriage is, mine failed. I played my part in that, but I definitely don’t take all the blame. Do I feel like a failure? Sometimes. But I’d rather end a bad relationship than stay simply because of other people’s notions of success. Who’s to say divorce isn’t a success? I’d feel more like a failure if I stayed with Cecily after everything that happened.”
“Were your parents disappointed?”
He let out a sharp laugh. “That Cecily and I divorced? Fuck no. They hated her.”
“Really?” I gasped, the drama of it all drawing me in. “Why?”
“Because they could see from the beginning that she didn’t love me the way I loved her.”
Those words hurt, even though I knew it was completely irrational. Not only did just the idea of Briggs loving someone make my stomach turn, the anger knowing he loved someone so much and that she hurt him, well, it had me feeling a little homicidal.
I let out a breath, trying to push the tension out of my body. “I regret this line of questioning,” I said with a sad laugh, trying to lighten the mood in the truck.
“Did your parents like the guy you were with for so long?”
“Yeah,” I replied, my tone wavering, “but in their defense, I kept a lot of stuff from them.”
“Like?”
“I only told them the good parts. I always made it seem like everything was great. I think normal people complain about their partners on occasion. I never did. Everyone was shocked when it ended. I was too, but as time passed, I understood.”
“What were some of the bad parts you kept to yourself?”
“Just that I never felt that all-encompassing love for him, that toward the end he seemed to dislike more about me than he enjoyed, or that we weren’t connecting on any level for a long, long time.”
He gripped my thigh tighter at my words and I had to look away from him to keep my composure. We’d both been through a lot, and a very large part of my brain was telling my heart to realize that not enough time had passed. The threat of being hurt by Briggs, even if he didn’t intend on inflicting, was very real and probable.
A silly get-to-know-you game was making it very clear to me that ending whatever I had with Briggs was the right decision. Even if it made me incredibly sad.
We were both quiet for a while after my depressing statement, but neither one of us moved to disconnect from each other physically. I wanted his touch as long as I could get it, so I never moved out of his reach.
“You’re going to want to take the next exit.” My voice was low and threatening to break, and my heart started thundering in my chest as our inevitable separation grew closer. He followed my directions and then my parents’ house was coming into view. “It’s the blue house up there on the right,” I said, my voice practically a whisper.
He pulled his truck right up behind my car, put it in park, and killed the engine. Neither one of us moved. In fact, we sat there in silence for a minute or two. Finally, Briggs’s hand cupped my cheek and he pulled my face to look at him.
“Hey,” he said as his thumb swept over my cheek. “This was the best week of my life, I’m going to miss you like crazy, and I can’t wait to drive away from here.”
I laughed, but only to keep myself from crying. “I’m guessing that last one is a lie?”
“Your turn,” he said, inching closer.
“I wish things were different, I’m going to miss you like crazy, and I definitely could never fall in love with you.”
His mouth closed over mine in the softest, most tentative kiss. It was not hurried or even sexy. It was slow. He was kissing me as though he was trying to memorize exactly how it felt to have his lips against mine. It was a new kind of kiss from him. He’d never kissed me goodbye before.
“Have lunch with me,” he rasped as he pulled away. “Coffee, anything, just… don’t go yet.” His pleading voice almost broke me, almost made me stay.
“It’s not a good idea, Briggs.” It wasn’t a good idea because if I stayed with him for even just one more afternoon, I didn’t know if I’d have the strength to ever leave. And we both needed that. As much as I wanted him, I knew it wasn’t right.
He let out a breath, still holding me to him, then he kissed me one last time. “All right,” he said. He broke away from me and opened his door, shutting it behind him. The sound made me jump and the stinging behind my eyes was coupled with the tightening in my throat. I knew I was close to losing my composure. I took a deep breath as he walked around the front of his truck, but when he opened my door I wasn’t any farther from a breakdown. He reached his hand out to help me down, but as soon as my feet were on the ground, he let me go. I watched as he grabbed my bag, then closed the door, holding the bag out to me as he leaned back against his truck.
“Well,” I said as I took the bag from him, the awkwardness of not knowing how to say goodbye to that man taking over.
“You have my number.” His voice was curt, his words short.
“Yeah.” I rocked back on my heels, trying to delay the inevitable, but then I found some inkling of courage way deep down inside and took a step toward him, letting one of my hands rest on his chest. My eyes found his and I said softly, “It really was the best week.”
He didn’t respond, just kept looking right into my eyes. I got the message. He wasn’t backing down.
I rose up on my toes and pressed my lips to his cheek. I came back down to my feet, but stayed close, wanting so badly to just crawl against him, to nestle into his chest and have him hold me one more time. But he didn’t touch me.
“You gotta be the one to walk away, firecracker.”
I’d never heard words that hurt as much as those did.
“Okay,” I breathed.
I didn’t need to be told twice. I backed away from him, my hand falling away from his chest, and I looked up again to see his beautiful brown eyes, but he was looking at the ground, avoiding my gaze. Stepping back, I gripped my bag in my hand and made my way to my car, every step pounding up my body from the pavement. No one was home at my parents’ house and for that I was grateful. I didn’t need an audience, but I did need to get away.
I unlocked my car and climbed in, started the engine, took one last look at Briggs in my rearview mirror, and drove away.
He watched me go until I was out of sight.
Chapter Nineteen
Talia
“What kind of ice cream did you decide on?” Angela’s voice was loud through the speaker on my phone, which was sitting on the counter as I ran my ice cream scoop under hot water—a little trick I used to make it easier to dish up ice cream. A girl needed an entire arsenal of tricks to get through a breakup. If there was a way to make scooping ice cream easier, heck, that would save me time every single day. Sometimes twice, depending.
Granted, I wasn’t really dealing with a breakup. A breakup required a relationship. Briggs and I hadn’t ever been in a relationship. We’d just had sex. Lots of sex. And maybe I caught some feelings for him, but I was trying my damnedest to forget about them. And him.
“I went with chocolate chip cookie dough.”
“Ah,” she said. “Solid choice.”
“Are you partaking in this ritualistic drowning of sorrows in ice cream?” I asked, licking my spoon clean.
“I’ve got my Neapolitan all dished up, just waiting for the show to start.”
“That’s just gross, Angela. Neapolitan is the black sheep cousin of the ice cream world. Plus, it’s boring.”
“It’s my favorite,” she said indignantly. “Your brother likes it,” she added snidely.
“Well, then it’s obvious you’re a match made in boring heaven.” I was joking and she knew me well enough to tell. But I told myself to back off. Angela had been a huge support to me for the last week since I’d seen Briggs. I had gotten in my car and planned to drive all the way home to Bend, but I was only five minutes from my parent’s house when I’d finally had a total breakdown. I drove to Angela and Brody’s house and luckily they were both home.
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