by J. R. Rogue
“I asked you if you had a good night,” she said.
“Yes and no,” I said. “It felt like a manufactured night.”
“What do you mean?” she questioned.
“Like it was a recreation of a killer painting. It had the right colors and the right focal point, but everything was off. You were there and my sister was there and my best friend was there and it should have been the best night, and to the other people in the bar it looked like a group of friends and lovers having a blast but inside we were all, we were, we were phoning it in. You know?” I shook my head and stared up at the dark building we were in front of.
“Yeah, I get that,” Kat agreed. “Let’s be real now then.”
“I’m in love with you,” I stated, shocking myself, but maybe not her. My eyes locked with hers on the last word, and her face stayed so still. I thought I saw her eye twitch a bit but I couldn’t be sure under the flickering streetlights.
“What does love mean to you?” she asked, her voice not for a second betraying whatever emotion she was feeling at my confession, if she felt any at all.
I pushed off the concrete seat and stepped down the stairs to the sidewalk. I walked back and forth a few times, counting my steps and my breaths and the words somersaulting in my head, each one fighting to be the first one said.
“To me it means, wanting your happiness more than I want my own,” I started. “Wanting more for you. I’m not trying to get you out of that town because I want you here with me, which I desperately do, but I want that for you. It isn’t letting Chuck win, it’s allowing yourself to win. You aren’t running from him, you’re running toward a new life for yourself. There is a big world out there, and it’s fucking scary to start over but you can do it. I’m so scared, Kat. I’ve never lived out of my parents’ homes. Take a minute to laugh at that and at me. It’s a little sad, I’m almost twenty-five years old, but whatever. That’s going to be my past, and I am thrilled for my future. This city gives me hope. Maybe I’ll never make a living doing what I love but I will make it my life. I’ll grind away at the day job and pinch pennies but I will get by. I already feel more alive here. Can you feel it?”
“I can,” she acquiesced, but she wouldn’t look at me.
“What else do you feel?”
“Resentment.”
“I deserve that,” I said.
“Yes, you do. Why is that?”
“Because of the way I left two years ago.”
“Why else, Reese?”
Here it was. The moment I had been hiding from. I knew I couldn’t run from it forever. There was an edge in her voice, a knowing edge. I walked up the steps and took a seat at the top where she was. I stared numbly across the street in the direction her gaze aimed. We watched a short man walk by with an empty basket, counting dollars he had made selling roses in the street.
“Because I’ve lied to you more than you know.”
“About what,” she stated. It wasn’t a question. She knew and she wanted me to confess.
I leaned forward and pushed my hands into my hair. “Omission is a lie,” I began, “and I let myself lie to you over and over two years ago.”
“Say it, Reese,” she commanded, clearly tired of my hesitation. My bullshit.
“I was the wrong number. I was the one who pulled you away from your marriage. I was the reason he became angry that night. I was the one who knew about it when we found each other that spring. I was the one who didn’t tell you the truth and let you carry on with me behind everyone’s back. I was the one who listened to you telling me the worst thing that had ever happened to you and decided to run away. I was the one who wrecked it all. I was the one who lied.”
“You were the one who broke my heart, Reese,” her voice cracked as she pushed off the steps and walked away from me. She spun back and pointed at my chest. “He broke my will, and he broke the way I looked at the world but he didn’t break my heart because I knew the moment he violated me that he never could have loved me at all. But, you, you broke my heart because you were my safe place. Both versions of you. You knew the worst thing that had ever happened to me, and you ran away when I needed someone the most. My best friend was gone and you were gone and I was more alone than I had ever been. And you’re just now coming clean. But you say you love me? How can that be true?”
“I knew back then that I could love you, so I had to leave you.”
“You’re a coward,” she accused.
“Yes, I was. I wanted you to have more than I could offer. I was a stupid boy, and I needed to grow up. I needed to be what you deserved, but I went about it the wrong way. I know that now. Let me show you that I deserve you now,” I pleaded. I stood and walked toward her, causing her to take a step back, to raise her hand, warning me away. I stopped in my tracks.
“I can’t leave,” she whispered. I wasn’t sure if she was telling me her decision or trying to convince herself she shouldn’t.
“Give me one reason why,” I said.
“I can’t just uproot my life for you! It doesn’t work that way,” I growled. I was mad. I was so mad at him for making me twist and turn like this. I wanted out of our small town back home, sure, but you can’t just pack up and leave when things get tough. I could breathe easy here, but how long would it last?
“I’m not asking you to do anything for me, Kat,” he replied evenly, not allowing the volume of his voice to meet mine. “I’m asking you to do this for yourself.”
“So I just run away from my problems? Like you do? How’s that working out so far?” I meant to wound him. I did wound him.
He fixed his gaze off in the distance, past my shoulder, probably at nothing at all. Anything to avoid my eyes. After a moment that stretched out forever, he looked back at me. He held my gaze in a way he hadn’t since he came back home earlier this year.
“Kat, I’ll never be able to forgive myself for two years ago. I was a stupid boy doing stupid things. I regret the way I left; I regret all that I kept from you. I don’t want to be that person anymore, and I have so much shit to figure out. I had a bad habit of running off when things got tough, but that is not what this is. Moving down here is me finally going after my dream. I’m an artist. That’s who I am, and I am tired of half-assing it. This isn’t a spur of the moment thing. I have thought this through. And just being down here, I know it’s the right decision.” He paused, sucking in a breath.
His words had tumbled out so fast. His Adam’s apple moved slowly in front of me and he swallowed. His throat was a little red, his emotions painted plainly there. He spoke again.
“Now you, you can stay in Missouri and you can live a half-life with joint custody of a town that suffocates you with that piece of shit who hurt you. You can let him make your world a little smaller, bit by bit, because trust me, that’s what he’s trying to do. You can do that and I won’t try to stop you. Or you can take a chance on a new life down here with your best friend, and you can take a chance on me again because the truth is I’m in love with you.” He huffed out a breath at the end. A frustration. As if he hadn’t meant to let it out.
“You keep saying that,” I said.
“Because it’s true. Listen, don’t do this for me.” His voice had a pleading tone now. “Do this for you. Move in with my sister, you know she would love to have you. Forget about me and forget I’m in this city and just forget it all. But just remember you deserve better. I’m not asking you to choose me. I’m asking you to choose yourself.”
“I don’t like carrying this hate, Reese, I don’t want it inside of me anymore.”
He softened at my words, and I knew I was about to break. The weight of the resentment I had been carrying for over two years enveloped me, and I found it hard to breathe. I bent my knees and fell back to my ass on the cool damp concrete. It was a relief from the sweltering Tennessee night air suffocating me.
I didn’t want to be angry anymore. I couldn’t live with what it was doing to me. I thought I had learned that lesson with my mother, with t
he resentment I carried for her for so many years. I blamed her for every hurt I felt caused by her inability to be the mother I needed her to be. When the day came that I let myself forgive her, that I let myself know that the addiction controlling her was not what defined her, I was able to breathe again.
I reached my hands up and ran them through my full hair. It had all grown back, all that I lost after Charles broke me. I had let bits and pieces of myself come back too, but I was still drowning.
Could I leave the town I had called “home” for nearly all of my life? I thought back to my college years in New York with Sera. They were unforgettable but I felt no desire to stay the way my friend had. I missed the comfort of our small town. The city fit Sera like a glove. She came alive there, turning into a new woman. I had no clue why back then, but my best friend had been running from our home, running from her own suffocating past, running from a hurt placed on her skin by someone who was supposed to love her.
New York never felt like home to me, but Nashville felt different. It was dizzying and fast-paced and crazy, but it still felt like a small town in some ways.
I had watched Sera pass people on the street that she knew, hugging them so uncharacteristically. I watched the bouncer at her favorite bar high-five Chace, and I watched the bartender place their favorite drinks in front of them without a word and with a knowing wink.
Small towns are charming in most books and television shows. But for every Bluebell, Alabama, and for every Stars Hollow, Connecticut, there are a dozen like our own little town. One where you aren’t greeted by a friendly town mayor as you step out your door, but instead you are greeted with the fear that you may find your mother huddled in an alley grasping her next fix. Where you may find the faces of small town gossips turning over the false facts of your divorce with a white glove. Where you may find the man you had once foolishly placed all of your hopes and dreams for the future upon. Where you may find the eyes of your rapist staring back at you.
It was never in my plan to end up here. It was never in my plan to end up in my thirties, divorced, harboring secrets from the people I loved most. It was never in my plan to become a recluse workaholic holed up in her apartment every weekend, losing hair, losing faith in humanity. It was never in my plan to be sitting on the sidewalk of a city I was unfamiliar with, scared of, and a little thrilled by. It was never in my plan to fall for a boy who broke my heart. And it was never in my plan to need him the way I did.
The city moved around us, drowning out the tears that were welling up in my eyes. I brought my hands to my face and tried to push them back inside, tried to hide them from Reese, from Andrew, from whoever the fuck he was trying to be now.
I heard him move toward me, kneeling down to my level. I felt his hands on my arms, traveling up into my hair. He sat in front of me, both of his long legs stretching out, capturing me between them.
He spoke into my hair. “Let it go then. Stop carrying it. Leave it here on this dirty street.” He laughed, though it was a little sad.
I let my hands fall from my face and pulled them up to his shoulders. I gripped them and pulled myself closer to him, wrapping my legs around him. I could hear people walking by us. The city was still alive. We weren’t on Broadway, but there were still drunk pedestrians walking by, finding their way home. I just wanted to find my way home.
I wrapped my arms around him and I forgot about the rest, where we were, who could see us, it didn’t matter.
“Please tell me you’ll forgive me one day,” Reese said, holding me as close as I could get.
I nodded in response, unable to speak.
“Please tell me you’ll consider moving,” he said, hopeful. “I want that more. Forget the forgiveness, that’s what I am asking of you, for you.”
“Okay,” I choked, pushing away from him.
“Okay to which one?” Reese stared into my eyes.
The truth is a tricky thing sometimes for humans. We don’t want to be burdened with the weight of it all. The sticky sting of it, it’s too much. I believed in forgiveness then, I had to, for my own heart.
You can forgive someone for the crimes they have made against you for their benefit. It’s easy, and the reward is immediate, if not shallow. Then there is forgiving someone for yourself. To be free of the weight it has placed on your bones, on your soul. This was a mixture of both.
I was going to forgive Reese, I knew it. But most importantly, I knew I was going to forgive fate for dealing me such a shitty card, and I was going to take my life into my own hands.
I ran my hands up Reese’s neck and rested my palms on his jaw. I ran my thumbs over his cheeks and felt his throat rise and fall under my pinkies.
“Both,” I finally said. I was going to forgive him, and I was going to start over in this new city. I was going to do both. For myself. For no one else.
He kissed me then, and the volume on the world around us hushed down. The drunk pedestrians, the cars crawling by, the summer wind, it was all background music. It was all background music, and the song being written between our lips was more.
It’s not easy to start over. It’s necessary, but not easy. Kat couldn’t just pack a bag and join me in Nashville after she forgave me. She had a true adult life to dismantle, unlike me. All I needed was a trunk full of my shit.
After our week in Nashville, we drove back home so she could go through the motions. I stayed with her at her place and helped her with every step. It was my crazy idea so I owed her that. Fuck, I wanted that. I never wanted to wake up not next to her now that I knew what it was like.
She put her business up for sale, and it was snatched up quickly. It wasn’t luck, it was with help. And we needed all the help we could get.
Sera’s mother bought the business and was able to fulfill a long-time dream. She wanted to own her own bookstore and this gave her the perfect opportunity to run one close to home and next door to her husband. She even paid more than the asking price. Kat had always been like a second daughter to her growing up, and my stepmother’s heart was one of the most giving ones I had ever encountered in my life.
It took a couple of months to tie up all the loose ends we both had dangling from the shredded remains of our past lives, but we made it through them. We made it through them with honesty and a new energy between us.
Though we had years of history between us, we only had less than three months of a true, honest, relationship under our belts when we arrived in Nashville for the second time. We shouldn’t have decided to live together; it wasn’t really smart on paper. But we did it anyway.
At the end of your story, you’re supposed to tell everyone how you made it on your own and you did things your way and you didn’t get any help. But what’s wrong with a little help from the people you love? And this wasn’t the end of our story, it was the beginning.
Sera found a place for us downtown, right next door to her and Chace. It was one of the perks of having a sister who was also a millionaire. She never wanted you to feel like she was doing you a favor though. She argued that the commercial property was beneficial to the one below hers, that she had been eyeing it for a while, wanting to expand her space next door. It just so happened that this new property also had a one-bedroom loft apartment upstairs that we could live in. Though it wasn’t as swanky as she had made hers, it was killer, and I couldn’t stop thanking her. Convenient, sis.
With this gift came a job as well. Sera and Chace had been working with the troubled youth of the city. They’d created a workshop focusing on lyrics, poetry, and short stories. Art was therapy and the kids that came there sought a release from the hardness of their lives. My sister and my best friend were changing lives, and I wanted to be a part of it. So I helped them every moment I wasn’t playing music downtown.
Kat came alive in Nashville. She was new again, she told me. She relished small tasks, simple things like going to the grocery store. I would offer to go with her, and she would shush me. She wanted to step outside her door an
d soak in the feeling of honest freedom. Fearlessness. Her past was not here, and he would never see her again. He would never again cast his shadow on her life.
Kat found work a few months after moving to Nashville as a buyer for a downtown boutique. Her experience at trade shows, hand picking what would be sold in her own store, helped her find the ideal fit. When she wasn’t working her day job around the corner, she was helping Sera, Chace, and I.
I learned a lot about trauma and the after effects being around her and my sister. I learned about a lot working with those kids. There was too much I had been blind to in my life and I needed to know it all now. I needed the world to know what I did, what Sera did, what Kat did. So I started to write about it as well, to sing about it, to use my voice for it.
When Kat wasn’t working her day job, she was letting me paint her skin in vivid colors. With my lyrics, with my brush, with my own skin.
There was no doubt in my mind that this was the woman I would create a family with. The woman I would spend the rest of my life with. I was only twenty-five, but I knew. We just needed time to get to know each other without lies.
After a few years, we moved out of the city. We bought a small house on a dead end street with no neighbors in sight. We commuted to the city to work and relished the alone time we carved out at night, away from the lights and noise, the background music.
We grew a garden in the back with a short knee-length brick wall surrounding it. Reese painted the inside of the brick at night in all the colors that would never come close to the ones he had painted on my life, while I lay in the center on an iron bench watching him.
Some nights we made love under the stars and we laughed at our past. Some nights I reached down and placed my hand on the dirt below and closed my eyes. Every time he asked me what I was doing, I gave him the same answer.
“I’m listening to the memories we’ve made here.”