by Naomi Niles
“Kyle…”
“Yeah, baby?”
“Just…oh God, Kyle…so good…” I felt him grin into me as his pace picked up even more. I felt another orgasm building up all the way from my toes. I cried out his name again, and he brought his face back up to look into my eyes and then he whispered my name before I felt his body go tight and his hands dig into my skin. That put me over the edge and we came together, panting and gasping and writhing in the oil that our bodies were both covered in now.
I shook and quivered, and once the high had passed and I lay comfortably in his arms, the regrets began to slip in. Dylan was still in rehab. He’d been there for almost two weeks and he was doing great. He thought that I’m waiting for him. Kyle shifted underneath me and I felt his hands come up and take my face in them. He brought his lips sweetly to mine and that warmth spread through me, obliterating all thoughts of Dylan – for the time being.
Chapter Seventeen
KYLE
Amber and I didn’t talk about us. We didn’t talk about Dylan. We just continued on with life as usual for the next two months, except for Friday afternoons when she would schedule me for five o’clock and we’d spend an hour or two after everyone left having wild, incredibly hot sex in the massage room. I was getting stronger and we’d experiment with a different position each time. I liked to think of it as extra therapy. The only one I talked to about it was Greg and, of course, he thought the whole thing was a great idea. I refused to let myself think about what would happen when I finished my therapy in another month – or when Dylan finished rehab. I hadn’t asked her, so I had no idea when that might be.
For now I was happy and for the first time in my life, I allowed myself to do something without considering the repercussions or its effect on my future. I moved back into my loft at the end of the second month after my surgery, against Sarah’s wishes. I was used to doing things my sister disapproved of, though, so that was okay. Dad was supportive. I got a full nod out of him when I mentioned it.
I walk with a cane now and I’m much steadier on my feet. Michael handed over the new account to me, and I worked from home for now on the designs for the new building the company wanted. If these kept going well, I’ll go back to the office after I finish my therapy. As it is now, I communicate with the owner via Skype and I keep myself so busy that most of the time, Sarah doesn’t even have time to nag me about anything. I honestly think if life stayed this way forever, I could live with it just fine – for the most part.
This morning as I worked on my computer, I got a call that just might change the course of all of that.
“Hi, Kyle, this is Brenda from Dr. Grant’s office.”
“Hi, Brenda, what’s up?”
“Dr. Grant would like to know if you can come into the office this afternoon.”
“This afternoon? Okay…can you tell me what this is about?” After my surgery, I saw them once a week for a while, but after they took out the staples, I only had to go in once a month for my scans. The doctor told me that with all tumors there was a possibility of re-occurrence. He said if they got it all during surgery there was less of a chance, but when he removed mine there was a small part that had attached itself to too many nerve endings and blood vessels to safely remove. We did the scans routinely just to make sure it wasn’t growing. My first scan had been all clear last month. I had the second one yesterday. Her asking me to come in today freaked me out a little bit.
“The doctor wants to talk to you, Kyle.” I had figured she wouldn’t tell me anything on the phone, but it was worth a shot.
With a resigned sigh I said, “Okay, what time?” I still wasn’t allowed to drive. Although my coordination was a hell of a lot better than it was, it still wasn’t quite up to par.
“How is one o’clock?” I looked at the clock. It was ten now.
“Okay, that will work.” I hung up and called Greg. “Hey are you busy this afternoon?”
“Yeah, man, I’m sorry. I have a new client and I have to meet with her about doing some cabinets for her kitchen. Is everything okay?” I guess he could hear the anxiety in my voice. I hadn’t let myself think of the possibility of it returning – until now. I was trying to keep from completely freaking out by telling myself if it was growing again, I’d have symptoms. I hadn’t had a headache in over a month and everything else was great. There must be another reason he wants to see me.
“Yeah, it’s fine. I just have a doctor’s appointment, but I’m sure Sarah will take me. If not, I can take a cab or Uber.”
“Are you sure? I can try to reschedule…”
“Nah, don’t do that. I’ll find a ride. Thanks, man.”
I hung up and waited a beat before I pressed Sarah’s number. I really didn’t want to ask her. She took me for my scan yesterday, so her imagination would go wild when I told her they wanted to see me today. I changed my mind about calling her and I was about to just schedule an Uber when the phone rang. It was Amber. I stared at it for a few moments and wondered why she was calling me. She never called me, and I never called her. Like I said, we had our Friday afternoon trysts and that was it...if you didn’t count the hundred times a day I thought about her…and the dreams…
“Hello?”
“Hi, Kyle.”
“Hey, beautiful, what’s up?” her voice sounded serious.
“I thought I should let you know… Dylan’s being discharged today.”
I hesitated. I wanted to be very careful what I said here. I wanted to say, Screw him, who cares, move in with me, I love you…shit! Finally, I went with, “So…what does this mean for us?”
She sounded like she might be crying as she said, “I don’t know yet. He’s clean and he has been for two months now. He did everything I asked him to do. I, on the other hand, did not. I’m so torn here, Kyle. I feel like I owe him something…and I feel like I owe you, too.”
She “owes” me something? What the fuck is that? Is that all this is to her? “You don’t owe me anything.” That came out in a harsher tone than I had planned, but suddenly, my insides were in turmoil.
“That’s not what I meant. I feel like… I don’t want to lose you, Kyle. But the deal I made with Dylan was if he did this, we’d at least try again.”
The anxiety I was feeling just a while ago boiled and turned into a sudden blast of anger. “I’ve spent the last two months pretending, Amber. I pretend that you’re mine and I don’t have to share you with anyone or give you up at the end of this ‘trial’ period you seem to have me on… But this is where the rubber hits the road and you’re the one who has to decide what you want. I’m done pretending, so let me know what it’s going to be.”
“I want you,” she whispered. “But…”
I was over-wrought emotionally. I couldn’t take any more of this. “When you can say that to me without any buts, Amber, call me and if I’m still around, we’ll talk. Until then, I can’t do this. I’m not going to share you with him.”
“I’m not asking anyone to share – and what does that mean…‘if I’m still around?’ Are you okay?”
I hung up. I didn’t owe her an explanation. I didn’t owe her anything. I was pissed and there was no telling what I might say if I stayed on that phone. Apparently, I had bigger fish to fry, anyhow. I called my sister and told her I needed a ride and then I spent the next two and a half hours wondering how a few phone calls could cause the pendulum that controlled my life to swing from one end to the other that quickly.
*******
“Kyle, the radiologist sent over the report on your scan yesterday.” I was in the doctor’s private office. I made Sarah stay in the lobby. That was quite a feat.
“Is the tumor back?”
“It’s growing,” he said. Everything inside of me quivered. “The tissue we left behind has taken hold and has begun to spread.”
Fuck. I sucked in a deep breath. “So, why am I not having symptoms?”
“Because it’s small and it’s just beginning to grow.”
“Can we stop it…or take it out?”
“Well, this one is a little bit different than the one we took out. The tissue was left in there in the first place because of vascularization. That means it was tangled up in your blood vessels and too dangerous for us to try and remove. It’s only gotten more entangled as it’s grown-”
“Why didn’t we see this on the last scan?” I interrupted.
“Like I told you, it’s still small, but it’s growing. In the last scan, it still only looked like residual tissue. So, as I was saying, surgery won’t be an option here. But one very good option we do have is radiation therapy.”
“Like shooting moonbeams into my head?” He laughed. I wasn’t trying to be funny.
“Yeah, like that. We can have you see the radiological oncologist and he’ll talk to you about the options and how many treatments he thinks you’ll need – and a prognosis.”
“Prognosis as in how long I have left to live?”
“Kyle, this tumor is not in a life threatening place – yet. If it continues to grow, there is a chance that it will wrap itself around your brain stem and affect your vital functions such as breathing. So, that’s why we need to make sure we don’t let that happen. You’re very lucky that we caught it so soon.”
Lucky was not how I felt at the moment. Pissed, sorry for myself, scared…I was feeling a lot of things, but not lucky at all.
Chapter Eighteen
AMBER
“Do you want pizza tonight?” Dylan was yelling at me from the other room. I just walked through the door. Kyle hadn’t shown up for therapy for the second week in a row. He wouldn’t answer my calls or my texts… I was worried about him and didn’t know what to do.
“I don’t care.” I tossed my purse and keys down on the table and sat down. As I was taking off my shoes, Dylan came out from the kitchen with his phone pressed to his ear. He had on a pair of jeans, but no shirt and no shoes. He hadn’t shaved in almost a week and his belly was starting to hang over the front of his pants. He’d traded in his alcohol and drug addiction for food and television.
“Pepperoni?”
“I don’t care.” He made a face and finished ordering his pizza, with stuffed crust and breadsticks.
“What’s wrong with you?” he said after he hung up.
“Nothing.”
He waited like he thought I was going to say something else. When I didn’t he said, “Seems like something.” He sat down next to me. He smelled like the horses.
“When was the last time you took a shower?”
He made another face, but to his credit, he didn’t say what I knew he had to be thinking… I was being a bitch. “This morning, why?”
“You smell like your horse.”
He actually smelled himself and then he said, “I was petting her when I went out to feed her. I’ll take another shower before bed. Did you have a rough day?”
Every day is a rough day when you’re pretending, I thought. “No, it was fine. I’m going to shower now if you’re not going to.”
He grinned. “I’ll just take one with you. The pizza won’t be here for forty-five minutes…”
“No, I just need a minute to decompress,” I told him.
“If the day was fine, why do you need to decompress?”
“Dylan, please…”
“Fine, whatever.” He picked up the remote and switched on the T.V.
I got up and went to take my shower. He lay down on the couch. I couldn’t for the life of me understand what either of us were doing. He acted as miserable as I was. While I was alone in the safety of the shower – in the bathroom that still had no door – I resolved that we had to have this talk and we had to do it tonight. We were both wasting our lives.
When I finished and got back out to the living room, I found him eating pizza. I sat down next to him as he handed me a piece. I sat it down and said, “Dylan, we need to talk.”
“About?”
“I can’t keep doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“Jesus, Dylan! Do you not see how ridiculous this relationship is? You’re twenty-five years old. All you do is eat and watch television. I’m twenty-four and all I do is work and watch you eat and watch television. What kind of life is this?”
I saw something of the old Dylan flash in his eyes. He took a long drink of his Pepsi and then he said, “So, let me get this straight. When I was riding in the rodeo and partying and having a good time, you were miserable. Now that I’m not riding in the rodeo and not partying and having a good time, you’re miserable. So, the only common denominator is me. I make you miserable no matter what I do.”
“Do you love me, Dylan?”
“What?”
“You heard me. Do you love me?”
“Of course, I love you, Amber. I’ve loved you since I was a kid. It’s not me. I still want you. You turn me down every time I try and get close to you. I think the question is do you love me?”
I had to really think about the answer to that one before I spoke. I could tell by the look on his face that my hesitation hurt him and I didn’t like that, but we had to do this. Finally I said, “I’ve loved you since I was a kid, too. But…”
“Here we go.”
“Listen, Dylan. Please,” he didn’t say anything, so I went on, “But I don’t like you when you’re drunk and high and making threats to my sister and mean, bitter comments to me-”
“I haven’t been drunk or high for almost three months and you still haven’t let me touch you.”
“I wasn’t finished. I don’t like the guy who just sits around the house all day and rarely showers or puts on a shirt, either.”
“I’ve been riding bulls since I was eight, Amber. It’s what I planned on doing with my life. I didn’t go to college and short of working on a ranch for shit wages, I don’t have any skills. I’m good at it rodeoing. Good enough that I have enough money in the bank that I don’t have to rush into finding a job. I’m adjusting to being home all the time and being sober – it doesn’t happen overnight. They told me in rehab that I wasn’t going to stay sober if I continued to live the same lifestyle and hang out with the same people. I’m doing what they told me, and I thought what you wanted, Amber. I thought you were being honest when you said you wanted to see me through this…”
“I was being honest, and believe it or not, I am proud of you. I’m also relieved because at the rate you were going, you were going to end up getting hurt or hurting someone else. I do hope you did it for you, too, and not just for me.”
“It was for you at first, but yeah, I’m glad that I did it for me, too, now.”
Sadly, he was right. He did everything I asked and I’m still not happy. I know why, and I also know that I won’t ever be happy if I walk around with a heavy conscience. “Dylan, there’s something I haven’t been honest with you about and maybe that’s the problem. Maybe I’ve just been looking for ways to blame you for my unhappiness when it’s really me.”
“I have a feeling I’m not going to want to hear this.”
I had a feeling he was right. “I’m sorry, just know that up front, but the truth is that I’ve tried to feel differently and I just can’t. I think that I’m in love with someone else.” He looked like I kicked him in the gut, but not necessarily surprised. I guess when you factored in that he and I hadn’t had sex for about four months, it wasn’t a hard conclusion to come to.
“Who?”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me.”
“The point is that I didn’t set out to fall in love with someone else, but it happened and now I don’t know what to do about it. I assumed for so long it would be you and me forever…-”
“It still can be, Amber. Are you sleeping with this guy?”
“Not anymore. I saw him while we were separated.”
“You cheated while I was in rehab?”
“That’s not fair, Dylan. It’s not cheating when we’re separated. I’ve
never cheated on you and since the day I moved back in with you, I haven’t even seen him.” That was because he hasn’t shown for his appointments, but Dylan didn’t have to know that. I hadn’t had any plans on continuing my affair with Kyle while I lived with Dylan. I just didn’t have that in me.
“Okay fine, whatever. You moved back in with me, that has to mean some part of you still wants to be with me, right?”
“Some part of me will always want to be with you. But it’s not fair to only give you part of myself.”
“If you’re not still seeing this other guy, then what’s to keep us from getting back to where we…shit…not where we were when I was being a drunken ass, but before that, when you wanted me and we were happy?”
“I don’t know if we can do that.”
“Are you willing to try? Amber, I was willing to change my whole lifestyle for you. Are you willing to at least give me a chance to make you fall in love with me again?”
I was looking into his eyes – the same pair of eyes I fell in love with and have been looking into for almost nine years. I had told Kyle that I owed it to Dylan to at least try, and I meant that. But since Dylan’s been home, I hadn’t been able to get Kyle off my mind. The question in my heart is if it be fairer to leave Dylan alone and allow him to find someone who loved him with their whole heart or stay with him and hope that eventually my feelings for Kyle would fade. Maybe it was only a crazy, mad attraction and if he’s not in front of me five days a week, I’d get over it. I wished I knew.
Meanwhile, Dylan was sitting here looking at me and waiting for an answer. The Dylan I had lived with for the past five years would have never done that. He’d be going off on me by now – more proof that he was trying to change.