Nobody Else

by Jaxson Kidman

  “Ben, what about your future?”

  “My future? You know about it. That’s what caused a lot of this…”

  “No. Your future. Not Chrissy’s future. Or my future. Your future. You always include other people. What about you?”

  I was taken aback by the question. I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know, Kinsley. I’ve always just imagined the future with a family.”

  “That makes you so sweet, Ben. Honestly. You’re such a good person for that. So unselfish.”

  “But selfish with time,” I said. “And trying to control it all.”

  Kinsley looked down at the remains of our spontaneous dinner. “I’m full. Should we pack this up to-go?”

  “I’ll take care of it,” I said. “Why don’t you head home and take a bath or something. I’ll be home in a few. I’ll clean up here.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  Kinsley moved to her hands and knees and came forward at me. She brushed her lips to mine with a soft kiss. It made my heart jump a little. As she inched away I hurried to touch the back of her head.

  I came forward and offered a kiss of my own.

  Our lips pressed together for a few seconds.

  All those feelings rushing through me like a broken dam.

  It was a short-lived kiss.

  “Thank you for coming to find me,” she whispered. “And for doing this.”

  “You deserve to be happy.”

  Kinsley stood up and left.

  I stared at the small mess on the floor and rubbed my jaw.

  That’s when it all came crashing down once and for all.

  I looked around the building as my eyes filled with tears.

  This building was the place where I met Kinsley. Where I had this sudden feeling to explore the word forever again.

  And now this was the place where we had just shared our last goodbye kiss.

  24

  Say Goodbye

  Kinsley

  I didn’t take a bath.

  I instead sat in the driveway and stared at the house. I let myself escape for a moment in the memories. Ben taking me out to dinner and then going for a drive. Pulling up to the house and seeing the FOR SALE sign out front. Him getting all flirty and saying he wanted to be dangerous and go inside.

  He made me laugh.

  But then he got out of the car and opened my door. I yelled at him the entire walk to the house. Then he put a key in my hand and smiled. That’s when he told me he bought the house. For us.

  It was such a crazy surprise.

  But the inside was planned out. No shopping for anything. It was all done. That’s where the surprise took a turn. Yet it was Ben’s gleaming eyes and big heart that made me okay with it all. Just like when we first started dating and he was so excited for me to open my veterinarian practice. But when the excitement ended, it was all about the numbers of the building. And the eventual decision to get a second building, which I had no desire to be part of.

  As I walked from my SUV to the house, I had a sinking feeling in my chest.

  I entered the house and realized… it was never my home.

  It was always just a house.

  It was our house, yes, mine and Ben’s, but it was never a home. There were no memories that were visible. No inside jokes. No little marks in the walls or floors that matched a story that would make us laugh, cry, or get annoyed. It was like stepping into a perfectly taken picture. Which wasn’t always the worst thing. The place had been a great escape. A place to rest my mind and my body after everything that had happened.

  I walked through the house, realizing that nothing there was mine. From the sugar spoon in the sugar dish to the large wok hanging on the side wall, nothing was mine.

  Upstairs, I sat on the edge of the bed and buried my face in my hands.

  The day I left Brice, I wasn’t leaving him. I was leaving our life. Only for a minute. But when Lindsay lost her life, time stopped for me. There wasn’t a thing anyone could do for me to make time start again. I walked through life as though I were a ghost. People were around me. I heard their voices. I saw them. I could touch them. I could drink drinks and taste food. But nothing touched me. I floated.

  Then one morning I realized I didn’t want to float anymore. By then, Brice had moved from cleaning up the house of Lindsay’s memory to drinking in the dark. I knew what he was doing though. He was drinking to hide his pain from me. I never let him have his pain and express it. I got angry with him and myself.

  And I left.

  Somewhere in those moments after, Brice and I just let it all go.

  It was never supposed to end up that way.

  I looked over my shoulder as a tear rolled down to my cheek. I looked at Ben’s spot on the bed and frowned. It had only been good if we ignored everything around us. If we made sure the past wasn’t talked about. If I just came home and waited for him and never asked why he worked so late or when he was going to stop doing it. It really had been nothing more than living in kind of a comforting bubble. Something we both wanted, but there was no way an entire life could be lived that way.

  If I had only known about Chrissy and TJ a long time ago. If Ben had only known about Brice and Lindsay a long time ago.

  Things could have been different. Maybe. Maybe if we had talked about everything sooner, we would have decided this relationship wasn’t working. The foundation was built on silence and grief.

  I stood from the bed and walked to the closet. I looked at all the clothes. The only part of the house that I picked out. That I purchased for myself. And even still, half the clothes I’d either only worn once or never wore at all. Nice clothes that I told myself I’d need for when Ben had special events. Or if I ever had a special event. But I never had one of those. The bubble from this house tunneled to my veterinarian practice and right back. I had never taken the time to expand into what I wanted. I loved taking care of animals. I loved meeting the people I did. But I wanted more than that. It wasn’t about building a successful business and opening another office time and time again.

  Yet that’s how I lived.

  I reached into my closet and wrapped my arms around the clothes I wanted. I stepped back, tearing them off their hangers. A few resisted but I just kept pulling. Grunting. Groaning. My eyes filling with more tears.

  When I was able to finally turn, I dropped the clothes to the bed.

  I got my suitcase from the closet and piled the clothes inside.

  I raced to the bathroom to get some of my more personal items and then made a stop at a tall dresser where I cleaned out two drawers of more clothes. Not being a girlie girl, my entire jewelry collection was in a small box that fit right on top of the clothes in the suitcase.

  I pulled the top of the suitcase over the clothes and zipped it up with ease.

  There. Just like that. I was packed.

  I dragged the suitcase off the bed with a thud and rolled it out of the bedroom.

  I looked back at the bed and swallowed hard, biting my lip so hard, it stung.

  It wasn’t always like this though. There were times when it was good. When it felt so real. Times when we’d be mid-dinner and we’d just drop our forks and hurry to the bed. When Ben would carefully undress me, kissing each part of my body he’d expose. Taking his time, taking me…

  I left the room and went downstairs, my heart surprisingly calm as I looked around to the living room. To the couch. The very comfortable couch at that. The fireplace. All the nights we’d sit there, on opposite ends of the couch, lost in two different worlds, but knowing we had the security of looking up to make sure the other person was there.

  I pulled the suitcase into the kitchen and stopped as the side door opened.

  Ben stepped inside the house, his suit jacket draped over his shoulder, hooked to the pointer finger of his right hand. His tie missing, a few buttons undone.

  His eyes met mine.

  Then he looked down at the suitcase.
<
br />   He shut his eyes and started to nod.

  “We should probably talk,” I said.

  “You were just going to take off, Kinsley,” he whispered. “And do what? Call me later?”

  “Wait for you,” I said. “I wasn’t just going to leave. I wasn’t sure if you were going to come back. I could have stayed with you to clean up the food and all that.”

  “I looked around for a little bit. I guess I can assume you’ll be moving out of there?”

  I shook my head. “I never said that. And if you keep that other building and do anything, you should talk to Deb. She’s a rockstar with business stuff. I mean, if you keep it as an animal practice. Which you should. It’s a great place with great people there. And I’ll still… I mean… but Deb…”

  “Kinsley,” Ben said.

  He tossed his suit jacket to the floor. He moved toward me. I let the suitcase go as his hands cupped my face. He drove me back toward the sink until my back collided with it.

  He just stared down at me.

  A part of me never wanted to kiss him again. A part of me begged for him to kiss me, as though that would somehow fix everything. But there was no fixing anything. There was only moving on from all that had gone wrong.

  Ben’s thumbs stroked my cheeks for a few seconds before he let go.

  “You were always beautiful,” he said. “Beautifully sad. You were like me. We understood each other without speaking a word of it. You knew something waited in my past. I knew something waited in your past. And I can’t blame you for what’s happening. Does my heart hurt right now? Of course it does. I will have to wake up in this house tomorrow, alone. Everything around me will still be here. But not you.”

  “Ben…”

  “I don’t blame you for it, Kinsley,” he cut me off in a hurry. “Because if I had a chance to see Chrissy one more time, I would take it. If I had a chance to hold her, tell her I loved her, forgive her for everything that ever happened between us. But the second I realized she was gone, all I could think about were the times we argued over stupid stuff. Because that was time we lost out on loving each other.”

  “I never intended for this,” I said. “You know that.”

  “But it happened,” Ben said.

  “We both deserve better than this.”

  Ben didn’t speak to that comment.

  He just stood there, tall and handsome, the same man I met when I was lonely and confused about what was next for my life. The same man who didn’t approach me with a sense of caution because of what happened to me. Everyone else looked at me differently. They looked at me with sad eyes. They wondered how I was doing. They imagined what it would be like to live through what I did. People had questions about Brice and why he and I weren’t together anymore. And for me personally, I was never sure about the scar on my stomach that I had to wear for the rest of my life. Yet when it came time to expose myself to Ben, he didn’t say a word about the scar. He knew how to take care of me, how to love me, how to protect me.

  Even after he figured out my deepest secret…

  For that I would always have a spot in my heart that was tender for him.

  “So that’s it…,” I whispered.

  “I’m not sure your bag was ever unpacked here,” he said. He looked around. “Mine either.”

  “I’m so sorry, Ben,” I said.

  “You need to stop apologizing to everyone for everything,” he said.

  “What I did with us…”

  “Is the same that I did with us,” Ben said. He backed up and put his hands to the table behind him. He nodded to my bag. “Do you want me to carry that out for you?”

  I swallowed hard. A last-ditch effort at being a gentleman.

  I shook my head. “No. I’m fine, Ben.”

  He stood with his eyes looking glossy.

  I stepped to the suitcase and wrapped my hand tightly around the handle.

  When I got to the door, Ben called my name.

  “I’m sorry for what you lost,” he said. “You would have been a great mother. And I hope someday you get that chance again.”

  “Same to you,” I said. “What you were doing for them was amazing, Ben. Stepping into a child’s life like that and taking care of him. Even if what happened was tragic, I hope you know in their hearts they knew you loved them and they loved you right back. I wish everything could have been different.”

  Ben nodded and turned his head.

  He didn’t want me to see him cry as I left him…

  I stepped outside and took a shaking breath. This wasn’t easy. This wasn’t just me leaving and running to find a new kind of love. This was hard. This was fucking hard. This was exposing whatever was left of my heart and running into the dark, hoping it would work out.

  As I reached for the back door of the SUV, I saw the flicker of moonlight off the diamond ring on my finger.

  I touched the ring, knowing what it meant and what it could have meant.

  I slid it off my finger and walked back to the door, but I didn’t go inside. I didn’t open the door. I didn’t ring the doorbell. I didn’t even knock. I simply put the ring down on the welcome mat.

  My perfect and my simple life was through.

  There was only one other time in my life when I was as nervous as I was right then…

  Brice had been working three jobs at once. But he always made time for me. Well, for us. My belly was definitely big enough to officially count as a family member. He was doing everything he could to make sure we had enough money and he had time off when Lindsay was born, so we could spend time together. All the time in the world together. Which was fine by me. He knew I was getting nervous about it. He could read my eyes and my face. He caught me crying in the shower the other day and I tried to blame it on the fact that my body looked so different. But that was a total lie. Brice always made me feel beautiful. Even though I felt like a whale and waddled like a penguin, when we had our time alone together, he was able to show me how much he loved me and left me feeling beautiful.

  I felt the tightness in my back and quickly stood up. My eyes searched for a clock, just in case I needed to time things out. This had happened many times in the last month. It was just part of the process. My doctor laughed as she talked to me about ‘fake labor’, but I didn’t find it funny at all. As if real labor wasn’t stressful enough to think about, now I had to deal with the fake version of it?

  “Oh, you’re trouble already,” I whispered to my stomach.

  I paced the back porch and took deep breaths and thought calming thoughts. I would usually panic and start to get my body irritated which would result in my yelling for Brice’s help. He was, of course, the sexy and soft voice of reason, talking me down, making me feel better.

  This time I was going to handle it on my own.

  The so-called ‘fake labor’ eased up just a little after a few minutes. There was still tightness in my back, but I could walk and breathe through it. I went outside and walked across the backyard toward the fence. I hadn’t seen the horses yet today. I knew that would ease me enough to keep taking deep breaths.

  Brice was inside taking a well-earned nap.

  So, when I got through this ‘fake labor’ stuff, I would go inside and wake him up in a really fun way and then we’d have more fun before getting something for dinner. My cravings ruled the house, so I didn’t bother thinking about what to eat later because they changed by the hour. And no matter what I wanted, Brice would get it.

  Halfway toward the fence, the tightness switched to pain. Enough that I had to stop and take a really deep breath.

  It took me a heck of a lot longer than normal to get to the fence.

  And there were no horses in sight.

  I gripped the old wooden fence tightly and kept breathing, waiting for one of the horses to realize I was at the fence. Then they’d all come to visit. I stood there for what seemed like a lifetime because of the way my back felt. And not a single horse came to see me.

  I would ha
ve stood there as long as needed… but instinct started to kick in.

  This wasn’t going away.

  The tightness.

  The pain.

  I turned, slowly, and the house looked like it was ten miles away.

  I licked my lips. I touched my stomach. “Okay, sweetie, we have to go get your daddy now. I’m starting to get nervous.”

  Lindsay gave a kick, which was always a good feeling.

  The more I walked, the more it hurt. I blinked back tears as I made it to the back porch. I stood and took a shaky, pain filled breath at the door to the house.

  The living room was right there, and Brice was on the couch, shirtless, one foot on the floor, his other leg stretched out. It was completely unfair the way he looked all the time.

  I stood at the side of the couch. “Brice… can you wake up, Brice?”

  His eyes popped open right away. “Kins…”

  He sat up and hurried to stand up. Towering over me. Our eyes meeting.

  My chin started to quiver.

  He gently touched my stomach. “Oh, damn…”

  “Yeah,” I whispered. “Oh, damn…”

  “Right now?”

  “Right now,” I said.

  I sucked in a shaky breath.

  But Brice smiled. “It’s happening, love. We’re going to have a daughter. Say goodbye to everything we know.”

  I laughed as the pain kicked up again.

  Those last words from Brice stuck in my mind… and would mean more than he ever intended them to.

  25

  Starting From Scratch

  Brice

  I opened the door and was surprised to hear the sound of a dog barking. Then reality smacked me in the face once more as I remembered I was now the proud owner of a fucking dog. Because of June. Because of April. Because of Milo.

  How messed up of a situation that was, right?

  June and I were a wildfire that couldn’t stop burning. And if it weren’t for Milo, that fire would have engulfed us for good. Yet I had a soft spot for the kid for the obvious reasons. June never knew about those reasons though. I loved her, and I loved Milo. That love for her changed to something else, while the love for Milo became a sense and need to keep him safe while I figured out what the hell to do with June.