When I'm Gone_A heart-wrenching romance story that will make you believe in true love

by Jaxson Kidman

  Sienna stopped reading and looked ahead. She chewed on her top lip, fighting back the tears.

  I touched her back.

  “You okay?”

  “I don’t know. He wrote this. Then… why…”

  I put my other hand on the letter and pushed it out of her sight. “This is why she never showed you these. Because the questions you ask will never get answered.”

  “So this is my grandmother taking one last stab at me?”

  “No, darlin’. Maybe she’s trying to show you what she felt you needed to be protected from. I don’t know.”

  “So both of my parents were a mess.”

  “But you’re not.”

  “Yes I am, Kace. I’m a complete fucking mess.”

  “But you’re my mess, darlin’,” I said with a grin. “And I love it.”

  Sienna put the letter down and moved away from me. “I’m a mess to you? Like some piece of wood that you want to refinish?”

  “Christ, no, darlin’. I didn’t say that.”

  Sienna swallowed hard. “Sounds like it.”

  “No. Don’t do that again. I’m here because I love you. You know that.”

  “I don’t know what I know,” she said. She stood up and kicked the box. It tipped over and letters spilled everywhere. “I don’t know a thing.”

  “I know that this notebook matters,” I said. “You created this, Sienna. You fought through all this stuff in life and here we are.”

  “Doing what? What are we doing together?”

  “Anything we want,” I said. I walked toward her. “Look at me, darlin’. It’s simple. It’s a fucking mess around us. Not us. I’m not going to do what my father and grandfather did. You’re not going to do what your mother and grandmother did. I will sit with you and read every letter in that box. If that’s what you want.”

  “I want to know why. Why I feel forgotten.”

  “You’re not forgotten, Sienna. You’re found. By me.”

  “You can’t look me in the eyes and honestly say that you weren’t thinking of Andy when you first saved me.”

  I gritted my teeth. “Okay. That’s what I first thought. But the second your eyes met mine, it didn’t matter. I’ll never have the answers I want to for what happened. For the rest of our lives we’re going to have questions that burn in the background. But I’m standing next to you, those questions can just say there. I don’t give a damn.”

  Sienna walked back to the table and crouched down. She plucked a letter off the floor and started to read it out loud.

  “I’m lost and fucking broken, Marcy. I’m lost and fucking broken. Everything I show the world is fake. It’s all fake. My job. My sobriety. It’s all fake. Because I can’t get to you. And to her. Our family. I know we have a family together. I know everything I said when you got pregnant. But it wasn’t real. That wasn’t me. That was the monster you were afraid of and the monster I embraced. Guess where that monster is now? It’s under my bed. I mean that. Literally. Under my bed. And I only go near the monster when I need to. That means I’m getting better. Okay? And if we’re together, there’s no more monster. I don’t need it if I can get near you. So I could love you the way I promised I would. So don’t fucking hide from me. I can’t do this through letters. Your words cannot save me. But your eyes can. Our daughter can. I knew I was right. You need to send me a picture of her…”

  Sienna folded the letter and put it down.

  I saw her starting to shake. She sat down on the floor and put her hand to the spilled letters. Something caught her attention and she spread the letters out to find a clipping from the newspaper.

  It was an obituary.

  “Shit,” I whispered as I dropped down to one knee. “Darlin’…”

  The paper was faded around the edges with a tear in the middle. The black and white face of a smiling man was there. Along with a date…

  “Of course he’s dead,” Sienna said. She looked at me. “One thing she didn’t lie to me about.”

  “Your mother told you he was dead?”

  “She always said that. From the time I could remember. So I don’t know if she lied and then it became true or she just… it doesn’t matter.”

  Sienna crumbled up the obituary and threw it.

  I touched her shoulder and she wiggled me away.

  “Look at this. This is what she left me? This is what I have? Instead of a book of pictures… of good times. Me taking a bath. My first steps. Playing with toys. I get letters from my addict of a father to my alcoholic of a mother.”

  “And you’re not any of that,” I said. “Neither am I. That’s why this works, Sienna.”

  I reached for her chin and slowly turned her head.

  A tear fell from her eye and dripped down to my hand.

  I just stared at her.

  “I want to show you something.”

  “What?”

  “We need to go for a ride.”

  “Okay…”

  “Leave all this shit here, darlin’. Forget about it for a minute. Just come with me. I promise, you’ll never forget tonight.”

  I was right about that… in the worst way possible.

  “Those are the ashes,” I said as I moved my truck to face what was left of The Wethen House. “I dreamed of that place. Buying it. Fixing it. Having a family.”

  “I can’t believe it’s gone,” Sienna said.

  “I can. It was a piece of shit. Whoever owned it never took care of it. They didn’t give a damn about the place. They let it rot and it ended up burning down. It was probably better that it burned because it could have collapsed on someone. You know what I say, darlin’?”

  “What?”

  “Fuck this place,” I said with a grin.

  For the first in what felt like forever, she smiled. “Kace…”

  “I’m serious. Fuck it. It’s gone. It was never meant to be mine.”

  “You brought me here for that?” she asked.

  “That’s exactly why I brought you here. For that and something else. We have one more place to go.”

  “Okay. Is this a date or something now?”

  “Yeah, sure. It’s a date.”

  “You don’t have to do any of this for me. I don’t want you to-”

  “Exactly, Sienna. I don’t have to do anything that I don’t fucking want to. That’s how I live my life. It’s how I’ve always lived my life. And it’s not going to change. I’m not forcing you to do anything either, darlin’. The passenger seat is always open for you.”

  “And I’m sitting here, Kace. I’m not jumping out. I’m not running away.”

  “Good.”

  I put the truck into drive and I promised myself that I wouldn’t go back to the ashes of The Wethen House, unless it was by accident or for a good reason. That was a dead dream. A burned down dream. I didn’t need some house to have everything I wanted. I had everything I wanted and needed right next to me.

  Sienna called herself a fucking mess.

  I was the mess.

  And she was the one cleaning it all up.

  At the opposite end of town, down in the shit hole, I pulled into the side lot next to the building that Mack bought.

  “Oh, I get it,” Sienna said.

  “You do?”

  “You’re shoving me off on Mack, right?”

  I laughed. “Every woman’s dream, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know, Kace. You’d better be careful with this. Those sunglasses are really sexy.”

  “Black aviators? I’ll get a pair for myself.”

  “It’s not the same,” she said. “Mack is just…”

  “That’s enough out of you,” I said.

  I got Sienna out of the truck and took her by the hand and walked to the entrance. We stepped into the building and the squeaky door echoed as it slapped shut. I pointed down to a familiar door and took her to it. I took a small brass key out of my pocket and handed it to her.

  “You do it,” I said.

  “D
o what?”

  “Open the door. Unlock it.”

  “Okay…”

  Sienna had a nervous grin on her face as she stuck the key into the lock and opened the door. She turned the knob and I pushed the door open.

  We went inside the empty apartment that was mostly done.

  I flicked the switch and a lamp on the floor with no lampshade on it illuminated the living room area.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  “This is what I’ve been working on.”

  “I know that, Kace.”

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot about this part…”

  I reached for a sign on the floor and handed it to her.

  “For Rent,” Sienna said.

  “Yeah. Mack wanted me to hang it up outside the building. I told him it was a bad idea.”

  “Because of the neighborhood?”

  “Eh, maybe. It's not all that bad down here anymore. Maybe with Mack cleaning up this building, it’ll get better.”

  “You’re the one cleaning it up, Kace.”

  “True.”

  “So you’re giving me this sign… for what? You want me to take it to where I work? Want my help renting it out?”

  “This place?” I asked. “It’s already rented out.”

  I ripped the sign out of her hand and folded it and flicked it across the room.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I told Mack that I wasn’t going to put up the sign because I wanted it.”

  “You…”

  “Well, we wanted it,” I said. “You and me, darlin’.”

  Her eyes went wide. “What?”

  “This is ours. Our place now. I’m done going to your place or you coming to my place. This is our place. Our home. Everything I’ve done in here has been with this moment in mind. Maybe I could have done something more romantic like put a hundred roses all around. Or maybe picked a better night to do it. But why? That’s not us. This is us. We are messy. We are living in a building that is being fixed up. We are living in a shitty part of a shitty town so we can make it our own. We are the emptiness of the apartment with the love to fill it. That’s who we are, darlin’.”

  “Oh, Kace,” Sienna said.

  She looked around the apartment, her mouth wide open in shock.

  “And whatever it takes to get out of our leases right now, I’ll take care of it. I want all your stuff here, Sienna. Everything. The dumb stuff on the walls. The girly stuff in the bathroom. Everything in between.”

  “I don’t know what to say right now,” she said. She took a step to the right and started to shake her head. “This is… too much.”

  She froze in place.

  “It’s never enough for you, darlin’,” I said. I walked to her and touched her waist. “This is just the beginning for us now. The forever we keep flirting with starts right now. Can I tell you the best part?”

  Sienna turned her head. Her eyes somehow shined so fucking beautifully in the dull light around us.

  “Tell me,” she whispered.

  “The best part is that everything gets left outside. I don’t give a damn about what happens out there. Only in here.”

  “When do we move in?” she asked, her voice crackling with happiness.

  “Whenever you want,” I said. “I left the walls bare so you can decide what you want. It’s all yours, darlin’.”

  “Ours,” she said, turning. “Ours.”

  “Right. I was working here the other day… and it just clicked. It made sense. This entire thing makes sense, Sienna. You. Me. This place.”

  “This is crazy though, isn’t it?”

  “Completely. But I want you and me here. I’m so sorry about those letters, darlin’. I’m so sorry about your family. And I get it. That’s what allows us to be here.”

  “I don’t know what to do right now. I’m freaking out. My heart is pounding. I feel…”

  “It’s okay,” I said with a grin. “Take a look around. Start to dream. We can hang out here as long as you want. All night even.”

  “I want to move in right now, Kace.”

  “Tell you what, I’ll drive back to my place and put the mattress in the bed of my truck. We’ll sleep here.”

  Sienna smiled big. “You’d do that for me?”

  “I’d do anything for you, Sienna. Anything.”

  She touched my face and I couldn’t wait any longer for a kiss. I scooped her up and spun her around as we kissed. She let out a cry of laughter, but I stole that away with another kiss. I loved the sound of her laugh, but I loved the way she tasted just a little better.

  When I put her down, she put her arms around herself and stepped back.

  “I’m dizzy,” she said.

  “Sorry about that.”

  “I’ll be right back,” she said. “Where’s the bathroom?”

  “Right over there,” I said and pointed. “There’s a second one in the bedroom too. Small… but that means we’ll just have to shower together all the time.”

  Sienna walked away.

  I slipped my hands into my pockets and looked around.

  It was a crazy idea. A risky idea. Mack didn’t say a word to me though. He just smirked and gave me that shit grin that I couldn’t stand. He was probably planning out double dates and fucking game nights and all that relationship crap.

  I let out a breath and heard a thud in the bathroom.

  “You okay in there?” I called out. “I only spun you once.”

  I walked toward the bathroom, a smile plastered on my face.

  I touched the door and it wasn’t completely shut.

  I pushed at it. “You can’t be that diz…”

  The word fizzled away as I couldn’t get the door the rest of the way open.

  Because Sienna was on the floor, eyes shut…

  It was the longest drive of my life, following the ambulance as best as I could, the red lights flashing, the siren screaming, vehicles moving out of the way for the ambulance, me right behind it, my emergency lights blinking, beeping my horn if someone dared to even fucking breathe before I could get past them. I had no idea if what I was doing was legal or not, but I didn’t give a shit. Moving around cars and trucks, crossing the yellow line, gripping the wheel tightly as I sped through stop signs and red lights that hadn’t changed to green I couldn’t allow any distance between myself and Sienna.

  There were a lot of scenarios I had played through my mind when I decided to take the apartment as my own. I really thought about the romantic way to do it with flowers, candles, some takeout dinner. Or maybe just give her the key and let her have the place to herself to fill up with stuff. Or maybe trick her into designing the apartment and then tell her it was for us.

  For us, dammit…

  She never opened her eyes. Her pulse came and went as my fingers shook with an intense fear as I was desperate to keep her alive.

  Keep her alive… fuck…

  When the paramedics arrived, I was sent out of the bathroom as they went to do their job. That left me pacing the empty apartment, looking at the empty walls and the empty floor. It wasn’t supposed to be something else. She was supposed to be happy, smiling, crying. She was supposed to run around the apartment, scream and jump into my arms. I was going to take her right there in the middle of the floor. I wasn’t lying when I said I would go to my apartment and drag the fucking mattress out of my fucking room and bring it to the new place. I would have stopped anywhere to get us something to eat…

  “Fuck,” I yelled as I slammed my hands onto the steering wheel.

  The ambulance blew through another stop sign.

  I sped up and looked to my left and saw a car approaching. The horn blared as they cut the wheel to the left. I jammed my wheel to the right and managed to escape getting into an accident by a couple of feet. My truck skidded toward the curb and smacked against it with a hard thud.

  I sat there, not moving, watching the fading lights of the ambulance.

  We were only a mile from the hospita
l.

  I felt like I was going to throw up.

  I put a fist to my mouth and groaned.

  My foot jammed against the gas pedal. The tires screamed as I got back on the road and sped away. I heard more vehicles around me beeping and I ignored them all.

  There was no way I could catch the ambulance now. And even then, they were going to go into the emergency entrance and I wouldn’t be allowed there. I wouldn’t be with Sienna when they wheeled her out and raced her down the hallways to get whatever the hell she needed.

  The worst thing was that I had no fucking clue what was wrong. What the hell happened to her? She was standing there. She was happy. We were talking. I spun her around once as we took the moment in. Then she suddenly had to rush to the bathroom, which meant that something didn’t feel good.

  I heard that thud sound in my head over and over.

  That was her collapsing to the floor.

  Was that her last moment? In a shitty bathroom in a shitty apartment in a shitty town… with me. And I wasn’t there to catch her.

  My teeth clenched tightly as I pulled into the hospital parking lot.

  I parked wherever I wanted and ran to the hospital.

  I felt like I was floating. I didn’t remember running, walking, going through the doors, screaming for help. It was like a distant memory in my head, my voice echoing as I ran through the halls, calling her name. Calling for Sienna. Needing to know if she was okay. Everything around me looked the same. I felt like I was in some fucking carnival house thing with those big mirrors and trick entrances and fake doors and all that shit.

  Someone touched my arm and I turned, fire in my eyes.

  “Hey,” a woman’s voice said.

  She was all in white.

  My mind for a split second thought it was an angel. Coming to tell me that Sienna was gone for good.

  It wasn’t an angel.