by L. D. Davis
In the early morning hours of Saturday, I stood face to face with Caden Hanes.
Chapter Seventy
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked me for the fourth or fifth time as he again pulled me into his arms for a hard hug.
“Maybe you should stop squeezing me to death, and I’ll tell you,” I said, laughing.
He released me and held me at arm’s length, his blue eyes bright and large. “I’m sorry. But for fuck’s sake! What the fuck are you doing here, Dar?”
I raised one eyebrow. “You don’t already know?”
He dropped his arms and took a step back. Dropping his gaze, he pushed a hand through his hair and shrugged. “No idea what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“You’re such a bad liar, Cade.” I gave him a little shove on his shoulder.
He gave me a half a smile. “I don’t lie.”
“That’s why you’re so bad at it.” I took a step closer to him. I touched his chin with two fingers, made him lift his head to meet my gaze. “Why’d you do it?” I whispered.
He reached for my hand and held it in his as he whispered back to me. “Why wouldn’t I do it, Dar? I told you before that I fucking loved you and that I wanted to take care of you. Just because we’re not together doesn’t mean that those things aren’t true anymore.”
His answer made me want to cry, but I swallowed a few times until I was sure I wouldn’t burst into tears.
“My medical bills were well over a hundred-thousand dollars. What you did was…I don’t even know enough words in the English vocabulary to describe how amazing that was, but it was too much, Cade.”
He sat on the edge of his desk. Still holding my hand, he pulled me closer and took my other hand.
“You didn’t go to Spain because of me,” he said quietly. “I don’t even fucking know how many other opportunities you threw away over the years because of me, Dar. Sometimes on purpose, sometimes not on purpose, I kept you from going after your dreams. Instead of encouraging you, I just held you back. I never did anything to help you, and I could have. You almost fucking died without ever getting to do any of the things you wanted. That really got to me. Really made feel like the piece of shit son of a bitch that I am. I paid off the hospital bills because I didn’t want anything to hold you back anymore. I couldn’t make your leg heal any faster or heal your emotional wounds, but I could do something. So, I did it, and it wasn’t too much, Dar. It wasn’t enough.”
Tears did slip out of my eyes then. I pulled one of my hands away so that I could wipe my cheeks.
“But how? How could you even afford to do it? What did you give up?”
He shrugged again and gave me a small smile. “I sold my car and downgraded to a more efficient one.”
A small sob escaped. “But you loved that Ferrari.”
“I love you more,” he said, gently wiping away more of my tears.
“What else? What else did you do?” I asked.
He looked reluctant to say more, but I kicked his foot with the toe of my new cowboy boots.
“Okay. Damn. Don’t beat me up. Sold my townhouse and moved into an apartment in Jersey.”
I blinked. “You hate the other side of the river!”
He chuckled. “It’s growing on me.”
Shaking my head in disbelief, I asked, “What else? I know there has to be more.”
“Dar,” he said with a sigh. He took my hand again and squeezed lightly. “It doesn’t fucking matter. What’s done is done, and it can’t be undone. None of it fucking matters. I would do it again if I had to do it all over. What did you think you were going to do? Come all the way up here to try to make me take all the money back and un-pay your bills?”
I sniffed. “Maybe.”
He laughed and started to say something, but his thumb moved over my knuckles on my left hand. What he felt on my middle finger made his words falter and fall away altogether as he lifted my hand.
“What is this?” he asked, staring at the ring Connor had given me.
“Um,” I said, trying to carefully extract my hand from his without success. “It’s a promise ring,” I finished quietly.
I wouldn’t have taken it off for anything, but I didn’t mean to hurt Cade with it either, and I know it did. When his eyes met mine, I saw how much it pained him.
“You and Connor?” he asked in just above a whisper.
I nodded.
“It’s that serious?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
He looked back down at my hand. “You never mention him when we talk, so I thought…”
I shook my head. “Why would I mention him, Cade?” I asked softly. “Why would I do that to you?”
He silently stared at the ring for a few moments, but then he asked me a question in a voice that sounded broken around the edges.
“Are you happy, Dar?”
More tears slipped out of my eyes. Not because I felt bad for being happy, but because it would hurt Caden to know that I was happy with someone else.
“Yes,” I whispered again.
He stared at my hand a few seconds longer, and then said, “Good.”
He stood up, making me take a couple steps back so that we weren’t pressed up against each other. A year ago, that would have been normal, but now I felt the wrongness of it. Even though we had always fit well together, like two pieces of a puzzle, it had been wrong. Our curves and edges no longer lined up, and I wasn’t sure if they ever had or if it had just been the wishful thinking of two people that had wanted to feel complete.
“I am so fucking glad I got to see you,” Cade said, looking me over, soaking me in, as if it were the last time that he would ever see me. “You look good, Dar. You always have been so beautiful that it makes my fucking heart ache.”
He took one, careful step. I did not move away, even though I maybe should have.
“I will never regret what I did for you. I will never want to undo it or take it back, but there is a way you can repay me.”
I froze. My chest fluttered with something like fear. I wasn’t afraid of Cade, but I was afraid he was going to ask me for something I couldn’t give him. A kiss? One last night in his bed? Even snuggling would be something I couldn’t give to him. My body was no longer just my own. It also belonged to Connor.
Cade continued, and what he requested wasn’t something I couldn’t give to him. It was something I very well could give to him, and that was why it hurt so bad.
“Darla, I fucking love you, but I need you to go now. I need some time. I need enough time to forget the way your lips taste. To forget what your smile looks like. To forget how it feels when you are in my arms. Under me. The weight of you on top of me. I need to forget the sound of your voice. I need some fucking time, Dar, to forget about you and the crushing, excruciating, fucked up pain in my heart.”
They were the hardest words I ever had to hear from Cade, and the hardest words to accept.
Holding back any more tears, I put my arms around his neck and embraced him. It was quick, but hard. I wanted to turn my lips to his ear and tell him once more that I loved him, but I knew that it would only pour salt on his open wounds.
I kissed his cheek, and whispered, “Thank you, for restoring my hope.”
I walked out of his office, out of M.J.’s and onto the sidewalk. My feet carried me away from the man that I had once loved too hard to even see straight, and I did not look back.
Chapter Seventy-One
One year had passed since I’d met Connor, not for the first time, but for the first time that it had mattered.
A whole lifetime had occurred within those three hundred sixty-five days. Sometimes it was almost too much to process, almost too much to let go. Secretly, I was afraid of letting go, of forgetting, but if I didn’t, I would never be able to continue to move forward.
In the sifting process, I dump everything together into the sieve. The chunks, the lumps, and other bits, as well as the finer, softer, portions. I ge
ntly shake the sieve, releasing all of the good, workable parts of the flour or sugar or cocoa, or whatever it may be, and leave behind the elements that could damage my finished product. I had to handle my life with the same care I took in baking. I had to dump those three hundred sixty-five days, plus the other five years that I had spent in pursuit of my dreams into the sieve all at once.
As I gently shake or tap it, many fine and useful particles slip through the tiny holes and land safely into the bowl. My first day of culinary school. The day I met my best friend, Maria “Cherry” Camila Perez. My first bite of a Philly cheese steak. The day I met Caden Hanes, the young entrepreneur and chef the city was all abuzz about. My first trip to California, and my trips to Mexico, Miami, and my many visits to New York City all fall safely into the bowl below. The parties with Cherry. That first night with Caden in M.J.’s kitchen, our first night in bed together and countless nights and days of kisses and laughter after that. The top-secret-sweet-stash. My days at the bakery. Endless good times out and about in the city, gorging myself on culinary goodness. Meeting Connor again. That long weekend with him. My first official date with Cade. The Taco Margarita party and the dynamic ending with my body and Connor’s body intimately joined. The third of July of last year, the day that was my unofficial day. The day that Connor baked a horrible cake, gave me a gaudy card and magic ticket and told me he loved me.
Less of the good stuff sifts out as the sieve’s contents lessen, but still, there are a few good things left. Milestones in my healing. My snazzy haircut. Dancing with my daddy to our song on the front porch. Connor, Connor, and more Connor. The bonfire.
Unlike with baking, though, some coarse, and hard particles slip by as well. There are some things that I must let sift through, because unlike baking, the end products in life aren’t perfect. There are always rough edges and flaws, hidden and unhidden. You can have the perfect recipe and still fail in the execution, or perhaps you are flawless with your execution, but bad things slip through anyway. It’s part of being human in this world. You have to take some of the bad along with the good. The sifting process is not a perfect one, but you have to take what you get in the end and make the best damn thing you can with it.
Three hundred sixty-five days. On the evening of that three hundred sixty-fifth day, I sat down beside Connor in our kitchen for dinner. Homemade nachos, to celebrate the first time we had nachos together.
“You remembered our nachoversary,” he said quietly.
I smiled at him. It was a genuine smile, but a little shaky. “Of course I did.”
He brought a hand up to my cheek and searched my eyes.
“What is it, Darla? Don’t tell me it’s nothing, because something has been going on with you for weeks. You’ve been quiet and even withdrawn at times. I worry about you, beautiful, and I worry about us when you get like this. Tell me what’s going on.”
His hand dropped away. I turned in my seat to face him, making my knees bump up against his thigh. One hand opened and closed nervously, and the other remained fisted on the countertop near my plate.
“I never told you that I applied at Tilda’s, did I?”
He looked confused but answered quickly. “No, you didn’t. Is that a joke?”
“Nope. Not a joke. I applied. The same day I showed up here with the basket. You know I never wanted to work there. Never wanted to have to work anywhere in this town because I never wanted to be back here, but…” I shook my head and sighed. “I was kinda broken, you know? Not just my leg, but in spirit. In soul. In heart. I felt like my life up until the accident had been a big charade. A damn big sham. I lost hope. I lost the driving desire to have the world. You remember that, right? That day in your truck when I told you I wanted the world?”
Connor studied me carefully and answered quietly. “Of course I remember. I’ll never forget it.”
I nodded slowly. “I applied there because I was already feeling stuck. I thought my money would be gone in a matter of months between the hospital bills and trying to take care of myself. My leg wasn’t healing as quickly as I’d anticipated, and I wasn’t sure if it would ever be what it was before, or even close to it. I felt like I was stuck here and that I may as well make the best of it. I found out a couple weeks later that my mama told them not to hire me. She told them I didn’t belong in a ‘backwoods-mountain-country-hick-town-good-for-nothin’ grocery store.’” I snorted. “Of course, all the backwoods-mountain-country-hick-town-good-for-nothin’ grocery store ladies at Tilda’s are mad at her now.”
Connor turned in his seat and fit my legs between his. “Go on,” he insisted.
I paused for a moment, gathering my words. “It was easy to blame the lack of funds and my busted leg, but it was more than that. I was scared. I had always had a good, healthy dose of fear before about traveling to the unknown, but this wasn’t a good, healthy dose of fear. This was absolute terror. I don’t exactly know what it was that terrified me. Maybe the possibility of failure. Maybe it was fear of getting hurt or dying far away from home, far away from anyone who would care enough to come talk to me and to bring me back, or to grieve over me if I died. Maybe I was afraid that I’d get out there and hate it, and be homesick for the very place I couldn’t wait to get away from. Maybe I was afraid of all of it.”
Connor stroked my hair, but he didn’t say anything. He gave me the time I needed to pull my words together again.
“The night of the bonfire, something happened,” I said. “Maybe one of those fires out there lit something up inside of me because one minute I was as fine as I was gonna get, holding your hand and enjoying the time with our family and friends. The next moment I was blinking at the fire and then looking around me at so many familiar faces, and feeling…displaced. Feeling at home, but at the same time like I wasn’t supposed to be there.”
His hand dropped from my hair and took the hand that kept opening and closing on my lap. His brown eyes were worried, but he still didn’t speak. I had the sense that he was waiting for me to admit to something that he already knew.
“I love you, Connor. Every day I am so grateful for you.” I smiled that shaky smile, and my voice trembled, but I didn’t cry. “You are my real life fairytale prince. I woke up for you.”
He squeezed my hand, and I squeezed his back. Then I took a deep breath and went on.
“This is my home. I love the home that we have made and are continuing to make together. There really ain’t no place like this for me anywhere on this earth. That I’m sure of. That’s what makes this so damn hard.”
I opened my hand, the one on the countertop, and let the object I had been holding drop to the surface. I withdrew my hand a few inches and watched as Connor’s eyes first narrowed with confusion and maybe a little bit of fear before he registered the new item between our plates and looked down at it.
It was a slightly rumpled, but otherwise perfectly intact, red raffle ticket. My magic ticket.
“You’ve already done so much for me, so I am not expecting you to pay for anything for me,” I said quietly as he reached for the ticket. “I can and will make my own magic happen, but I needed you to know that I…” My voice caught. “I…”
“You need to go,” he finished for me, holding the ticket between his thumb and forefinger.
I finally began to cry. I had just told Connor, in so many words, that I was going to leave. I had just told him that he and our home weren’t enough. What kind of an evil person was I?
“Darla,” he said my name softly as he brushed away some of my tears. “Darla, baby. I have been waiting for you to do this all along.”
He grinned, making my teary eyes widen with bafflement, and then he leaned forward and kissed me gently on the mouth.
I watched stupidly as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. A few seconds later, he pulled out a red ticket that matched my own. He held them up together, and his grin widened.
“Where you go, I go. All you have to do is say when.”
&n
bsp; I cried, like really cried. Snot and tears and stupid laughter. I wiped my face with a napkin and put my hands on Connor’s fuzzy cheeks. I kissed him on his gorgeous mouth and then whispered the magic word against his lips.
“When.”
Epilogue
Six months later, the Beer Bong Bon Voyage party was well underway in the small apartment I once shared with Cherry. Most of the friends I’d made since moving to Philly were there. It was the most crowded the little place had ever been, and there really wasn’t space for beer bong, but it sounded good for a party name.
Connor and I were leaving for France in two days. The plan was to spend some time there for a little while and then skip down to Italy. We would decide later where to go next. France wasn’t the starting point I had originally considered, but after some long nights of conversation, we had decided that it was a good place to begin our adventures. Besides, Paris and Venice were two of the most romantic places on the planet. They were a perfect location for our belated honeymoon.
That’s right. We got married.
There were no romantic engagements, no wedding planning, or white gowns and tuxedos. One night we were sitting on the couch practicing our French—language, not kissing—and I had turned to him and said, “We should get married before we leave.”
Connor hadn’t even blinked. “When do you want to do it?”
“I’m free tomorrow morning.”
“Your father will probably actually shoot me, no doubts this time. Our mothers will cry and feel cheated out of a wedding. Cherry will curse us out in Cuban, and your sister will shake her head at us like we’re crazy. But, I’m down. Tomorrow morning sounds perfect. Will you bake us a wedding cake?”
I thought about it. “Nah. But we can go to Louie’s and have some hot wings.”
He smiled and squeezed one of my feet that were in his lap. “Perfect. Will you wear that yellow dress and the cowboy boots I bought for you?”