But that’s not me. I don’t leave people to their own suffering, even though I suffer on my own all the time.
I search helplessly around the museum and I’ve about had it. I need Harley. I need Blake. I need them to help me.
For once, I’m asking for the help, not giving it.
It’s weird. I don’t like it.
As much as I want to help Opie, I feel helpless right now.
I make my way through the hallways, my eyes searching the crowds. Finally, I find the top of Harley’s head and find him with his arms wrapped around Blake. Seeing them causes anger to rush through my veins. How dare they leave me alone with someone who doesn’t want to be here and who has had her heart broken?
Don’t they understand the pain she’s feeling right now? You question your ability to survive.
Harley catches my eye and he grins, but it drops as soon as he sees my face.
“I lost Opie,” I say as soon as they get within ear shot.
Blake’s eyes widen, “Oh, God.”
“Where did she go?” Harley asks.
I sigh. “To the fucking moon, Wheels. Do you think if I knew where she was I would be freaking out?
“Shit.” Blake drops her face into her hands.
“My thoughts exactly.”
She looks up at Harley. “We have to find her.”
Harley nods. “Call her and see if you can get her that way. She can’t be that far off.”
Blake and I give each other a knowing nod. We need to find her. She isn’t stable right now. Blake and Harley head off the search. I follow behind them.
I hate this. I hate knowing she’s suffering. She’s hurting. I want to help her…in any way that I can. But something holds me back from wanting to tell her my heartache.
It’s not something I share with anyone. No one here in Cleveland knows, and I want to keep it that way. It’s easier that way. It’s not something I talk about, or want to talk about. It’ll be two years this April, but it feels less than that. I haven’t dealt with the ramifications of her death. I’ve only been able to lose myself in football and being the best player that I can be.
I hate the pity and sadness that filled everyone's eyes when they looked at me. I hate people looking at me like I’m incapable of taking care of myself, like I’m incapable of getting over what happened.
Blake stops abruptly and I see Opie, sitting on the ground, her back turned to us, her bright red jacket a beacon. She has her head in her hands and her shoulders are shaking.
What’s left of my heart floats out to her.
“Damn it,” Blake mutters before she looks up at Harley. “Let me go to her.”
He nods in understanding.
“I hope she’s going to be all right.” The worry I’m feeling is evident in my voice.
“Yeah, I hope so, too.” Harley looks at me and must see something on my face because he asks, “So, do you like her?”
I swing my head to gape at him. “What?”
He turns his gaze back to Opie. Blake joins her on the ground and they hug each other. We keep our distance, letting the friends deal with Opie’s pain the only way they know how. “Do you like her?” Harley asks me again.
I glare at him. “What makes you ask me that?”
“You two just seem super buddy-buddy.”
I roll my eyes. “I was trying to cheer the poor girl up.” I huff as I turn my attention back to the girls. “She’s hurting. I know what that hurt feels like.” My shoulders slump thinking about her.
“You know you can talk to me.”
I lock my eyes with Harley’s and finally let the emotions I keep bottled up free. I let him see the anger. The rage. The pain. Everything passes across my face, and I watch as his own face drops with shock when I give him what he’s been asking for. I let him see the real me—the me that I keep locked away, afraid to show anyone. Because when you let people see the pain, that’s all they see. Maybe, this pain is the suffering I deserve for not doing all that I could to save her.
I let him see how much I’m hurting for a split second because he needs to know I get it. I understand her pain. I understand what she’s going through.
My look is brief. My eyes shutter close and I go back to hiding the pain I feel every day. ”I know, Wheels. Thanks.”
He nods at me but doesn’t say anything. I can see him trying to process through what he’s just seen and he returns his attention to the girls.
“I’m going to see if I can help,” I announce and I walk over to them, not waiting for Harley’s opinion.
Blake looks up at me, her arms wrapped around a sobbing Opie.
“Can I talk to her?” I ask quietly, keeping my voice gentle and soothing.
She looks at the mess of a best friend in her arms, then me, and sighs. “If you think you can get through to her.”
I slide down onto the floor, which is not an easy task for a guy as big as me. She doesn’t look up when Blake stands.
“Thank you,” Blake tells me.
“For what?” Opie is still crying and not paying us any attention.
“For caring about her,” she responds, and there’s a glint in her eyes before she walks away, leaving me to care for her best friend.
There comes a point where you can’t watch someone you love fall apart. Blake is at that point with Opie right now.
I saw it with Harley, as he started to spiral out of control and I wanted to help, but my own grief kept me stuck inside of my own head. I wasn’t able to help him. I needed to help myself. I’m pretty sure I still need the help, but shoving everything aside has made it easier to deal with—the loss, the pain.
Opie’s body has stopped shaking but her head is still buried under her arms.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she orders, her voice muffled.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re afraid of my tears.”
“I’m not. Afraid, I mean.”
“All guys hate a crying girl.”
“Those guys are stupid. Sometimes, people need to cry to get their emotions out. It’s the only way they know how.”
“Do you cry?” she asks, her voice thick from her tears.
“Sometimes,” I admit.
For a while there, it was all I did after she was gone. It was the only thing that felt normal. Losing her was never the plan, but tears, I could control. I could feel the emotions I kept bottled up, at least for a little bit. Then, I would shove the remaining ones down, because I couldn’t deal with everything I was feeling.
“Color me surprised. The big football guy cries.”
“Don’t tell any of my teammates.” I lean in close and her scent invades my senses—summer, sunshine, and rain.
Summer storms are my favorite thing. Anna and I would watch them together before she got sick. We would sit out on the screened in porch back home, letting the thunder soothe the lightning that streaks inside of me. That’s what it feels like sometimes—it’s just a streak of pain out of the blue, but there’s always a lingering electric charge. Then, the thunder rumbles, reminding me I still love her. I still feel what I felt all those years ago when we were in love and stupid.
I miss that the most—being in love. Learning to fall in love with her was the best, and the hardest, time of my life.
No, that’s a lie. Now is the hardest time of my life, knowing that she isn’t here to see me succeed.
She isn’t here. That’s what it comes down to. She’s not here anymore and it took me a long time to realize that she’s not coming back.
She can’t.
"Does it ever stop hurting?"
I return my attention to Opie, my heart breaking for her. Her heart-shaped face is covered in tears. Mascara streaks down her cheeks from her red eyes, and she looks at me like I hold the key, like I know what the fuck I'm doing in this life.
"No," I answer simply, my voice raw with emotion.
She tries to curl herself into a smaller ball on the floor. "Why not?"
I don't know how to answer that.
Why does it still hurt that she's gone? Why am I still struggling with the ever-consuming guilt in my chest that bubbles over at random times?
It's the little things—like right now. Guilt threatens to consume me while I sit next to Opie. We're not even touching, but my eyes gaze over her small, but powerful figure, and I feel it. Guilt. Pain. Loss. Everything hits me at once, and I don't know how to move forward from this.
So, I do what I do best. I shove it aside. I've gotten good at shoving shit aside.
Why?
That's a loaded question. Such a simple question. But there are no simple answers in my life anymore.
There never will be another simple answer. I don't operate in a “yes” or “no” world. It's a lot of “maybes” or “we'll see.” Losing Anna showed me that life is fleeting. It’s unpredictable. I don’t want to get caught up in the shit that goes on in my head, or my heart. I shove it aside, so I don’t have to deal with it anymore.
"Why does this pain exist?" Opie asks, her voice low and her lips trembling.
She breaks down again, and I want nothing more than to wrap my arms around her and shoulder her pain. But I don’t. I’m not sure I’m ready for the pain that she’s holding deep inside of her. I’m a weak man when it comes to a girl crying, losing themselves in the emotions that they keep hidden from the world. But my pain makes me cautious to take on someone else’s.
The guilt and that pain I'm feeling only intensifies, because why should I want to help her out when I couldn't even help my own girlfriend when she needed me.
I don't know that I'll ever stop blaming myself for what happened. Logically, I know it wasn't my fault, but it doesn't stop me from feeling guilty that I didn't help her more, that I couldn’t shoulder her pain. Instead, I tried to live out my dreams.
That was her one wish for me—to make my dreams of playing in the NFL true.
I did it. I was drafted, played in all of my games this last season, but she wasn't there. She wasn't there to cheer me on. She wasn't in the stands with my jersey. She probably would have been the only one wearing mine, and it would have been huge on her, but she would have smiled and laughed and supported me completely.
Instead, when I looked up at the stands wishing she was there, I saw no one.
My family came to games, but they sat up in a box with other family members. Their support means the world to me, but they are my family. They have to. She didn't have to. She did it because she loved me.
"It exists because we were stupid enough to fall in love. Love breaks you. It tests you. But it's also amazing. That pain you're feeling? It eventually goes away. It lingers. It hurts now but it will make you stronger."
God, I wish I could believe my own words. But I can't, because my pain is different from Opie's.
She'll get over this. Yes, it sucks now, but Opie will get through.
I don't know if I'll ever get over my loss.
Anna was apart of me. She was my other half—my one great love.
I see her sometimes, in my mind, and she's happy, laughing and giggling. I can't stop seeing her in my dreams and in my heart. She's there. She's embodied inside of my soul and I can't let her go.
I'm incapable of moving on, but Opie isn't.
"It sucks," Opie retorts before she sniffles and wipes at her tears. "Love is for fools. I'm done being a fool."
"Don't give up," I tell her. Again, I should listen to my own advice, but there's always something holding me back. She holds me back from moving on.
Opie turns to glare at me, her long blonde hair whipping her in the face, but she doesn’t push the strands away. "Who made you a love expert?"
I chuckle ruefully, shifting on the hard tiled floor. "No one."
"Bullshit."
I shrug., "Just giving advice."
"Well, it's greeting card advice," she tells me, the ever present snark in her voice.
"You really don't mince anything do you?" I rub my hands over my pant legs, needing to distract myself from wanting to know more about her.
"No." Her tone is hard, and her eyes flash with something.
"He didn't like it, did he?"
She looks at me, her eyes wide. "How did you know that?"
"It takes a strong man to understand that the snark you put out? Is vulnerability. You don't like being vulnerable, or having others think that you are weak, so you cut them before they can cut you down."
"Are you Oprah? Or Dr. Phil?" she wonders curiously.
I laugh. "Nope, I just pay attention."
"Huh, you're talents are wasted on the football field, my new friend."
I quirk an eyebrow. "So, I'm upgraded from stranger to friend?"
She nods. "I can always use a new, blunt friend."
"I think this might be the beginning of a beautiful friendship," I tell her, my mouth quirking slightly.
"Never mind, I changed my mind." She tries to glare at me, but she ends up smiling instead.
"Cheesy, I know."
"Never change, Owen." Her blue eyes suck me in. "Never change who you are."
I want to tell her this isn't me. I'm not this all-knowing person. I catch on to a lot of things because I watch people. I know how to read them, but most days, it’s a struggle to get up in the mornings, to deal with the ever-persistent pain—not only from my job, but from Anna.
This is the new Owen King. He's not going anywhere.
The old Owen King, he died with her.
Chapter 5
Opie
He sits next to me in the back seat of Harley’s car. I lean into him because I can and I need the strength he radiates.
I don’t want to be like this—this weak girl who falls apart after her relationship falls apart, but here we are.
Listening to Owen talk, having him try to cheer me up, was the boost I needed, but being around a happy couple sucks the life out of me.
He seems to need his own time away from them. He tells them to just drop us off at my house and they can have the boys’ house to themselves for the night.
I hate saying this, I hate admitting this, but I’m glad Blake will be away tonight. I don’t like being jealous of her happiness when I know she has searched for it for such a long time.
She and Harley complete each other in a way I never thought was possible. I long for a love like that. I long for someone to affect me in the way Harley affects Blake.
I look at Owen, who is sitting on the couch, his eyes focused on the TV in front of him and wonder.
Could he maybe be that person for me?
God, what am I thinking? I just broke up with Matt less than a day ago. I need to focus on me and figure out what I want, not on the new found feelings that seem to randomly hit me every time I look Owen’s way.
“You don’t have to stay,” I tell him from my spot in the kitchen.
We have an open concept living room and kitchen, which makes it easy to carry conversations throughout the whole house.
He doesn’t turn around. “It’s fine. I’m here if you need to talk.”
I don’t miss the hopeful note in his voice. He wants to help me.
“Maybe you could share your heartbreak.” I make my way into the living room and set down two glasses of water on the coffee table. He doesn’t touch his glass, and once I put mine down, I forget about it. I get lost in his eyes—the pure blue that seems to connect with me on every level.
I avoid sitting on the couch next to him. He affects me in a way that Matt never could. I’m aware of every move I make. I’m also aware of him sitting there, ignoring my question, but I know he’s thinking over what he can share.
We’ve only met today, but something about Owen King makes me excited again, about love and relationships.
For so long, it was a struggle to even get Matt to do anything different. We went to the same restaurants. We went to the same places for dates. We never did anything out of ordinary. So, I gave up. I gave up a lot o
f things for that relationship, and he never did the same for me.
That should have been a clue we would never work. When one person does all of the sacrificing, it’s never a level playing field.
“Nothing?” I ask him, bringing my thoughts to the conversation at hand, not the love I lost.
He shrugs his shoulders. “Nothing to tell.” His voice is gruff and he avoids direct eye contact with me.
I snort. “You’ve known heartbreak.”
“I have,” he admits. “But I don’t want to rehash it.”
There’s something in his tone. I don’t push, but I’m curious. I’m really curious. But he’s a new friend. I don’t want to rock the boat. Yet.
“Ok, I can understand that. Thanks, though.” I tell him, curling my legs underneath me. “Same for you.”
He looks at me, and it’s like he sees every thought, every memory. He sees it all and I have to look away, because I don’t want him to see how much I gave myself away to a person who didn’t deserve the love I was giving him.
“You too, Ophelia.”
“It’s Opie,” I remind him.
No one has called me Ophelia in years. Not since my parents passed away. If I’m honest, I kind of hate the name.
He nods. “Sorry, Opie.”
“Not a problem.”
Silence engulfs the room, and the sports channel on the TV starts talking about the upcoming season.
“Excited for football?” I ask Owen, just to get the conversation going again.
He looks at me and a new smile graces his light pink lips. “I love football, so yes, I’m excited.”
“Do you think Harley is going to keep it together this year?”
The press was horrible to Harley last year. He ended up having to go to rehab for an undisclosed problem—word on the street is he’s an alcoholic—to get treatment after an altercation with some fans in a club after both his and Owen’s rookie season ended last year.
But the Harley they talk about in the press is nothing like the Harley he is with Blake. He cherishes her. He watches her, when she isn’t looking, and has this smile on his face.
He loves her, but sometimes love…it just isn’t enough for a relationship to survive.
Between Hearts: A Romance Anthology Page 19