by Mika Jolie
“Why?” he asked, eyes locked unwaveringly on hers.
“It’s for charity.”
“That’s it?”
She licked her lips again, drawing his gaze back to her mouth. He looked, wanting nothing more than to slam his mouth to hers and knock all the wind out of her lungs.
“No,” she whispered.
She was quiet for a moment, then eyes like sunlight shining through whiskey met his. “I can’t let you go.”
Chapter Fourteen
“Every heart sings a song incomplete until another heart whispers back.”
Plato
Forrest’s lips twitched. Claire stared. She couldn’t help it. They were full, firm and wickedly sensual. He had a great mouth and she wanted to lean over and latch on to his lower lip.
“You let me go ten years ago,” Forrest said, snapping Claire out of her fantasy.
“Not by choice.” But she knew better than to think such a simple explanation would be enough. Fight or flight, right?
She’d run enough. Time to come forward and put everything on the table.
His brows knitted. “What do you mean by that?”
“I needed to make something of myself first.” Her eyes drifted to the blank sheet of paper. She wrote hurriedly–It was always you. Can’t fight these feelings for you.
“Claire?” He pushed her to continue.
She placed the pen in the center of the journal and gave him her full attention. “Ten years ago, I was nothing but the daughter of a housekeeper.” Her stomach twisted, no matter how many times she’d said the words, they were still sharp and cut through her every time.
“What?” he asked, confusion clear in his voice.
She smiled, but her heart felt sad, shredded. The world faded away, drained of all color except for the man sitting across the table. “The night of my party, I overheard Victoria telling my mother I wasn’t good enough for you and that your parents hated the idea of us together.” The painful memories, as raw as a howling winter wind, blew right through her.
He shook his head. “My parents loved us. They love you.”
“I know, but…”
“Why would you believe her?” he persisted.
Claire shrugged. She floundered for words, something to express the regret that coursed through her, but nothing came.
“She wasn’t well,” Forrest reminded her.
“We didn’t know that then.”
He nodded. “For a long time I racked my brain for answers. I thought it came down to your father leaving your mother while pregnant.”
“My father deserting my mother always messed me up,” she admitted. “But that night was the catalyst of me being a broken mess.” She inhaled and exhaled. “Now you know the truth.”
“Why didn’t you come to me instead of running that night?” Gray eyes, a shadow of agony, darkened behind his glasses. “I was waiting for you,” he said in a roughened voice.
Sharp sadness stabbed her heart. At eighteen, she had been vulnerable and Victoria’s words fed to her weakness and insecurities. In the process, she’d hurt the one person she never wanted to cause any pain. Guilt sat heavy and acrid in her belly.
Her eyes suddenly swam with tears and she hurried to scrub them from her face. Tears lead to sympathy, and sympathy always lead to more tears. “I’m sorry,” she said in a strained voice. “I should have talked to you, but I was young and in shock.” Quickly the feeling of security from her decision to stay and fight died away, shame and confusion filled in its absence. “Her words broke me that night.”
He pushed his chair back and slid closer into the empty chair beside her. He caught her hand in his, their fingers becoming locked together similar to puzzle pieces. “No longer hiding your tattoo.” It wasn’t a question but an indication that he noticed.
“It’s permanent.” Like my love for you.
Forrest’s jaw ticked. His expression, quiet and steady. The space between them slowly faded. As he leaned forward, her pulse raced, lips parted with anticipation. Looking into his eyes, she became lost in the deep pools of gray that displayed his soul.
His lips brushed upon her tear-stained cheek. Claire’s heart came to a halt, breath caught in her throat. As the soft skin of his mouth left the side of her face, the exact spot where they came into contact burned and tingled. A hot, blazing fire pulsed through her. Forrest pulled away silently, but their eyes locked, having a private conversation on their own in a long muted moment.
“I’m sorry you went through that,” he said quietly. “I can’t even say I understand how you felt that night.”
Claire lowered her gaze to their hands still knotted together.
“But that was ten years ago,” he continued.
After a light squeeze, he released her hands. Sadness flowed through her veins, cold and unending. Any illusion of possibly mending their relationship fell away.
“Victoria died six years ago,” he said, his voice perfectly even. “Why did you wait so long to tell me all this?”
“I thought you hated me.”
He exhaled, placed his elbows on the table. “I was angry for a long time, but I never hated you.”
Neither spoke for a beat. The silence seeped into Claire’s pores, drowning her mind in its thick toxicity. “I should have come to you sooner,” she said in a low voice. “But, I never felt good enough.”
“You were always good enough.”
She let out a low chuckle. “Hence all the additional things I do. The designing, the acting.” Her eyes, filled with unshed tears, glazed over the two sentences she’d finally written down. “And now I’m tired.”
“You will write the song. Stop trying so hard. Take a break.”
“I was referring to us.” She met his gaze and held. “I’m tired of running from you.”
“Claire.” He sighed. “It’s been ten years.”
“Too long?” she asked in a tone she hoped was light.
“I gave you my heart freely.” He smiled at her, not the warm, heart-melting smile, but one of regret and opportunity lost. “That shouldn’t have made it worthless.” He removed his glasses and dug the heel of his hands in his eyes then opened them again and stared at her. “That made it priceless.”
“Your love was never worthless.”
“I wish you trusted me enough then or came to me sooner.” He raked a hand through his hair. “Ten years is a long time.”
“We were supposed to be forever.”
“You broke the deal,” he responded after a beat. His voice thick with regret.
She searched his face, trying to find if they were really hopeless. His eyes held all the longing in her heart. “You still love me.”
“This isn’t about what I feel, but what I can give. I can’t give you love.” He released a deep breath. “It’s time for both of us to let go.”
She blinked. “Let go.”
“You have a life in L.A. I live here. We’d never work.” He shook his head. “Our time has passed.” Slowly he lifted his weight from the chair. “Let’s try to be friends again.”
Their gazes intertwined once more, then he walked out of Vapor without even a last look in her direction. The wall clock ticked like the timer on a bomb. She couldn’t stop it, reverse it or slow it down. Each tick dragged her forward to the here and now. Her phone pinged. She snatched it and skimmed through the notification. Someone had increased the wager on Forrest by five hundred dollars.
With nervous energy sitting in her stomach, she tapped her fingers on the table, contemplating whether to continue the bidding war or stop. He hadn’t denied loving her still. Had he done so, it would have made it easier to let him go. She increased her bid, doubling the last bidder and raising her stake on Forrest to three thousand dollars.
Picking up the pen, she focused her attention on the last word written and scribbled.
In the arithmetic of love, one plus one equals infinity, and two minus one equals nothing. It is a cruelty of life that a heart
can keep on beating even after it has been broken in two. It can feel as though it is being gripped in an ice-cold vice and ache as if it will implode in your chest, but still the boom-boom continues. I never said what I wanted to say, but I fell for you harder than a slip on black ice.
* * * *
Forrest’s throat tightened the minute he pulled the Jeep into Herring Creek Farm. The place looked somber and deserted. He glanced at the yellow tractor by the barn and could almost see his father working the land. His heart clenched. He exhaled some of the pain from his system and continued driving to the Victorian house. His foot lifted off the accelerator, the Jeep slowed, passed one of the Herring Creek delivery trucks. Returning to the farm forced him to swim once more in the tide waters of the past, his childhood, who he thought he was, and was no longer.
He entered the house and was greeted by total hush. No sign of his mother. A combination of relief and sorrow tugged at him as he made his way down the hall. Photographs on the wall, cataloging some of the best moments in their lives followed him. A few were sun-bleached and a little damaged, but each was a conduit of his best memories.
His mother took pride in framing them, and was meticulous with the way they were hung. She measured the space between the frames so each celluloid could be properly aligned and exact in distance. She used to tell him these pictures encouraged her to visit these moments and kept them from fading, vanish from her mind, as if none of it ever happened. Forrest stopped to examine a particular picture of him with his parents. His mind’s eye darted to that specific period in time when Victoria captured his father turning the hose on him and his mother. The love in his mother’s eyes, the mischievous smile on his father’s lip stared back at him.
“Forrest.”
His mother’s voice snatched him from the promenade down Memory Lane and forced him into the chaos his life had become. He turned and took in her appearance. She stood, tall and strikingly beautiful, with his father’s two beloved black Labs at her side. The dogs ran to him, tails wagging. Forrest crouched down and scratched their ears.
She removed the woolen hat, sandy brown hair fell down to her shoulders in waves. Big, bright gray eyes that typically glittered looked washed out, like an old white shirt that had been washed with dark colors a few times too often.
“I didn’t think you were here,” he said, straightening to his full height.
“I was by the lake.”
He nodded. They continued to stare at each other. Bright, vivid thoughts of him racing down the hall with his parents at his heels trundled through his brain with no intention of stopping.
“I’m glad you’re here.” A shaky smile settled on her lips. “Coffee? Tea?”
He shoved his hands in his coat pockets. “No thanks.”
“Forrest…”
“I don’t know why I came here.” He glanced over her shoulder to the wall, specifically to the spot his mother had repainted after he and Claire went on a crayon coloring frenzy. Relentless memories continued their destruction.
“This is your home. It will always be.” Eyes similar to his focused on a picture of his late father. “Regrets are moral residue,” his mother’s voice was low as she spoke. “I was hurt and angry and I did something out of character. Now it’s stuck with me. I can’t undo it.” She looked at him. “I will never regret having you.”
“I’m not here to discuss you and Charles.” He ignored the gripping pain deep in his stomach and asked, “Did you or Dad ever tell Victoria that Claire wasn’t good enough for me?”
His mother waved a dismissive hand. “That’s absurd. We never thought that. Why do you ask?”
The answer didn’t surprise him. “It’s not important.” He glanced around the hallway. Everything was as tidy as he could remember, not in a cold, detached way. Growing up in the house, as big as it was, had been the exact opposite–animated and full of life. His father, his mother, and he had been a team. “Do you need help with anything?”
“I was making some pies for a delivery tomorrow.”
“All right.” He removed his jacket, hooked it on the edge of the stairs, and started toward the kitchen. His mother always insisted he hang his jacket in the closet. Forrest waited for the scolding, but it didn’t come. “I’ll deliver them tomorrow,” he offered.
“I’d like that. I can come with you.”
He shook his head. “No need.” In his peripheral vision, he caught her nodding, seeming to understand he wasn’t ready for all of that mother-son relationship they once had.
“Have you seen Claire?” his mother asked as they walked down the corridor.
“Yes.”
“She’s here for you.”
“It’s too late for me and Claire.”
She glanced at him. Forrest kept his focus straight ahead.
“She loves you.”
“Maybe.”
“She does.”
“Okay.”
He pushed open the cognac oak slab door and entered the well-equipped kitchen. A beautiful toned modern table stood in the middle. Handy wall hatches to keep appliances close at hand. Dried flowers hung from beams. Mixed style chairs provided tone and balance in the country setting. Nothing superfluous–minimalist and uncluttered. He walked by the fresh fruit on a cutting board to the sink, rolled up his sleeves and washed his hands. The kitchen, the heart of the house, always exuded a warm and welcoming spirit. How many nights had he sat there talking to his parents? Nostalgia washed over him once again. Forrest put up a mental hand to stop the onslaught of memories.
“Why are you shutting her out?” his mother asked while pulling out ingredients from the cupboard.
He turned off the running water and wiped his hands dry. “I don’t trust her.”
“You’re too hard on yourself and everyone around you. We all make mistakes. Even you are capable of those.”
“I’m not here for a lecture, Mom.”
His mother placed several already prepared crusts on the counter. A busy silence fell between them. It wasn’t the comfortable kind, more like tension-filled, but he stayed and baked pies.
Late into the night, one fresh-baked pie in hand, Forrest entered his house. After placing the sweet dessert in the fridge, he made his way to the sitting room, found the TV remote, and turned on ESPN for the latest sports news. But once again, his mind went to Claire. When she first left, his heartache had been an insatiable fire that burnt all the oxygen in his body, leaving him lifeless and empty. Years had reduced the pain to a thin layer of ice, cooling his insides, a gentle reminder of what came before and a warning not to stoke that fire again. They said once bitten, twice shy, but for him, it was more like forever shy. He wouldn’t take that chance, however tempting it was, because his heart couldn’t survive another inferno.
Still, he picked up his phone and checked on the auction for the first time. Claire’s bid was now up to three thousand dollars. Despite all the internal warnings, he was eighteen again and Claire soaked right into his bones. Only this time, she wasn’t fifteen and he didn’t have to ignore the burning desire coursing through him. He scrolled through his contact list to her name and typed.
Tell me you made some progress with the song.
And pressed SEND before he could change his mind and erase the text. Forrest threw the phone on the sofa, telling himself she wouldn’t answer. It was late, well past midnight. Besides, he didn’t care if she answered or not. Within seconds, the ping of his phone announced her response.
Some.
He texted back.
You bid on me again.
She answered.
Someone tried to outbid me.
A reporter talking about Tom Brady and the New England Patriots blared in the background. While he was everything Boston, from the Red Sox to the Bruins, when it came to football, he was all about The Niners. He continued typing.
You should stop.
Her response came quickly.
Tell me you don’t love me, and I’ll stop.
Forrest studied her words. Definitely a bad idea to go there again. He texted back.
Goodnight, Claire.
He fixed his attention on the television screen. His phone vibrated. Forrest glanced at the glowing screen then looked away. The conversation was over. Neither of them had anything left to say. It was pointless to drag it out any longer. The buzzing sound came again, taunting his resolution. One peek wouldn’t hurt. He didn’t have to respond. But it was rude to ignore someone and he was never rude. He read the text.
Any call after midnight is considered a booty call. Is that what this is?
Chapter Fifteen
“How to save your heart – Know your limits.”
Claire Yasō Peters
This wasn’t good. Claire frowned at the now-silent phone. No response. The after-midnight conversation with Forrest ended just as quickly as it had started. Disappointment filled her chest. What did she expect?
Well, he could have played along. He did initiate the back and forth texting. The minute she flirted a little, pushed his buttons a bit, he stopped. A reminder no matter how deep his feelings ran for her, Forrest had no desire to go down that path again. At least not without a fight. He was protecting his heart, she couldn’t blame him, she’d do the same had the situation been reversed, but he wanted her, his eyes couldn’t hide that.
She placed the journal on the nightstand. No point spending another minute staring at the words she’d written or waiting for another text. Progress often came one baby step at a time. Overall, the day had been a good one. She drafted a whole verse, and finally found the strength to tell Forrest the truth. Two big accomplishments. Maybe tomorrow she’d convince Keely to take the ferry off the island and spend the day shopping in Boston. Earlier at Vapor, her friend looked like she could use some distraction.