Only Him

by Melanie Harlow

  Dear Dr. Shepherd,

  We have only met once or twice, a long time ago, but I am a friend of your brother Dallas. We went to school together and dated seriously, but lost touch in the years between then and now.

  I was surprised to see him on my doorstep two days ago, but we spent the weekend getting reacquainted, and I was very upset to learn about his medical condition.

  I couldn’t write brain tumor. I just couldn’t.

  We parted ways earlier this evening under difficult terms.

  I stopped and took a breath as my eyes filled again.

  I know about the surgery. I begged him to have it, but he says he hasn’t decided yet and won’t tell me what he decides. He wants a clean break.

  I’m writing you tonight for several reasons. One, PLEASE do whatever it takes to convince him to have the surgery if that is the best option to save his life. I’m begging you.

  I choked back a sob and kept going, although the screen was blurry.

  Two, please be kind to him. I know he can be stubborn and difficult, but he won’t respond well to insults or demands.

  Three, could you please let me know what he decides? He doesn’t want any contact with me, but I don’t think I will be able to sleep peacefully until I know what he has chosen. I need to know he will be okay.

  I did not tell him I was reaching out to you. Of course, I understand if you feel you have to tell him about this email, but I would still ask that you consider my requests. He will probably be very angry about what I’ve done, but in all honesty, I love him too much to do nothing.

  Feel free to reply to me at this address. I wish you luck with him, and I wish you well.

  Sincerely,

  Maren Devine

  I hesitated for only a moment, during which I closed my eyes and searched my soul. Was this what I wanted to do? I risked alienating Dallas even further by going behind his back and contacting his brother when I knew there was tension between them. In the end, I decided I had no choice. I loved him, and I wanted to save him even more than I wanted him to love me back. If he never forgave me, so be it. I hit send and felt no guilt.

  Setting my laptop on my nightstand, I opened the drawer and took out the sketch he’d made of me at seventeen. The sight of it and the memory of what he’d said to me last night brought fresh tears. After tucking it away again, I dragged myself from bed, undressed, and put on my pajamas. In the bathroom, I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and frowned at my puffy eyes. Back in my room, I took off the necklace he’d given me earlier, hid it at the bottom of my underwear drawer, crawled beneath the covers and curled up in a ball. My sheets smelled like him.

  I closed my eyes and inhaled, wondering if he was lying in his hotel bed missing me as much as I missed him. I thought of his body beneath the sheets, pictured the warm bare skin, the firm muscles of his chest, the ink on his arms and shoulders and back. I thought of his blue eyes and the dimple in his chin. I thought of his hands. The sound of his laugh. The taste of him. How was it possible I’d never see him again? Or touch him or kiss him or hold him or feel him inside me? The ache of loneliness spread from my heart throughout my entire body.

  I cried myself to sleep.

  Fifteen

  Dallas

  On the drive back to the hotel, I turned the radio on, putting the volume up as loud as it would go. I already had a headache, and the blasting rock music made it worse, but as long as I was distracted by the noise and the physical pain, I wouldn’t have to deal with the emotional upheaval I’d just caused—mine or Maren’s—or the voices in my head telling me I’d just walked away from the best thing that had ever happened to me.

  Back at my hotel, I threw all my shit in my suitcase and crashed on the bed, slamming my eyes shut and praying sleep would come quickly.

  It didn’t, of course.

  All I could do was picture the look on Maren’s face when I’d told her I didn’t love her. Hear her sobbing. She’d been devastated, as I knew she would be. Goddammit, it wasn’t supposed to happen!

  But I wanted her to be happy, and the only way that could happen was without me in her life. She’d realize that in time. She was smart—smart enough to put everything together about what was going on with me. Groaning, I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling. It was exactly as I’d suspected—the tears and sadness, the pity and fear. Why the hell would she want any of that in her life?

  I loved her too much to put her through it. Better to disappoint her in the short term than sentence her for life. But fuck—fuck—it hurt me, too.

  I grabbed the pillow from behind my head and put it over my face. It smelled like lavender.

  My throat closed. My chest tightened. My heart ached at the thought that I’d never kiss her goodnight or sleep next to her or wake up with her again—and someone else would.

  But that was the price I had to pay.

  I landed in Boston around one o’clock the following afternoon. I hadn’t slept well, the flight had been bumpy, and my stomach was upset, probably because of the Depakote combined with the lack of food. To say I was grumpy was an understatement.

  I barked at someone in baggage claim for standing too close to me, I was a dick to the guy at the rental car agency when the SUV I wanted wasn’t available, and I ignored Finn’s texts asking if I was on my way. I’d never even told him which flight I was on or when it would arrive.

  Instead, I put his address into my GPS and drove to his house, cursing and grumbling the entire way that I should have stayed in a hotel. How the fuck was I going to even breathe with four people in my face all the time?

  Bree answered my knock on the front door, and her face lit up when she saw me. “Hey, Dallas!”

  “Hey.”

  She held the door open for me, and as soon as I was inside, she let go and threw her arms around me. “It’s so good to see you.”

  The hug felt good, and I found my temperamental mood easing up a bit. “You too.”

  She released me and stepped back, eyeing me at arm’s length. “You look good.”

  “So do you.” My brother’s wife was pretty and petite, with shoulder-length dark hair that was pulled off her face and a generous smile. It was a warm day, and she was dressed in cut-off shorts and a tank top smudged with dirt as if she’d been working outside.

  “Oh Lord, I’m a mess. I’ve been in the garden already this morning. But come on in. Finn’s at work—I don’t think he knew exactly when you were arriving—but the kids are running around here somewhere. Oly! Lane!” she called out. “Uncle Dallas is here.”

  A second later, they came barreling toward me, Oly flying down the stairs in a bathing suit and Lane zooming in from the direction of the kitchen. “Yay!” one of them cried as both of them wrapped around my legs like monkeys. “You’re here!”

  “I’m here.” The sight of them lifted my spirits even more. “And I have presents for you somewhere in my bag.”

  The kids cheered while Bree parked her hands on her hips. “You send them too much stuff already. They’re still eating all the Easter candy you shipped here.”

  “What are uncles for?” I ruffled Lane’s hair and tweaked Olympia’s ear.

  “Want to go swimming with me?” she asked. “We have a pool now.”

  “I know, I heard about it. I’d love to. Got a diving board?”

  My niece nodded happily. “I can dive off it.”

  “I’ll teach you how to do a backflip,” I told her.

  “Dallas Shepherd, don’t you dare.” My sister-in-law swatted at my shoulder.

  I smiled. “Let me take my bags upstairs and I’ll find my suit, okay, Oly?”

  “Okay.”

  “Are you hungry?” Bree asked. “I have some pasta salad and some deviled eggs.”

  “That sounds good. I haven’t eaten yet today.” My stomach was feeling a little better, and food actually sounded good.

  “I’ll fix you a plate. You can take your things upstairs. You remember where the guest room is?�
��

  I nodded. “Thanks.”

  Upstairs in the guest room, I dug my swimsuit and the kids’ gifts out of my bag. The Tigers merchandise reminded me of being at the game with Maren, and a pit opened inside me. How was she today? I’d had no calls or messages from her, which surprised me. Was she too hurt and angry? Or was she trying to forget me already?

  It doesn’t matter. A clean break, remember?

  I did my best to put her out of my mind and spent the afternoon with Bree and the kids, who loved their Tigers gear and had fun showing off their swimming and diving skills. I dazzled them all (plus some other neighborhood urchins) with my backflip and thunderous cannonball off the diving board, participated in underwater tea parties, diving for pennies, and about a million games of Marco Polo.

  For dinner, I grilled cheeseburgers and hot dogs, and Bree brought out corn on the cob and broccoli salad, which the kids complained about but ate after their mother told them there would be no ice cream if they didn’t.

  Finn arrived home while we were eating on the patio, kissed his wife hello, ruffled each of the kids’ wet heads, and offered me his hand. I thought for sure he’d make a comment about my ignoring his texts or failing to let them know when I would arrive, but he didn’t. “Glad you made it,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  He changed clothes and joined us at the table, and I found myself looking at him differently as I watched him interact with his family. I wasn’t sure why. Was it because I knew he was seeing a therapist? Or because I kept waiting for him to harangue me about the surgery and he wasn’t? Was he different somehow, maybe a little less intense and more relaxed? Was it because I knew he was interested in mending our relationship, maybe hearing me out before he dismissed my side of things as irrational or foolish or reckless?

  Whatever it was, it helped to put me at ease. I didn’t feel as on guard or defensive as I usually did around him. I liked watching him with his wife and kids, and for the first time, I envied what he had. Home. Family. Security. Belonging. I felt a part of it too, which was nice, but it wasn’t mine. It never would be.

  Later, after the ice cream had been eaten and the dishes were cleared and the kids had been dragged off to the bathtub by Bree, Finn asked if I wanted to have a beer with him out by the pool.

  I hesitated. “The meds.”

  “No pressure, but I think one beer is okay.”

  “Okay, then. I’ll have one with you.” I was feeling better than I had this morning, at least physically.

  Finn brought out two uncapped bottles and handed one to me, and we stretched out in two adjacent deck chairs. The sky was streaked with pink and orange, and the crickets were chirping noisily. From an upstairs window I heard Lane protest, “But I don’t need to wash my hair! I washed it three days ago!”

  Finn chuckled. “That kid never wants to wash his hair.”

  I smiled, tipping up my beer. “They’re getting so big.”

  “They are. And I’m getting old.”

  But you’re lucky, Finn. So fucking lucky.

  He drank too. “Nervous about tomorrow?”

  “Should I be?” I looked over at him.

  He shrugged. His shoulders were less broad than mine, but we had similar builds and coloring, although he wore his hair shorter and was slightly thicker through the middle. “I don’t think there will be any surprises. He’ll just go over the surgery with you.”

  I nodded, and we were both silent for a minute.

  “I want to ask you what you’re thinking, but I don’t want to pressure you.”

  “You can ask. I don’t have an answer, though.”

  “Fair enough.” He paused. Drank. “How was your weekend in Detroit?”

  I crossed my ankles. “Fine.”

  “You said you saw Maren Devine?”

  “I did.”

  “How was that?”

  “It was…” The muscles in my lower body clenched. “Interesting.”

  “Oh? Care to elaborate?”

  I sipped my beer and gave it some thought. Fuck it. Might as well. “I went there to apologize for leaving without saying goodbye when Mom and Dad sent me away. It was a shitty thing to do to her, and I only did it because I was embarrassed. I hadn’t talked to her since and always felt bad.”

  “So you wanted her forgiveness?”

  “Yeah.”

  Finn nodded slowly, and I knew he understood why I’d gone. “What did she say?”

  “She was pretty frosty at first, but she warmed up eventually. Said she forgave me.” I started peeling the label off the beer bottle. “I asked to take her to dinner that night, and she said yes. We had a nice time.”

  Finn paused with his beer halfway to his mouth. “How nice?”

  “She came back to my hotel and spent the night.”

  “Damn. That’s pretty nice.”

  “Yeah.” I inhaled and exhaled, fighting the memory of my body on hers. “So nice I didn’t want to leave when I was supposed to. We spent the next day and night together, and things got sort of intense.”

  “Yeah?”

  I took another drink. “I told her some things I probably should have kept to myself.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “That I’d never forgotten her. That I thought of her every day.” I paused and shut my eyes. “That I still loved her.”

  “Well, fuck.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What did she do?”

  “She said she’d never gotten over me either and made me promise to give us a second chance.”

  “And you did? Make the promise, I mean?”

  I nodded. “I did. But I can’t keep it.”

  “Why not?”

  I sat up taller in my chair. “Because, Finn. She doesn’t want to be with someone defective like me.”

  “You’re not defective, Dallas.”

  “I could be. The risks of that surgery scare the fuck out of me.”

  “I know, they’re scary. It’s brain surgery, no way around it.”

  “I don’t want her to see me like that. And if they didn’t get it all and I needed chemo and radiation …” I shook my head. “No fucking way. I’ve seen the photos. I’ve read the stories.”

  “What stories?”

  “On the Internet,” I said, getting defensive, because I sensed a scolding ahead. “And don’t tell me those aren’t real, because they are. Chad was real and now he’s dead.”

  “Who the hell is Chad?”

  “He was a guy with a brain tumor, and he tried to fight it and lost.”

  “Oh, Jesus. Look, Dallas.” Finn swung his feet to the ground and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, his beer bottle dangling between them. “I won’t pretend this isn’t serious. Yes, you have a brain tumor. Yes, there are risks to the craniotomy. Yes, you may need additional treatment depending on what the biopsy shows. But this isn’t a death sentence. Dr. Acharya thinks he can get it all.”

  “If I lost the use of my right hand, I’d never be able to work again. It would feel like a death sentence.”

  “Learn to tattoo with your left hand.”

  I gave him a look. “You can’t be serious. I’m not the slightest bit ambidextrous.”

  “You’re smart and talented. And the human brain is an amazing thing. I think you could learn. You could give me my first tattoo.”

  I had to laugh. “With my left hand? Why not just ask Oly to tattoo you? It would probably look better.”

  “I want it to be you.”

  “Are you serious?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve been thinking about it.”

  “Since when?”

  “For a while now. I was going to talk to you about it next time we saw each other.”

  “I thought you hated my tattoos.”

  He sighed. “I didn’t hate them. I envied them.”

  “What? Why?” This made no sense.

  “Because they stood for something about you that I’ve always been jealous of. You do what
you want and you don’t give a damn what anyone thinks.”

  “True.”

  “And you get along with everyone. Everyone likes you.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Anyway, I’m working on caring less what people think as I get older. And getting a tattoo is a step in that direction. I mean, I don’t want it on my neck or anything—I am still a professor at Harvard—but maybe on my back or chest or something.”

  “Sure,” I said, amazed by these revelations. Finn envied me? He wanted a tattoo? “We can talk about it. Do you know what you want?”

  “Not yet. Maybe you can help me decide.”

  “Okay.”

  He cleared his throat. “Anyway, we were talking about Maren.”

  I stared at him another moment and then looked straight ahead again. Time ticked by. “I want her to remember me like I was.”

  “I understand.”

  “And she deserves better than me, Finn. She always has. I’d be a disappointment to her no matter what, tumor or not.”

  “That’s your own self-pity right there, not anyone else’s.”

  “Excuse me?” My tone was sharp.

  He held up a hand. “No offense, but it seems like that’s a handy excuse not to take a chance on letting her see you be a little vulnerable. You don’t know what would happen in the future.”

  “A little vulnerable?” I sat up and pointed at him. “Fuck you, Finn. When have you ever let anyone see you as something less than perfect? As someone weak or vulnerable? Oh, that’s right, never.”

  “Not true.”

  “Since when.”

  “Since Bree had an affair.”

  That stopped me cold. My jaw dropped. “What?”

  “Bree had an affair,” he said quietly. “Last year.”

  “How do you know?”

  “She told me. It was someone she’d met through work, a consultant in the school district where she teaches.”

  “Did you kick his ass?”

  He grimaced. “Uh, no. Number one, because I’ve never been in a fight in my life. Number two, because it wouldn’t have solved the problem.”