by K. A. Hobbs
“And you have another one you haven’t told her about… That you haven’t really told anyone about.”
“Yes, I do.” Harry smiles.
“What is it? Where is it?” Carter asks interested.
“It’s on my ring finger,” he holds it up. “See?”
“Yes, but what does it mean?” Carter frowns.
“Ma raison d’être.” Harry shrugs.
“In English, please.” I call over.
Harry locks eyes with Megan, smiles then speaks the words just to her.
“My reason for being.”
“That’s it!” I call, standing up. “My heart cannot take anymore, I’m going to the bathroom.”
They all chuckle at me as I walk slowly to the downstairs loo. Once inside, I sit on the closed loo seat for a few minutes trying to calm the tightening in my chest. Will anyone ever feel that much for me that they would mark their skin permanently, make a beautiful declaration of their love, for me? I go to the loo and rinse my hands before heading back into the lounge. They all stop talking and look up at me when I walk back in.
“That’s very suspicious, what are you talking about?” I ask them as I sit back down.
“You.” Megan says simply.
“And what about me?”
“Well, that we can’t tell you. Suck it up beauty!” she grins, kissing my cheek.
I don’t know where the time goes or my energy for that matter, but by four o’clock I’m exhausted and in need of some rest. Megs and I kiss and hug and she promises me a girly night soon. The journey back is pretty quick and when we get home, Carter insists on carrying me up to our flat.
After depositing me on the sofa and giving me the TV remote, he asks if it’s okay if he goes for a run. I tell him of course and he kisses my cheek and goes to get changed. Before he disappears, he brings me over some ginger ale and a bar of chocolate incase I want some, and runs out the door with his earbuds in. I snuggle down and watch Friends, falling asleep ten minutes in.
I can do this.
I can make dinner and pretend that every cell in my body isn’t aware of her.
I can concentrate on making something I know she will enjoy for dinner. I can ignore the fact she has on some of the sexiest songs I’ve ever heard.
Is she doing it on purpose?
I close my eyes and count to ten, taking a deep breath, I open them again.
Big mistake.
She chooses that moment to stand up and stretch her arms above her head, her tank top rises and a couple of inches of creamy, toned skin is exposed. I watch as she turns her head first left then right and groans.
God help me.
My run this afternoon has done nothing to help the need to be with her.
“It smells good.” she says, walking towards me slowly.
“I’m glad you think so, I’m making your favourite.” I smile at her, going back to stirring the pan on the hob.
“Lasagne?” she leans over and sniffs at the pot.
“Yup, and I even got you some of those dough balls you love.”
She shuffles to my side of the counter and wraps her arms around my waist, bringing her hands up to rest on my stomach. I take a few steadying breaths when she presses a kiss to the very centre of my back.
“You’re too good to me, Carter, you know that?”
“It’s nothing you don’t deserve, sweetheart.” I tell her, closing my eyes and relishing in the feel of having her so close to me.
The feel of her soft curves pressed to my back, the scent of her surrounding me, more tantalising than anything ever could, or has been before. All too soon she pulls back and walks over to the refrigerator, pulling out a big bottle of ginger ale and filling her glass with ice and the drink she seems to survive on lately.
“Feeling sick again?”
“I always feel sick lately, the only thing that helps even a little bit is this stuff.” she holds up her glass.
“Do you think they’ve noticed a sales increase lately?” I joke.
I’m rewarded with one of her smiles, a genuine, warm smile that goes straight to my heart and makes it pick up speed.
“Probably. Won’t they miss it when I’m better and no longer getting through six bottles a day?” she smiles, before she heads back into the lounge and settles herself on the sofa.
I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to be able to keep this up for, how much longer I can pretend that I don’t want to be more than friends, that I don’t want to wrap her in my arms, call her my girl and show the world she belongs to me.
It’s not about you, Carter. The voice in my head keeps reminding me.
No, it’s not.
I look over at her smiling at something on her phone and I’m reminded it’s about her. As is our usual routine, we have dinner and Carmen listens to some music while I’m on my laptop. Everything is just how it should be until out of the corner of my eye I see Carmen shaking, I pause what I’m doing and lean over to see if she’s okay.
She isn’t.
She’s sobbing and my whole chest aches for her.
“What’s wrong?”
“Everything is wrong, I don’t know what’s going on right now.”
“It’s okay,” I try to soothe her. “It’s okay.”
“I don’t know what we are Carter, I don’t know what anything is.”
“We don’t need to know, just go with it.”
“Just hold me, please? I’m so scared right now that everything is out of my control and I just don’t know what to say. So can we just say nothing and be together? Can we just accept that this is what we are to each other right now? That things are changing but that I don’t know what to do with them right now?”
I take a deep breath and swallow down the words I desperately want to say; no I want to be closer to you, I want you to know that I love you, there, I admitted it for the hundredth time in my head, but you won’t let me say it out loud.
“Okay.”
She stands and pulls me with her, resting her head on my chest as I wrap my arms around her, bringing her flush against my body. The song playing is one I’ve heard lots of times before, it’s one of Mom’s favourites. I have memories of her and Dad dancing to this together and I have a fuzzy memory of dancing with a girl to it once, it can’t be of any importance or I would remember it. All that matters is that we’re creating a memory right now, a memory that’s just ours.
“You know I can’t be without you?” she whispers as a new song begins.
Taylor Swift. Carmen loves her and not a day goes past that she doesn’t play at least one of her songs.
“I don’t get that,” I tell her, holding her tighter to me. “You don’t want this to be anything more than friendship, what do you mean you can’t be without me?”
“I mean I can’t be without you, I thought we could be friends, but I need you to need me, I need you to want me in spite of everything and not because of it. I need you so much. I need you in my life and not because I’m sick, but because my life has been so full, so colourful and warm since you walked into it. Because you have been the light I’ve needed and that I’ve clung to like my lifeline since this whole thing started. You are the most thoughtful, kind and caring man in the world. You’ve been there for me from the very beginning and I want to be there for you… Forever if I have it.”
She looks up into my eyes and stops moving to the music. I have no choice but to look down at her and read every emotion she has, every word she’s spoken, clear on her face.
“We have longer than forever, I’m not going anywhere and neither are you, I promise you that.”
She raises her face and I lower mine and slower than I thought it would be, our lips touch and nothing else matters.
“Carter… Come to bed with me.” she whispers as she takes my hand and leads me down the corridor and to her bedroom door.
“Wait.”
I’ve been in this room so many times before, I’ve slept in this room so many tim
es before, but this is different. I’m certain she doesn’t have sleeping on her mind and I’m not sure how I feel about that. A big part of me wants to lift her into my arms and not think about anything except how she feels, how she tastes and how she sounds when I join us together. But the sensible part of me knows this is bigger than anything either of us have ever experienced before.
“Why?”
“Because I think this is something we’re both going to regret in the morning, that’s why.”
“It isn’t, not for me. I won’t regret this in the morning.”
She looks at me, so certain that this is what she wants, I’m what she wants. I’m over pretending that she isn’t everything I want too. I hold her to me and trail my mouth across from one ear to the other, then down her neck and across her collar bone until I reach the valley between her breasts. She groans and arches into me and I realise, everything I’ve ever wanted, I’m holding right here in my arms.
I’m not sure how last night happened, how I let it go so far when we haven’t spoken about how we feel about each other, not really. After dinner, we sat together like normal, I had music on and Carter was sitting on the sofa on his laptop, everything was normal. Then my brain went into overdrive, I started thinking things that I shouldn’t and I lost all control on my senses it seems. When did we both decide that stepping over the line was a good idea though?
It was a good idea.
It was the best idea.
But my head and heart are in turmoil right now and I don’t know what I want or what’s for the best.
I sit and watch Carter from the sofa, he’s in the kitchen on his laptop, he looks up, almost like he can feel my eyes on him, smiles, then lowers them back to the screen. He spends the next ten minutes doing whatever it is he’s doing then closes his laptop and comes to sit next to me on the sofa, he moves closer to me and gently, as always, pulls me to him. A few nights ago, the move wouldn’t have made me tense, I would have sunk into him and relished in having him close to me, but after last night, everything has changed and I’m struggling to work out exactly where we go from here.
“You okay?” he asks, pressing his lips to the top of my head.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Then why is your whole body tense?”
“I just… I don’t think we should…”
“What?” he leans away from me and looks at me.
“This, it’s too… intimate.”
“Intimate?” his eyebrows shoot up and hurt flashes across his face. “Too intimate after last night?”
“Please,” I close my eyes and take a deep breath. “Don’t Carter.”
“What… do you regret last night? Is that why you asked your Mom to come get you for the day today? Why you insisted I went out with Harry?” he looks at me like it’s all suddenly dawning on him.
“We need to stop whatever this is, last night… We shouldn’t have… It’s all…”
“What Carmen?” he stands suddenly, and starts pacing back and forth in front of me.
“It’s too soon, I can’t get into anything with anyone right now.”
“I’m not just anyone!” he yells angrily.
“I just need a friend Carter, okay?” I yell back at him, trying to make him realise.
“A friend? I’ve been your friend all this time, since you told me what was going on!” he yells. “But Carm, we went past being friends last night, don’t tell me we’re just friends after that.”
“We are friends, Carter.” I repeat the words I feel like I’ve spoken over and over.
“We’re much more than friends, you know it, I know it. Admit it to yourself Carmen, because I sure as hell need you to.”
“Please don’t, Carter.”
“So last night… You do regret what we did.”
“No, I don’t regret it, Carter, I don’t regret anything with you, I never ever could. I’m just saying it’s too much right now. Please, I need to go lie down,” I turn my back on him and start shuffling to my room, he’s behind me, helping me in seconds. “See? This is what a friend does.” I whisper to him.
“It’s what a boyfriend does too, why can’t you admit you have feelings for me?” he asks, his voice so full of pain.
We reach my room and he helps me into bed. I lay down and he covers me up like he always does, then he crawls into the bed right next to me, like he always does. He pulls me to him and rests my head on his chest.
It’s all so easy, why does he have to make it difficult?
“I don’t know if I’ll survive this, Carter, how can I make you something more permanent and risk having to lose you if this…. if it kills me.”
“Whether you admit your feelings or not, you’re going to beat this thing. You’re going to get better and when you do, I’ll still be here, I promise you.”
“Then can you just be here as a friend right now, I can’t… Carter, most days my mind feels like it’s going to explode, like there are so many things I have to remember and not enough space in there to process everything. I hurt, all the time and I feel sick all the time. I can barely make it to the bathroom on my own right now so I just need us to be this for now, I need for you to be with me and not expect anything from me because right now, I’m not capable of giving you anything back.” I tell him, letting the tears fall onto his shirt.
“You don’t need to give me anything back, you’ve never had to, just you. I just want you and one of these days you’re going to have to realise, you are beating this thing and you’ll keep beating it and when you’re better, I’ll still be here…” he kisses the top of my head and pulls me closer. “And right now you just need to sleep, while you don’t feel sick, please, just get some rest.”
Neither of us say anything for a long time and I do eventually fall asleep. I wake up and Carter is still there, still holding me, warm and comforting like he has been since the day I met him. I keep my breathing even so he doesn’t realise I’m awake, so I don’t have to face him and look into his eyes knowing I’m hurting him. I know he wants me to tell him I love him, I know he wants me to admit to him the feelings we both know I feel but I just can’t right now.
One month later
Everything has changed, yet at the same time, nothing has changed.
After completing my six week course of radiotherapy, everything looked good, the hospital were pleased with my progress and gave me my first bit of good news.
I am officially in remission.
The surgery and radiotherapy worked and the cancer was now gone from my body. That first day was full of emotions, it was the first day I felt like I was in control of my life in months, that I could live without worrying. The nurses assured me as much as they could that for now, I was okay, that it was one day at a time, regular check ups and hospital visits for the next few months but that for now, I was fine.
Josie and Jack have moved back to England and are now setting up their new home, happy and content and with their very own little surprise. They’re going to be parents. I’m thrilled for them both, Josie is glowing and I’ve never seen her look so happy before. Jack is protective and caring and everything she needs and it’s like the perfect fairytale.
Things with Carter and I are as they always have been — easy and normal and my happiest moments are always those spent with him. We worked through the weirdness sleeping together created and both came to an unspoken agreement that we’re staying as friends for now. Life is finally settling down and I want to spend time with him without the constant hospital appointments.
We’re enjoying going out and doing normal things. Carter is happy he has his brother so close and we spend most Sunday’s watching American Football at Jack and Josie’s while eating everything they both tell us, a game isn’t complete without. We’ve all settled into life and having my best friends around me is one of the most incredible things in the world and something I am forever thankful for. I look up as Carter comes into the lounge and stops in front of me.
�
�Do you trust me?”
“Of course I do, more than I trust anyone.” I tell him.
“I know what today is,” he looks at me and must see the look of realisation wash over my face.
“Carm, I’ve been to the hospital with you hundreds of times, I’ve heard you give your date of birth so many times I know it better than I know mine.”
“Sneaky.”
“We’re going to celebrate. I’ve got it all sorted, you just have to do what I say.” he tells me.
“Look at you being all dominant.”
“Call me Christian.” he grins.
“What are we doing?” I laugh as he pulls me up and steers me in the direction of my bedroom.
“You’ll see,” he laughs. “Wear something you feel pretty in!”
“The theatre?” I gasp as we come up to a stop in front of the pink lit up theatre.
“Yes.” he grins at me.
“I can’t believe you.” I smile.
“Happy birthday, Carmen.”
Carter has brought me to the theatre to see Dirty Dancing, one of my favourite films and shows. It’s a matinee performance but it’s still packed. There are hen parties and daughters with their Mum’s and Carter is one of the few men here. It doesn’t bother him though, he seems to enjoy the show as much as me, although, I’m not sure how much he actually watches, every time I turn to face him, he’s watching me. When the performance is finished, I turn and wrap my arms around him, thanking him for the best birthday surprise ever.
“I thought we could head home and change, we’re meeting Megan, Harry, Jack and Josie for dinner.”
“Really?”
“Really. You didn’t think you’d just be spending the day with me, did you?”
“Well, they’re busy… And they haven’t mentioned anything.”
“They’ve been sworn to secrecy,” he tells me. “I think it nearly killed them not to say anything.”
“Let’s go home and get changed for dinner then.” I tell him, linking my arm with his.
We walk into the flat and I stop dead in my tracks, the whole place is decorated. There are fairy lights everywhere, there are balloons and banners and there is music playing. I turn around and look at Carter, who just smiles at me and nods his head, telling me to keep going. I walk a little further and turn the corner and gasp. Everyone I love is here; Mum and Dad, Jack and Josie, Megan, Harry and a fast asleep Henry.