by A. J. Sand
“Yeah. I could eat a little.” She wasn’t, but from the look on his face, he wanted to cook for her. He was already rolling up the sleeves of his shirt and taking things out of the cupboards and pantry.
“Do you want to change? Your stuff is still…you know where it is.”
“Yeah…I think I will.” But would the bedroom be too hard to walk into? She half-expected her jewelry to be scattered across the floor when she stepped inside; instead, the box was tucked right back into its space on the dresser. Erica’s smile wavered a bit as her tears choked her when she walked to the closet. He’d moved all her stuff to one side, but it was all there. Naomi had told her that once she had come to get some of her things and he refused, saying that if Erica wanted them she would have to come get them herself. In the back of the closet was a set of drawers, and she pulled out a pair of sweatpants and a tank top then let her dress fall to the floor.
“Naomi’s wrong about your ass, E,” Bryson said as he walked into the closet. With a coy smile over her shoulder, she met his wide, lust-filled grin.
“Squats and lunges.” Erica jumped into her sweatpants and pulled them up slowly over her hips as he made an appreciative noise. He stepped further into the closet and dropped a kiss on her shoulder after she pulled on her tank top. A sense of security fell over her, but it didn’t dull the strange feeling of apprehension still coiling in her stomach. Her throat was tightening and only gulping down frequently seemed to help. Something was wrong with her.
“Stuff’s on the stove. You want to watch a movie? I’ve mastered how to cook from the bedroom. You pick,” he said as they walked out of the closet and to the bed. Erica selected Death Race on Netflix and she cuddled against him, wishing the feeling in her stomach would actually go away. It hadn’t gotten worse but it wasn’t getting better, either.
“Jason Statham?” he asked as he eased his hand up her abdomen like he was somehow in tune to the ache grating deep inside of her.
“Yup. My exception. And before you give me any shit about it, remember I wholeheartedly approved of Mila Kunis.”
“Fair enough,” he said with a sigh. But even a hot English guy crashing cars into other hot guys in cars couldn’t keep her from drifting off in her boy’s arms. She woke up several minutes later to Bryson’s voice. He was on the floor plowing through an assortment of papers strewn across the bedroom floor. “Yeah…I just can’t believe he needs it right now,” he whispered into his phone with a laugh. “Uh… I’m looking for it. Just ‘cause he’s my dad doesn’t mean he can call whenever demanding things.”
Bryson winked at her and motioned to her in a series of movements about the food, and she trod out to the kitchen. Erica smiled when she saw the stovetop, the small spice rack in the corner against the wall, and the jar holding various cooking spoons. Okay, so this was the difference. The guy was really cooking these days. The creamy pesto sauce bubbled over the edge of the pot, and Erica turned the stove down under it. She stirred it gently with a wooden spoon and noticed how much her hands were shaking during the rotation. There was a twinge of something, something unwanted and vile, gripping her throat like a claw. Her heart was racing, her breaths were quickening, and the shakes swirled down to her feet before erupting into tingles. Fear. This was fear. But of what?
Reaching for the remote to the kitchen speakers, she turned up the upbeat jazz tune playing, with the hope that it would drown out the feeling. But the dull ache of anxiety pulsing in her stomach pushed back, and she tried to combat it with deeper breaths as she reached up into the cabinets for plates. They were the white ceramic ones with three blue concentric circles in the middle from Target. It was the first set of plates she had ever bought with her own money. Bryson, who was accustomed to buying dinnerware from Williams-Sonoma, had insisted that, since this was her home, too, she had to bring her things. No matter what they were. He would make room for them. But they had represented her independence once, her small feats, the way she had fought so hard to be the woman she had become. Then they became a symbol of she and Bryson becoming one, the perennial intertwining of their lives: her low-cost dishes in his mahogany cabinets. They looked unfamiliar now, and the small joy she had felt placing them in Bryson’s cabinets before was gone.
She was shaking so much that one of the plates slipped from her hands and crashed down to the floor, sending an irregular triangular piece from it flying. At first, she meant to bend to pick up the pieces, but the anxiety was still churning inside of her, morphing into irritation, and so this time, when the second plate smashed to the floor, it was because she put all of her strength behind it. Huge chunks of ceramic pieces exploded across the room. These things were for a happy home, the people they used to be.
“Erica! What’s going on?” Bryson tore out of the bedroom but froze just on the edge of the kitchen.
She palmed the tears off her face, wanting to cry harder when they locked eyes. “Sorry. It’s really hard to be here again since…” Bryson came to her side with a broom and dustpan and they cleaned up the broken dishes together in silence. But after he emptied the dustpan, he walked back to the cupboard and pulled out two more plates and smashed them to the floor. He tilted his head up and smiled at her.
“Whoa. That does feel good.”
“Our neighbors are going to call the police on us,” Erica said, laughing.
“We’ll just tell them we’re remodeling,” Bryson replied with a wink. But she was suddenly overwhelmed by her need to cleanse the place of everything that represented what could’ve been. Erica walked over to the living room, and she stared at the curtains; she had loved them from the moment she found the swatch.
“I don’t want these here, either.” Erica gripped them and pulled, listening to the rip as they separated from the rod above. She yanked again. Harder.
“Okay. So we take them down,” Bryson said matter-of-factly. He stood on the other side and they both pulled.
“Please, I want them gone. Now. Please. Just…” Erica yanked, twisting the material in her hands as she doubled down on the force, but as a wave of emotion built in her chest, her grip weakened and she started to sob. Bryson peeled her hands off the material and she slid down the wall. Tears fell in rapid succession down her cheeks, but she managed to speak as she hugged her knees to her chest and lifted her head up to meet Bryson’s gaze. His face was halfway to a grimace, and he was clenching his jaw at the same rate that he was clenching his fists. “I never wanted you to see any of this at all…me freaking out. I’m better than I was the last time I was here, but…it’s still hard. I keep thinking you’ll want that exact woman who brought those curtains and plates in here…who didn’t have all this stuff to deal with. And the way you’re looking at me now…I just know you’ll never look at me like you did before.”
“Erica,” Bryson said, his voice shaky, “you are the exact same woman I’ve always known. Do you hear me?” He kneeled on the floor next to her and pulled her against him and she sobbed more. She hadn’t cried like this since the hospital in Thailand; devastation then, release now. “In every universe where this moment between us exists, no matter how alternate, no matter what the issue is, I imagine I am telling you this very thing, so listen carefully: Erica Evigan, I could never see you differently. The only thing I have ever seen you as, the only thing I still see, is the beautiful, kick-ass woman who made me want to be a better person from the moment I realized there might be remote possibility that she wanted to be with me, whose smile makes me remember my worst days differently, who I will love and stand by through this. And not because I don’t think you can’t stand on your own. But Erica…and you don’t always have to be strong, baby. We all fall apart sometimes. I was on your bathroom floor, drunk, with liquor bottle glass in my hand, remember?” He kissed her ear, and she nodded, laughing a little.
“So, you and I are going to sit here. You will not run. You will let me hold you, even if we’re here all night, because I want you to know I will never not hold you. You deserve
more love than any human being is capable of giving in a lifetime. But I will try. So, if you fall asleep here, I will carry you to bed. If you want to talk, we talk. If you need to cry, you cry. If you need to scream, you scream. If you need to punch a wall in, I will buy you a wall to punch in—”
Erica laughed through her sniffles. “I can’t punch these?”
Bryson pressed his lips to her temple. “Nope, especially because you still have to paint them that awful green color you wanted.”
“Hunter, you jerk!”
“Explains why the guy at Home Depot didn’t know what I meant when I said ugly ass green…”
Erica laughed again. “‘Baby poop’ green.” Bryson kissed the side of her head and laughed.
“E, come on…it totally does look like it.”
“Okay…maybe a little.” Every fear that had led her to leave Bryson that day had now come to pass. That was the thing about fear. It was a tricky bastard. It was as debilitating and detrimental as any poison injected directly into the veins. It distorted reality, fed insecurities, and with its help, other bad feelings manifested until a person felt powerless. She was so tired of feeling powerless. Erica hugged Bryson’s arm tighter against her and cried. She cried for every month she had been away from him, for every time she had ignored her friends, for every night she had suffered alone, for every time she thought doing this made her like Karen. And he let her. He never let go.
When she finally didn’t need to cry anymore, they actually got a stepladder and took the curtains down the right way. Erica sighed in relief as she stared out at the Los Angeles skyline. It was beautiful. She’d missed this view. Bryson wrapped his arms around her and pressed a kiss into the curve of her neck. “We will get whatever help we need so that we grow past this. This is a we matter, Erica, and you need to understand that. This is about us. Bryce and E. How it’s always been.”
She nodded. Maybe they weren’t different, but things were. They couldn’t go back. They had been apart for more than a year and a half after always being together for more than three. Yet as she felt solace wash over her from the warmth of his body against hers, Erica realized something in that moment that made her so incredibly hopeful. Back wasn’t the only direction available, and it was probably the worst one.
You’ll Hate This Part – Chapter 13
Erica stayed in bed, her old bed with Bryson, for two days, skipping her Monday classes. They didn’t talk much, but they literally slept together, her back to his chest, his arms folded around her. But it was during those periods of silence—completely comfortable silence, finally—that she discovered that sometimes someone else had to show you something that was right in front of your face. Yes, she didn’t have to be strong all the time, but she had completely disregarded all the times she had been in the face of things that maybe should’ve crushed her. She needed one of her own bathroom pep talks.
During the week, she went back to the Culver City apartment or classes for the day but usually returned in the evenings. Every time she returned, more furniture would either be gone or replaced with new pieces. All of it was for her. To make her comfortable there. Bryson told her that it was time for her to start coming over uninvited. He wanted her to use her key. Along with the ring, she hadn’t given Bryson back his key, but had somehow misplaced it between New York and L.A. He mailed her a new one, and she showed up, giddy, on Saturday, anxious to use it.
Erica walked inside and set the grocery bags she brought on the counter. No new curtains were up yet, but she liked the natural light spilling across the floor. An upbeat song curled through the house, and she followed it into the bedroom. Just beneath the catchy melody was the sound of running water. She poked her head into the bathroom and smiled when she spotted his frame in the shower, face angled up toward the falling water. There was something intriguing and tantalizing about seeing a naked body obscured by frosted shower glass. Erica stripped out of her dress, bra and panties and walked into the bathroom.
Bryson lifted startled eyes when she knocked on the shower door, but he was smiling when he slid it open. A scorching streak of warmth paralleled his gaze when he stared down her naked body. Man, she’d missed having that look directed at her. It was lusty but filled with adoration and appreciation, too. Erica glanced at his defined body—
the curves of the pectorals, the distinct lines cutting across his core to form the individual abdominal muscles, the deep V cutting from hip to groin. A soft, sweet ache uncoiled below her navel and settled between her upper thighs.
“Hi. You gettin’ in?” he asked, sounding eager. It was more offer than question.
She nodded and he stepped back when she slipped past the door. She flinched when the lukewarm water hit her skin; she never understood how Bryson could handle anything that wasn’t fully past the “H” on the faucet.
He laughed when she failed to turn it inconspicuously behind her back. Bryson swiveled her hips and pressed her against the shower wall. He brushed his hand up from her stomach to her breasts then kissed her wet neck. “It was only cold because I was thinking about you. You know how you make me.”
“You must think about me all the time ‘cause it’s always like that.”
Bryson’s face turned serious as he smoothed her drenched hair back and then took her face between his palms. “I do. I wonder what you’re doing, if you’re safe, if you’re thinking about me, too.”
“Every waking moment,” she said in a halting whisper. Bryson leaned forward and bumped a kiss on her forehead, and tears warmed her eyes. When he moved back, before he lowered his arms, she noticed something on his right ribcage she had somehow missed before. It was dark and small, and no bigger than two inches. Bryson got a tattoo.
“What is that?” Erica shifted his arm back and touched the spot with her thumb.
Without looking down at the location, Bryson pumped out a flat smile, a nervous expression taking over. “Oh…that…”
“What happened to ‘It’s like putting bumper stickers on a Bentley’?” she asked, referring to his rationale for never getting one.
“Changed my mind.” The nervous look fell into a sly smile.
“Can I see?” He was hesitant at first, but he turned and lifted his arm above his head so she could lean in. It was a treble clef, and as Erica traced the line and bends of the music symbol, she gasped. It was actually formed entirely of the letter E; from her previous distance, it had only looked like dark lines.
“I was going to surprise you…that day.”
“When I got back from Thailand?” Erica stood upright, and got a chill even with the shot of warm water back on her skin.
“Mmmhmm.” Bryson smiled and it was warm. “And I’ve never regretted getting it, you know, even after… It’s weird, but I just always thought it would bring us back together.”
Like my ring. “Trust me. Not weird at all.”
“Really giving up on you would be worse than losing you, babe.”
“Kai told me you flew to Pennsylvania. Just to make sure I was okay. How come you never let me know you were there?”
“I couldn’t drag you back, right? I just needed to see you. Needed a reminder that what we’d had was real. And make sure my girl was okay.” Bryson held her face and leaned in to her.
Erica clutched his wrists on either side. “I’m so sorry I hurt you, Bryce. I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you. Can you ever forgive me?”
“I’ve hurt you, too. But, no, I’m not going to forgive you because it’s not me who’s going to be holding this over your head. It’s you. Erica, you have to forgive yourself. You have to let go of everything you’re holding against yourself regarding me. You’re here now. We can heal. We are healing. And I hope you can forgive me for hurting you.
“You are the bravest person I know. I’d still think that no matter what you were doing or going through or how you were feeling. But the truth is, sometimes, I’m going to look at you in a way that breaks your heart, and it’s not that
I’m seeing you differently, babe, it’s because I love you with such a magnitude that I don’t know how not to carry your pain as my own. It’s just me wishing you weren’t in pain…and that I could take it away.
“As a guy, I just feel this weird duty to want to help you and protect you, E, women’s liberation movement be damned,” he said, breaking away from the seriousness of his statement to laugh. “I’m not saying it’s not primitive, but it has nothing to do with how I see your strength, babe. It’s not me pitying you. Or thinking you’re fragile. It’s more about me than you. Guys just like to feel like we’ve got your back. And you can have your space to deal when you need it, but promise me you won’t run again. No matter what.”
“You can have my back, Bryson Jeffrey Ellis. And I promise. I love you.” Erica threw her arms around his neck and kissed his wet face. No more running. No more fighting alone. “Okay, I’m gonna get out ‘cause I’m pruning.”
“I love you, too.” Bryson grabbed her hand before she could step out of the shower. “Hey, E, while you’re busy forgiving yourself, there’s one more thing I want you to do for me.”
“Anything,” she said with a smile.
“Tomorrow, go get all your stuff. Then come…home.”
“Are you still friends with that lit agent, Bryce?” Erica asked when she walked into the bedroom.
“It’s nice to hear you walking around here again.” Bryson, smiling, looked up from typing on his laptop on the bed, peering out from over the rim of his glasses. Damn, now she totally got the hot librarian fantasy some guys had. “What do you want with Shaun?”
“Remember the guy from yoga I told you about? Matt… His book is really good.”
“Trying to help out your other boyfriend, E?” Bryson teased.
“Shut up.” Erica raised her hands to her hips. “One last good deed for a friend, if he’ll even respond, but he should at least have someone look at it. I haven’t been able to put it down.” And this was seriously her final time reaching out to him. Of all people, she knew how sometimes people needed to deal with things alone for a while. She would still be here if he needed her, though.