The Space In Between

by Melyssa Winchester

  In all of that time, my mom had dropped everything to give me the best possible life she could. Making sure I was as happy as possible, putting her own happiness on the back burner to achieve it. As upset as I am that it’s come down to this and I had to walk away from her in order to cope with everything, it isn’t enough to change the truth.

  She deserves this happiness. Even if it’s at the expense of my own.

  And his.

  “I just want to talk, Ems. No pressure. I agreed to Johnny helping me get you here because I just wanted to sit and talk. Like old times. Before we let feelings get in the way.”

  “Feelings were always in the way.”

  “Can’t argue with that, but fine. Let’s go back to the first day.”

  Giving in to what he wants, I slide down onto the rock and focus my attention out over the water, knowing that as soon as he starts talking again, it won’t be the first day like he wants, but every single day after.

  It’s a pretty illusion he’s painted though.

  “I get why you did it now.” He admits. “Why you went to live with your aunt.”

  Told you.

  So much for the first day idea. Christian and I have eclipsed the first day a million times over by now.

  “So you finally believe that it wasn’t about you?”

  “Yeah, and I’m sorry that I couldn’t see it that day, but I do now. If it was me you were running from, you would have just changed schools.”

  The truth of it, what no one knows but me, is that even though I’d given thought to changing schools, in the end I couldn’t do it because I couldn’t leave him. I couldn’t give up even after we broke up. Not being with him was hard, probably the hardest thing I’ve ever had to face, but not being around him would have been worse.

  “I guess that means you’re drowning in our parent’s love fest?”

  “Nope. I mean, there were a couple of days after we broke up where everything was alright. They seemed to be as in love as always, but most of the time it wasn’t like that.”

  This is news. I would have figured that without me there, they’d be using every spare second to be together. Not hearing that Christian had to witness their fighting because I’d taken off like a scared little mouse and left him to deal with the fallout.

  “How was it?”

  “They argued all the time, both of them full on yelling at each other and saying some pretty harsh stuff. At first, before you left, I stopped it by telling them we broke up. That calmed them for a bit, but then they were right back at it again.”

  “I’m sorry, Chris.” And I find that as I’m saying it, I really do mean it. I only wanted to get away from being confronted with the two of them every day, in order to clear my head and try to get over what I lost walking away from him the way I did. I never meant to put it all on him.

  I made a mistake.

  “You don’t have to apologize, Emery. I just wanted you to know that I understood. If half my relatives didn’t live back in Port Hope, I would have done the same thing. Living with my dad was rough, but at least he seemed to get it. Your mom wasn’t the same.”

  He’s right. My mom wanted the two of us apart from the second she learned we were dating, and in the end I’d given it to her on a silver platter. A mistake, but one that I’d probably make again because of how I feel about her.

  She’s my mom. I might hate the way she thinks and even hate when she tries to force her will on me because as the parent she thinks she can, but her happiness still means everything to me. I’m mad at her, mad at myself and at the situation, but wanting to do right by her despite it overrides all of it.

  “I’m still sorry that I left you to deal with it. You didn’t and don’t deserve it.”

  “Can I ask you something?” He asks, shifting around and bringing his legs up onto the rock, leaning across and settling in to ask what I’m sure is a question I’m going to hate.

  “Sure.”

  “Do you love me?”

  The hesitation from earlier, the fear I had answering this question, knowing what it would mean or what it would do, is gone. We’ve been sitting here talking about things really well so far, so there’s no reason that question should stop it. Especially when deep down, it’s an answer I think he already knows the answer to.

  “More than anything.”

  Eyes shining as a soft smile begins to grow, he reaches between us until his hand is resting on top of mine, the warmth of his fingers permeating my skin and like always, warming me from the outside in.

  “What do I deserve?”

  “Happiness.” I answer easily. “You deserve to be happy.”

  “And if I said the only thing in the world that could make me happy is being with you?”

  “Chris…” I sigh, feeling the bottom drop out of my chest as a cold air settles in around us.

  “Emery, before you completely blow me off, or worse, stomp off back to the party, there’s something you need to know.”

  “Are our parents still getting married in July?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “Then whatever you have to say doesn’t change anything. I’m sorry, but no matter how much I love you and how much I wish we could be together, we just can’t.”

  “But Em, we can.”

  “I don’t understand.” I admit and picking up my hand in his, he slips his fingers down through mine and smiles again. This time, his eyes widening and glistening the same way they did the night we made love the first time.

  Whatever it is that he has to tell me, it’s put the love back in his eyes.

  I’ve never seen something so beautiful in my life.

  The way it shines or how he does, it just proves what I’ve spent months trying to deny.

  He’s my star, and my life will never be as bright as when he’s showering me with it the way he is now.

  “I talked to your mom, and while she’s not totally on board with us the way my dad is, she’s willing to try. I know it doesn’t solve everything, but it’s a start. It means you can come home.”

  Leaning in until his forehead brushes against mine, he twists his head to the side, moving in, his lips pursed, pausing before they connect to mine, his next words whispered softly, carrying off into the air around us as soon as they’re uttered, but leaving very distinct impressions behind before they do.

  “You can come home to me.”

  Words that give me the freedom to love him again, while at the same time applying antiseptic that attaches itself to the cracks in my heart, beginning the process of healing them.

  Christian

  God that feels good.

  I’ve been dying to tell her this since I saw her show up with Johnny over an hour ago, and seeing the way her eyes seem to shine after I’ve gotten them out, I’m so glad I waited and didn’t just dump it on her.

  I’m not a complete moron. I know it’s going to take a lot more than just telling her that I talked to her mom for her to believe in what I’m saying, but as long as she’s still sitting here with her fingers tied up in mine, and her eyes are fixed so completely on me, I’m willing to say and do whatever I have to in order to prove it to her.

  I’m not leaving here tonight without her. We’ve been apart long enough.

  “Say something?”

  With only her repetitive blinking in response as my lips still hover directly over hers, as close as two people can be without touching, I screw waiting for an answer and take what I think deep down we’re both wanting.

  Going in for the kill, I kiss her, and days, weeks and months of need for this exact moment rises to the surface and pushes me deeper, my free arm slipping around her back and bringing her even deeper into me, her soft exhale of breath and her body so warm as it attaches itself to mine, like music to my ears.

  The love I have for this girl sets the moment on fire, the two of us connecting like a kaleidoscope of color, until we’re transported back in time to the first time we were here and getting to relive it
all over again, only better.

  Our first kiss.

  Even if she never comes home to live with her mom, right here in a place that’s just ours, she is.

  When we’re together, we’re home.

  “This is crazy.” she whispers softly as I finally let her come up for air, hating the way it feels almost the second we part, but drunk on the feeling that comes from having her still in my arms. “What are we doing, Mikey?”

  “I’m pretty sure I was kissing my girl, and if the feel of her lips moving against mine is supposed to mean something, I think she was kissing me back.”

  It’s quiet, barely louder than a whisper really, but I swear I hear her say ‘my girl’ before she pulls her body back off mine and completely switches gears.

  “Very funny.” She smacks my chest. “You know what I mean. What is this?”

  “It’s us giving in to the inevitable?” I try and again and just like before, earn another soft laugh. A sound that as the weeks apart turned into months I thought I would never be afforded again.

  “Did you really talk to my mom?” she presses, moving on from my question and jumping straight into what matters most. Her need to know that us being together isn’t going to take anything away from her mom.

  “I did. I couldn’t take it anymore.”

  “Did she tell you why she wanted us to break up so bad?”

  “She did.”

  Elbowing me after a few seconds of silence where I don’t offer up any more details, knowing it’s got to be driving her crazy I laugh and press my lips to the top of her hair, breathing in the familiar scent of her shampoo before placing a trail of kisses all over the top. “If you want to know more, I think you should talk to her, but I will say that I understand her a lot better than I did before. I get where she was coming from, and Emery, it was all about you.”

  “All about me how?”

  “Keeping you safe. Protecting you. I guess in the end, all she needed was to see that when it comes to those things, we’re on the same page. We want the same things. You happy, protected, and loved unconditionally.”

  “I can’t believe you got through to her.”

  “Stranger things have happened.” I offer up, before laying the rest of my adventures over the last few weeks on her. “There’s something else you should know.”

  “About my mom?”

  “No. Anything else you want to know about that, you can talk to her about when you come back. This is about what I did after.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Promise you won’t kill me?”

  “Deal. I’ve got a standing order to kill Johnny when we’re done here anyway. Tonight’s your lucky night.” She jokes and swallowing down any residual nervousness over what I’m about to tell her, I kiss the top of her head again.

  “I got my dad to get your aunt’s address and I went by to see her.”

  “You talked to Aunt Janice?” She asks and remaining silent, I nod. “What did you say to her?”

  “I didn’t say anything, I just asked her a boat load of questions and she answered them.”

  “Come on, Mikey! You gotta give me more than that. Why did you ask your dad for her address? Why did you go there and talk to her? And why didn’t you try and talk to me?”

  “Jonah said something about using him to get to you. That if I was really tired of what was going on with us and wanted to change it then I should get your new address and make it right. I already told you before why I went there. I couldn’t do this anymore. Those weeks when you wouldn’t talk to me because you didn’t want to admit how you were feeling and get rejected, I hated it. The gigantic space between us sucked. Take that, multiply it by like a hundred and that’s what you get this time around. I was over it. I needed to change it. It just took me a lot longer than I thought it would.”

  “The reason I didn’t stick around and talk to you is because when this happened,” I gesture between us. “I needed it to be something both of us were ready for, and I think that if I’d just showed up at your aunt’s you wouldn’t have believed anything I said. I couldn’t chance it.”

  “What makes you think that we’re both ready now?”

  “We’re here, and no matter where we go, we always seem to end up back here in this spot. I think it’s always going to be that way with us. No matter what happens, we’ll always find our way back to each other the same way we did the first time around.”

  Now that she’s asked the question she has, though, it makes me wonder if maybe I’d read it all wrong and that she’s not as ready for a reconciliation as I am.

  “Emery, I gotta know. Do you want to be with me?”

  Imagine every second after I ask the question in the form of an acupuncture needle for someone who’s never gone through it. Now imagine them all being shot through the air toward you all at once and you’ll get part of the way it feels having silence fill the space around us for as long as it lasts.

  Maybe it’s even worse, I don’t know. All I know is that if she doesn’t say something soon, I’m going to throw myself over the edge of the cliff just to make it stop.

  “Chris, if we do this…go back to the way we were before, or start again and be something better, I have to know that we’re going to be able to make it through what comes next.”

  “As long as we’re together, I can handle anything.”

  “I walked away from us at first because I couldn’t deal knowing you kept our parents from me. That we had secrets between us. Then, when I got over that, I stayed away to make my mom happy. I still want her happiness, but I also realize that it’s not up to me to make her happy. It’s on her. The only thing on me is my own happiness and even though it took me a really long time to be okay with it, I know I want that now. I’m tired of pretending. I’m happiest when I’m with you, but I can’t go all in until I know that if something as big as our parents comes up again, you won’t hide it from me. That you’ll trust me to handle it, no matter what it is instead of making the decision for me.”

  “Can you do that? Can you promise to always be honest with me no matter how bad it might hurt us?”

  This is the easiest damn question to answer because during our time apart, she’s not the only one that realized things. I’m determined to never make the same mistakes again. If she wants brutal honesty from now on, she’s got it.

  “I promise to always tell you the truth no matter what, but also trust you not to run if it’s something that could affect us. I didn’t do that before and it cost me, Emery. Months of time I could have been with you and happy. I can’t and I won’t make that mistake again.”

  “Okay.” she says softly and despite the serene sound of her voice, all traces of the bite from earlier gone, my heart still seems to seize in my chest.

  What does okay mean?

  “Does this mean you’re willing to give us another try?”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  Swallowing down the lump in my throat and the sharp pain that comes with hearing we’re not going to be together, I close my eyes and attempt to keep all traces of emotion buried.

  “Well…uhh…what does it mean?”

  “It means that trying isn’t enough anymore. It’s all or nothing. So, Mikey, are you willing to bet all your chips on a sure thing?”

  Meeting her smile with one of my own once I’m able to deal with the realization that I’d been played, I whisper the five most important words I’ll ever say before sealing it with a kiss.

  “I’m all in, Emery Carmichael.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Graduation

  Emery

  From the moment I started my final year at Greenville, I knew this moment would come. That ten months after that first day, give or take a week or two, I would be taking the long walk across the auditorium stage to where the principal and school trustee would be standing with my diploma.

  I might not have known what school I would be going to in the fall, or even what I would be studying
when I jumped onto my bike that first week of September, but I did know it would end with this moment.

  What’s also a given is having my mom there, sitting in the crowd of other joyous and overly proud parents, watching it all unfold.

  If you’d asked me back then, this moment was one I couldn’t wait to share with her. I wanted her to see what all of her love, dedication and hard work had accomplished.

  Unfortunately, a whole lot has changed between us since then, and while things with Christian and I are back on track after the party, when it comes to my mom, being back home and being excited to see her here today, I’m still right where I was when I made the decision to leave all those months ago.

  I heard everything Christian said about his talk with her, honing in and paying extra attention to the part where she said she would try, but it wasn’t enough to make things go back to the way they were before. I’m not even entirely sure they ever can be the way they were.

  Too much has happened.

  Accepting that she’s here today, I can do that. I can even accept that our parents have finally come together on the same page, working through the issues they went through as a result of what happened between me and Christian, and are showing a more united front. What I can’t do is pretend that everything we went through didn’t happen.

  It’s all still there and sometimes, despite things being better than they were before the split, it has me looking around corners and studying each intake of breath someone makes, waiting for the next nuclear blast to hit my life. Taking the happiness I’ve somehow managed to obtain, both with loving another person and my own pursuits, making me skid off into the ditch and taking me out on impact.

  I love my mom. That hasn’t changed. I wouldn’t have stayed away from Christian for as long as I did if I didn’t, but it doesn’t change the fact that whenever I see her, I see how everything fell apart and how easily it could again. So despite her trying, and me wanting things to be the way they once were, it’s going to take some time.

  Adjusting my cap in the mirror and twisting the gown so it falls evenly around the dress I’m wearing underneath, I sigh, blowing the stray tendrils of my hair out of my face, shaking me away from thoughts of my mom and on to something brighter, but ultimately just as confusing.