The Bridge to a Better Life

by Ava Miles

  The pain was spreading, but he kissed the dog and hugged him hard and set him down. “Go.”

  Touchdown’s brown eyes stared at him, then he gave a short bark like he understood. After giving him one last rubdown, Blake forced his hands to his sides. The little dog trotted back to Natalie’s.

  His next move became clearer. He couldn’t stay here.

  Not next door to her. Not after what she’d done.

  Still, his worry for her couldn’t be erased. Whatever had happened to make her backslide like this had to be horrible, and a part of him wanted to call Andy to find out. Surely her brother would know.

  But he’d done that before, and going to her family with his concerns wasn’t the answer. If she wasn’t willing to lean on him in hard times, it was time to face the brutal reality and move on. He was going to return to Denver. Tonight.

  It was time to stop holding onto something that would never be.

  He turned off the lights on the bridge as he made his way back to the house for the last time.

  Chapter 35

  When Natalie finally pulled herself off the bathroom floor, her head was groggy from crying and her hands burned from the tile powder. Touchdown stirred on the floor outside the shower. He’d come to sit beside her like the loyal dog he was as she surrendered to another batch of horrible, gut wrenching sobs, deep in her belly. She hadn’t been able to stop the guttural sounds that had tore from her throat. Touchdown hadn’t left her side once, but she’d made him stay outside the shower because she didn’t want him to get tile powder on his paws.

  She straightened like an old woman who’d sat too long, her bones popping in protest, and looked in the mirror.

  There she was again. That crazy woman, maddened by grief, reduced to insanity by the threat of that damn thing called cancer.

  Her hair was streaked with powder and in wild disarray like she was the bride of Frankenstein. She brushed the white powder off her shirt, and that’s when the full pain of her hands hit her. The blood had coagulated, but they were a fiery red, and they hurt like a million bees had stung them.

  Turning on the faucet, she let the water run over them, wincing in the beginning as her hands burned. Everything throbbed. Her knees ached. Her back was tight. Her head was pounding.

  She’d succumbed to the cold, to the dark, once more. Looking at herself, she saw the puffy, mascara streaked eyes. The tightness around her mouth from sobbing.

  Her eyes gleamed under the lights in the bathroom. Love me, she heard a soft voice say, one that had warmth, one that was totally different from the whispers of the cold phantom. I need you to love me. Even when I’m like this. It took her a moment to realize the voice was her own.

  The faucet continued to run as she braced her hands on the countertop. Tears started to fall as she watched herself start crying again. How was she supposed to love herself like this? How was she supposed to find anything beautiful about this mad woman? How was she supposed to be willing to feel this pain, this agony? Ever since childhood, she’d tried to be strong, to keep a stiff upper lip, to never show weakness. She’d been proud of that.

  Then she thought of how she’d found her mother earlier. The woman she admired had been suffering alone with this horrible secret. Would their mother ever have told them if the biopsy turned out to be negative? She doubted it, and while she understood her mother’s reasons, she didn’t want to be like that.

  Her hand lifted to the wild locks of her hair, sticking out like the snakes of Medusa. She gently stroked her hair back from her face. Looked at herself in the mirror again.

  Love me, she heard that whisper say again in her mind. Comfort me. I’m hurting.

  She didn’t want to hurt, but it didn’t seem like she could escape it as she looked at herself in the mirror. After Kim’s death, she’d stacked brick upon brick around herself to wall off the pain, to keep the cold wasteland away. Many of those bricks had been toppled these last few weeks, toppled from the sheer force of Blake’s love for her.

  What had he said? When you looked at Kim at the end, when she weighed less than a hundred pounds, did you love her any less?

  The Kim she’d loved, the woman who’d been her best friend since college, hadn’t been recognizable in those final weeks of her life. But Natalie had loved her. If Kim had even once called herself ugly and unlovable, she would have told her that it was bullshit. That she loved her. That she found her beautiful.

  Why couldn’t she give herself that same fierce love?

  She brushed a tear as it trailed down her face. This woman, this crazy, hurting woman was her too—just like the ravaged body on the hospice bed had still been Kim.

  This hurting woman deserved to be loved, not shunned. Not abandoned. She wasn’t sure how she was going to do it, but she had to start somehow.

  “I…love you,” she whispered to the crazy woman in the mirror.

  The pain that radiated from her heart was like a supersonic wave, and she started crying harder. But she didn’t look away from the woman in the mirror with the wild eyes and hair.

  “I love you,” she whispered again as the tears streamed. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

  She wasn’t even sure what she was apologizing for as she rocked herself and cried, but she kept saying it until her voice grew even hoarser, looking at that woman in the mirror the whole time, Touchdown nuzzling her legs in comfort.

  A new emotion finally flowed in, like a warm breeze after a brutally cold day. The pain started to ebb away, replaced by a feeling so soft and luminous she pressed her hand to her heart. It took her a moment to give it a name.

  It was love.

  The kind of love she felt when she was with Blake and her family. That simple, beautiful feeling that made her feel whole and complete.

  But this time she felt it for herself.

  Her hand lifted to her mouth of its own accord, and she blew that woman in the mirror a kiss.

  She wasn’t crazy. She wasn’t mad. She was hurting. And somehow, she now had enough compassion to see that and love that part of herself anyway, the part she’d always judged too ugly for compassion.

  Did she like to cry? No. But she sometimes felt better after she did. Maybe it was time to start allowing her emotions to be whatever they were. She loved her mother, but she didn’t want to end up like her, concealing a secret and a pain all alone. Or like her father, turning inward whenever he faced a problem. Not when she had so many people who loved her to comfort her through it.

  Blake.

  Thoughts of him made the cold come back, but this time their whispers rained new ice over her skin.

  You said he was suffocating you. You pushed him away. You’ve lost him for good.

  She had pushed him away, trying to scurry back behind the broken wall of numbness he’d been helping her disassemble. She’d wanted to escape the pain of reality. And she’d shoved him away just as she’d shoved that part of herself away.

  But she didn’t want that anymore, not with this new awareness of herself, not with this soft, sweet feeling of her self-love keeping her warm despite the cold wasteland that surrounded her once again.

  She stripped off her clothes and let the water in the shower clean away the abrasive powder she’d ground into its tiles. Then she washed herself, letting her hands linger over her body in gentle comfort, as if she were bathing Kim, which she’d done several times when her friend was too ill to leave her hospital bed. Her touch was gentle and comforting. Her heart expanded even more in her chest at her ministrations. When she turned off the water and looked at herself in the mirror this time, she saw a new woman standing there. One who’d started to love herself—no matter what.

  Touchdown stayed close to her as she dressed in fresh clothes. Her wet hair would have to do. She had one person she needed to see. He wasn’t in her house, waiting for her like he had once before. Her belly ached now.

  It was after two o’clock in the morning, she realized when she glanced at the clock in the kitchen. It
didn’t matter. Blake wouldn’t be asleep. No, he’d be hurting. But she would make it right. Somehow they’d make it right together. She loved him, and he loved her. She didn’t want any more barriers between them. As she made her way across her backyard to the bridge he’d built, the one he’d extended into her frozen wasteland, all her doubts melted away and she knew she wanted to be married to him again.

  There was no one for her but Blake.

  The stars above seemed so close tonight, as if they were floating around her head. When she reached the bridge, she stuttered to a halt.

  For the first time since he’d turned them on, the lights were out on the bridge. Her lips trembled, and her hand felt the wooden beams like she was trying to read Braille until they found the infinity symbol he had carved into the wood there to remind her of the truth.

  He was her bridge to a better life.

  Gratitude swelled in her heart as she let herself in the back door of his house. There were a few lights on.

  “Blake?” she called out.

  Then she saw a white piece of paper resting against a water glass on the kitchen island. He had always been an early riser, and back when they first started dating, he used to leave her love notes to read when she came downstairs in the morning. He’d continued it into their marriage, and she’d always found it unbearably sweet.

  As she approached the note, her every muscle was rigid with tension. Touchdown barked and headed off, going to the garage door. Alarms immediately starting clanging in her head.

  She didn’t even need to pick up the note to know what it said, but she did anyway.

  Touchdown is yours. You need him more than I do. Be at peace, Nat.

  Her arms wrapped around herself as reality filtered in. Even though she knew she wouldn’t find his SUV in the garage, she still made herself walk to the door Touchdown was pawing. When she opened it, sure enough, it was empty.

  He was gone.

  She’d finally pushed him away too much for even his love to bear. Leaning against the doorframe, she didn’t fight the tidal wave of grief this time. She went totally and completely to pieces.

  After she cried a fresh batch of tears, she shook her head, trying to clear it. Where would he have gone in the dead of night? He had no friends in Dare Valley. Then it hit her. He’d gone back to the home they’d shared, back to the one place he’d always felt the most comfortable. Back to his old life—or what was left of it in the wake of his retirement.

  She made her way back to her house with Touchdown. Once inside, she ran upstairs to her bedroom and dug into the bottom of her chest for the item she was seeking. Tucking it into her pocket, she went downstairs and grabbed a bottle of water and her purse.

  “Come on Touchdown,” she said opening the garage door. “Let’s go get Daddy.”

  Chapter 36

  Blake’s muscles trembled as he lifted the two hundred pound weights over his head for the seventh time in his second rep. After driving to Denver, he hadn’t wanted to sleep. Couldn’t sleep. Being back in the home he and Natalie had created together was enough to send pain lacing through his system like adrenaline, making him a little crazy, making him way too sensitive.

  After changing into workout clothes, he’d gone to his gym and started his burn. Who was he to judge Natalie for the way she dealt with her emotions? She scrubbed the shower. He was fighting his feelings by working out, not eager to drown in their punishing waves just yet. When he succumbed—and he knew he inevitably would—the truth was going to leave him scarred forever.

  She was gone from him

  He’d run until his legs shook so hard he could barely feel them. Then he’d switched to the rowing machine, pulling until his back muscles twitched under his shirt. Now, he was lifting. His mind wasn’t totally focused on what he was doing, but his thoughts quieted occasionally as his whole body strained to surpass its own strength. He lived for those moments.

  After his third rep, he set the weights back on the bar and squeezed his eyes shut. God, he couldn’t go through this again. Not this. He’d given her his fucking heart on a platter. He’d even given her his dog. What did he have left? This house they’d created together. He was going to finally have to sell it. He’d only held onto it in the hope she’d come back to him.

  His life without her stretched out before him. His whole life had just…died…like it had expired at the end of a game clock. Nothing was clear but the nothingness of it all. He’d never been in this place before, and it shook him to his core. Maybe he should move back to Ohio to be closer to his folks as he sorted things out.

  He was preparing himself to lift again when something dropped onto his chest, and he looked down to see a radiant-cut yellow diamond twinkling like sunshine under his overhead lights.

  Something exploded in his head, almost like he’d blown a blood vessel. His gaze darted up.

  Natalie.

  She stood a few feet from his bench press station, her arms wrapped around Touchdown, her hand covering his snout to keep him from barking. Tears were streaming down her face.

  “I kept my key. You didn’t change the locks.”

  His heart tore open. “What—”

  “I’m sorry, babe,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

  He pressed his hand to his face, his eyes, as the pain finally flooded in. She hadn’t called him babe once since he’d moved to Dare Valley, and hearing it now took him under. He lay on his back, trembling from fatigue and physical exhaustion as tears leaked onto his temples.

  “Oh, God,” he rasped out.

  She’d driven all the way from Dare Valley in the middle of the night and plopped her engagement ring on his chest after she’d crushed him. Crushed him. He didn’t know what to say. What to think.

  Her hand touched his chest, making him jump, even though her touch was soft.

  “I’m sorry I…retreated again. I…my mom…they found a lump in her breast.”

  He took his hand from his face and looked at her. He hadn’t thought his pain could worsen, but it did, like the mind-numbing razor blade of a torn ligament. “Oh, Nat.”

  His position was awkward, so he started to sit up. Both their hands moved to protect her engagement ring from falling to the floor. Somehow it created a link between them, and he didn’t take his hand away. But he felt the imprint of that band, the press of her diamond in his palm.

  She sank to her knees and placed Touchdown on the floor, then rested her hand on his thigh. “I went to her house last night. She’d been crying, which was shocking.” She sniffed, a harsh sound. “I knew immediately something was wrong. At first, she didn’t want to tell me what, but I wouldn’t let up. When she told me…God, it was like Kim all over again.”

  “Oh, babe. I’m so sorry. For both of you.” Scooting off the bench, he fell onto his knees in front of her. Their hands, still linked, still holding her ring, fell onto his lap and stayed there.

  “She’s having a biopsy…God, I’m so tired I can’t remember when…ah…I guess tomorrow because it’s already today.” She shook her head as if to clear it. “She made me promise not to tell anyone. Especially Andy. You don’t know what it did to me.”

  Having seen her in the shower earlier, he’d had a glimpse. The news would devastate the Hales if it proved to be cancer. There were no two ways about it. Life was so goddamn unfair. No family should have to suffer something like Kim’s illness, but if April had the same disease…

  “I told Mom I wouldn’t tell anyone even though I knew my brothers and sisters would be mad at me for keeping it secret.” She lifted a shoulder to wipe her tears with her shirt. “Even though I didn’t want to bear the burden alone.”

  Somehow hearing that helped ease a fraction of the pain in his chest. Natalie never betrayed a confidence.

  “I told Mom I was going with her to the biopsy, and that we would hear the news together. Whatever it was.”

  She started to cry, and he couldn’t take it anymore. He laid his free hand against her cheek, hurt
ing for her now in powerful bursts, feeling her every fear, her every ache.

  “Oh, honey,” he whispered.

  She took a deep breath, trying to steady herself. “You only call me honey when I go crazy. Did you know that?”

  He shook his head.

  “When I left Mom, I was going crazy again. She could have cancer. Just like Kim. She could die.”

  Like his own beloved brother had. Tears streamed down his own face now as all the losses they’d suffered rolled through him like a tidal wave and pounded him into the surf. It was hard to consider the possibility of losing April. She was so dear, so bright. He couldn’t tell Natalie that her mom would definitely be okay, just like he hadn’t been able to say that about Kim or Adam.

  “When I got home,” she continued, “I couldn’t stand the pain. I know I said I’d face it, but this…this hurt so bad. My mind was screaming horrible thoughts, and the pictures in my head of mom shrinking before my eyes in a hospital bed wouldn’t stop. I…had to stop it. Before I knew it, I was grabbing the can of tile powder and the sponge from under the sink and heading to the shower. I wanted to forget everything. I wanted…the pain to go away.”

  “Then you came in, and I couldn’t…snap out of it. I was horrible to you, Blake. And I won’t blame you if you say you can’t forgive me.” Her lips trembled like she was freezing. “Once was…a miracle, but twice?”

  When her head dropped forward in defeat, he cupped the back of her neck and lifted her face to his. “I understand why you did it, babe, and I forgive you.” If there was one thing he’d learned about love and marriage, it was to never stop forgiving. Ever. Even if she hurt him a thousand times, he wasn’t going to deny her absolution.

  She inched closer on her knees until their joints touched. Her hand squeezed his, and he felt the press of her ring again against his palm.

  “I drove here in the middle of the night because I realized what I’d done to you. What I’d done to myself.”