by Marie Force
Brian groaned. “This is insane. We can’t.”
Returning to him, she backed him up to the bed and tugged the shirt over his head.
“Oh God,” he said. “Are we really going to make love in a bed?”
Carly smiled as she nodded. They’d had that luxury only one other time, when they’d gone to Michigan to tour the campus and find a place to live. With just one night to spend in a hotel, they’d made the most of it.
He brought her down on top of him and untied her halter. Cupping her breasts, he said, “I love you, Carly. I love you forever and ever.”
Carly wanted so badly to tell him she loved him just as much.
“I know, honey,” he whispered. “I can see it in your eyes.”
When she bent to capture his bottom lip between her teeth, he gasped.
He got rid of their shorts and held her tightly to him. “Are you still taking the pill?”
She nodded.
“Were you hoping we’d be together like this again?”
Her eyes shimmered as she nodded again.
Easing her legs apart, he slid into her. “No, don’t close your eyes, Carly. I need you to look at me.” He held her eyes for several long minutes before he dipped his head to graze his tongue over her nipple.
She came apart under him, silent even in the throes of passion.
He managed to hold on to his control long enough to urge her up and over again. This time he joined her.
“Carly,” he gasped against her ear, sending a shiver through her. “You have no idea how often I’ve thought about that last time under the willow.” He lifted his head so he could see her face. “You, too?”
She nodded and reached out to bring him back to her. With a soft, sweet kiss, she tried desperately to tell him everything she wished she could say. When he trembled, she knew he understood. She had forgotten how his body felt on top of hers, how it felt to take him inside of her, how his chest hair felt against her breasts, and the way the muscles in his back rippled under her hands when he loved her. He shifted to move onto his side, but she stopped him.
He raised a questioning eyebrow. “Again?”
She smiled in agreement.
“At some point we need to figure out where we’re going from here,” he said as they lay facing each other. “I mean, we’re still engaged, right?”
With a finger to his lips, she told him this wasn’t the time for serious business.
“We only have a month before freshman orientation starts,” he reminded her.
Like she didn’t know exactly how many weeks, days, and hours they had left. Soon enough she would have to tell him that she had written to Michigan to request a one-year deferment on her scholarship. She wouldn’t be ready to move halfway across the country in just over a month, even if he would be right by her side every step of the way.
Somehow she had to find a way to tell him. And then she would have to find a way to get through the lonely weeks without him until he came home for Thanksgiving and then Christmas. But that was a conversation for another day. Today she just wanted to enjoy being with him after two long weeks of wondering if she would ever see him again.
“I forgot to tell you earlier I had lunch at Miss Molly’s the other day. Mrs. Hanson asked me to pass along the message that you can come back to work whenever you’re ready. She said you’ll always have a job there. Nice, huh?”
With her head resting on his chest, Carly nodded.
Off in the distance they could hear the boom of the fireworks and waited until the rapid-fire finale had ended before they got up to get dressed.
As they were leaving her room, he stopped her. “Thank you for this. I’ve been so lost without you, Carly.” She reached up to bring him down for another kiss.
By the time their parents returned, they were back on the porch swing.
They fell into a routine after the holiday. He worked every day at the law firm in town and spent the evenings and weekends with her. Sometimes they “talked” using the pad and pen, other times they were content to just be together without the pressure to deal with all the loose ends that awaited resolution.
Two weeks after the Fourth of July, he asked her again to take a walk with him. “We don’t have to go to the willow,” he pleaded. “We can find a new place. I need to be with you, Carly. We never have a minute alone here.”
She shook her head.
Making an effort to keep his cool, he asked, “You can’t or you won’t?”
She reached for the pad and wrote, “Can’t.”
Brian stared at the single word on the white page for several seconds before he looked up at her. “What are you saying?” Up until then he’d thought she was hiding out at home so she wouldn’t have to face a world without their friends. Now, as he wondered if there was something more to it than that, the icy knot of fear that settled in his gut reminded him of the night of the accident when she’d had to be sedated to stop screaming. “Do you feel like you can’t leave the house?”
With a hesitant nod, she confirmed his fear.
“Carly, honey, come on! What do you think will happen? I’d be right there with you.” With his hand wrapped tightly around hers, he stood and headed for the porch stairs, determined to show her she was wrong.
Resisting him with everything she had, she fought wildly to get free.
He turned, and the terrified expression on her face stopped him cold. His heart started to beat faster as he studied her for an endless moment. “If you can’t leave this house, how will you go to Michigan?”
She looked down at the floor.
And then suddenly he understood. “You’re not going, are you?” He pushed his hands through his hair as he struggled to absorb the blow. “When were you going to tell me?”
Picking up the pen that had fallen to the porch floor, she wrote, “Soon.”
He was incredulous. “Soon? We’re due to leave in two weeks, Carly!”
“Do you really think I can go like this?” she wrote frantically.
“Why not? You can get around and go to class and do everything anyone else can do.”
“Except talk!” She underlined talk several times.
“You can write notes. I’ll talk for you. We can do this, Carly. I know we can. There’s nothing we can’t get through as long as we’re together.”
“I can’t.”
He took a deep breath in an attempt to calm the burst of panic. “What about our engagement? You said you’d marry me.”
“I still want to. That hasn’t changed. It never will.”
“So what? We get married and live in the house you won’t leave for the rest of our lives? Is that really how you expect me to live?”
“I hope in time I’ll feel differently.”
“What if you never do? Where does that leave me?”
“I need some more time. I’m sorry.”
He kneeled in front of her and took her hands. “Listen to me,” he said, suddenly feeling as if his very life was on the line. “The best thing we can do for ourselves is get the hell out of this town and start a whole new life somewhere else, somewhere that isn’t haunted by memories and ghosts.”
Her eyes filled, and she turned her face away.
With a hand on her chin, he brought her back to him. “We have a chance to start all over. School is paid for, we have a place to live, and after everything that’s happened, I guarantee you our parents would be thrilled to see us married and living together in Michigan. We can have everything we’ve ever dreamed of, but I can’t do it by myself. You have to help me, Carly. You have to try.” His voice broke, and tears filled his eyes. “Please.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks as she tore her eyes away from his to write, “I’m not ready. Maybe next year I’ll be stronger.”
After he read what she’d written, he studied her for a long time. And then, without another word, he stood, went down the stairs and out the gate.
The next day he called to say he was having dinne
r with his parents and wouldn’t be by to see Carly. The second day, he said he had to work late. By the third day, she was convinced she’d finally succeeded in pushing him away for good. However, he came that night and every night that followed, but he was quiet and withdrawn.
Carly could feel him pulling away from her, as if he was preparing himself for the long months of separation that loomed on the horizon. When they were down to just two days before his departure, she decided she couldn’t stand his brooding silence for another minute. She wrote, “Talk to me.”
After a long pause, he said, “I’ve made a decision.” His face was set into a hard expression that frightened her.
“What?”
“When I leave here the day after tomorrow, I’m not coming back. Ever.”
“WHY?”
“I need that fresh start we talked about. I need to get away from here, away from all the bad memories.”
“Away from me?”
“No.” He reached for her hand. “I want you to come with me. I’ve told you that every way I know how. Even if you don’t go to school, you could live with me and be with me. You’re choosing not to. Now I have to make my choices.”
“What about your parents?” she asked as a feeling of desperation unlike anything she had ever experienced settled over her heart.
“They understand if I keep coming back here every few months I’ll never get over what happened. So they’ll come to me. They have no more desire to celebrate holidays in that house than I do. We’ll go skiing for Christmas or take a cruise, maybe. I don’t know. We haven’t decided yet.”
Carly forced herself to ask the only question that mattered. “What about us?”
He swallowed hard. “If you force me to leave here without you, if you do that to me, Carly, there is no more us.”
She dissolved into deep but silent sobs that shook her body. The pad slipped off her lap and landed with a thump on the porch.
He gathered her into his arms. “I love you with all my heart, and I always will. But I can’t put my life on hold until you work out whatever it is you’ve got going on. I lost my brother, Carly, and all my best friends except for you. I saw the same things you did—the same horrible things—yet I’ve managed to go on. I don’t understand why you can’t do that, too.” He brushed away her tears and then his own. “I know you loved Sam, but he was my little brother. I loved him more than you did. I sound like a jerk for even saying that, because this certainly isn’t a contest, but my loss was bigger than yours.”
Carly was filled with shame, because she knew he was right. But knowing it didn’t explain why her reaction was so disproportionate. There was no explanation. She caressed his face and tried to convey how she felt with the eyes he read so well.
“Think about what I said. I’ve got a ton of stuff to do tomorrow, so I won’t see you, but I’ll come by before I leave on Thursday morning. My parents are driving out with me and flying back. If you change your mind, there’ll be room for you in the car.” He kissed her cheek and then her lips. “It’s time to step up, Carly. If you love me like you say you do, it’s time to fight for us.”
Filled with despair, she watched him go. He was doing what he needed to do to survive, and she understood that—better than anyone else possibly could. But after more than four years of loving him so desperately, how would she ever live without him? What kind of life did she have to look forward to if it didn’t include him?
She lay awake for two nights trying to marshal the strength she needed to overcome her fears and regain control of her life. She tried to visualize herself walking through the gate and getting into the car with Brian and his parents. But then she would remember how the fire had consumed her friends, and she knew there was no way she could get into a car. As the sun rose on the day he was due to leave, she accepted that she couldn’t do it, even for him. She wasn’t ready. Maybe one day she would be but not today.
He came by at ten that morning as promised. Downstairs, she heard her mother talking to his parents as he trudged up the stairs to where she waited for him in her room.
His face fell with disappointment when he saw she hadn’t packed anything. With his hands on his hips and his jaw tight with tension, he stood perfectly still and looked at her, as if to fill his heart and mind with enough to get him through a life without her. “I have no idea what I’m supposed to do right now,” he finally said. “I never imagined we’d end up this way.”
Carly handed him the note she’d written at five o’clock that morning. It said, “Every dream I’ve ever had begins and ends with you. No matter how much time passes, if you want to come home, I’ll be here. I love you always. Only you.”
Blinded by tears after reading it, he folded the note and put it in his shirt pocket. Then he reached for her.
With her arms around his waist, she rested her head on his chest.
He held her tight against him.
She wasn’t sure if ten minutes had passed or only one when he whispered, “Brian Westbury loves Carly Holbrook.” With a kiss to her forehead, he was gone.
Carly flew over to the window and held the curtain aside to watch her mother walk Brian and his parents to their car. At the gate, her mother hugged him and then reached up to wipe tears off his face. He said something, and Carol hugged him again.
He got into the car with his parents. With a last wave to Carly’s mom, they drove away.
Carly stared out the window until long after the car was out of sight. Finally, she released the curtain and it fell back into place, cutting off her view of the outside world.
Part II
May 2010
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silent, and a time to speak.
Ecclesiastes 3:7
Chapter Six
Michael Westbury flipped on the radio and took the frozen dinner from the microwave, dropping it onto the stovetop with a muttered curse. He always forgot about the steam. Turning on the faucet, he let the cool water soothe the stinging burn on his hand. After waiting a safe amount of time, he peeled back the plastic and dug into the roasted turkey and potatoes.
While he ate, he pored over the files he had brought home from the station and nursed one of the two light beers he allowed himself every night after work. At the top of the hour, he tuned the radio to a news station in New York City. “We have a verdict,” the announcer teased before launching into a commercial break that seemed to last forever.
Michael pushed the files aside and took a long drink from his beer bottle. “Come on,” he whispered, his heart beating fast with anticipation while he waited through the interminable commercials.
“The jury has found New York socialite Barry Gooding guilty on all counts in the grizzly stabbing murder of his wife Giselle in their Park Avenue penthouse just over two years ago.”
“Yes!” Michael pumped his fist into the air. “Yes!”
“Assistant District Attorney Brian Westbury had this to say after the verdicts: ‘It’s a great day for the City of New York and for Giselle Gooding’s loved ones. Justice has been served.’”
While Brian’s tone was reserved and professional, Michael could hear the excitement in his son’s voice.
“I’d like to thank everyone in my office who worked with me over the last two years to get this killer off the streets and to provide closure for the Goodings’ two young children, whose bravery and courage has been an inspiration to us all. District Attorney Stein will hold a press conference later tonight. I’ll let him take it from here. Thanks.”
“Nice job, son,” Michael whispered. “Nice job.” He picked up the phone and dialed a number in Florida. “Did you hear?” he asked when Mary Ann answered.
“Just now on TV. How about that boy of ours?”
“I’m busting,” Michael confessed.
Mary Ann laughed. “I can picture it. Has he called you yet?”
“Not yet. I’m sure he’s bogged down with the media and a bottle of bubbly.”
; “You’ll get a call before the night is over.”
“I know.” He stabbed his fork at what was left of his dinner. “How’s the weather?”
“Gorgeous. I wish you were here.”
“I’ll be down next weekend.”
“I guess I can wait that long.”
He paused and then forced himself to ask, “You doing all right?”
“Define all right,” she said with a laugh.
“I know. Me, too. Fifteen years. Impossible to believe.”
“Life has some nerve going on like nothing happened, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Tugging on the raised corner of the beer bottle label, Michael said, “I wonder what he’d be up to these days.”
“With his good looks and smooth talk, he’d probably be a millionaire several times over by now.”
Michael laughed. “Then I could finally retire, and we could live large in Florida year-round.”
“That would work for me.” Her voice softened. “You understand why I can’t be there right now, don’t you, Mike?”
“Of course I do.”
“When you talk to Brian, ask him to call me when the dust settles.”
“I’m sure you’ll hear from him today or tomorrow.”
“Will you take some flowers to the cemetery this week?”
“Sure.”
“Tell him his mother is thinking of him.”
Michael’s throat tightened with emotion, but he managed to say, “You got it.”
“Love you.”
“You, too, babe.”
Michael clicked off the phone and set it on the table. He attempted to return his attention to the files, but his concentration was blown. Pushing back the kitchen chair, he got up, dropped the plastic dinner tray into the recycling, and then wandered down the hallway. He rested his hand on the doorknob to Sam’s room and worked up the wherewithal to open the door.
The room was just as Sam had left it: clothes in piles on the floor, three pairs of size twelve sneakers scattered about, scraps of paper on every surface, shelves of trophies and mementos, and a rumpled bed. For years after the accident, the room had smelled like him—an appealing combination of sweat, cologne, and youthful exuberance. Now, it was musty and lifeless.