Just Breathe Again

by C. A. Harms

  “Does it help to know that Aaron is here with me?” Just the sound of his name made my stomach tighten. “And that yesterday when he showed up to find me here, he refused to allow me to come or go on my own? You’ll be happy to know that the man is just as overbearing and hovering as you and your mamma.”

  I heard the distant sounds of another man’s voice and knew already that it was Aaron in the background.

  Suddenly, I was filled with emotions I didn’t want to feel, and I pulled the phone away from my face to regain my control.

  “Faith.” I heard my name echo through my phone and hurried to place it back against my ear before my father worried.

  “I’m here.” My voice trembled. “Actually, it’s getting a little chilly, and I think I’m gonna head inside to get a shower and get ready for bed. It’s been a long day of shooting in the sun, and I feel like it’s all finally hitting me.”

  “You still coming home on Saturday?”

  “Actually, the shoot has been pushed out a few more days due to the cover model coming down with the flu.” Or so I’d been told. My guess was, she was pulling her same old shit and decided that we work around her schedule, and since she was in Venice, she would be here when she got here.

  “We’ve gotten used to you being around, sweetheart,” he added, and I closed my eyes to picture his handsome smile. “I think after two days, your mamma is already ready to lock me up and throw away the key.”

  “So I’m your buffer?” I laughed, feeling a little less stressed over Aaron and my flashbacks of our nights together.

  “Hell, yeah, you are.” He didn’t even try to deny it.

  “So what do you plan on doing when I move into my own place?”

  “Oh, darlin’. You aren’t moving unless you get a place big enough for me to come too.”

  We finished our conversation with a little more banter about making him a man cave equipped with a fully stocked fridge within arm’s reach in my future home. When we hung up, though, I still felt that familiar ache in my chest over Aaron and our never meant to be’s. I did feel comforted by the fact that I would always have my daddy. He was in my corner, no matter the situation. I just hoped that, for Aaron’s sake, he never found out about what had taken place between us. Or didn’t take place. However, I wanted to look at it. I knew my father would have a few uncensored words for his shop hand.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Aaron

  I drove through town, trying my best to avoid the bar. I hadn’t had a drink since the last night Faith and I were together. I figured it would be harder to avoid, but staying busy kept my mind from even considering a drink.

  Slowing to a near stop, I rolled through the stop sign as I passed E 2nd St. I looked toward Divine Studio and felt my heart rate spike when I saw the storefront lit up. This was something I had done every night around this time—looking for the smallest of signs that Faith may be back in town.

  I felt that I owed her an explanation. Leaving things how they were between us was something I couldn’t do. It had been eating away at me every day since she walked out my front door, her slumped shoulders and the defeated tone of her voice. She deserved more than I was able to give her.

  Quickly, I used the bank parking lot to turn around and drive back toward the studio, just as my phone began to ring on the passenger seat of my truck.

  Gran’s number lit up my screen, and my stomach tensed. She, too, was someone I owed some explaining to.

  I parked along the road, a clear view of Divine up ahead, as I placed my truck in park. Staring out the windshield, I watched as I brought the phone to my ear.

  “Hi, Gran.” My chest instantly felt tighter.

  “Where are you?”

  I could have told her I was sitting outside Faith’s studio, but instead, I lied, which had always been something hard to do when it came to her. “I just left the hardware store after grabbing the things I need to fix the bathroom at my place.”

  “I made some extra lasagna.” I closed my eyes for a moment and let out a slow and steady breath. It had been days since we’d talked, and truth be told, Gran had been the one person keeping me grounded for far too long. I needed her, and I knew that. “Why don’t you swing by and grab it on your way home?” There was something off about her tone, but then again, maybe I was imagining it. I had spent the last week and a half feeling uneasy not only about Faith but Gran too.

  “Okay.” Letting out a slow, steady breath, I looked up just as Faith stepped out of the front door to her studio. “Give me about fifteen to twenty minutes, and I’ll be over.”

  We said a quick goodbye, and I felt myself start to panic as Faith placed a bag in the trunk of her tiny car and walked around toward the driver’s side door.

  Shifting into drive, I hit the gas and eased in behind her. My lights were bright, and I saw the way she squinted before I hurried to turn them off. Then her gaze locked on mine, and the widening of her eyes was indication enough that she was less than happy to see me.

  My nerves were all over the place as I climbed out of my truck, and the old rusty door squeaked as I pushed it shut.

  With each step I took, my stomach churned and tied itself in knots, or so it felt.

  “Good to have you back.” These were the only words I could manage to form.

  “Is it?” Defiance, a look of pure distaste, washed over her face as she crossed her arms in front of her.

  “Do we have to be like that?” Pausing with only a few feet left between us, I fisted my hand, fighting the urge to reach out for her. I hadn’t been fair to her, and I knew that.

  “Do we have to do this at all?” Faith exhaled and looked away from me, shaking her head. “Can’t we just go back to pretending we don’t even see one another? Ignoring each other seems so much easier than rehashing our bad choices.”

  “I always saw you, Faith.” Seeing her was never the problem. It was that I couldn’t manage to resist the desire I felt for her until it was too late. I took a step toward her.

  “Don’t.” Faith lifted her hand as if to stop me, but I moved in just a little more. “I said don’t. I don’t need you to apologize. I sure as hell don’t need you to show up here or anywhere, for that matter, to check up on me. You’ve made yourself clear, and I can’t keep doing this. It’s fine. I’m good. Let’s just move past this and forget everything that took place.”

  Grabbing for her door handle, she jerked it open, and without a second thought, I caved against the resistance I had felt for years to keep my life private.

  “I was married once.” Faith’s hand remained on the upper frame of her now-opened car door, but she had yet to look at me. “We had a daughter.”

  Slowly, she turned her head, and I fought the urge to look away from her. “Had?”

  That uncontrollable suffocating filling began to expand inside of me as I nodded my head.

  “I’ve had that life, Faith. The wife and the child.” Shaking my head, I tried to rid myself of the heaviness inside of me, which was threatening to crush any hope I had of holding my shit together. “I lost it. One second, they were there, and then the next—”

  I couldn’t finish. Saying it out loud was something I’d never done before.

  “I don’t want that life again. I can’t.” One deep inhale. “That’s why I tried so hard to resist you…why I pushed you away. Because you should have a man who can give you that life. You deserve it. You should be a mother, and I have no doubt in my mind you’ll make some lucky son of a bitch out there the best damned wife. It just can’t be me.”

  We stood in the road just outside her studio, the streets quiet in the night, and only stared at one another. Oh, how I wished I could give her the things she should have had, but that time for me had passed.

  “I do hope that one day you and I can be friends again.” Why the idea of that did not seem enough surprised me at that moment. “I do, however, understand that you need space, and I’ll give you that. But I need you to know that I never
set out to hurt you. It may not seem like I do, but I care for you.”

  Faith’s chest rose and fell as she took in a deep breath.

  “I am sorry.” There were no words to express how deeply I wished things could be different between us.

  ***

  I sat alongside the road only about a mile down from Gran’s house. My truck turned off, no sounds, but the deserted roads surrounded me. I focused on the yellow light that shined bright just above the garage in the far-off distance. There were no other houses for miles on either side of her home.

  I just needed some time, a little longer, to calm down after my interaction with Faith. I wished more than anything I could give her the life she longed for. If there was even the slightest chance I could ever be that man again, it would be her whom I would want to offer myself to.

  She was beautiful and not just on the outside. There was no use in denying that I was attracted to her. But it was the sweet kindness about her that tugged at something inside of me, something I couldn’t allow to resurface. How could I ever take away from her the chance to be a mother? It would be wrong.

  Ivy was my one and only chance at fatherhood. When I failed her, I vowed I would never have another child. Replacing her, or attempting to, was not an option.

  My phone chirped with an incoming message, and I already knew it was Gran. It had been close to an hour since she had last called me and well past the time I told her I would be here.

  Gran: You do remember where I live, don’t you?

  I gathered the strength I needed to push on and started my truck, easing off the shoulder of the road.

  As I turned onto the lane that led up to the small A-framed home, I saw an unfamiliar white car parked just behind Gran’s. I really wasn’t in the mood for company and even considered backing back out and going home. That was until I saw someone peek out through the large front picture window, and I knew I had been seen.

  Placing my truck in park, I opened the door, and my heart lurched out of my chest. My hands shook, my legs trembled, and tears filled my eyes before I had the chance to stop them.

  “Hello, Aaron.” Lynn sat on the front porch, smiling at me. It was a smile I hadn’t seen in years, since before we lost Ivy. “I thought a visit was long overdue.”

  As I slid out of the truck, my feet hit the ground, and I stumbled just a fraction before gaining my footing.

  “When did…” I took in a calming breath. “Why are…”

  I wasn’t even sure of exactly what I wanted to say. So many things raced through my mind, so many questions and concerns.

  The last time I had seen Lynn, she was nothing more than a ghost of the girl I grew up with and eventually married. Her eyes were hollow and void of any emotions. The frail woman was nothing like the vibrant girl I had vowed to spend my life with and raise our daughter together. Lynn died on the day our daughter did, much like myself, only she just stopped living completely. She rarely talked, barely ate, and at one point was hospitalized due to losing so much weight so fast.

  “I got here a few hours ago, and I came to see you.” She answered the question I was unable to fully ask. “I think it’s time you and I had some closure.”

  I wasn’t sure if she was referring to her and me, as in the way our divorce was handled between two lawyers and her parents. Neither of us wanted any reminders of the life we’d lost at that time. We each took what little we had of our daughter and divided it before walking away.

  “We used to be best friends, Aaron, before everything.” I hung my head, fighting off the emotions, as I remembered the way we were. Two kids who shared everything teamed up together on every situation and refused to ever leave the other behind. Two young adults who got drunk one night and let things go too far. Two new parents who took one look at the little girl we’d created and knew without a doubt she was all we needed in life to hold us together.

  But that was it. Without Ivy, we fell apart.

  Without Ivy, we never would have been together in that way in the first place.

  “I wanted to come here and tell you that I’m getting married.”

  My heart sank, not due to jealousy or a sense of betrayal.

  “I met him about two years ago in a grieving group.” I stood with my feet planted firmly in the gravel driveway and stared at the ground before me. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Lynn.

  “He lost a child too, and we sort of bonded, only it was never anything more than just two friends leaning on one another when we needed it most. He’s a good man, and I honestly don’t know if I would have made it back to being myself had it not been for him.”

  “So showing up here so you can flash your perfect life in my face was the first thing you thought of doing? Why would you think that was something you had to do? Closure.” I laughed. “You want closure? You’ve got it. I’m fine, Lynn. You can move on, live your life, and stop worrying about me. Better now?”

  “Still the same old sarcastic man who deflects his anger instead of facing it.”

  “You have a lot of room to talk, Lynn. You fucking checked out on me.” I fisted my hands at my sides. “You turned your back on me when I needed you most. When we should have been burying our daughter together, you walked away and didn’t even come to her fucking funeral.”

  I looked up to see tears falling from her eyes. “I came,” she confessed. “I just couldn’t get out of the car. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I spent months after that day so fearful of every single movement, even little noises. Every single day without her, I faded away even more.

  “I went through every single phase you could possibly imagine, Aaron, and yes, one of those phases was blame. It was wrong of me to blame you, wrong of me to turn my back on you when I should have been right by your side, but I can’t change that now. If I could, I would, believe me. But what is done is done. We are both in need of healing.”

  “You have no idea what I need.” She didn’t know me anymore. “Go back to your fiancé, Lynn.” I didn’t wait for her to respond before climbing inside my truck and closing the door. Doing a U-turn in the driveway, I drove away, leaving her staring after me.

  The minute I walked through my front door, there was one thing I wanted—Faith. I knew it was wrong, but I wanted her to help me forget. I needed to feel her against me and for a few hours forget the fucked-up shit storm that my life was.

  Only, I knew I couldn’t take that road again. So instead, I grabbed the bottle of whiskey off the counter and drowned myself and the visions in my mind.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Faith

  “Are you sure you didn’t make a mistake when you bought this?”

  I looked back over my shoulder and caught the questionable expression on Deanna’s face. Her nose was wrinkled along with her forehead. “It feels like it may be haunted.”

  Laughing, I took another step inside and did a full circle in the center of the room, taking it all in.

  So, it was a little dark and dingy, and it needed a whole lot of TLC, but I was up for the challenge. The idea of taking this house and making it my home felt right. It was what I needed.

  “I think it’s perfect.” Nothing a fresh coat of paint and a good cleaning couldn’t fix.

  “Perfect is a bit strong of a word.”

  I chose to ignore her as I walked from room to room, taking in each space and imagining what I could do with it. The house had a sweet cottage feel to it, belonging to an older couple who most likely hadn’t changed a thing about it from the first day they bought it years and years ago. Excitement raced through me at all the possibilities.

  “It has so much potential,” I said aloud to no one in particular but more for myself.

  There were three bedrooms, two small and one larger, toward the back of the house. Upon entering the front door, there was the cutest little foyer with arched doorways that led to the living room and a sitting room that could definitely serve as an office, which overlooked the side yard. The property alone w
as what originally grabbed my attention. Three-point-six acres, partially wooded, and backed up to a lake. The lake belonged to the property behind me, but the view alone was worth it. So peaceful, the way the sun glistened off the water and the gentle ripple effect that was caused by a breeze.

  There was also a large, detached, two-stall garage that sat back from the house, and though I doubted I would use it much now, maybe one day I would find its purpose. Had I not already found a studio in town, it would have been perfect, as there was a large workshop created in half of the space.

  It was probably way more than I needed, but something about it called out to me, and I knew I had to have it.

  “Have you heard from him?”

  Running my palm over the railing that led upstairs to the two smaller bedrooms, I remembered what Aaron had said.

  “You deserve to be a mother.”

  I only shook my head in response as Deanna stepped up to my side.

  “Do you want to hear from him?”

  “Nope.” Still refusing to make eye contact with her, I could almost see her roll her eyes at my response.

  “Why don’t I believe you?”

  “Because you are a gossip who is always looking for the inside scoop, and in this particular situation, there isn’t one.” Deanna had been pushing me for days to tell her what happened between Aaron and me. The fact was, talking about him, even thinking about him, made my stomach hurt. Wanting something so bad but being unable to have it was so hard to cope with. I often found myself wondering what I could say or do in order to get him to see that he too deserved to be happy. Then, when I let myself replay his words in my mind, the idea of how it would feel to lose a child, I knew that I would probably be withdrawn as well.

  Then I went all the way back to the first time he touched me, remembering what it felt like to be at the mercy of a man like Aaron, and I wondered if I could be that girl. The one who only took what he was willing to give and be happy with settling for the bare minimum, just so I could have him in my life.