He doesn’t argue.
The last several weeks flash before my eyes. My chest is so heavy I can’t breathe. I never meant to get attached to him. I never wanted to be this vested. We were only having fun, and then he had to look at me the way he does and kiss me the way he does and touch me and want me and need me like he does.
Or so I thought.
“Aidy.” His hands hook on his hips, and he blows an exhausted breath past his lips, tired stare locked on mine.
I glance at him through watery eyes, all his lines and edges blurring together until I can no longer make out the full lips I used to kiss or the chiseled arms that used to scoop me up like I was weightless.
“You want to know what happened? Fine. Another man and I were in love with the same woman,” he says. “Shit happened. She chose him. Life went on. The end.”
Shaking my head and looking down, I bite my lip to keep from saying something I’m going to regret. All those ramblings, those journal entries declaring unwavering devotion to Kerenza flash through my mind.
If he can just sum everything that happened with “life went on” because he thinks it’s what I want to hear?
Because he thinks it’ll make me stay?
Then he truly is heartless.
I leave, dashing down the stairs like some embarrassingly dramatic Cinderella reenactment, but I don’t care. I don’t want him to see me fall apart. Grabbing my makeup case at the bottom of the landing, I fling the door open and carry myself, bruised ego, broken heart, and all, to the nearest subway stop.
I’ve never been more grateful to come home to a silent apartment than I am right now. Ever since Wren found out she’s pregnant, she’s been spending more time at Chauncey’s, and since their wedding is just around the corner, she’s already starting to gradually move her things in over there. Enzo’s too.
The apartment is dark, save for the light under the microwave. I place my things by the door and shuffle toward my room. I spread myself across the bed, face down, and tuck a pillow beneath my chin, gaze pointed at that fucking journal.
Exhaling hard, I reach for it, flipping through the pages as if I’m searching for some time-sensitive clue.
“She showed up at my door last night, cheeks stained in mascara, lipstick smudged, jacket dusted in thick snowflakes. She was a beautiful mess of a woman, and I pulled her in from the street, carrying her to the fireplace, her fingers locked tight behind my neck, holding on for her life.
She broke down, crying, going on about how he doesn’t understand her the way I do. He doesn’t listen to her. She’s never felt more alone than she does when she’s at home, with him. He loves her too hard, she says. He makes it impossible to leave because she’s terrified nobody will ever love her half as much as he does.
She said he was her first love.
I told her she was mine.
That I loved her since we were kids.
She collapsed in my arms, the top of her head tucked beneath my chin and her cheek pressed against my chest.
And then she told me if she could do it all over again, she’d have picked me first.
Not him.
I told her it wasn’t too late. She could still choose me.
She disagreed.
She said the first time you give someone your heart, it’s theirs to keep.
Forever.
But I refuse to let that deter me.
I won’t stop until she’s mine because I’m stubborn enough to believe that someday soon, she’ll be mine. Completely.
She just hasn’t realized it yet.
Thirty-One
Ace
* * *
Aidy hasn’t answered my texts.
Or my calls.
It’s been two days.
I thought she needed time to cool off and that she’d be right back here, ringing my doorbell, jumping in my arms, laughing at how fucking ridiculous she looked storming out of here Sunday like some self-righteous prima donna.
Maybe I should’ve chased after her.
Maybe I should’ve explained everything . . .
But it isn’t that easy. I’ve never talked to anyone about Kerenza. About what happened. Or how it changed me from the inside out.
I’m seated in my favorite chair, sitting in a dark living room, listening to the faint symphony of city traffic outside my windows. The last two days have been gray scale and meaningless.
I miss her.
And I fucking need her.
I should’ve opened up more. I should’ve told her everything. I shouldn’t have shut her down when she asked about my brothers. I shouldn’t have changed the subject when she asked if I’d ever been in love.
So many nights, we’d lie awake in bed, staring at the ceiling, her hand on my chest and my hands tangled in her hair. She’d ramble on about anything and everything, and I’d just listen. I let her do all the opening up, hoping she wouldn’t notice.
Massaging my temples, I exhale. I’m exhausted, mentally, from thinking too much. And I’m exhausted, physically, because I’ve barely slept these past two nights.
All this time I was afraid. Afraid to open up to her and let her in because the last time I did that? The last time I bared my soul to a woman who held my heart in her teeth? It didn’t end well.
I loved Kerenza too much. Too hard. I held onto her so tight it was literally and figuratively almost the death of me. And if losing Kerenza was nearly the death of me in the most literal sense? How would it feel losing Aidy?
Like a coward, I let fear take command because I was so convinced that loving her too hard would send her packing.
But this time? In the end? I lost her anyway.
Rising from the creaking leather chair, I pull in a stale lungful of air and grab my sneakers. I’m not sure if she’s home. I’m not sure where she is or if she’ll even talk to me since she hasn’t returned my calls, but I’m sure as hell not going to sit around here feeling sorry for myself.
It’s time to tell her everything.
I’ll hold nothing back.
I’ll tell her all about my regrets.
How sorry I am.
How much she’s changed me.
How I’m not the man I used to be anymore: I’m better.
It’s all because of her.
And she needs to hear that.
And while I have her – or if I have her – I’ll also tell her how I feel about her. I’ll tell her how Saturday morning, when she crawled out of bed and kissed me goodbye, I watched through squinted eyes as she changed into her clothes, trying hard to stay quiet so I could fall back asleep as she left for work. And I’ll tell her how it was then, in that moment, I realized I was falling in love with her.
I’m not the kind of man who throws that word around lightly or who falls in and out of love at the drop of a hat. Kerenza’s the only other woman I’ve ever said those words to, and while they don’t ring true anymore as far as she’s concerned, I’ve realized it is possible to love again.
And to love just as hard as before, if not more.
Hitting the sidewalk, I jam my hands into my jeans pocket and rehearse all the things I’m going to say to Aidy when I see her.
Thirty-Two
Aidy
* * *