“But you’re willing to walk away? From us?” he roars.
“I’m not the one leaving. And honestly, Nick, you’re acting like it was up for debate. In your mind, you’re already gone.” At my words, his movements still. As does the beat of my heart when I recognize the truth in front of me. Nick is done. With training, with Juneau.
And with me.
“Right. Then I guess there’s nothing more to say.” He crosses his arms across his chest, protecting himself from what? Me? He’s the one who’s running away. Again.
I want to make him hurt, but what pain could I inflict on the man who just told me he’s packing up and leaving? I berate myself over and over. I don’t know why I had any sort of faith this might work out.
Faith.
Slowly, I reach behind my neck and unclasp the chain. “Actually, I do have one more thing to say.”
“What’s that?”
“Catch.” I underhand the gold chain in his direction. Perversely, I’m glad the shock on his face is even a small semblance to the one destroying my heart. “I think you’re going to need to search harder to find something to believe in if you can toss it away so easily. That’s not what faith is about. Hell, it’s not what family is either. You of all people should know that.”
I turn on my heel and walk in the direction of the door. I don’t register the footsteps behind me. It’s as if all of my senses have been shut down to protect me from further harm.
Until he touches me.
Whirling me around, I come face-to-face with the chest I’ve lain upon, kissed, whispered dreams to. And it’s heaving up and down as if he’s gone a full three rounds. Before I can say a word, he whispers, “If there’s anyone I’d stay for, it would be you.”
My head shakes back and forth. “The only person capable of making the Champ, the Nicholas Cain, do anything is himself. Somewhere along the way of falling in love with you, I forgot that.”
“Come with me. We can be together anywhere but here.”
God, if Nick had come to me before I fell in love with the other part of my heart, I wouldn’t have hesitated to say yes. “I can’t leave without him, and you won’t stay. That leaves us—” I point back and forth between us. “—with nothing.”
“The hell it doesn’t,” he snarls, before yanking my head toward his. His lips crash down on mine for the most savagely beautiful kiss in the thousands we’ve shared in such a short time. I know that until my dying day I’ll remember each and every one, but this one will be seared on my soul since I know it will be the last. I pour all of the love I’ve held for over twenty years into this single kiss. It holds each tear I’ve shed and every one I will. And buried beneath it are all the lies I’ll tell myself for the rest of my days that having had Nick for even this little while was enough.
Pulling back, I clasp his chin. “Like the sea, you crashed into my life and my heart. When you leave, you’ll drag my soul with you.” And before Nick can say a word, I break free from his arms and slam through the door. I run for my vehicle, running as far and as fast as I can to keep what I can of my soul intact.
I have to survive somehow when he leaves. After all, I won’t be alone anymore. Someone will be relying upon me who will feel my agony if I can’t control it.
I head out to Eagle Beach for the rest of the day. I’ve turned my phone to silent. I want no contact with anyone, especially anyone remotely connected with me or Nick.
I can barely keep my head together, and when I should be leaning on the people closest to me, I can’t. So, I’ll give myself a few hours to fight for some semblance of serenity, and then I’ll go home and rid it of everything related to Nick.
Everything.
After I get home later, I walk upstairs and see Nick’s already been here.
And he’s gone. Everything that was his is gone: his bag, his clothes, his cologne. It’s as if we didn’t have the last month. And maybe we didn’t anywhere except my heart. How ridiculous was I to believe his was moving in the same direction mine was?
Drifting through the rooms, I collect photos, Jed’s journals, and the Chihuly bowl before making my way to the fire pit outside. Then I get the fire roaring.
For long moments, I stare into the flames feeling nothing. Then I remember a passage my brother wrote about me, and my lips curve humorlessly. “I want to dare Maris to open up her heart to love someone. She gives of herself from what appears to be a limitless fountain—over and over again. But something has to feed that spring to keep it flowing clean and pure. I have ideas on what that could be, but it’s not an easy road. And in the end, it may not be enough.”
“Always have to have the last word, don’t you, Jed?” Then I hurl the bowl into the flames. I quickly turn as the delicate glass shatters against the wood logs. Once the fragmented pieces begin to warm, they begin to bubble. Then by the fistful, I toss in photos. If they weren’t important to the Jacks before now, fuck them. I think viciously. Why do I have to be the one with all these memories?
Then I reach for the stack of journals. I begin to tear the pages out and toss them in the fire. Words I never should have read. “I’d still hate him.” Tears cause my eyes to burn more than the smoke. “I would still be whole.”
Would you?
“Fuck you, Jedidiah!” I scream. “You didn’t live. You don’t get to ask. You don’t have to sit here and feel and hurt. You can watch down over all of us and make your judgments just like you did in all of these!” I fling in his letter to me and just sob.
When arms wrap around me, I jerk back in fright, afraid Nick might have forgotten something.
It’s not Nick; it’s Rainey. And she just pulls me close without a word.
I’m not sure how long we sit there, but the only thing I whisper is “Don’t let him come back here.”
In that moment, I’m not entirely certain if I mean Nick or my brother.
Maris
October
“I’ve only known my sister to run away from her emotions twice. And that’s because the pain inside her heart was too enormous for her to handle it in the moment. If she does it a third time, I’m afraid she won’t come back.” - From the journals of Jedidiah Smith.
It’s been just over a month where I’ve had to train my mind that Nicholas Cain doesn’t exist. I worried before about not introducing him to David, but now I wonder if it was simply a mother’s intuition. Every single day I’ve heard from either Kara, Rainey, or Meadow—sometimes all three.
“Just want to see your beautiful face. It’s good for the baby to get to see her godmother so soon since you’ll likely be catching her,” Kara tried to joke last night.
Or when I spoke with Meadow: “Maybe once things are settled with the state, you can come visit? Maybe you’d want to look into expansion down here.”
Rainey’s not quite as subtle. “Get your ass on the phone before I drive over.” I can’t blame her though. I was a disaster the night I cleaned out my house of all the memorabilia the last day I spoke to Nick.