“Then I heard a gasping sound coming from the bathroom.”
“Keith. You don’t—”
“I found her in the bathroom. In the bathtub. Blood everywhere. That gasp must have been her last breath of life because by the time I pulled her out of the tub, she was gone. I knew it even as I tried to do CPR as best I could. I screamed for her parents who took forever to come and when they did, they were groggy and disoriented. Amy had slipped sleeping pills into their dinner it turns out because she didn’t want them to wake up and find her too soon.”
Oh God. A sob sticks in the back of my throat and I try so hard to push it back down.
“Keith…”
“She was happy and fun that night at the party because she had a plan and was ready. But I wasn’t ready, and neither were her parents. And no matter how hard I fought to make her better, to make her happy, I never did, and she died.”
I suck in a ragged breath, aching to spin around in his arms and hold him. But I know he’d hate that. He’s telling me this because he doesn’t have to look at me while he does.
“You couldn’t have saved her, Keith. Not if she was that determined.”
“If I hadn’t fought my instincts and gone back sooner, I might have been able to save her that night. She could have gone to the hospital and gotten the help she needed.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper on a half-sob, no longer able to hold it in. Christ, how much guilt has this man been living with over something he could not have prevented?
“You’ve given me so much, Maia. You’ve changed everything for me in the best possible way. I wasn’t living beyond the band and the guys, and now I am. I’m crazy about you. Please don’t doubt that for a second. You are not Amy. You’re my Maia. My Pandora and my Psyche. My fucking sweet darlin’ who I cannot get enough of. I just need a bit more time, okay? Can you be patient? I haven’t dealt with any of this for ten years and now suddenly I am and it’s hard. Sometimes so much harder than I thought it would be. But I’m trying and I want you with me while I do.”
This time I do spin around in his arms, pushing him down until he’s on his back and I’m crawling over him. I press my forehead to his and stare into his dark eyes. “I’m with you,” I tell him, even though it scares me to.
Some secrets are more like confessions than kept truths, but their release doesn’t always set you free. And that’s what this was. This was his confession that he’s kept bottled up for ten years and is still tormented with.
His guilt that he couldn’t save her.
That he couldn’t make her happy, and she took her own life after spending an evening with him.
The fact that he found her the way he did and tried to save her, knowing it was too late.
The agony over the fact he didn’t listen to his gut earlier and find her faster.
He offers up a wan smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, and suddenly I’m so scared this man is going to not just break my heart but shatter it for good. I may be his Maia and Pandora and Psyche and whatever other names he throws at me.
But I’m not his Amy.
And something tells me that makes all the difference.
26
Keith
* * *
Dawn can be a real motherfucker after nights filled with the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. My eyes crack open only to discover that dawn is long since gone and now we’re likely rounding on mid to late morning.
Visions of my nightmare ratchet through my head and I close my eyes again, trying to clear my thoughts. I knew this would happen once I started talking about it. I was warned, after all. Doesn’t make it any easier to swallow. It’s a miracle I didn’t wake Maia up. Even I felt my unrest, but the second I woke up, I scrambled out of bed and made the call.
I spent an hour on the phone with her just talking. Just telling her everything that happened in the dream. The dream that is the mirror image of a reality I don’t know if I want to forget or torment myself with.
“Grief comes in stages, Keith,” she told me. “You’ve been trapped between pain and guilt and anger and bargaining for a very long time. Add to that what very likely sounds like some PTSD and you’re going to have nightmares. You’re going to experience this on a very visceral level. But if you can push through and find your way to accept what happened that night and your roll in it, to forgive yourself once and for all for things you could not and cannot change, you will come out on the other side stronger than ever. It will come in waves, some bigger and more powerful than others. Just keep doing what you’re doing, and we’ll get you there. We will.”
I have no choice but to believe her. I just don’t want to hurt Maia in the meantime.
The sweet naked body beside me stirs and I smile at the groan she emits, likely from coming to the same realization I just did. I slip my hand beneath her belly and slide her along the cool white hotel room sheets until she’s flush against me.
She quirks one eye open before it narrows. “I haven’t had enough sleep since you convinced me to let you take me to your bed.”
I chuckle. “It didn’t exactly take a lot of persuasion on my part.”
She scowls the most adorable scowl. “That’s unfortunately true. I can’t even argue it since I’m essentially a harlot who swept in and stole your virtue. Oh wait, maybe I have that the other way around.”
My face dives into her hair that still smells of the fresh air we were immersed in last night and her shampoo. No perfume for this one and I’d wager it’s because it’s an unnecessary expense in her mind. Same with makeup that she rarely wears unless someone does it up for her.
What would I give to make it so she never has a worry again?
I wonder if my sweet Maia knows she talks in her sleep.
Her sleeping words as I crawled back into bed last night aren’t settling in me like the lead weight I expected they would. Instead my chest feels lighter than it ever has, and I have to question if it’s from her confession or mine. I want to ask if she meant it just so I can hear her say it again, but until I’m ready to rap a sonnet in her honor, I need to keep my mouth shut.
The thing is, I want to tell her I feel the same way. Because I think I do.
Only she has no idea she told me she loved me because she was asleep while she did it.
I’ve only told one woman I loved her, and she went and killed herself after spending the evening with me and telling me she loved me too. I’ll never know if Amy was anticipating I’d be the one to find her body or not. She knew I was set to come back early the next morning to take her to breakfast.
A breakfast that never happened.
It took me hours in the shower to clean all her blood off my skin and out from under my nails. For weeks I swore I could still smell it. That’s when I stopped being me and turned into this guy. The one who smiles and laughs and teases with the best of them because he’s dead on the inside and is terrified of people knowing.
But are you still dead inside?
Maia squirms in my arms, her tits rubbing across my chest as she rolls over to face the window, sliding her pert little ass against my very happy to see her morning wood. I reach down and squeeze one cheek. “Do I get to take this?”