I leaped into his arms. The regret that had been building inside of me all day was unbearable. The short goodbye I’d mandated had been pointless. My emotions were pummeling me—a punishment for ever attempting to stop them. The way things ended yesterday was never what I wanted; I’d just been afraid to experience what I was feeling right now.
He kissed me with such force that I nearly fell back. If yesterday I hadn’t wanted to feel anything, this was the total opposite. Breathing him in was the only thing that mattered in the world, even if for one last time. There were no words. Leo lifted me in the air, and I wrapped my legs around his torso. Our hearts beat against each other.
What I needed right now, I knew would be detrimental. But like a drug addict about to take a hit, I just didn’t care.
“I want you,” I breathed into his mouth, knowing he was waiting for permission to cross the barrier I’d previously set. “Please.”
He let out a deep groan that vibrated down my throat.
Within seconds, our pants were down, and he pushed himself inside of me with my back against the wall in Mrs. Angelini’s foyer. Pulling on his hair, I bucked my hips to meet his frantic movements. There was nothing gentle about the way he was banging me, nor the way I desperately received each thrust. We took our anger out on each other, a desperate final act. It was the most intense sex I’d ever had and probably the only ending fitting for the passion we’d felt this summer.
It didn’t take long. Within a couple of minutes, Leo’s body began to shake. I felt the warmth of his cum between my legs as my own muscles contracted around his cock. He continued to hold me as I leaned on him, feeling suddenly limp, too weak to endure yet another goodbye.
“God, this hurts,” he whispered.
He slowly put me down and adjusted his pants as I pulled my shorts up.
And then his phone buzzed.
I wiped a tear from my eye. “Is that Sig?”
“Yeah,” he whispered, looking distraught.
“What time is your flight?”
“Nine. We’re supposed to have left by now. He’s giving me hell for even being here.”
“Go,” I said, waving my hand.
He brushed a tear from my cheek. “I’ll be forever grateful that I broke the rules.”
“Me, too, Leo.” I gripped his shirt. “No regrets, okay?”
He stared at me for several seconds. He took the necklace he was wearing, the one that held his grandfather’s diamond ring, and placed it around my neck. I looked down at it in awe. Then he pulled me in for one last firm but chaste kiss before walking away.
He turned around in the front driveway a final time and said, “I will never find another you.”
Then he got in his car. And he was gone.
I knew it was real this time. I’d been restless all day because on some level, I knew he would come to me, knew he wouldn’t stay away. I’d been waiting for him even if I hadn’t realized it. A strange calm came over me now that I knew he’d truly gone. There was no longer a pressure to beg him to stay or do something rash.
It took a while before I built up the courage to open the planner he’d returned to me. Mrs. Angelini still hadn’t come home yet when I made some tea and sat down at the kitchen table to read. Inside, there was an entry for every day he’d had it in his possession. It was our entire summer, reduced to a five-by-eight notebook.
June 26: I’m only going to admit this here, because I’m too cowardly to say it to your face. I was bloody jealous today when your ex took you aside. I envy him for so many reasons; he’s experienced things with you that I haven’t. How is it right that I don’t want anyone else to have you when I can’t stay and be the one? It’s not fair, so I need to suck it up. But damn, I wanted to strangle him just for looking at you.
I kept reading.
June 30: Did you know one of your eyes is a lighter color green than the other? I find it fascinating, almost as fascinating as the freckles that taunt me constantly, begging me to count them. You’re beautiful, Felicity.
Some entries were just descriptions of what we’d done on a particular day, like working at Mrs. Barbosa’s or going clamming. But every so often, one of them would break my heart.
July 7: You’ve just returned home after our weekend together, and I’m staring at our new horse as I write this, laughing. I’ve really lost my mind—in the best possible way. It was bar none the best weekend of my life. I told myself I wasn’t going to say that four-letter word, Felicity. Because it’s not fair given our circumstances. But I wonder if you can sense it. Can you see it in my eyes? Can you feel it in my heartbeat? I wonder if I even have to say it at all, or if it’s been obvious for a while.
I wiped a tear from my cheek and read each entry until I got to the last one.
August 21: You just left for the last time, and I’m empty. If there’s one thing you take from our time together, please know that I will never forget this experience with you. I will never forget you, Felicity. But I’m haunted by the idea that you’ll think of me as just another person who abandoned you in this life. If I could have one wish right now (besides the health of my father), it would be this: I would want to be with you and know that that decision wouldn’t ruin your life. I could never live with myself if I dragged you into a life you’d regret.
Remember that no matter how far away we are from each other, we’ll always be looking at the same moon. At night, whenever you notice it, I hope you’ll think of me. I promise to do the same—look at the moon and think of you. And the sun and the stars, for that matter, too. I may be leaving, but you will always be in my heart. That might not be a consolation right now. But it’s the truth.
* * *
Felicity
Track 17: “Coming Home” by Skylar Grey
So much had changed, and yet everything was the same.
Sipping my glass of wine in Bailey’s Providence apartment, it seemed like the old days, only now there was a two-year-old hanging out with us. My best friend had gotten pregnant while I was in law school. She and Stewart hadn’t planned it, and she’d ended up putting her career ambitions on hold to stay home with little Kayla, while Stewart worked at Brown University’s Research Lab.
“So, are you sleeping at the big house tonight?” Bailey asked as she placed her daughter in the highchair.
I nodded. “Probably. It’s going to be weird being there without her. But I’d better get used to it.”
I had driven straight to Bailey’s from Philadelphia because I wasn’t ready to go to Mrs. Angelini’s empty house just yet. Skylar Grey’s “Coming Home” had played on the radio as I drove, and I got so emotional I had to stop at a rest area to get some tissues. All the feelings I’d been hiding from rose to the surface.
But I suppose that made sense. This was my first time back in Rhode Island since my foster mother had died suddenly of a heart attack two years ago—a week after I graduated from law school. I still hadn’t absorbed the shock. When it happened, I’d come back from Pennsylvania for the wake and funeral, but wasn’t able to spend much time in Rhode Island after. I was studying for the bar and applying for jobs, but mostly, there was no point in staying if Mrs. Angelini was gone.