His face fell, and the first tear slid down his cheek before he turned his face away from me and wiped it away.
“Hayden, come here.” I hugged him and brought his head against my shoulder.
“I miss him, and it hurts so much. Why did he have to die? Why did I have to lose him?”
I closed my eyes to stop the tears and placed my chin on top of his head. “Carmen told me about that day. How you found him.” I felt him tremble, and I hugged him more firmly. “I’m so sorry that you had to witness that.”
“It’s fucked up.” His gravel voice sliced my heart, and my tears spilled out. “I opened that door expecting him to be working on his latest painting and be covered in paint like usual. Instead, he was lying still on the floor covered in blood.”
My heart leapt up. I didn’t want to interrupt him, so I kept quiet.
“I thought it was paint.” He let out a sorrowful chuckle, which felt like a punch in the gut. “I knew something was wrong, but I thought he would open his eyes and explain why there was so much red paint around him. Only, with every step I took, I saw more and more paint around him, and it was so dark red it couldn’t be paint. Its smell hit me, along with the realization. That wasn’t paint and he wasn’t going to open his eyes.”
My face was wet with tears that I shed silently; my arms held Hayden like I would never let him go. His trembling grew stronger.
“There was so much blood,” he whispered, breaking another piece of my heart.
“Shh. Don’t think about it.”
He straightened himself up to look at me, allowing me to see his tears, and it was too painful. “Sometimes I hate him so much. Why did he leave me? He said he loved me, so why did he leave me?”
He clutched my jacket as his sobs started, and I reached for him again, pulling him back into my embrace.
“There are times when people are too lost in their darkness to consider the consequences of their choices,” I told him. “He loved you, but he was broken.”
“Did he really? Everything is a mess. I’m a mess. I doubted he loved me too many times, because if he did, he wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t be gone.”
Now that I knew his real feelings regarding his dad’s death, I was able to fully understand why he was so angry with Kayden for choosing to save him and angry with me for indirectly contributing to that. He felt abandoned because, in his mind, the people he loved left him, which was heightened by his disorder.
“He loved you,” I repeated. “He loved you so much, but his pain blinded him. His pain and darkness played with his mind, clouding everything good in his life, until the only thing that mattered was the way out.”
His fist hit the ground. “If only I went there earlier he would be alive. I would be able to save him...”
I thought about his last diary entry, which I’d read this morning. He mentioned he regretted not saving him. “No, don’t say it like that. It’s not your fault.”
“But—”
I cupped his face and made him look at me. “Don’t. I blamed myself for so long, but the truth is you can’t blame yourself for someone else’s decision. Just like Kay made the decision to save you, your dad made the decision to end his life. So please, don’t blame yourself.”
Another silence ensued, interrupted only by our sobs as we held each other. I couldn’t erase his abandonment issues and pain, but I’d prove to him time and again that he wasn’t alone. I wasn’t leaving.
“Both you and I suffered a lot, but now we have each other, and we’ll heal piece by piece together,” I told him after a while. He was much calmer now, and his tears had dried up. “One day, it’s going to be easier for both of us. We won’t be weighed down with regrets and pain. We’ll come out of this stronger.”
He held my gaze as he stroked my cheek, and I leaned into his touch. “You’re so special to me. You always manage to create the light that leads me out of my dark mind.”
His lips moved across my cheek, bringing color to my cheeks with tiny kisses on my cold skin. Sadness was gone from his eyes and replaced with softness that melted me.
“So now you know about my dad and how I knew about this place. He had another favorite place, and that’s where we’re going now. He used to take us there often.”
I cocked my head to the side. “Oh? And that is?”
The corner of his lips curled up. “A log cabin in a nearby mountain area.” He tilted his head toward me, only a few inches separating our lips. “It’s a nice place. You’ll see.” His warm breath caressed my skin before he kissed me and wiped away all my thoughts into a sweet oblivion.
BY THE TIME WE REACHED the cabin, which Hayden had rented for the weekend, it was already dark outside. We barely spoke when we entered the place, and my excitement grew more intense because I knew this was it. Hayden and I were going to have sex.
I sat down on the couch and silently observed Hayden build a fire in the fireplace. The room was dim; the only source of light was a lamp in the far corner. More than ever, I was aware of the way his muscles contracted after each move and his delectable body I wanted to kiss and touch. His arms never seemed more muscular or stronger than now—those very arms that were going to hold me as we crossed the last step to becoming one.
I glanced around, feeling a wave of gratitude toward him for bringing me to a place that contained some of his most precious memories. It was furnished with simple furniture and a few decorations that gave it life and emitted comforting vibes.
“Will you stop being a breathing corpse?” he said when the fire came to life and he turned off the lamp. The room got darker, illuminated only by the flames that formed the most intricate shapes.
“Breathing corpse?”
“You haven’t moved from that spot at all. Come on. Get off your ass.”
“If this is your version of foreplay, I have to tell you that it doesn’t work,” I replied playfully, watching his lips quirk up in sudden amusement.
“You finally learned that comebacks exist. Congratulations.” He clapped his hands, and I rolled my eyes, standing up to help him with the blanket.
We placed the blanket over the plush carpet in front of the fireplace, and I reached inside my backpack for Pringles and bags of Cheetos and Doritos. I sat next to him and rested my head against his shoulder when he wrapped his arm around my waist.
“Are you cold?” he asked me.
I opened the bag of Doritos and reached inside. “No.”
“What do you think about this place?”
I popped a Dorito into my mouth before I passed the bag to him. “It’s nice and cozy. I can’t wait to see what outside looks like in the morning.”
“We’ll take a look around tomorrow.” He took a few Doritos and stuffed them into his mouth. “I just love everything about it. It’s special for me because every time I think about it I remember all the fun I had with my dad. I feel peaceful when I’m here.”
“Thank you for bringing me here. It does feel special.” He responded with a barely visible curl of his lips, captivated by the flames twirling in the fireplace. I took my backpack and pulled out his diary. “I finished your diary this morning.”