I will always love you, I will always want you, and I will never ever be disappointed in you. -Van
It was a goodbye. A fist-through-the-fucking-heart goodbye. The tears surged, hard and ugly and agonizing. She flung herself off the bed and staggered through the room with a helpless, rage-filled cry, her arms sweeping everything in her path. The lamp, the TV, and the duffel bags hit the walls and bounced along the floor, thumping and exploding.
Her vision blurred. Her legs crashed into furniture. Her teeth sawed her lips until blood coated her tongue. Her fingernails shredded and ripped in her attack on everything she could destroy.
At 8:27 AM, she sat on the floor with her back against the dresser. Her lungs burned, her cheeks cracked with drying tears, and her heart jabbed at her ribs with each thump of its sharp splintery edges.
“Well done, you crazy fucking bitch.” Her voice scratched her raw throat, but she deserved it. “First prize for world's ugliest temper tantrum. Yay.”
She took in the aftermath with little interest. Pillow stuffing covered the floor. Dents peppered the sheet rock. The small TV lay on its side with cracks spider-webbing over the screen.
Where was her anxiety for straight lines? Her impulse to tackle the mess?
She dropped her head back against the dresser and closed her eyes. She couldn't think about that right now. Something else was pressing against her brain.
He lived thirty minutes from that restaurant. If she knew which restaurant it was, she could narrow her search for the cabin. She jumped to her feet and strode toward the wall that faced Liv and Joshua's house, pressing her cheek against it. Maybe Van had given them his address? At the very least, they knew the restaurant.
And so her harrowing journey to their house began. By the end of that first night, she was able to peer out of every window without losing control of her breathing.
By day five, she started keeping her front door open, letting in bugs and sunshine and the gawking of neighbors in passing cars. She sat on the threshold, trembling and gasping, but she didn't pass out.
On day nineteen, her ass hit the bench on the front porch for the first time in two years. She'd stumbled into it, actually, in a breathless fall of exhausted, quivering muscles. She might've clapped her hands if they weren't squeezing the weathered slats in a death grip.
But she did manage a smile, the first smile to touch her lips since the night they'd left for the restaurant. God, he'd looked so handsome in his suit. He'd been so nervous and...turned on by her.
Her heart pinched, and her smile wobbled away. She missed him, deeply and painfully. His absence was a constant wrench of every breath as if her lungs could never quite fill without him.
She uncurled a hand and raised the hem of her old t-shirt, wiping the humidity and sweat from her face. He would've been proud of her. Fuck that. She was proud of herself.
“I'm sitting on his bench,” she announced to the coverage of bushes, the sunlight soaking into her damp hair. She ran her fingers over the wood, hoping to absorb some part of him that might still be there.
She glanced at the closed-up windows on Liv's house and nodded. She'd get there.
That night, she lay on top of the covers in bed, nude and as content as she could be without him beside her. As she fantasized about his heat sliding over her skin and his tongue controlling her mouth, her hands roamed her body.
Her house might've been a mess, but she'd maintained her daily regimen of cardio and strength training, and that effort flexed sensually in the hard hillocks of her ass and firm flesh on her hips. Her muscles and curves felt beautiful beneath her fingertips. And so did her *.
She stroked her fingers down her mound and between her folds as her thoughts filled with silver eyes, a thick cock, and seductive lips. The deep, reverberating voice in her head commanded she fuck herself. So she did, with urgent, wanton thrusts of her fingers. When his voice told her to come, she shouted his name to the ceiling.
There was a good chance she'd never find him, that she'd never be able to show him how far she'd come. But as the next two weeks passed, she protected her new self-esteem, nurturing it with every little progressive step. She refused to even consider puking. She made trips to the mailbox, reconnected with Dr. Michaels, and reinstated her leathercraft business, adding leather dolls to her list of merchandise.
She hadn't worked up to leaving the yard yet, but as the weeks passed, conquering the agoraphobia became more about self-reliance and less about finding Van.
Still, night after night, she sat on the bench and waited for him.