“Vince.”
“The irony is now I’ve spent years doing things I can’t take back. Fucking up. Proving him right.” He flexes and unflexes his hand.
“I disagree. You’ve—”
“And now I’m desperate to prove him fucking wrong before he dies so I can give him the ultimate fuck you. So I can win. How sick is that? What kind of person does that make me?”
“A real one.” A broken one.
I rest my head on his shoulder and try to process all these things he’s throwing at me, that he’s been holding in, and I still don’t know how to help him. I don’t know if I can.
He presses a kiss to the top of my head and just leaves his mouth there, his thoughts so heavy I can practically feel them. “Do you ever wonder what could have been?” he murmurs.
“In regard to?” I ask when I already know the answer. The same question I’ve asked myself a million times, not just for myself but for the little boy tucked in his bed inside.
“Us.”
My exhale is even, my thoughts measured. “I did. For a long time. Then I didn’t.”
“Why’d you stop?”
Because I had to. Because you didn’t give me a choice. “Because we’re two different people now. We live vastly different lives.”
“But despite that, there’s still something there. There’s still something between us that we keep coming back to somehow.”
“The chemistry sure. But when the lust fades, when it’s not years in between that we’d see each other, but rather minute to minute or hour to hour, I’m not sure that there’d be much left of us.” I have to believe that. If I don’t then I’m left with hope for something that will never be.
“Is that why you left me in San Francisco?”
It’s my turn to look at the sky. To try and find any star that hasn’t been drowned out by the city lights. “It seems we’re better at walking away from each other than we are at actually being together.”
“Well, at least I can claim to be good at something, huh?” His laugh falls flat though.
“Still doesn’t make it hurt any less.”
He nods, his lips pursed. “Then why did you let it happen at all? You could have shut your hotel room door, stuck to your guns about McMann, and I would’ve had to suffice with my hand and my fucking misery.”
I smile at the image he paints, and it softens at the memory of us together. Giving and taking. Loving and letting go.
“I didn’t let it happen,” I finally say.
“Uh. I was there. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t just me.”
“That’s not what I meant. It was inevitable, right? It was us.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“We’re like a match, Vince. We start out hot, almost violent in our need for each other, before burning completely out. The other night, we struck the match.”
“And now?”
“Now, there’s just smoke.” I shrug.
“But where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”
“And where there is fire, things get destroyed. Devastated. Become unrecognizable of what their former self was.”
“Hey.”
I turn to look at him, really look at him for the first time in this conversation. “Hmm?”
He reaches out and runs the back of his hand down my cheek. Rubs his thumb over my bottom lip. Settles his hand on the curve of my neck so his thumb can idly move back and forth over my collarbone.
“What are you saying, Shug?”
You wear a bracelet I gave you, but you wouldn’t take my calls.
You permanently marked yourself with a tattoo of my nickname, but you never thought it was enough to tell me.
You look at me with love in your eyes, but it’s been over ten years since you spoke the words.
You love me from afar, but don’t think you can love me in person.
I reach up and cup the side of his face. Feel the coarseness of his stubble under my palm. Take in the heat of his breath on my skin. “I love you, Vince, but we can’t keep doing this. I deserve more than a piece of you every couple of years. No one’s to blame. Not you. Not me. It’s just the way we were probably meant to be.”
I lean forward and kiss him. I pour all the love I have for him into this simple connection as tears slide down my cheeks.
We rest our foreheads against each other’s almost as if we’re trying to let this “new reality of us” settle in. Almost as if it’s something we knew all along but now have to face.
And when I lean back to look at him one last time, the lone tear that escapes and slides down his cheek devastates me.
“I lied,” he murmurs.
Jagger flashes through my mind. So have I. “About?”
“About needing the stage to make me feel.” He clears his throat. “You make me feel complete too.” He drops his eyes for a beat before looking back at me. “But it’s not enough, is it?”
“No.” It hurts to get the single syllable out. He nods subtly as I stand, our fingers still linked. “Your different is your beautiful too, Vince. It always has been. It always will be.”
With that, I turn and go into the house.
I shut the door.
I lock it.
I let the dust particles settle back down in the darkness.
And then I slide down it, crumple on the floor, and cry until I can’t cry anymore.
I’m not sure what time it is when I go to bed, but when I peek out the window, Vince is still sitting there. Still staring at the stars. Still looking as broken as ever.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Vince
The holding cell is bright and the constant clang of things and chatter of people is enough to make a drunk man sober.
Oh.
Wait.
Never fucking mind.
I’ve been here forever the fuck long and the room is still moving.
Maybe because it’s easier to stay drunk. Simpler to live in the haze than to feel like my chest has been pried open and my heart ripped out for shits and giggles.
“That bad, huh, man?” my cellmate says from where he’s rolling around on his cot, unable to sit still.
“Fuck off,” I mutter.
“Ha. Sounds like a woman to me.”
“Sounds like mind your own fucking business to me.”
“Chill, man. I was just making small talk.”
I grunt and roll onto my back, my forearm over my eyes, replaying the events of tonight. Morning. Who the hell knows what it is because I lost track of time.
Bristol. Her porch. Her words. Her kiss goodbye.
A bar. O’Hallahan’s, I think was the name. I don’t remember. Minding my own business. An asshole. Then another asshole who wouldn’t leave me alone. Then that fucking prick who shoved me because I didn’t want to take a goddamn picture with him.
Bad fucking idea.
Or maybe not. At least in here, I can’t hurt anybody else.
The damage is done.
Done and fucking over with.
I should have tried harder years ago. I should have never listened to Cathy. And as I sit in this hellhole, all I can do is replay the fucking conversation from six years ago over and over again. The conversation that convinced me to forget about Bristol for good.
“Hello?”
“Shug?”
“I’m sorry you have the wrong number.” Something sounds off with her voice.
“Bristol. It’s me.”
The woman laughs. “Hi, it’s me. This is Bristol’s mom, Cathy.”
“Cathy. It’s Vince. How are you? It’s been years.”
There’s a long, measured pause. “It has.”
“I was looking for Bristol.”
“I figured since you called her phone.” She chuckles but there’s something in the sound of it that has me sitting a little straighter. “How’d you get her number?”
I snort and run a hand through my hair. “It’s a long story.” Like how I spent hours scrolling through all my blocked numbers trying to find it to no avail. Then breaking down and calling Fairfield High School alumni committee to track down someone who might know it. “Is she there? Is it possible for me to talk to her?”
“She’s sleeping right now. Pulling double duty at the moment.”
Double duty? “Everything all right?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Then what is it?”
“Vince.” A sigh that doesn’t sound good. “You know I think the world of you, but I think it’s for the best if you forget this number.”