I forgot sometimes. For a very brief moment in time, I would forget. I would forget I was broken. I was awarded a proverbial hall pass from my suffering. Then a shadow I wouldn’t recognize would come to pass behind me and I’d remember that not a single soul on Earth could fill the holes in my heart but me.
Sanctity was mine to choose, but wasn’t that the nature of things? Happiness was simply a choice, yet it was one I’d forgotten how to make.
“Charlie.” Dean kissed the bare skin of my back.
“Don’t.” I sat up, reaching for my sweater. “Only my family calls me that, and you lost that privilege years ago.”
My mind was catching up with me and I suddenly felt dirty.
“This was…”
Pulling my sweater over my head, I found my thong and shimmied it up my legs. “This was a mistake. You have to go.”
I stood and tried to avoid the way he sat naked on my floor like he belonged there.
“Are you serious?” The anger in his voice returned.
Picking up his clothes, one-by-one, I started throwing them at him. “Yes. Get out.”
Panic was crawling up my throat and I couldn’t look at him.
“You don’t forgive me.” He stood, stepping into his jeans.
I shook my head. “No.”
“This wasn’t a mistake,” he growled, and I swung around to face him.
“You don’t get it, do you?” I snapped. “You caught it by the handle, Dean, but I caught it by the blade.”
He slid his plaid up his arms. “I’ll still be here, Charlie. Like it or not, Monday to Friday for the next four months, you’ll see me every day.”
I threw his wallet at his chest.
“You find a way to deal with this, and when you do, I’ll still be there.” He shoved the leather into his back pocket and shoved his feet in his boots. “Whenever you get done hurting me back, I’ll still be here.”
I said nothing.
Walking to the front door, I yanked it open. “Goodbye, Dean.”
He leaned in to kiss my cheek and I pulled pack, making him wince.
“This isn’t over.”
I slammed the door on him.
I was the worst kind of lover. The kind that could surgically remove themselves from your life without a moment’s notice and no hesitation, leaving you to haemorrhage blood in every place my lips touched.
It was the only part of me I let them keep, the memories.
I severed affection like an infected limb. Sacrificing one for the majority.
I was like all wounded people, ruthless and calculated, with efficiency in self-preservation.
I wasn’t whole.
I was made of borrowed parts, little pieces of those I’d loved along the way that I claimed as my own.
I was patchwork.
“Let go, Charlie bear.”
Closing my eyes, I leaned against the wall. “I’m trying.”
“Forgiveness isn’t weakness.”
“I’m not ready,” I said into my empty apartment.
“You will be.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
Eight Weeks Later
“Don’t you think the water will be cold?” I called out to him as we ran down the porch stairs.
He laughed in the way I knew meant he found me amusing.
“You’re always so scared, Charlie bear.”
I threw my towel at the back of his head. “Am not.”
He ducked. “Are to.”
I ran, but he was always so much faster. Picking up my towel, he waved it around in the air. “Catch me if you can, ya big wuss!” he yelled.
“Give it back, Henry!” I chased him down into the sand.
He whipped the towel at my legs and I screamed in the way only little sisters do. Jumping into the water, he waded out with my towel above his head. “Come and get it then.”
He loved to tease me, to push my buttons.
I dipped one toe into the ocean water and jumped backwards. “It’s too cold for swimming!” I wailed.
“So what?” He shook his head at me, bemused.
I stomped my feet in the hard packed sand. “So I’ll freeze!”
Henry laughed. “It’s just water.”
I frowned but remained standing at the water’s edge. “I don’t want to be cold,” I pouted.
He waded in deeper, up to his ribcage. “You have to live a little,” he told me, shaking his head. “Life’s not that scary, Charlie bear.”
“Are you all right?”
I pulled my gaze from the window and smiled at Beau. “I’m better then all right.”
“Good.” He squeezed the hand he had on my knee and I rested my head on his shoulder.
We were on our fourth date, driving along the Seawall that surrounded Stanley Park. It was too cold at this time of year for anyone to be on the beach, but still I found my memories there.
I missed Henry.
I missed him all the time.
The weeks that had passed had been busy ones. We wrapped up both the Weizmann fundraiser and the party for Caroline Clarke at work. We were now ramping up in preparation for the holidays. Leighton and I had also decided on ten days in Mexico this year, much to Morgan’s dismay, and Kevin decided he’d join us.
We only had to make it through the rest of December first.