Chapter 24
brOOKS
BEFORE.
“Brooks, sit down with me.”
“I can’t,” I said as I leaned forward and brushed at the little amount of peach fuzz on the top of her head.
Amara smiled up at me, that smile just as beautiful as the first time I had seen her all those years ago. We had been sixteen, the both of us waiting at the DMV for our driver’s licenses. We might have gone to the same high school, but it wasn’t as if I had known every single person on our campus.
And so, while waiting next to the girl with gorgeous blue eyes, blonde hair, and a retainer that she kept playing with, I knew that I was in love.
I just hadn’t realized it was a love that was unending and broken until it was nearly too late.
“You should sit.”
“I need to go get you some water. I’ll be right back.”
I didn’t know why this panic kept gripping my chest. It wasn’t as if this was a new feeling. A new state.
My beautiful wife, the woman that I had loved for over a decade, was dying in front of my eyes and I could not stop it. I used my hands to build things for a living. I constructed things. I made them sturdy. My goal in life was to make sure that what I built could withstand the test of time.
And yet, I could not keep my wife safe. She was fading before my eyes, and I could not just sit here and watch it happen. I needed to be doing something.
But there was nothing I could do.
“I have water. Come and sit down. We need to finish our show. And I want to ask you something.”
And because I honestly could never say no to Amara, I sat down next to her, my hip against hers as I held her hand and ran my finger along her jaw.
“Let me get you your scarf. Your head must be getting cold.”
She continued to smile up at me, and I did not like the look in her eyes. The resignation. The knowing.
Stage IV breast cancer wasn’t always a death sentence. That’s what they kept telling me. But her cancer was aggressive and had spread to multiple areas of her body. That’s what Stage IV was, after all. She had done multiple rounds of chemo and had lost her hair more than once. Now it was growing back because she was on radiation. The radiation that left burns along her body around her ports. The allergy she had developed to the adhesive having ripped off chunks of skin that were now being burned by the same medicine that was supposed to keep her alive.
I had no idea how Amara could do this. How she could keep so strong in the face of what was to come.
I was weak. Breaking inside, and yet my wife could withstand anything. That’s what she kept telling me.
My wife smiled at me, the dark circles under her eyes deepening. “Before we start the show, I want to ask you something.”
Again, I couldn’t say no to her. I never could before. And sure as hell not now. “What is it, Baby? What can I do for you?”
“You always ask that. And you always say anything. But I’m going to ask something very scary. Can you do that for me?”
I froze, the lump in my throat making it difficult to breathe. “What is it? I’ll do it. Anything you want.” As long as it kept her here with me, I would do anything.
“I really need you to think about this. I need you to promise me that you’ll think about what I’m saying and then promise me you’ll do it.”
“Just tell me, Amara. I promise, I’ll do whatever you say.”
“Don’t regret those words.” She squeezed my hand, and the energy sparked back into her eyes, the energy that I had been missing all these years.
Clawing panic squeezed my throat, but I tried not to let it show. I needed to be the strong one, because Amara was allowed to break down. She didn’t at the hospital, didn’t in front of her friends, but she was allowed to in front of me.
So I had to be the strong one.
“When I’m gone?—"
“No,” I cut her off. “No, we’re not going to say those words.”
“Brooks. I love you with all of my heart. But you know that it’s not going to be much longer.”
Another crevice opened up in my heart and I raged against whatever god would listen. “Amara. I’m going to yell. And you know I don’t yell at you.” My voice cracked, but she ran her fingers over my hand in answer.
“When I’m gone, I want you to clean out this house. Don’t look at the boxes of bandages and scarves. Don’t look at the house that has become my comfort and your horror.”
“Amara.”
I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say, though, and she squeezed my hand even harder. But there wasn’t enough strength in that hand. Everything was breaking inside me, and I hated myself. It should be me in that bed. It should be me wasting away, but it wasn’t. It was the sweetest girl I had ever met instead.
“I need you to promise me that you’ll try.”
“Amara,” I said again, this time the tears freely flowing.
“Find love again. It’s not fair. Life isn’t fair . I don’t know what’s coming next, and I am being so mean to you right now. But I need you to move on.”
“Don’t you make me promise that. I’m not going to. You can’t fucking ask me to do that.” Every ounce of rage at her cancer coursed through me in that moment, and I couldn’t catch my breath.
“But I can. It’s the cancer prerogative.” She smiled, but I couldn’t reciprocate. That had been our running joke between us. Because when she needed ice cream or needed me to do something that I really didn’t want to do, we mentioned the cancer prerogative. It was ridiculous, but sometimes we needed to find the humor in the hell. There would be nothing left if we didn’t.
“No. Not this time.”
“Brooks. My love. My best friend. Please. Try. Go out on dates. Find another woman. We both know that it’s just been the two of us.”
I swallowed that lump in my throat, nodding. We had both been sixteen-year-old virgins when we had gotten together, meaning the two of us had only slept with each other. And in my mind, that was how it was going to be. My one and only.
“You can’t ask this of me.”
Amara wasn’t crying, but I was. I wasn’t sure if she’d practiced this speech, or she was so dehydrated she couldn’t cry anymore. “But I can. Don’t die with me, Brooks. I need you to find that happy ever after.”
“You’re my happy ever after, Amara. That’s what we promised.”
“And I’m going to break that promise. I’m going to love you for the rest of my life. And I hate that I know it’s not long enough. Love me, Brooks. Love me for all your years. But I also need you to do something else. Live. Find someone that loves you just as much as I do.”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“It might. Your heart is so big, Brooks. You take care of your brothers. You take care of me. You have so much in you. Let someone take care of you for once. Don’t give up on life because life is giving up on me.”
Damn this woman. She’d always been good with words when I got lost in my head. And now every word cut like a knife.
“I hate you right now,” I growled.
“No you don’t.” Her smile softened, her shoulders relaxing.
I leaned over and brushed my knuckle along her too thin cheek. “You’re right. Because I could never hate you. But I love you so much. You can’t make me promise that.”
“But I’m going to make you anyway.”
Tears streamed down my cheeks, and I leaned forward, pressing my lips to her chapped ones. “I promise,” I lied.
And then I laid down next to my wife, and held her as we watched a movie, and I tried not to think of that promise.
Amara died three weeks later. And as I stood in my backyard, her ashes on the mantle inside, I swore that while I loved my wife, and would always do so, I was going to break our final promise.
Because I would never love anyone like I loved my wife. I didn’t have it in me.
* * *
ONE YEAR LATER.
I was drunk. The amount of whiskey in my system was probably an issue. But I needed all of the alcohol. Every ounce in this bar if I had to. I couldn’t be at home for this, and I didn’t want to. I had already ignored the countless phone calls. The sad looks from our neighbors.
We all knew what today was.
I lost my wife one year ago today, and drinking wasn’t going to bring her back.
But maybe I could pretend for this moment.
I was at an airport hotel bar of all places, having driven hours just to get out of my neighborhood, get out of the places that reminded me of the woman that I loved.
Somehow I had ended up near a major airport, and figured I would get on a plane and go somewhere. I didn’t know where. I had a bag, and I’d fly somewhere. Do something spontaneous and uncaring. Anything that wasn’t Brooks Wilder. For now, I would spend the night in this airport bar and think of something to do next. And get drunk.
“Another,” I said into the din, and the bartender nodded, filling up my glass. Someone sat next to me, but I didn’t bother to look over. The place was busy, people milling about, waiting for the hours to pass before they could go to sleep, and then hitch a ride onto the shuttle.
I knew that I wasn’t making any sense. I was just going wherever the wind blew me. Only I didn’t want to stand still. Because standing still would mean I would have to think of Amara.
“A glass of rosé please,” a soft voice said from beside me, and I saw a woman out of the corner of my eye lower her shoulders in a deep sigh.
The bartender shook his head. “Sorry, we don’t have any of that. White or red.”
“Then how about whatever he’s having,” she said, using her thumb to point toward me.
The bartender immediately poured her two fingers of whiskey, and she nodded, before tilting her glass toward mine.
“Cheers.”
I didn’t feel like adding to that, but before I could say so or move my glass, she knocked back the entire glass in one sip and didn’t even shudder.
Well, damn.
“Another please,” she said, and the bartender gave us a look, before shrugging and pouring us some more. “You really don’t have good taste in whiskey, but thanks,” the woman muttered next to me, and I didn’t really know why she was talking to me, but I continued to drink.
And again.
And again.
* * *
NOW.
I sat on a wooden bench that I had built with my own hands, staring off into the land that my family now owned. I was born a Wilder, but now I was a Wilder with my brothers and cousins, building something that meant something.
The sun was starting to set, and it was about damn time since it was nearly nine o’clock. I never really realized how close to the equator South Texas was. Well, it wasn’t that close, but far closer than up north.
Someone sat next to me on the bench, breaking me out of my geography reverie, and by the vanilla scent hitting my nose, I knew exactly who it was.
“I don’t really want to talk,” I growled, annoyed with myself for speaking first.
“I know you don’t.” Rory didn’t say anything else, and the two of us stared off into the distance, the sun taking its damn time to set beyond the horizon.
“Why are you here?” I asked, not speaking of this bench. But this town, this retreat.
“Because I have nowhere else to go.”
And with that kind of answer, I didn’t have much to say, so I sat next to the first woman that I had slept with after my wife had died, and didn’t say a damn word.
And I swore I could hear Amara whisper in the wind, “Try. For me.”
And I cursed under my breath and ignored that vanilla scent.
I had been drunk and had slept with someone who wasn’t my wife. It didn’t matter that Amara had been gone.
I’d broken something inside, broken everything.
And I still wouldn’t keep my promise.