Their Love Nest

9. Bear

NINE

The sun is still out.

And I have a beer in my hand. I’m purely a social drinker. Unless I’m at the bar, or at a big cookout or party, I don’t see much point to it.

Now I understand.

You want that numbness. Something to make the pain feel not so intense.

I have no idea how it’ll work, but I’m there, on the back porch, watching the sunset.

Alone.

I kick my feet up, trying to distract myself from the thoughts plaguing me.

The loneliness.

It’s so strong. Especially as I experienced what it”s like to be with someone. To want them so intensely, and not just for the sex. I miss her smile, her laugh, her wit. I miss everything about her.

I don’t want to hurt her.

Maybe I already did.

I tell myself the hurt is less here than if I kept trying to let her in.

A quick cut to the heart rather than a brutal gash.

Still hurts. Still makes me want her.

Marriage is a sham, I remind myself. Not just my mom. All the stories of broken hearts and homes, of people betraying one another, sometimes even stories of violence.

I want to say I would never do such things to a woman. That I would be forever faithful, that I would always be a loving husband.

Everyone holds themselves to such high standards. Would I be foolish to think that I’m immune to such things?

I wonder when it gets around to really numbing the pain.

There’re footsteps in the house. I assume it”s Char, given she does have a key, and a thief would have to be a damn fool to bother breaking and entering such a remote house.

“Hey, Savvy,” I hear her on the phone saying. “Yeah, I just got back from the city.”

I take another sip, continuing to listen in.

“Yeah, the job’s there if I want it. I just need to figure out how I’m going to do it if I take it. I can’t stay here, it’s an almost three-hour drive. That’s way too much of a commute.”

There’s a deep pit forming in my heart.

She’s leaving.

She’s abandoning me.

“Yeah, I’m going to need to talk about it with him. I have no idea how he’ll take it. That’s the thing I’m afraid of.”

I made her afraid of me? I never wanted to hear that.

I never wanted to hurt her. To harm her. Yet somehow I did anyway.

I grip the glass bottle tighter. Why should I care so much? We both know what this was. It was a fling.

Lust. Not love. I’m not cut out for love, and I’m a damn fool for ever thinking that I was.

“I don’t know if I want to go. I’ve really enjoyed my time out here, Savvy. You and Hunter have been such kind hosts, and Bear... Bear’s meant the world to me.”

What the hell is she talking about?

“I just don’t know what to do with him. I think I love him. I want to say I know I love him. But he can’t get over his fears that he’s just going to be his father again. That he’s going to hurt me, that he’s going to make my life miserable, and to scar me for life.”

I sit up in my chair and stare down at my bottle.

“He’s too sweet to do any of those things. He’s not his father. Nothing about him doing such things is inevitable. But if he can’t see that, I can’t make him see it. I want to be here with him, but if he can’t come around, I can’t stay. If I’m going to be alone and unloved, I rather be alone, unloved, and paid.”

What do I do? The scenarios played out in my head: thinking she’s ungrateful, that she’s treating me like a doormat. I remember those words. Those are the words my father tried to feed me about my mother.

“I got a lot to think about. I’ll talk to you later, Savvy.”

They were all nonsense. And yet, despite all my pledges to not be him, here I am slipping into his mold.

I stopped myself though. I can be better than that. I can move on.

I need to adapt. Change.

Before I make a terrible mistake.

I set the bottle down.

The back door is cracked open, the whole reason I could hear her conversation so well. I step in, and see Char putting stuff away in the fridge.

“Charlene.” My voice is steadier, stronger than it’s been talking to her, for quite some time.

But I end up making her jump up out of her skin as she turns around to see me. “Bear! I didn’t think you were home.”

“My truck is in the garage. And I was on the back porch trying to make a horrible mistake. I failed.”

“Uh, glad you did?”

I cross my arms. “So you’re leaving, huh?”

“You overheard my conversation with Savvy?”

I nod.

She takes a deep breath. “The follow-up interview went well. They want me as soon as possible. I told them I need to figure something out if I’m going to work there.”

“Do you want this job, Char?”

She goes silent. “Yes and no. I don’t want to leave, Bear. I want to stay here with you. I feel things for you that are so intense that it hurts me to think of a life without you. But if you’re going to keep being cold to me, if you’re going to be so fearful of any kind of commitment that you won’t even look at me? I don’t want to be around that either. I rather try to make something else happen in the city than just sit here, waiting for you to figure out if you can let yourself love me.”

There”s tears in her eyes. She doesn’t want to do this. She doesn’t want to leave.

And I don’t want her to cry.

My heart pounds for her. I need her. I need her so damn hard that it’s overpowering. If I let her go, I’m never going to live it down. I’m going to be lonely and miserable, turning into a hateful old man who drinks whiskey before noon. Without Char’s sunshine, I’m hopeless.

I go to her. I wrap my arms around her, and look her right in the eyes. “Let’s give it our all, Char. Something might go wrong. We might change. Either of us could have a brain aneurysm and just drop dead, powerless to stop fate. But we’re both going to hate ourselves if we don’t give this a chance.”

She nods, a smile on her face, the first one I’ve seen in a long time. “So you’re not going to push me away for dumb reasons anymore? You’re going to give our relationship a real chance?”

“We need to talk. We need to communicate. Sometimes it’ll take a bit to get through my dense skull, but I hope that you can see past me being dumb sometimes. And I’ll try to get past being dumb to make things work.”

“Hey, I assure you, I can be dumb sometimes too. It’s a two way street, buddy.”

“You’re perfect though. And I won’t hear otherwise.”

“I strongly disagree.”

“Then we’re just going to have to agree to disagree, babe. But I’m going to make this work. Stay with me, and let’s build something wonderful together.”

She nods. “I love you, Bear. With all of my heart, and with all of my soul.”

“And I love you. If it was anything less than love, I’d have let you slip through my fingers.”

I hold her tightly. I’m not letting go of her.

I almost made a terrible mistake, because I feared making a commitment.

But all I got is love and the present.

Whatever the future brings, I’ll deal with it when it gets here.