Chapter Twenty-Eight
EVENTUALLY, WE PEEL ourselves off the floor and leave the new house. Ezra Crawford, Zach’s bodyguard, is waiting with the car service that will take me to my apartment before returning Zach to the Chateau.
“Stay with me,” I say as the car idles on the street next to my building. “Stay the night.”
Zach nods and makes arrangements with Ezra and the driver to come back for him at four a.m. We go upstairs. No sooner is the door shut than Zach is hauling me to him. For the entire ride over to my place, a quiet determination had settled over him. Everything he does is quietly powerful, and his inherent dignity speaks louder than any bluster. I have no doubt that he would defend me if I were ever in danger, protect me if someone threatened me, or stand up for me if I needed him to.
But tonight, he’s going to take what he wants.
Now that we’re alone, that power has morphed into a possessive need as he kisses me hot and hard. Neither of us speak; the only sounds are our breaths rasping in our noses and the little moans of want Zach is drawing out of me with every sucking pull of his mouth.
Within moments, he’s got me out of my clothes and then out of his own and is lying over me. He wastes no time but enters me in one hard thrust. I cry out and grasp his shoulders, nails digging. He nods in approval, his expression unlike any I’ve seen him wear: dark and intent, his handsomeness now all angles and edges of need. I can feel the power in his body, straining with pent-up anger and pain.
“Yes,” I whisper, spreading my legs wider, letting him have me. “Give it to me. Let me take it. Make me take it.”
His eyes, black in the dimness of my studio, flare, and he rises up on his left arm while his right hand grips my hip. Every muscle in his arms and torso is taught—finely cut and honed—and working in concert to hold me against his thrusts that are hard and deep. Time stretches and bends; I feel as if I’m in another dimension where there is only this—him over me and inside me, and my body taking everything he can give.
My breath catches as a sudden tsunami of an orgasm crashes over me while Zach’s hips slam into mine. The veins in his arms are standing out, his jaw set as he works me over. I’ve never felt anything like the waves of pleasure coursing through me, and yet he doesn’t stop.
“Come now,” I breathe, my hands reaching for him, tangling in his hair. “Come in me, Zach. Please…”
He makes a sound deep in his chest and thrusts a final time, his head thrown back, the cords in his neck drawn tight. He stays there a moment, emptying hotly into me, and then he slowly sinks down. I wrap him up tight as his chest heaves with his breath, his heart pounding in time to mine.
We lie entwined for a few beats, then he pulls out to lie beside me. In a few hours, he’ll be gone from my bed, too, to face an ugly scene that might change the course of his life. Our lives, because I’m in it for the long haul. But for now, I hold him, keep him tight to me as we both drift to a heavy sleep.
Zach is gone when I wake, but there’s a note on my bedside table.
Rowan,
I love you with all that I am.
Be home soon.
~Zach
“With all that I am,” I murmur with a smile, but the word I circle with my fingertip is home . I haven’t had a whole one of those since I was thirteen years old. I send a silent prayer up to anyone listening to get Zach through this storm and back to me as soon as possible, and then get busy handling my own business.
I’m showered, dressed, and heading out the door before I realize I haven’t had a panic attack over the idea of moving in with Zach. At Dr. Baldwin’s office, it’s the first thing I tell her when I take my seat in the “crying chair.”
“I’ve made this mistake before,” I tell her. “Thinking I’m okay when I’m not. And given how much has happened in two short days, I’d be an idiot to think it’s not going to bite me in the ass.”
Dr. Baldwin leans forward in her chair. She’s wearing lavender today with green and gold jewelry. “Tell me what’s happened.”
Without naming names or giving identifying clues, I tell her that my boyfriend’s ex is insinuating on social media that she’s pregnant. And that said boyfriend is flying across the country this morning to confront her after asking me to move in with him the night before.
“That is a lot,” Dr. Baldwin says, unperturbed. “When you consider everything, what is the issue that rises to the forefront of your feelings?”
“None of that,” I say, surprised. “I’m all in with him. What scares me is that the guilt hasn’t budged, no matter how okay I am, or how in love with Zach—his name’s Zach.”
“I’m forbidden to share anything outside this room.”
I heave a breath. “Whatever happens with Zach and his ex, I can take it. But the deeper I get with him, the more I feel like I’m betraying Josh and leaving him behind.”
“You once told me you believed he’d want that for you. To be happy.”
“I know he would, but it’s still hard to accept. And his mother…”
“What about his mother?”
“She texts me. A lot. And we visit his grave at least once a month, but I’ve been pushing her off since February.”
Dr. Baldwin frowns. “How does it make you feel when she texts?”
“Resentful. Then I feel like shit, because it’s the least I can do. He’s her only son and he died because of me…”
Now the tears and regret I thought had given me a pass come roaring up. Dr. B hands me a tissue while I cry until my stomach aches.
“If you’re ready,” Dr. B says, “we need to address the night of Josh’s death. In depth.”
I nod and tell her everything that happened—not the sanitized version from our first session, but everything. And it’s another purging. Words I’ve kept locked up for years come pouring out. Not even J.J. knows the particulars. The blood in the street, his broken head in my lap. His shoe…
Dr. Baldwin listens with a focus that makes me feel like my feelings are important. And safe.
“Does it give you relief to tell me all this?”
“Yes and no,” I say, sucking in a shaky breath. “I feel better, but it’s so obvious that he’d still be alive if he hadn’t gone to get me that goddamn hoodie.”
“This is the program you’ve been running your entire life,” Dr. Baldwin says. “An equation with three factors that arrive at an inevitable conclusion, yes? The way I’m hearing it, the three factors are you, Josh, and the car that struck him.”
I nod.
“Were there other nights like the one you’ve just described? Where Josh ran across the street for you?”
“God, a hundred,” I say tearfully. “He was so considerate. Always bringing me a snack or even a full meal because my mom was so out of it.”
Dr. Baldwin nods. “Because he was your boyfriend. He frequently did things for you and I’m sure you did things for him.”
“Yeah,” I say slowly. “I tried. I didn’t have much to give.”
“You were in a relationship. He loved you and you loved him.”
“Yes,” I whisper, the tears falling.
Dr. B’s voice is gentle but intent. “This entire time, you’ve been operating on that equation and its three factors—you, Josh, the car. Your equation says that of those three elements, you are the cause of Josh’s accident. You are the factor that drives it to its final conclusion. Your fault. You.”
I nod slowly. “Yes.”
“But you and Josh were a pair. A unit. Many nights, he ran across the street to get something for you, and he wasn’t hit by a car. A hundred nights, you said. Every night but one.” Dr. Baldwin leans forward. “Was he ever going to stop doing that?”
“No,” I murmur, and I feel the tight bands around my chest begin to loosen.
“No,” she agrees. “The night he died became The Night because it was the last night. The night that trumped all the rest. The night that created the equation. But the anomaly that caused the tragedy wasn’t you, it was the car. It was the factor introduced into the equation of you and Josh and changed it forever. You and Josh were the constant.” She shakes her head. “And you were his common denominator, Rowan. Not the outlier.”
The tears are pouring out of me so hard, I’m afraid I’m going to pass out. My hands grow cold and numb, and I hear a low, groaning noise. It takes me a moment to realize it’s coming from me.
Dr. Baldwin pulls me to my feet, and I’m engulfed in her hug. It’s every bit as warm, comforting—motherly—as I imagined and then some. I cling to her, my tears dampening the shoulder of her silk blouse. She strokes my hair and murmurs soothing things in my ear until I’m able to pull myself together. Then I slump back into the chair while she gets me more tissues and a glass of water.
She sits across from me. “How does that feel? That reframe?”
I look to her, my voice raw and hoarse. “I feel like I can breathe. For the first time in years, I can breathe and just…be. Live my life without an asterisk. I’m not done yet, I know. But I have something impossibly good in Zach and I’m going to love him better now and maybe stop questioning that I deserve this happiness.”
“That is the best thing I could hear, Rowan,” Dr. Baldwin says. “But you’re right, the work’s not done.”
“No, there’s something I have to do.”
It’s a beautiful late afternoon by the time I arrive at Griffin Park Cemetery. I walk a familiar path, up a small hill, past rows of gravestones. Some with fresh flowers, some with wilted flowers, some with none at all. I carry sunflowers, Josh’s favorite.
Carol Bennett is already at Josh’s grave, sitting in one of two fold-out chairs. As usual, the other is reserved for me. She’s wearing pants, sneakers, and a pink sweater. A fresh bouquet of sunflowers is already laid over Josh’s grave.
Usually, for these visits, we chat about my on-hold life, running errands on movie sets, and doing little else. And we talk about her fractured life, one that carries on but is damaged, taped together with the flimsiest of adhesives.
She doesn’t look at me as I approach, lay my flowers, and take the seat beside her.
“Hi, Mrs. Bennett.”
“Rowan,” she says.
I suck in a breath. “I’m really sorry I—”
“You don’t have to be sorry,” she says. “I understand. Finally, after all these years, I understand. I’ve not been fair to you.”
I sit back in the chair. “I wasn’t expecting you to say that.”
She nods, her eyes on her son’s grave—his name and the dates. A beginning and an end with a dash of life in between.
“I’ve been doing a lot of work on myself,” Carol says. “Asking for help when you think the problem can never be fixed feels pointless, but Graham saw what I couldn’t see.” She looks at me now. “I know that you’ve been wanting —needing —to move on, to live your life, and I’ve been like an anchor, holding you back. I could feel you start to go, so I grabbed onto your ankle, dragging you down as you tried to take even one step forward.”
“It’s not just you, Carol,” I say. “I had a lot of stuff to work through before I felt like I could move.”
“But I was no help.” She sighs. “When you didn’t answer my texts and stopped visiting, I was upset. Because when you lose a child, one of the things they don’t tell you is that the speed at which the world moves on will give you whiplash. It feels like a slap in the face. But it’s impossible to ask for it to stop spinning and give you a moment to catch a breath, even if you so badly need it to. And so you watch everyone else pick up and carry on, but you just can’t. Nothing will ever be the same. There’s not only the pain of his absence but the absence of a future. Josh’s future and mine as his mother, as the grandmother to his children.”
Carol dabs her eye.
“I thought I had a partner in you, Rowan. Both of us mourning him so completely, we couldn’t let go. I couldn’t let you go but I will. You should be able to live your life and love again, have your own children if you want them. I’m not going to get in the way of that.”
“Thank you,” I say, and feel another heavy weight lift off my heart. “But I’m not walking away. There’s a part of me that will always love Josh. He’s the one who taught me how. He cracked open my brittle heart when I wanted the rest of the world to keep out. I’ll see you again, Mrs. Bennett, and we’ll come here and remember him. He isn’t going to be forgotten.”
“Thank you, Rowan. That is the best gift I could ever receive.”
She reaches her hand out to me, and I take it, and we sit like that for a long time. Until a light breeze wafts over us, carrying a blue butterfly. It alights on Josh’s headstone.
“Oh, look at that,” his mother says. “Isn’t that lovely?”