Missing Pieces - Chapter 28
Tyler
Wednesday
"Hailey," I whispered against the back of her neck.
My stomach was twisted in knots. I tried to tell her I couldn't come back with her last night.
The problem was that I wanted to. I wanted to go back to Indiana and figure it out one step at a time like she said.
It wasn't an option though. Three years.
I would never ask her to wait three years.
I breathed in the smell of her. Today she smelled more like roses than cinnamon.
It was the sweetest smell in the world. I wanted to stop time.
Somehow, I was always a little too late.
With Penny I was too late. If I had met her a few days before her husband, maybe she would have ended up with me.
With Hailey I was too late too. If I had met Hailey four days sooner, maybe I wouldn't have been motivated to suddenly change my whole life.
I could have gone back with her. I wish it didn't feel like I was throwing my life away, but it did now, now that I didn't feel so alone.
I should have just told her about basic training. I didn't mean to lead her on, but I knew that I had. She thought I was thinking about coming back with her. When in reality, it wasn't even an option. I slipped my hand off her skin and rolled away from her in the bed.
I had royally fucked up. She had asked me if I had ever intentionally broken anyone's heart.
Now I was worried that I was doing it to her.
And that was the last thing I wanted to do.
She deserved so much more than I could offer.
She deserved better than me. It felt like I needed her though.
Before we had run into each other, I had given up.
She made me feel better. It was greedy of me to need her.
It wasn't right. So why the hell did it feel so right?
Even though the sun hadn't risen yet, I climbed out of bed and pulled on a pair of athletic shorts.
Hailey moaned in her sleep. It was the softest, cutest noise in the world. Everything this girl did seemed to get to me. All I wanted to do was climb back in bed and hold her in my arms. But I couldn't get used to that. A future between us was never going to happen. I pulled on a pair of socks.
"What are you doing?"
I turned around. Hails was sitting up in bed, the sheets clutched in her hand, barely covering her naked breasts. She looked so beautiful. The moonlight streaming through the blinds made her eyes sparkle in the darkness. She was breathtaking.
I realized I had been staring at her and cleared my throat. "Going for a run. Go back to sleep."
She glanced out the window. "It's the middle of the night, Tyler."
I didn't really have anything to say to that.
Telling her I was trying to run away from my feelings for her wasn't exactly a reason I felt like sharing.
I turned away from her instead and picked up my sneakers.
There was nothing to say. I needed to run because I was frustrated. And honestly, I was scared to death.
"Can you...come back to bed for just a few minutes?"
Reluctantly, I turned back toward her. I immediately realized that I had mistaken the sparkle in her eyes. It wasn't from the moonlight. She was crying. No one should look that beautiful when they were crying.
She wiped underneath her eyes. "Sorry, I just...I had a bad dream. And I thought...well, never mind." She wiped underneath her eyes again.
I dropped my sneakers on the floor and climbed back into bed. Seeing her cry made my chest ache. It completely trumped the twisted feeling in my stomach. I just wanted to make her happy. I wasn't sure when that had become the most important thing to me, but it was. I pulled her into my arms.
She immediately pressed her face against my chest as she wrapped her arms around me. She clung to me like she needed me. I closed my eyes. God, I needed her too.
"It's okay," I said and ran my fingers through her hair. "It was just a dream."
She shook her head. "I'm sorry, I just keep having it over and over again. And when I wake up I think it's real." Her cold tears trickled down my chest.
"What is the dream about?" I kissed the top of her head. I still wanted her to open up to me. Even though I knew how one sided that was, because I hadn't opened up to her either.
She didn't say anything for a few minutes.
I took her silence as her not wanting to talk about it. "It's okay, Hails. It was just a dream."
She shook her head again, smearing her tears against my chest. "You've never told me about your family. Tell me about them."
I pressed my lips together as I looked down at the top of her head. "It's just me and my mom."
She looked up at me. Her eyes were still teary. "Are your parents divorced?"
"Um...no." I ran my hand down her back. "My dad actually passed away a few years ago. Well, not really a few anymore. Five years ago."
She pulled away from me. "Shit, Tyler I'm so sorry."
"It's okay. You couldn't have known." Because I don't talk about it.
"I'm so sorry."
"It's fine, Hails."
"What happened? If you don't mind me asking, that is."
I didn't really want to talk about it. But she had stopped crying. I didn't want her to start again. "It was a car accident."
She nodded. "Were you two close?"
"Yeah, we were."
She was starting to blink fast, like she was about to cry again. She reached out and splayed her fingers against the left side of my chest, right on top of my heart. "Sometimes the worst things happen to the best people."
We just stared at each other. Something unspoken seemed to settle around us. She was everything good. I certainly didn't feel that way about myself. But she seemed to see it in me. That warmed me to the core.
She let her hand fall from my chest as she snuggled in close to me again. "Is that why you said your biggest fear was dying?" Her breath was warm against my skin.
"Yeah, I guess." The lie came out before I could even stop it.
The truth was more complicated than that.
I learned a lot from my dad's death. But it was mostly to live each day to the fullest. To go after what you really wanted.
I looked down at the girl lying on my chest. Maybe that's why I was scared of death now.
I couldn't go after what I really wanted.
Because what I wanted was Hailey. I was terrified of dying in combat without ever knowing what my life with her could have been.
"Thank you for staying."
I wanted to tell her I wasn't going anywhere. That I could be there whenever she needed someone to catch her when she fell. But that couldn't be me. Instead, I just held her until she fell asleep again. Then I slipped back out of bed and went for a run while dawn was just starting to break.