39. Hailey
For the first time since I started my business, I canceled my whole week of appointments. I even scheduled off for the week of Christmas. And I scheduled two weeks of vacation for next year and another week for next Christmas.
“It’s not much by European standards,” Astor reminds me.
“But we don’t live in Europe.”
“No, we don’t.” She gives me a smile and sets her notebook on her desk.
We’ve met for three sessions this week. Two for me, since I’m in crisis. One for her.
As she stands, I feel a lot less in crisis than I did at the beginning of the week.
“Oh, I forgot to ask. How’s your meditation going?”
I’d gotten off the wagon in the past couple of months and decided to make it a priority again.
“Besides the strange looks?” I smile. Something I’ve done more and more as the week goes, but nothing compared to…nothing compared to how much I smiled around Arlo.
Somehow, the pain of his absence has gotten deeper, sharper, more intense.
“Rightly so. Who meditates in a cemetery?” Astor grabs the file for her next client.
“I do.” I stand, smooth down my skirt, and then—very unladylike—adjust the bodysuit, threatening to rip me in half, vulva first.
“I know those things are in right now, but I haven’t been brave enough to give it a try.” Astor winces.
“It’s an at-your-own-risk adventure.” I wink. “You should wear one with fishnets to your final selection meeting at Crave.”
“I’d die before they took my coat.” Astor checks her phone. “Asshole,” she mutters.
“You’re number one?” I slip on my coat.
Astoroid Belt looks over her shoulder at me. “You could take him if you need a new adventure.”
“No more adventures for me. Just healing.” I kiss her cheek and head for the door.
“Why the cemetery?”
Her question comes when my hand hits the knob. I grab it tight for an anchor. “It’s a good reminder that life is worth living.”
“Are you living it?”
Those four words suck the air from my lungs. I whip around on my friend with an anger I haven’t felt in a long time.
“I’m trying,” I snap.
“Are you?” Her hands are folded neatly over her belly. Her voice is kind. Her words are not. “Or are you making excuses?”
My mouth falls open. Indignation demands I throw something about sex in her face to bring her down to my level. I hold on to my ugly words. Because she’s right. My knee-jerk reaction tells me all I need to know.
“I have been.” I haven’t spoken to Arlo in the longest week of my life. I haven’t faced my fears head-on. I’ve been making excuses about finding my center when I know where it is, and I know I can’t have it.
“Now that you’ve admitted it, you can try to change it.”
I nod, then turn and leave.
A cab stops for me on the corner. I slide in and close the door.
“Woodlawn Cemetery, please.”
He nods and takes off like a bat out of hell. I stare out the window, thinking about what Astor said.
Sometimes the rudest, most hurtful thing is the truth. And, in turn, what we need to hear more than platitudes and reassurances.
I lean my head back and close my eyes until the car jerks to a final halt.
“Forty-four fifty-two,” the driver barks.
It would have been cheaper to use the driving service. Only because my aunt refuses to let me pay for it. Yet something about the act of paying makes coming all the way out here more meaningful. So for the past five days, I’ve paid the price of admission, looking for some answers in the rolling green grass and rows of headstones.
Nothing has come yet.
I pay the driver and head for Matt’s grave with my head down, hunched against the almost December chill. I have to get through Thanksgiving first…without Nat. Astor invited me to her dad’s, but that means interacting with the approximately two hundred other people who’ll also be in attendance.
Don’t know if I’m up for that.
Maybe Plink and I will order in and watch trash TV, while I hope Arlo is celebrating with his friends.
My heart fucking cracks. I’m in a full sob by the time I reach Matt’s too fresh grave. The headstone won’t come in for months, and I hate it. But…
A bouquet of fresh flowers lies over the seeded dirt that won’t sprout until spring. The buds are vibrant and full of life against the backdrop of dirt. They’re such a dichotomy. Of course, in a week, the flowers won’t look quite so out of place.
I choke on my tears. My head jerks up, and I look left and right.
The place is deserted, save for one car in the distance. It’s a black Town Car, not unlike a few hundred thousand black Town Cars in the city. Still, my feet are moving toward it at an exceptional pace, considering the boots I’m wearing and the uneven maze I have to navigate.
I’m still fifty yards out or so when the driver’s door opens. A burly man I’ve seen a couple of times before steps out and stands next to his open door. When I’m a handful of yards away, the driver, who reminded me about my painting in the trunk the last time I saw him, hitches a thumb over his shoulder.
“Over top of the hill.” That’s all he says, then he slips back inside the warmth of the car.
My footsteps hurry to a near sprint until I crest the long, gradual slope. The beat of my heart reminds me that I haven’t been exercising regularly enough. Or maybe it has nothing to do with that and everything to do with…
“Arlo.”
I don’t say his name loudly at all. Still, he turns away from three matching headstones with three bouquets of flowers identical to the ones on Matt’s grave.
His knees hit the grass. The look of anguish on his stubble-covered face is more than I can bear.
I run faster than I’ve ever run before. I run like a murderer is hot on my heels when, in fact, I am one, and I’m running toward one. The cold wind whips my hair from my face and threatens to freeze my tears to my cheeks.
My arms go wide, and I dive into him.
Somehow, he holds us upright. His warmth wraps around me, and his lips pepper my temple and hair with kisses.
This isn’t how this is supposed to go.
I’m supposed to be explaining to him why we can’t be together. I’m supposed to point out all my issues and shortcomings. I’m supposed to make a clean cut for both of us.
His scent fills my nose. His weight and breadth fill all my empty crevasses. His kiss mends my broken heart. He feels so good in my arms; I don’t know how I’ll ever let him go.
I cling to him as though the world is going to split in two between our knees, and we have to hold it together to survive.
“I’m sorry, Hailey.” He kisses my head. “I’m sorry I made you afraid of me.” His heart beats wildly against mine as though he ran too.
My head shakes against his chest.
“You have nothing to be sorry for. You did nothing wrong.” I speak into his neck, unwilling to separate us even to see his face. “You were protecting me.”
His big hand stills my head. “No, if I had been protecting you, you wouldn’t have been on the ground, getting sick.”
“That’s my hang-up, Arlo. It’s not your fault.”
“My hang-up is that I took it too far.”
“That bastard deserves a broken jaw.”
“You don’t deserve to see it.” He kisses my brows and slowly pries my fingers from his back, easing his lips down my face.
I push away before he gets to my lips. If he kisses me, truly kisses me, there’s no way I can do what I have to.
His brows flatten. “If I’m so contrite and you’re so forgiving, why haven’t you let me see you?”
I hold his hands to my cheeks and draw a deep breath.
“I know you think I’m not broken, but the gala proved you wrong.” I place my fingers over his lips to keep him from speaking. “It was nothing more than an upscale bar brawl, something people encounter weekly through college, and I could not function at the sight of it.”
He kisses my finger. “You are not broken. You just have triggers that most people don’t.” Again, he kisses my finger. “I have triggers other people don’t. I freaked out and threw myself across the garage when you touched my head. It doesn’t mean that I’m broken. It means I need someone who understands it’s not something they did wrong. It’s about working through my shit.” He presses his lips to mine with my finger between us.
“Hailey,” he begs, “let me be here while you work through your shit.”
“What if…one day, you love me?—”
“I love you.”
I blink at him.
“I love you, Hailey.”
“No!” Tears flood my eyes.
“Yes, I do. And I promise never to use it against you.”
I’ve loved Arlo for a long time. I’ve never told him because of all my fears. “What if I never return that love?”
“You’re under no obligation.” He levers me back and makes me look into his ocean-deep eyes. “If you don’t feel the same way, if you never do, then I’ll still love you.”
“But—”
“But nothing. I’ll go about my life as I have for the last several decades and won’t burden you with my feelings.” He shrugs. “That’s what real love is. It’s what’s best for the person you love.”
My heart nearly implodes in my chest. My cheeks heat, and I’m sure he can see that I love him in my eyes. “What if I did love you, and then later, I didn’t?”
“Same rules apply.”
“What if I did love you, but I slept with someone else? Like my mother did.”
He releases me, and his hands go up.
There, I’ve gotten him. He could never deal with that.
I should feel triumphant that I’ve figured a way out of the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Instead, I feel like my stomach just fell out of my body and dragged my heart down with it.
The corners of his mouth tip up.
Mine gapes. No words come out. I don’t understand what’s going on in his head.
“I think it’s time you met my friends.” He grins.
“I met them at the gala.”
He makes a noncommittal sound. “Not really.”
“What do you mean, not really?”
“I have one more secret.” His thumb wipes at the corners of my eyes. “Let me show you, and then you can decide if I’m a wildly jealous meathead who can’t handle having a partner or if I simply demand that people treat you right.”
“I know you’re not, and I know you do.”
“Knowing and seeing are two very different things.” He brushes my hair back from my face and cups my cheeks. “Will you come with me?”
I have no idea what he’s talking about or where he wants me to go, but I’m nodding because I can’t seem to let go of him, much less his lapels.
“Who told you I’d be here?” I ask as I cling to him.
“No one.” He gestures toward his parents’ and brother’s graves.
“Arlo.” I hug him tight and bury my face against his neck.
“Someone told me you’d been frequenting the cemetery, not that you’d be here today,” he confesses with a kiss to my temple.
“Nat?” I guess.
“Hota.”
I lean back and really look at him. There’s mischief in his gaze. “Stalker.” He points at himself. “Stalkee.” He points at me.
“Sounds like Hota is my stalker, not you.” My head shakes, and my smile peeks out.
“I had meetings I couldn’t miss.” His lips quirk. “How does it feel to know you had your very own ninja bodyguard?”
I should hate the invasion. I should recognize it as a red flag. Yet…my entire body warms at the idea of being watched by Arlo and Hota.
“Stalked.” I poke his ribs. “And loved.”
“Very loved.” He kisses my cheek, then turns us toward the car.