Six Morning Kisses
Chapter 1
Chapter One
HAPPILY EVER AFTER
Bancroft
I’m staring down the path at the brightly painted front door like it will magically open on its own.
If I stand here long enough maybe it will. He’ll notice, opening the door with that all-knowing smile. Leaving me with no choice but to cross the threshold through the currently closed front gate and walk the rest of the way up the path where he will greet me with the same obligatory kiss one comes to expect.
Unless, of course, he’s in the basement buried away. Hiding from the reality of it all. He probably is. He has been.
God–I’m such a hypocrite. Hiding is exactly why I haven’t taken a step. Why I’ve been ignoring his calls. Because I knew that as soon as I answered he would hear it in my first breath, and I wasn’t ready to admit it yet. Too scared of what it all means when I tell him the truth about my plans.
My fingers wrap around the wrought iron gate as I look across the front lawn. The front garden looks impossibly green, like someone's been spending way too much time nurturing it lately. Probably as a coping mechanism, thinking maybe it would be different if he could just keep the basil alive.
They say the grass is always greener, and from where I’m standing, it certainly looks like it.
The late summer heat is making my sundress stick to my back, and somewhere nearby I can hear birds judging my life choices, making a mockery of me not walking into my own house, and realize my grip has tightened around the gate the way it often does when I grip the steering wheel trying to motivate myself to go inside after a long day at work.
Come on, Bancroft, just fucking do it. One foot in front of the other. Basic human skill. You've got this.
I take a breath, pushing the gate open and I hear it creak with memories I wasn’t prepared to think about now. Thanks for that, gate. Really helpful. So I take a step to escape them. Then another and another, finally climbing the handful of stairs and landing right in front of that goddamned painted front door. Like I needed the reminder of this all-consuming love.
This house used to be perfect, I remember when it was. There was a time it used to feel like an old Nancy Meyers movie, just the right amount of chaos, lived in sofas with indentations of me curled up with a book.
I’ve walked through this doorway more times than I can count, but not more than I can remember. And like all the times before, the smell of home overwhelms me. Down the hallways lined with pictures, my life is framed on these walls. I think about what I thought it would be. I was wrong, and now I have to suck it the fuck up and just fucking tell him once and for all.
I’m leaving.
“Hello?” Not exactly a scream, but it will carry down the narrow hallways and find him wherever he is hiding, though he used to never hide from me, we’d hide together. The hurried footsteps racing up the stairs means he’s as shocked that I’m here as I am fucking petrified to be here.
He rounds the corner to where I’m sitting at the kitchen counter and I force a smile. He said I could always come home, but turning up without notice feels wrong now. I bite my lip to assuage the anxiety and he spots it.
"Sterling," I say, trying for stern but landing somewhere around about-to-emotionally-combust.
"Bancroft," he replies with matching faux-severity, but there’s more concern in it as he asks ‘What are you doing here?’
He knows.
Well, he knows something.
“I need to talk to you.” I might be buzzing with nerves, but his tell is just as visible in response. I can see it on his hand. His thumb spins the gold band on his ring finger and my hand reaches for the diamonds on mine. These two rings forged for the same reasons, now missing each other in separation.
“Then let’s talk.” He pulls out the stool next to me after making a fresh cup of tea for both of us. The small comfort he always offers. Lemon for him, sugar for me.
And it all poured out of me. All the things I’d been too afraid to tell him. He didn’t interrupt, didn’t say anything. He just let me speak. And I did. I think I blacked out as I explained it. This wasn’t the way I imagined things, as he always told me to imagine things. But here I am. Telling him that I’m moving across the country. That I’m leaving, him .
He pulls me in for a hug, and I cry on his shoulder as I have over so many things before. I feel his chest inhale a deep breath. It’s unfair for him to be the one to comfort me now that I’m scared to go. But when he says things, I believe him, I’ve always believed him, maybe it’s why I’m so terrified now, knowing whatever he would say might not be honest, but it would feel like it is.