Chapter 17
Lana
Adull orange swirls around in the dark blue sky, brightening it with each passing minute.
I woke up in my bed around three thirty a.m., courtesy of Christian.
And his arms—such nice arms. It had been so nice to fall asleep on him again, listening to the way his heart beats like a lullaby.
It was like rediscovering your favorite song and now you’ll play it every day, restart it before it even ends, and sing to yourself wherever you are, whatever you’re doing.
But when I tried to go back to sleep after he brought me to my bedroom, it was impossible.
I felt restless enough to read half a book. I tried stretches I learned from online yoga and pilates, listened to and watched ASMR videos—none of it worked.
Then I cried into my pillow because I knew it was the best remedy to put me to sleep. He was asleep in my guest room downstairs and I couldn’t go there. No matter how much I wanted to, he’s in the guest room for a reason.
Christian placed a boundary, a murky one, and despite having held him to sleep several weeks ago—it isn’t the same.
He brought me up to my room to enforce that boundary, and I won’t push it.
I won’t try to again, no matter how badly he makes me want to.
No matter how good he kisses me or touches me.
So instead of going to his room, I kept pacing. And now, at six a.m., I’m here on the sofa on my patio, watching the sunrise from behind the green hills of Maine.
I spin the ring on my left middle finger, around and around.
I haven’t taken it off since the day he gave it to me four years ago.
It was a promise ring at first, one I wore on my right hand.
Then there was a night I was asleep in our bed that he took it off and I woke up crying because I thought I lost it.
Later that day, he took me out to dinner at one of our favorite Puerto Rican restaurants in town. We ate and laughed, but my heart was in my stomach all night because I still couldn’t find my ring. Until Christian pulled it out of his pocket and held it out to me between his thumb and forefinger.
I was both upset and relieved, but then he said, “I know I gave this to you last month as a gift. A promise ring, I guess.” I chuckled tearfully then, unsure of what he had planned. “But I want to give it to you again, with a different promise, Lana.”
“What’s the promise?” I croaked.
“I promise I’m going to love you forever, Lana,” he promised me. “And we’re going to fill up the house jar and get a giant lake house. And I’m going to marry you in the Willow Springs Gardens and we’re going to be so happy. I promise.”
I was a wreck at that point. Then he slipped the ring on my left middle finger, a newer, lovelier promise attached to it, and there was no coming back for me. I sobbed and wanted to find two more jobs just to fill up that jar.
I sigh and shiver under the blanket. I hug my steaming mug of tea in two hands now, and I’m trying not to think too much about the future we planned together once. With our house jar.
I miss that jar.
I miss the image—the dream of our future.
It was going to a lake house surrounded by trees and nature, right on the lake of Willow Springs. And now, if I close my eyes, I see it all perfectly—like a montage in a movie.
The house has windows, big ones—long and wide that flood the house in sunlight--we save on our electricity bills that way.
The house is a bit green, sage almost because I let Christian pick it out, and maybe we have a yellow door even if it doesn’t match because he surprised me while I was working and painted it.
We have a wrap around porch with rustic railing.
We don’t have a garage but we have a driveway that has that pebble rock kind of thing, and we have a wooden dock on the lake that we sit on sometimes—where we count stars and point out shapes of clouds.
Where we sit and kick the water with our toes before we get in for a swim on a sweaty summer day.
After, he lays me down and makes love to me on that dock, and we’re completely naked because we have no neighbors for at least a mile or two. We laugh and giggle as he makes love to me, just because.
Just because we’re two love drunk fools with a fate there is no returning from.
And in the mornings, sometimes, he isn’t in bed so I put his t-shirt or sweatshirt over my head, pull on a pair of his boxers because I love stealing them from him, and go downstairs. He’s already made breakfast, set out our plates and filled my glass with orange juice.
He kisses me good morning and sits next to me while we eat.
Sometimes, he plays soft music and he asks me to dance with him in the spot where the sun is coming through the glass of our backdoor, warming the floors.
And I dance with him because we have nowhere else to be but in each other’s arms and, this is our life.
At night, I cook dinner sometimes because I find a new recipe online and have convinced myself I could master it in one go.
I don’t, not always, but he eats it anyway and tells me he loves it.
After dinner, we go to our patio and he grabs a thick blanket to wrap around us, and he holds me as the sun sets.
He kisses my head and tells me he loves me. I tell him I know.
He kisses my lips, and I kiss him back, and sometimes our kisses progress—as most of our kisses do—and we’re naked on our patio. And I’m on top of his body, kissing his perfectly sculpted lips, taking him inside of me, and he fits perfectly.
We were made for each other and there is nothing else to it.
And that’s our life in our lake house.
After he left, those were my dreams at night. And in the morning, I’d cry about them. Sleep was safe because I would not have to wake up and wish I was not alive. I would not have to wake up and feel broken. Like all of my dreams were pulled out from under me.
“Lana?”
I blink, and the dream is gone. But it’s okay because I see a better one in front of me wearing gray sweatpants and a white t-shirt. “Hey.”
“What are you doing out here, baby? It’s cold.”
I shrug. “I couldn’t go back to sleep.” I take a sip of my tea. “You?”
“Me either,” he says and sits on the other end of the couch.
I bite my lip and move it back and forth between my teeth, watching how he shivers just a tiny bit.
I take some of my yellow blanket and put nearly a half of it over his thighs and his hand comes over mine.
He holds it, his fingers curling and touching my palm, his thumb bushing up and down the back of my hand.
“Thank you,” Christian breathes, and I swear I could kiss him. “Are you okay?”
I nod and take a small sip of tea. “I’m okay. You?”
“I’m good.” He leans to his side against the arm rest. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“My birthday,” he rasps and looks down at our hands on his lap. He picks at the callous on his palm with his thumbnail. “I haven’t really celebrated my birthday like that.”
“You haven’t celebrated your birthday in four years?”
Christian shrugged. “I have,” he says. “Just…in regrettable ways.”
He doesn’t have to say anything else—I know. He was probably drunk for all of his birthdays, wreaking havoc or with women. Women that weren’t me.
“Oh,” I breathe, and I leave it like that for now. “So…”
“July third was just another day I had to get through,” he says quietly with a shrug. “And I…did what I had to to get through it.”
“I…”
“Every year on my birthday,” Christian rasps, “I missed you. Not just on those days, I missed you every day. But on those days especially because no one in my life has ever made me feel more special as you do on my birthdays.”
I shake my head. “That’s not—”
“It is true,” he insists. “You always did something for me. Every year. You’d bake a cake, you’d invite over our friends, you’d take me to the gardens or the lake or to dinner. You’d buy me these cute little gifts…”
I sniff, my nose wrinkling and my eyes burning.
His parents… Well, his parents are and always were shit.
Christian deserves love. Always did. Still does.
“No one has ever made me feel as special as you do, Lana.” Christian sniffs and I stare into my tea. “No one has ever made me feel like my life meant something.”
A tear slips. “Your life always meant something.”
“No, it hasn’t.”
“Yes,” I croak. “It has. It does.”
Christian shakes his head. “Not to me. Not really.”
I put my mug down and scoot toward him. I rest my head on his shoulder and hug his arm. “Your life means something to me,” I whisper. “You mean something to me.”
I feel his head shake and he wipes his face with his hand. His left leg starts to bounce and I put a hand to his knee. I sit up just a bit and kiss his cheek before I whisper,“You mean something to me, Christian Calloway.”
Christian is staring out at the sunrise, stoic and frozen in a way that stabs me between the ribs. I sit up further and put my hand to his cheek, turning his head toward mine.
He blinks and there is a sad red surrounding his beautiful coffee colored eyes when he looks at me. My thumb traces up his cheekbone and my nails lightly scratch the thin stubble around his jaw.
“You mean something to me, Christian Calloway,” I say again, my eyes looking directly into his.
He swallows and his hand covers my own on his cheek, and he leans into the touch. I catch the tear as soon as it falls from the corner of his eye and wipe it away as though it never existed.
I’ve seen him cry one too many times, the image of each occasion worse than the last. The heartbreak of bearing witness is enough to last a lifetime. I don’t want to see anymore of it and, if it’s up to me, Christian will never cry again.
“My life was empty, you know,” he rasps, breaking my heart again. “Before you. After you.”
I shake my head. “Don’t say that.”
“Whether I say it or not, it will always be true, Lana.” He turns and kisses my palm.
He might have broken my heart four years ago, but he’s here and he’s mending it. “And now?”
“And now it’s not empty anymore.”
I feel my lip tremble, but I try my best to control it. “Neither is mine.”
“Lana?”
I blink slowly, just enjoying the sound of my name in his voice.
“Baby?”
“Yeah?”
His hand does that thing I love where he pushes hair behind my ear, his fingertips grazing my cheek and neck before he holds my cheek, and his thumb brushes over my cheekbone. He looks down into my eyes with soft, melted ones and whispers, “Can I kiss you?”
My lips part.
“Just once.”
Instead of replying, I pull the blanket with me as I crawl over him, lying across his lap. With my hand on his cheek, I look into his eyes. “Just once.”
He does that thing again—his fingers brushing my cheek before he cups my face in his hand. His eyes search mine, melting like chocolate, before they flit to my lips. The tip of his tongue darts out subtly, wetting his bottom lip before he looks back up to my eyes.
“Once,” I breathe, but I’m a liar.
But Christian doesn’t kiss me yet, he just tortures me. The side of his nose brushes the side of mine, his breath tickling my lips and his oxygen merging with the molecules of mine.
“Once,” he lies.
His hand snakes into my hair at the back of my head and he kisses me once—softly. It ends too quickly so I steal another one and another one. And we’re both liars because this is how we breathe. We feed off each other’s air—each other’s love and affection. Touches and kisses.
Even when words fail us, we have this. Our bodies, our lips, our hands. When words fail him, he can hold my hand and I’ll translate it in my mind. When words fail me, I hold him close to my chest, and he reads it perfectly.
I’m moaning into his mouth, but we don’t take it any further. Our kisses don’t become any harder or sloppier.
Our kisses are deep, soft, and purposeful.
I’ve missed kissing him like this—kissing just for the sake of kissing. Holding onto him because life is a messy tornado and he’s the only one who will keep me from floating away in the chaos.
Christian pulls away first, untangling his hand from my hair and pushing it all behind my shoulders. “That wasn’t once.”
“But what really counts as one?” I muse.
He sniffs a laugh. “The definition is unclear.”
“Then it was just once.”
Smiling, his arms wrap around me and he adjusts the blanket around us.
I curl against his chest and my eyes flutter close, my body sinking into the comfort of Christian’s body and existence. Overlooking the view, I quietly confess, “My favorite thing you’ve ever gotten me is this ring.”
I hold out my left hand and show him the dainty band with the tiny ruby gem in its center. His birthstone and a ring he gifted me on his birthday. He’s always been a deviant thing, I think. In the best way. He’s a wicked, deviant thing with perfectly masterminded plans.
Christian takes my hand in his.“It is?”
“It always has been,” I say, and Christian kisses my knuckles. Then the ring on my middle finger. “I’ve never taken off.”
“Not even…”
I shake my head. “You made promises when you gave it to me. Both times.”
“I fully intend to keep them.”
I open my mouth to speak, but he does first. “I know. I know I can’t be trusted to keep those promises but, Lana, I—”
“I never said that I don’t trust you to keep them.”
He nods stiffly.
“Do you trust yourself?” I ask. “To keep those promises, you have to trust yourself, baby. I can’t do that for you.”
He nods again. “I’m going to keep them. I trust myself to keep them, Lana.”
I brush my thumb up the line of his jaw. “Then I trust you to keep your promises.”
“What if I don’t deserve that?”
“What if you do?” I counter. “Because you do. Whoever told you second chances were easy, lied to you.”
Christian huffs a laugh. “Sorry.”
I put my forehead to his, my hand cupping the nape of his neck. “Christian?”
“Yeah.”
“Say you’re brave.”
“What?”
“Out loud,” I say. “Say it out loud.”
“I—I’m brave?”
“Say it like you mean it, Christian,” I chuckle.
“I’m brave,” he echoes.
“I’m strong.”
“I’m strong,” he repeats.
“I’m kind.”
“I’m kind.”
I kiss his cheek. “Keep saying those to yourself, baby. Because you are everything and more to me. You deserve to be those things to yourself too.”
“Can I make one more promise to you?” Christian whispers.
I nod.
“I promise to come to you when I need help,” he says. “When it gets hard and I’m not okay and I… I’ll come to you. And I’ll get the help I need if I need it.”
“I love that promise,” I say. “And I trust you to keep it.”
“I love you, Lana,” he breathes.
“I know.” I nestle my face into his neck and kiss his pulse before I breathe, “Good morning.”
“Good morning, baby.”