23. Going, Going, Gone
GOING, GOING, GONE
LIAM
When I wake up, I’m sure that last night was just a dream.
A very wet, hot dream.
But a dream nonetheless.
The thing about dreams—ones as good as that, at least—is that you never want to wake up. You don’t want to face reality.
But when I finally force myself to blink my eyes open, I know I’ve got to face what awaits me today—whether I like it or not.
I’m greeted by Aubrey’s room. The dark walls are a stark contrast to the light wooden beams across the ceiling, the matching warm tones covering the wooden floors and doors of the enormous cabin.
The Vaughns each own a home on their enormous ski resort, but a few years ago, the three brothers had this cabin built for their daughters. A place for them to be by themselves. Because apparently, their own enormous bedrooms in their family cabins just weren’t enough.
But whatever the Vaughns girls want—they get.
A slow smile spreads across my face as I finally realize that last night wasn’t a dream. Thank fuck for that.
Pulling my arm from where Aubrey’s head rests on it, I move across the room and reach for my briefs, cursing when I search her room and don’t find them.
Shit, I think. My bag is in the downstairs guest bedroom—and we never got our clothes from the entryway last night.
I should probably get them before any of the others notice…though it’s likely far too late for that unless they were too drunk last night to realize.
Unlikely…
I search Aubrey’s room as I silently scan for something of hers I might be able to squeeze my thick ass thighs into. I rummage through her drawers, careful not to wake her.
The only thing I find is a pair of oversized sleeping shorts that I know she loves to sleep in because they are so baggy. Pulling them out, I shove myself into them, refusing to take a look at my absurd reflection in her floor-to-ceiling mirror in the corner of the room.
The teal fabric with scattered pink and purple hearts is plastered tightly over my form, hiding little of the package I carry—but at least I’m covered as I slip out her door on my way to grab our clothes and two cups of coffee.
I’m standing at the end of the hall when I hear Brennan’s impression of a female’s voice.
“Oh, yes, Liam, take it off me!” He swoons mockingly.
My mouth gaps as I stall, hesitating instead of turning and heading back down the hallway so the idiot I’m gawking at doesn’t see me dressed this way.
But I don’t have a chance to flee as I make eye contact with Brennan.
I’m not sure which of us is more shocked at what we see.
Brennan—whose eyes go wide as they look me up and down, standing in the hall with my hand over my junk and Aubrey’s heart sleep shorts practically painted on me.
Or me, choking back a laugh as Brennan stands in Aubrey’s dress, clearly reenacting what he assumes happened last night.
I guess he’s not entirely wrong. That did happen, just in fewer words.
About the time we are silently having a standoff, Rory bursts through the entryway. She freezes when the door closes behind her. She slowly reaches for her headphones, looking at Brennan standing in a woman’s dress and me standing in a woman’s nightclothes. She bites her lip as she shakes her head.
“Look—” Brennan finally begins to explain as I still stand in the threshold of the hall and the living room.
Rory’s chest slowly begins to shake with silent laughter. Then she tips her head back, howling with amusement loud enough to surely wake the rest of the house.
She quickly fishes her phone out of her pocket to snap our pictures.
Brennan lunges for her, but trips on the dress and falls face-first.
Rory shakes her head as she steps over Brennan’s form on the ground, saying, “Sorry to interrupt your fun...” She starts down the hallway and calls back, “I’ll leave you guys to it.”
She chuckles as Brennan flips her off and chases her down the hallway.
I use the moment to collect mine and Aubrey’s clothes. Since they are still damp from where we did snow angles after I fell, I throw them into the dryer, unsure what to do with them, but know they are probably ruined regardless.
After heading downstairs, and deciding I could use a quick shower. I can’t help but keep thinking of last night, knowing my face probably says enough.
I can’t stop smiling.
Not just because of the mind-blowing sex…I mean, that’s partly it.
But because it felt like old times, like thousands of other times we lay together.
My stomach drops as I think about everything last night entailed, though—what her dad said, calling me his almost son-in-law, and how upset that made Aubrey. Then there was that comment from her mom—about Aubrey mourning…
Then I think about her panic attack at the hospital.
And as much as I want to be with her, to sleep with her, to fuck her.
I don’t want just parts of her.
I want all of her. Including whatever it is she isn’t telling me.
She’s seen the ugly part of me—the dark parts I don’t even let myself think of.
And that hasn’t stopped her. So what is severe enough that she feels like she needs to hide it from me?
Sure, I messed up before, lost myself. No matter how many therapy sessions, I’ve always blamed it on a thousand different things.
But that’s not the truth. Not really.
And if I want the truth from Aubrey, then I need to face some truths myself.
A burst of confidence thrums through me, although my stomach is rolling into knots.
After all the good that’s coming back into my life…Working with the team. Being back with my friends. Finding my happiness again.
Being with Aubrey.
I am just now realizing it—just now able to feel it—to say it.
To face it.
It wasn’t an accident. Not an incident, as my mother likes to call it.
It was me—it was all me.
I can hear it now…the silence I once wanted so badly…
I hear everything.
My own heartbeat thumping against my ears.
The sound of my skates carving marks over untouched ice.
A whistle blowing, the pounding of screaming fans’ fists over the glass.
The sharp blast of a goal horn echoing through an empty arena.
The audible snap of my leg. Dr. Shannon’s deep voice, “Your career is over.” Aubrey’s sobs in the middle of the night when she thinks I’m asleep.
They haunt me, torment my mind like my useless body terrorizes my future.
I can’t escape it.
That’s all I’ve become…noise.
Like I’m an apparition, like I’m being forced to watch my life play out before my eyes.
I’m no longer in control.
Things happen around me, but I’m not there, not really.
I’m a shadow on a cloudy day.
Unseen. Unpresent.
Vanished.
Forced to hear it all. Everything. All at once.
But not able to silence it. To make it go away.
I hear it all. Over and over.
I grasp at my ears, hot tears streaming down my face as I claw at them.
I just want it to stop.
For just a minute. A second.
A fucking heartbeat.
Just a brief disassociation.
For now. For forever.
I don’t know.
I just want it to go away. I want to float into nothingness. A void. A dark pit of emptiness, anything other than this.
Away from the constant clamor I cannot evade.
I close my eyes, tossing the pill bottle back and swallow.
I wait, my back against some light pole in the arena's parking lot—ready for the silence to drift me away—to know peace, once more.
My chest feels too tight. I can’t catch my breath, can’t get enough air.
I pant, pulling in too much and yet far too little. I slide down the bathroom wall, my knees finding my chest. Staring off into space, I rock back and forth as the realization hits me. I know I need to find my phone, I know I need to call Jasmine, before this spirals into something more.
Hot tears streak down my face.
I place a hand over my chest and press down, trying to soothe the ache.
I was ready for the silence—for the absence of my own mind.
I repeat the realization over and over. Then force myself to say it aloud. No longer afraid of it. No longer ashamed of it. I survived. I fought the silence I was so desperate for.
And I’m starting to feel like I won—that the future I couldn’t see, the one I was so ready to evade because it was one I didn’t want—it was still mine, worthy of living for.
I don’t hear the door open. I don’t hear her when she calls my name.
I’m not certain I even see her face.
Not until she’s right before me, her eyes gazing into my own.
“Liam.” She shakes me, places her hands on either of my shoulders.
I blink.
Once.
Twice.
I shake my head, as if I can physically remove myself from this trance. She runs her hand over my cheek, and I close my eyes. She’s always been my anchor, my rock, a tether to the earth when I try to float away on the wind.
I sniffle. Wiping at my eyes. I’ve never been one of those men who are embarrassed to cry. I don’t believe showing emotions makes you any less masculine…it just makes you more human.
“I tried to kill myself,” I blurt at last.
And saying it aloud helps ease the weight sitting on my chest. “I lied—when you asked me how many—I knew, I know. All of them. The whole fucking bottle, Aubrey! I fucking knew! When you asked me that night—I knew it was enough!” My voice cracks as her face goes white.
Air catches in my throat, breaking apart each of my inhales into sharp pieces of glass, cutting me from the inside out. Tears spill hot—fast—blurring everything. Sounds are leaving me, ones I can’t control. They are broken noises, hiccups of gasp as my face twists, my mouth trembling.
“Enough?” she questions, pulling her hands away from me suddenly.
I look at her, my head dropping to the side.
“I knew it was enough—to not wake up!” I yell.
And I hate that my voice rises, that I lose control.
“I didn’t want to wake up, Aubrey.” I am standing on my feet now.
And I have no idea how I got to this point.
“And I think that’s what’s happening to you… you don’t want to wake up either.”
Aubrey looks at me in a way she never has before.
But all I can manage through my choked sobs is: “I understand—why you left. I get it.” I say so quietly, I’m not sure she can hear me.
I twist, turning so my chin can rest where she is frozen below me, my height over her suddenly so obvious.
I lean down, resting my cheek on the top of her head.
I take her smell in, a scent that’s so much stronger, purer than even my best memories of her.
When she pulls away, her eyes are bloodshot, tears streaming down her face in time with mine. And I never want to see her cry again, never want to be the reason behind them. Because she’s shed more than a lifetime’s worth on me already.
My thumb grazes her skin, wiping it away. But she grabs my hands, pulling them away.
She’s right. I don’t deserve to wipe them away when I’m the cause of them.
I deserve to see them fall.
My chest expands as I pull in a deep breath. I know I should take what I can get, what little pieces she offers me when she’s ready. But I’m not okay with just a piece of Aubrey. I’ve lived off bits and memories for the last year. I want everything.
No more lies. No more secrets.
No more tomorrows.
“Stay awake for me, Aubrey. I beg you.” I plead, my words sudden—sharp.
She withdraws. And I know I’ve lost her, just as I got her back. But if I’m going to, I might as well try to find out everything I don’t know. To try to save her as she did me.
“Something happened. Something you aren’t telling me,” I whisper, trying to search through my hazy, lethargic memories.
“I—” she begins, but stops.
“You can tell me.” I nod, coaxing her to stay steady—to stay with me. “Please, please tell me. I want to know.”
My eyes settle into her, like a heavy anchor in a calm sea.
“I can handle it now—whatever it is,” I add breathlessly.
She begins shaking. Her tears that were only a steady flow now became chest-heaving sobs. I take a step forward. But she keeps walking backward, inching closer to the door, to what I know is her exit.
Running away from me once again.
“Stop running, Aubrey. Please. Just stay.” My voice cracks in time with my heart as she takes another step back, and I fucking break.
“Wake up. Please, open your eyes and stay here with me.” I swallow down my tears. “The silence will only pull you further under—I would know.” I grit through my teeth. I test her, taking another step in her direction. “Please. Please, tell me.” I beg. And God, do I sound desperate.
“I-I—” but her words never come.
Clearly, whatever it is, it’s big enough that she doesn’t want to tell me. And maybe…just maybe, it’s best we keep it that way.
Maybe I haven’t earned it—not yet.
So I give her one last truth, a final confession. Knowing I need to say it more for myself than for her.
“When hockey ended, I thought everything ended. I really believed there was nothing left worth staying for. I kept looking—but I was lost. Convincing myself I was meant to be empty, that I wanted the silence. I couldn’t see past it.
I couldn’t see you. Or my friends. Or my mom—” I choke, my tears uncontrollable.
“I only noticed the hurt.” I wipe my face, holding my head high, “I forgive you for leaving me. Not because it broke me, or because I’m fully healed from it—but because now I see, you had your own reasons for doing it—I wasn’t there. I had already left you.”
Aubrey refuses to look at me.
“I’m sorry.” I swallow, forcing a deep inhale.
“I’m so sorry.” I shake my head, eyes darting away.
“I beg you, don’t make the same mistake as I did.
Don’t let the bad win. Whatever happened—let it shape you, but never let it mute you.
You are meant to be seen and heard, Aubrey Vaughn.
And I’ll be ready to listen when you finally want to talk. ”
And because I love her, because I’m certain there is not a day I won’t, I say, “I love you. I’m not going to leave.
Not again. I want you to see that I’ve changed—I want to deserve your love—to deserve you.
But if you can’t tell me, if I still haven’t proven myself, then it’s going to have to be you who walks away.
Because I can’t—I won’t turn my back on you again.
” I point toward the door, as if showing her the options. To stay or to leave.
I sink to the floor, head hung between my knees as I wait for her to make her decision.
Then she’s going, going—until she’s gone.
Until Aubrey Vaughn has left me for good.