63. Deacon
Chapter sixty-three
Deacon
One day. It had been one day, and I was going fucking insane.
Ever since I left Lyla’s apartment, our last conversation played on repeat in my head. I hated how close I was to saying something I’d regret. I winced every time the cut-off sentence emerged in the flashback.
No. I’m here because your dad—
The look on her face practically finished the sentence for me. Who knew what kinds of phrases she replaced my silence with? I couldn’t finish the sentence I had in my head about her dad. It would’ve just been hurtful shit I said out of anger and confusion. Those words would’ve cut right through Lyla. It would’ve been like spitting fire. You didn’t spit fire at the people you loved, even when it felt like you were the only one burning.
“What are we looking for?” Nathan winced at the floral arrangements as if he had never been to this part of the store. It was near the entrance of Kroger, so I wasn’t sure why he looked so confused.
“Roses.” I rifled through the options and chose a small bouquet of six red roses. I grabbed a complimentary card and stuck it in the rubberband around the stems. “Do you need beer? ”
“Of course. It’s Sunday Funday. But why are you buying flowers when Lyla kicked you out last night?”
“She didn’t kick me out. I left.”
“So you left, yet you’re the one shopping for flowers?” I could see the confusion on Nathan’s face as we walked to the beer and wine section of the store. “This year has shown me why I don’t fuck with girlfriends.”
“I buy Lyla flowers every Monday,” I said, smiling as Nathan’s mouth fell open.
“Doesn’t that shit add up!”
“Sometimes,” I admitted. “But it isn’t always a large amount. Sometimes, it’s just a single stemmed rose I snag on the way home from class.” We stopped in front of the Bud Light, and I placed a hand on Nathan’s shoulder. “Effort doesn’t have to cost a lot, my man.”
Nathan rolled his eyes before grabbing a case. “Neither does beer, and I know exactly what I’m getting with that.”
Back at the apartment, Andre and Greg were in the living room. Both were on their phones, but Andre jumped into action when Nathan showed off the beer purchase. Greg stayed seated, his thumbs hard at work with whatever message he was composing.
I took the seat next to him on the couch. “What’s up, man?”
“Sorry to see you back,” Greg murmured. “And I mean that respectfully.”
I didn’t know what to say. I pulled out my phone and checked my notifications, hoping to see Lyla’s name. It didn’t even matter what kind of notification it was. I just wanted to hear from her.
I knew I needed to travel at a different speed when it came to Lyla. The physical stuff was easy for her. If I had touched her the way I wanted to last night, we would’ve ended up in her bed, waking up to the same conversation this morning. Every time I made it over one of her emotional walls, she was already building more for me to climb.
Last night, Lyla gave me an out. She tested me to see if I would end things and break it off because it would be easier than working through whatever thoughts were inside her head. She fought with me because she was scared I’d leave when things got hard. When I wanted something, I worked for it. I was a fucking climber, and I’d keep at it until she got tired of carrying everything by herself.
Andre’s voice boomed from the kitchen. “Beer, Deac?”
“Nah, man. I’m good.” If I had a few drinks now, it would only heighten my anxiety. Being numb was fine for a while, but when it wore off, the emotions came back ten times worse.
I also didn’t feel like sitting in my temporary bedroom all day. Once I gathered enough energy to get off the couch, I’d head to the gym for a workout. I needed some sort of stimulation other than the sports report on TV.
“You left a box in the closet, by the way,” Greg said. “Andre said to leave it where it was and that he’d hit you up at the end of the semester to see if you still wanted it.”
“What box?”
“It’s a tote, actually. Red?”
Freshman to Junior Year with C. “Do you care if I get it from the room?”
Greg sunk deeper into the couch. “Go for it.”
It felt weird reuniting with a space I lived in for a few months. Seeing Greg’s stuff on the floor and the unfortunate way he organized his closet almost made me forget why I returned to the scene in the first place. I reached into the back of the closet, dragging the tote across the carpet. I didn’t remember it being this heavy when I packed it, but I realized I hadn’t opened it since I moved back to Bowling Green. My parents loaded it onto the truck, and Lyla was the one who brought it into the apartment.
I sat down next to the tote and removed the lid, chuckling softly at the collage of photos, ticket stubs, and trinkets that littered the top layer of memories. Photo albums Cassie made me during our first year of dating came next, along with a Detroit Lions blanket she bought me for Christmas and a used Lemon Sugar Cookie candle.
I unscrewed the top of the candle, and the overpowering smell of sweet lemon immediately triggered every conversation of me giving Cassie shit for such an odd scent. She always kept one lit when it was just her and I at her place, and even though I hated the way it smelled, I bought one for my room back home because it reminded me of her.
I thought back to moments when I thought everything was perfect. I was barely holding myself together, trying to convince myself that if Cassie and I could graduate, get engaged, become Falcon Flames, and have the Prout Chapel wedding, everything would fall into place. The more stepping stones I walked across, the further I could get from everything that happened on July 24th, 2014.
My hand grazed one of my favorite photos in the bin, and my heart sank. I held it so many times the corners of the picture were bending, but that didn’t stop how the image made me feel whenever I saw it. Cassie stood between Drew and Dominic in our living room, her arms wrapped around their shoulders as they lifted her into the air. She kicked her foot out, and their smiles made it clear they were laughing when I took the photo. It was the only picture I had of Cassie with Dominic .
I touched Dominic’s face with my thumb. Resting my arms on my knees, I stared out the window, overlooking how Greg hadn’t cleaned that part of the room either.
On the floor of my old bedroom, I felt Dominic give me a sign that everything would be okay. Nothing moved, and nothing spoke, but it was always the signs I couldn’t hear that seemed to be the loudest. I knew he was there—he was always there. But the tote's memories dragged me back to when my world was dark. I held onto plans and outcomes I could control because I couldn’t prepare for something else to happen that would completely shift my world. I couldn’t do it again—not a second time.
Through the streaks on the glass, the sun still peeked through. In the moments we couldn’t see clearly in front of us, a light would always be on the other side. We just had to adjust to let it in.
Later that day, I removed a few items from the tote I wanted to keep and tossed the rest away. There was no reason to keep parts of the past, not when I knew what I wanted for my future. Tomorrow, I’d drop the flowers off at Lyla’s apartment and hope, with everything I had, that she wasn’t ready to give up on me.