Chapter 7 #3
“That’s exactly why I won’t tell you.” Esme lifts one shoulder in a dainty shrug, but it doesn’t disguise her pain.
“Their names don’t matter. Maybe you’re right.
It’s so long ago. I’m just trying to get you to understand why I could never move on.
Why I don’t want to walk around here and be Esme Bly, daughter of a slut.
Daughter of a man everyone knew was a drunk.
And now Esme Bly, the woman everyone knew would go nowhere, separated, and back with her tail tucked between her legs. ”
“That is not true! I will knock anyone who says that right the fuck out.”
“Yeah. Women? Kids? Seniors? You’re going to punch them too?” It was mostly them who said it.
“Fuck, no! I’m not gonna knock them out, but I could hack them. I could give them dirty viruses they’d have to deal with. Their tech would never be the same.”
She shakes her head sadly. “James never defended me. Half the time, he’d just laugh.
I don’t know why he was even with me, but I was so desperate to hold onto him that I thought if I had one good thing in my life, one thing that meant something and was going somewhere, then I’d be okay.
I thought that’s what love was. Learning.
Growing. Standing beside the person you chose because they were yours and you were theirs.
I should have known better.” She tilts her face up to the stars, eyes glistening.
“Look at my parents. In a way, James and I were just like them. Staying. Lost. Angry. Helpless. Stuck.”
“Our parents are just people too.” I want to try to say that with more positivity or perspective, but even I can hear my own lack of conviction.
“They’re older, but Grandpa always said that age doesn’t equal wisdom.
I’m not trying to excuse a single thing, but everyone is just trying to make it through life that is as hard and unfamiliar to them as it is to us. ”
Esme snorts, but then she unfurls her legs and sighs. “They’re supposed to know better. They’re supposed to be able to offer a shred of guidance and shelter and support. That’s all I ever wanted. Not that I didn’t have it. I did, with Reg.”
“I know. It would have been nice to have it from your parents too.”
Before I can say anything more, an explosion of color bursts into the sky above our heads.
The test firework. I hold my breath and very slowly release it.
Another firework shoots up, this one screaming and sizzling when it explodes into a twinkling green formation.
I glance at the screens between us once, before I risk flicking my eyes to Esme.
She’s leaning back on her hands, her dress spread out to cover her legs, but she kicked her sandals off earlier and her bare toes face the sky.
Another burst shoots into the night, this one like a comet with a fiery tail. It blasts open, a golden and white flower unfurling against a bruised purple backdrop.
I want to tell her, as silver and red, green, and white paint the sky and light up Esme’s gorgeous face, that I belong to her.
She could never properly leave me because I was always hers.
I’m not a hot science major, but if you simplify quantum entanglement and apply it to us, I know that we’ll always be linked.
“I feel like I abandoned you,” she breathes, her face a mask of agony. “Have I ruined everything?”
I suck in a breath so big that I almost choke on the warm night air as it slides down my throat. She’s so beautiful in every way. Her face flashes with pops of color, her dark eyes mirroring the purples and reds. The whites light us both up for just a flash.
I finally find my voice, scraping words past my raw throat and cracked open heart.
“No. You might have thought you wanted something, and now you don’t.
You’re waking up and coming alive again.
You’re young. Smart. Healthy. Beautiful.
Kind. You’ll be fine. You’ll leave here and you’ll find the job you were meant to have, the place you were always meant to be, and you’ll find your people. It will make all of this look like—”
“Wasted time.”
“Like it was all worth it,” I finish for her.
I’m tearing my heart out, but Grandpa once told me to always do what you believe is right.
It might hurt. It might even tear you limb from fucking limb.
It might make it hurt to breathe, leave you with a thousand sleepless nights.
It might punch you full of holes, but in the end, even if it’s not entirely worth it, at least you can stand on conviction.
I used to wonder if Grandpa was wrong about some of that. He was human too.
“Those are nice thoughts,” Esme mumbles.
There hasn’t been a fireworks flash for a while. Are they over? Or just gearing up for the grand finale? I don’t hear anyone shouting, no distant clapping carrying in echoes on the breeze, no car horns honking.
“You’ll find someone who worships you.”
I might have been able to be the better man when I was in high school and things were different, but it nearly kills me to put that out there now.
I want it, but I also want that person to be me.
I want to be more than the wrong fit, or the right guy at the wrong time.
I want to be Esme’s forever. I want to be the one she looks at and immediately brightens, no matter how bad the shitstorm is that she’s standing in.
I want to be her best friend, but I also want to be more than that. I want to be her everything.
I continue, “They’ll care more about your happiness, even if making you happy kills them.” My breath is a torn thing, my lungs punched full of holes. I might as well have just rolled all over blades and barbed wire. I’m bleeding out from a thousand punctures. Inside. Outside.
“I do have some happy memories,” she whispers into the darkness.
She’s sitting so close, but her words hit me like they’re coming from a distance. Across miles. Across continents. Across the impossible divide that I’ve never found a way to bridge between us.
“They’re all of you. Around every bad day, every frayed edge, every sickening word, every painful, gut wrenching emotion, you were there.
You and me, we reflected each other. You knew yourself better than I did.
You believed in you. You never allowed yourself to get lost. I used to look at you and feel nothing but warmth and safety and trust. You were my shelter.
My safe place. I still think of you that way.
It’s not fair to you. It’s never been fair.
” She speaks to the black night, her words ripping through me.
“I have enough memories of you to fill half a lifetime,”
“We can just let it go. Breathe out. Let it pass.” Or…
I could say the words. It’s the wrong time.
Always the wrong. Fucking. Time. But they’re there.
I open my mouth to tell her. To tell her all the things that scare me.
All the things I want. Everything I feel.
And… something else comes out instead, as it always does.
More than I ever wanted Esme to be mine, I didn’t want to lose her.
I still don’t. “I’ll always hold those memories as precious. Nothing will change my mind.”
She lapses into silence. So does the sky. I guess that was it. Somehow, I missed the whole show, or Hart’s dialed way back. I watched Esme instead.
She turns and our eyes meet between a blanket of black velvet alive with a golden glow. It’s like the clubhouse is surrounded by thousands of fireflies. My breath catches. Hers does too.
I want you. I’ve always wanted you. It’s been you since the day we met. There’s been no one else. There probably never will be. We’re made from the same atoms, tangled up together. You have all of me. You own me. I wish I could say it.
But, just like all the other nights where I might have found the words, they escape me. I fall silent, fold into myself, and breathe out in slow, measured breaths until the moment passes.