Chapter 23
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
avery
Silver Spoon – Erin LeCount
Time blurs as I sit on the edge of my bed, countless thoughts swimming through everything that happened. My black dress is still on my body, though my heels are long since kicked off.
Nothing went the way I expected. I didn’t anticipate tonight, but I can’t find it in myself to regret it. Of all the ways I had built the night up in my head, it wasn’t Kane and me alone in his room with his head between my thighs.
Things between Kane and me were always amazing when we were together, but we never dug deep.
I knew he loved me. I felt it down to my marrow, in the way he’d stitched himself into my soul.
But with both of us coming from such complex childhoods, neither of us ever really learned how to process what we were feeling.
I think that’s where the problem started—the lack of knowledge about what the other person was feeling and the inability to talk about it.
It was easier for us to ignore the distance growing between us than to confront what might be wrong in our relationship.
We had the naivety to believe being together could solve all our issues.
Except when the complex stuff arose, I couldn’t articulate how I was feeling before starting therapy.
It made me realize what a gap we had in our relationship.
I knew Kane. I could map out his body in the dark, pinpoint every divot and crevice with my eyes closed.
But what we lacked was the capacity to open ourselves up to the core and pull out the hard stuff, refusing to let the other see us completely bare.
I shake the thoughts away and stand to get out of this dress, tossing it into my overflowing laundry basket before stretching out the stiffness from sitting in such an uncomfortable position.
I grab the closest shirt to me, which happens to be a favorite of mine—one of Kane’s old band T-shirts from when we went to see The Lumineers.
The concert was after the start of our first semester.
I remember the hours we drove to get there, and the way Kane surprised me with the tickets as we pulled into Nashville.
I remember the way we screamed the songs along with hundreds of other people but somehow felt lost only in each other.
The shirt always brings me back to the way Kane and I felt infinite. Us lost in each other and the black sky on the way home, hand in hand, driving into the night with an endless number of possibilities on the horizon.
I shake myself out of the past as I make my way to the kitchen, the dim glow of the string lights hung around the house illuminating my path. The quiet of the night follows alongside me.
I take a deep breath and grab a bottle of water from the fridge.
When I close the door, I glance out the front window over the sink.
The large window facing the road reveals a black truck parked along the curb.
The familiar sight sends a jolt through my system, my heart pounding.
I look further into the dark. The lack of streetlights on our road makes the figure almost invisible as it sits on the front stoop, head bent forward.
My heart rate accelerates as I grab my jacket from the kitchen table, open the door slowly, and shrug it over my shoulders.
Silence greets me as I close the door behind me and take a seat on the top step next to him.
The cold of the concrete immediately seeps through my shorts, sending chills through my body.
The air is cool now, with the lingering scent of rain from the storms that swept through earlier.
Spring in Middle Tennessee is constant whiplash, storms raging through to clean the slate of the rising humidity.
The crickets are out in full force tonight, creating a symphony in the background as I glance at Kane’s profile.
The clench of his jaw is prominent as we sit here, his deep breaths almost perfectly in sync with mine.
I’m not sure how long we sit here, the silence enveloping us as we exist in the same space.
Kane’s head turns to me slowly, and I look over at him from the spot my eyes have been tracing along the cracks in the concrete.
Red rims his eyes, a sheen that makes my heart ache to smooth it over coating them.
His hair is sticking up in every direction, the telltale sign of his hands constantly dragging through it.
He’s changed out of the suit he wore earlier, now in an old T-shirt and sweats I recognize from our high school days, the Cherry Hill High logo staring back at me.
His tattoos that snake along his arms catch my eye, the familiar A inked on the inside of his bicep, following a snake that wraps around his forearm, the look of dripping ink coming off it.
My hands make their way out of my sleeves as I rest one between us, my palm meeting the cold concrete before I feel his pinky finger slide into mine.
His grip is loose but solid, our pinkies intertwined as we sit there.
I study the contrast of his larger, tanned hand next to my smaller, very pale one in the moonlight.
I turn and take Kane in, noticing his jaw loosen and his shoulders lower. I can see the anger slowly melting from his body as he sits here. His breaths even out, and when he turns to me, those stark golden-brown eyes snare me with the pain reflected back in them.
My heart breaks at the sight of him showing me his most vulnerable state.
I can’t remember the last time I saw him this way, if ever.
All his walls are completely lowered, and every single thought seems to stare right back at me.
I’m not sure how long we stay locked in one another, one moment bleeding into the next, stripped completely raw for the first time in years.
Of every moment we have shared together, this one right here—just me and him, lost in each other—is what I crave most. We are two hearts that have been crushed and disappointed by life, finding solace in one another.
When the world seems too loud, too much, we can just exist in this moment.
Two people who could have been anywhere else but somehow found each other despite every circumstance, every choice that might have led us away from this, only for it to inevitably bring us here, his hand in mine.
Kane peers out at the darkness and clears his throat while he confesses, “I told them.” The emotion is thick in his throat as I stay quiet and wait for him to continue, acknowledging that he needs this moment. “I told them how I feel. Not in the best way, but I said it all.”
He doesn’t look at me, still lost in the darkness around us. His pinky stays locked with mine, the grip tightening as he speaks, as if he needs an anchor for this moment.
I take a few seconds to think about what to say next.
“And how did they take it?” I implore quietly, not wanting to spook him.
He scoffs while shaking his head but keeps our fingers intact.
He pulls my hand into his lap and covers mine with both of his, warming my hand from the slight chill it’s taken on since we’ve been out here.
I relish the feel of his hand stroking the back of mine while I wait for him to continue.
“I don’t know. One moment I was trying to leave unseen, and then I was exploding.
All the years of hurt and resentment just boiled out of me before I could stop it,” he sighs, fully interlocking our fingers together, the feel of his calluses sending goosebumps up my arms. He takes a deep breath.
“But it felt good. Is that weird to say?” he asks with a slight laugh.
“It felt needed. I feel freer, or less burdened, I should say. Now I’m not the only one carrying all this weight.
They can carry some of it now.” His voice gains strength the longer he talks.
I give him a moment to sit in that feeling before I speak softly. “I’m glad, Kane. You deserve that. You deserve to speak your truth, even if they’re not willing to change. At least you said it.”
Those sad but striking eyes make their way back to me from where they were lost in the night. Those soft irises roam over my face, tracing a path down to my lips and lingering a moment before slowly rising to meet my gaze, which hasn’t strayed from his face while he spoke.
I catalog every moment, every shift in his expression to file away for later.
On days when we may not talk as much, I can remember how it looked when Kane took his power back.
The moment he finally released some of the burden on his shoulders and the way his eyes brightened just slightly for the first time.
I note the tension leaving his brows, softening his whole face, and the peace that crosses his features all at once.
“Thank you,” he whispers.
His eyes lock with mine again while his thumb continues moving in circles, the feel of him warming me from my fingertips down to my toes. The chill is long forgotten with the way his presence heats me up.
“I think it helped. Losing you,” he clarifies just as gently, the words sending my heart plummeting.
My hand immediately starts to pull away from him, but he holds on, keeping me from running.
“Hold on. Listen,” he continues gently. “It helped losing the one person who never made me feel like I was anything less than perfect. Who saw me. I needed to know there wasn’t something wrong with me, that they’re the ones with the issue.
It took losing you to show me just how much I don’t need their approval.
Maybe I never needed it. All I needed was you, and then I needed to really find myself.
I know what true pain feels like now, Ave. I knew it the second you walked away.”
My heart pounds and my thoughts swirl as I try to piece together Kane’s meaning.
“It’s not over, Ave,” he vows. “You and I are inevitable. I’ll be here when you’re ready to talk, because we both know this isn’t the end for us.
So go do what you need to do. Find yourself, if that’s what this is.
But I know in this life and the next, it ends with us.
There’s no other way for it to end but with you coming home to me every night. ”
He turns to face me on the steps, his eyes imploring me to believe him.
My traitorous heart yearns to reach out for him before the stark reminder hits me that he let me go.
He watched me walk out that door when I laid my heart bare, ripping myself apart for him to communicate with me.
The hurt rises in me, whether from now or years past, until it all blurs together in the moment.
There are layers of hurt here. Months of begging to be seen.
To be enough for someone to stick around.
To be someone worth chasing after. I can’t breathe as I look at the one person who has had my heart since I learned his name.
There’s an ache in me from years spent as a forgotten kid with parents who never wanted her. The lines blur between him and them.
Why can’t anyone see me for what I am before they lose me?
Why do I have to walk away for someone to realize my worth?
My thoughts jumble, and the words I need are nowhere to be found.
He stares at me, softness in his features, understanding gleaming in his eyes. His hand comes up to cradle my cheek. My face falls into his hold as tears I didn’t notice escape are wiped away by his thumb. My heart aches with so many unsaid things laid out between us.
He closes the distance between us, and his lips land on my forehead, soft and barely touching my skin, causing my eyes to close in the moment. Our breathing fills the space between us. When he pulls back, he takes one last look at me, then gets up.
He walks down the last couple of steps before his stride eats up the pavement.
The flowers lining the driveway seem to wilt as he walks by and takes my heart with him.
I haven’t moved, haven’t breathed, since he got up and walked away from me.
I wish I could conjure up any words to speak in this moment, but my mind empties the longer I sit here.
When he reaches his truck, he turns back—his stare holding me in the night—before rounding the cab to his door. The moonlight bounces off his face, those severe features eating me up.
The moment lingers with a small shake of his head, and then he gets in. The truck starts with a roar in the night before he takes off, the lights fading into the distance.
I’m not sure how long I sit there, but the chill seems to seep into my bones.
The shorts I have on do nothing to protect me from the cold taking over.
The thoughts are still jumbled in my head, the past and present becoming one until I peel myself off the step, the feeling of his lips on my forehead following me inside.
I stumble my way to my bed as I reconcile how much Kane seems to have found himself in these past few weeks apart, less burdened by the demons that have constantly plagued his mind.
He confided in me, and I feel as if I caught a glimpse of the man who was always hiding beneath that masked exterior.
The man I only ever caught glimpses of before in flashes, small moments when he allowed himself to be raw with me.
But the hurt from the last couple of months doesn’t just go away after one moment of vulnerability. It rips open old wounds I have been working to fix. Those old feelings of abandonment don’t get erased with a few months of therapy and self-reflection. It’s a permanent scar that stains your heart.
Nothing in life has ever lit up my soul the way Kane has.
It’s as if he is the sun, and I could never help but be drawn into his atmosphere for warmth and safety.
I have been learning how to live without the sun for weeks now, and I haven’t crumbled the way I thought I would without him.
I have persevered in a way I needed to know I could.
I can stand on my own two feet without him there holding me up.
As much as my soul craves his, I’m not sure where to go from here.
I feel the tears dry against my cheeks—nothing left in me to expel. I turn on my playlist, listening to the sounds of a poetic song about losing the love of your life, wondering if that’s how our story ends.