43. Chapter Thirty-Four #2
“No,” I cut him off. “Now what’s the surprise?”
He gives me a hard stare. “I’m thinking of becoming a smoker,” he begins, prepared to guilt-trip me into helping him.
I sigh, waiting for the rest of it as I shove my hands into my pockets.
“Cigarettes for now, but you never know, I could get into the hard stuff.”
“Jesus Christ, what do you want?”
He grins, dribbling once and then throwing the ball into the hoop with ease. “I met this girl who happens to like artists.” Scratching his cheek, he offers me a sheepish look. “Doesn’t date anyone but artists, apparently.”
“What did you do?”
He throws his hands up in defense as he says, “She’s smokin’. You’d do the same thing if you were me.”
I highly doubt that. “Carter,” I say more sternly.
“I told her my name was Julian. Sure did.” His words come out quickly as he cautiously backs away from me. “We have a date tonight. . .at the gallery.”
“ My gallery?”
“Where else?”
I blink, feeling indifferent since this wouldn’t be the stupidest thing he’s ever done nor the first time he’s introduced himself as me. It’s still high up on the list though. “I’m going to kill you.”
He nods in understanding. “You could, and trust me, I’d understand, but I don’t think Andrea would like that.”
My eyes narrow. “Don’t bring her into this.”
“Too late.”
“Fine,” I state, refusing to bristle. “Let’s bring Maisie into this then, shall we?” I’ve been letting his obvious infatuation go for a long time now. If he was going to throw Andrea at me, then it sounds fair to me that I can throw his hidden feelings at him.
He stills, but manages to grit out, “Let’s.”
“What’s your deal with her?”
He feigns ignorance. “Who?”
I give him a look. “Maisie.” When he continues to look confused, I sigh. “Why are you wasting time on these other women when it’s clear she’s the only one you want?”
“Please, like you’re any better,” he answers quickly, smoothly bypassing my question.
His statement takes me aback. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He throws the basketball at me, hitting my chest as I catch it. “Your dick isn’t exactly a saint.”
I scowl at him, throwing the ball back harder. “Never said it was.”
Refusing to back down from whatever it is he’s gotten into his head, he asks, “What’s the plan here, J?”
“I care about her, asshole. If you’ve come down with a fever and you’re trying to do some big brother shit, there’s no need.”
He throws the ball back at me with more force before letting out a heavy breath and running a hand through his hair. “Look, I’ve just been thinking—”
“How rare of you,” I mutter, uninterested in hearing his thoughts and opinions of Andrea and our relationship.
Narrowing his eyes, he continues, “I’ve been thinking about Andrea’s future. She’s only twenty-four.”
“I know,” I grit out in annoyance even as my heart rate picks up, fear already spiking. Something tells me he’s going somewhere with this and I’m not going to like it. “And?”
“You’re both in different places in your life,” he drones on, talking with his hands. “You’re wanting to settle down and after all the shit that went down back home, she’s just now getting to live a life without being shackled to anything.”
“You think I haven’t thought about it?” I ask, seething on the inside, but manage to keep my tone even.
“But I won’t be making any decisions for her and neither will you, so butt the fuck out, Carter.
” I throw the ball so that it bounces once between us before he catches it.
“I mean it. My intentions are good, and you know that. Why the sudden questioning?” I press.
“You’re the one who placed her into my life. ”
He bounces the ball a few times in front of him in frustration. “Fuck, this is not what I wanted to talk to you about today. ”
“Well, here we are,” I say, spreading out my arms. “So you might as well carry on. . .”
Rolling his shoulders, he tells me, “You’re leaving for Maine in a few days and as your best friend, I feel it’s important for you to know something about Andrea. Only for the purpose that you can look out for her.”
“No,” I find myself saying with a shake of my head. “Don’t tell me anything that she can tell me herself.”
His jaw clenches. “That’s the thing. She won’t tell you this.”
“Stop.”
“There’s a reason we understand each other.”
“That’s enough,” I snap. “Stop talking.” I turn and make my way back toward the exit of the building, but he trails close behind me, spitting out words I can do nothing but listen to.
“She only told you one of the reasons she stopped dancing, right?”
I push through the gymnasium door and speed up my steps as I aim for the exit of the building. The asshole keeps following me.
“The accident, yeah? There’s another reason and I think you should know it before you go and start making plans.”
Once I’m outside, the cold air slams into my lungs as I inhale sharply. Before I can make it more than ten steps away from the building, Carter yells out, “I have HCM—Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.”
My steps falter as I come to a complete stop, my heart now pounding in my ears. Slowly, I turn around to face him. “I know.”
He stares at me for a few moments, most likely seeing my inner turmoil that I can’t hide from my face. “But I’m not the only one.”
“No,” I breathe. “You’re lying.”
“Why would I lie about that?” he asks, placing a hand over his chest. “ She’s in denial, Julian. She has been for years.”
“Why tell me this?” I rasp, the pink scar over her heart appearing in my mind. My heart stopped during surgery. For four minutes, I was gone.
He takes a breath, seeming to hate his next words even as he says them, anyway. “You want a family. I want her to have a life.”
A series of emotions flood through me. First, sadness for her and then desperation so raw and powerful that it wraps barbed wire around my torso and claws its way through the tunnel of my throat.
Then comes anger, so furious at him for telling me this and the universe for doing its worst time and time again to the people who don’t deserve it.
I don’t know if I could laugh or cry at this cruel twist in fate. To think I could have been happy for once and have something go right was the silly little boy who still existed inside of me with his stupid hope.
I understand what he’s saying. The very thing that I want would put her life at risk. I’m not selfish enough to ignore what he’s told me and not take caution.
To love and to lose . The never-ending cycle of my life.
“You understand, don’t you?”
The only thing I can muster is a stiff nod.
He sighs as if a weight has been lifted off his chest and for the first time during our entire friendship, I hate him. “Before I forget,” he says, digging into his pocket to pull out a piece of paper. “Here.”
I take the wrinkled paper but don’t look at it. “What is this?”
“Your first investment for the foundation.”
The doors to the recreation center open and a group of teens come barreling out, one taller than the rest. “The kid’s name is Clay Magill,” he states, as we both watch the group break apart to get into two tan vans. “And someday. . .” His words drip with unveiled certainty. “I’m going to sign him.”
As the vans drive off, another memory whips through me. Those kids he was playing basketball with are in the foster care system. And as quickly as it came—it vanishes. I didn’t even get the chance to hate the man in front of me for more than five minutes.
Goddamn it.
For the entire torturous drive home, I think of Andrea Sommers.
I hear her words, and I feel her touch, but there’s a guilt that comes rushing fast at letting her love touch me. It’s the kind of love I’m not sure how to give back without the fear of being torn apart and shredded deeply within my soul.
It makes me a madman. It reminds me I don’t know what real love is or even how to identify it. It’s different for me in more ways than one.
I have moments where I think I could understand it, but in the end, it’s like grasping for invisible strings my mind told me existed.
It lies. My mind lies to me, and it always circles back to real or not real .
My heart and my head speak different languages. I listen to logic, but I am fueled by passion.
And Andrea is a bundle of it that I can’t seem to refuse myself of. I’ve never wanted to insert my entire being inside of someone before. I’ve never wanted to have anyone as close to me as I have wanted her. In truth, she is never close enough.
She has already marked me in memory. I can’t look upon my scars without seeing her lips pressed against them. I can’t glance at my hands without seeing her draw on my palms with her fingertips. I can’t look inward at my wandering soul without wishing for hers to be next to it.
I can’t.
I can’t do to her what I’ve done to every person who’s ever tried to love me. The moment I bare myself is the moment they always leave and left behind are pieces of themselves—pieces I had no right to take.
You can want her now , the voice of logic in my head says to me. But women like her will always find better .
That’s the thing about lost souls like mine. It’ll never stop reaching. It’ll never stop yearning to feel like it’s worth something.