Chapter 2 #2
She slips in beautifully, filling the space of the two seater.
Her hair is longer, and she’s got these shorter hairs framing her face like she’s grown out bangs.
She’s wearing her classic mom jeans, her combat boots, and one of those black, square neck tops.
Lana always raved about square necks and how good they looked with her collarbones.
I see what she was always talking about.
I turn up the heat when she shivers as she puts on the seatbelt. Her entire body is tense and there is just this dooming silence between us that was never there. It is so quiet I swear I hear her heart racing.
“Are you sure you aren’t drunk?” she asks quietly.
“I’d never let you get in the car with me if I was,” I rasp.
“But you’d drive?”
I shake my head. “I just meant…I wouldn’t put you in that kind of danger.”
Her elbow is on the arm rest of the door and her chin is in her hand, her eyes looking out the window, avoiding me. “I know,” she whispers.
I slowly let my foot off the break, allowing the car to take it’s time pulling us froward. I turn right onto Main Street and I let the car roll, not stepping on the gas—mostly on purpose because I love her in my car.
I sneak a glance over at her and see the hand she has on her thigh. I focus on her middle finger. She still wears the dainty gold ring with a tiny ruby stone I gave her six years ago, only a few months before I left. Except, it was originally on her right hand before I switched it to her left.
Regardless, she still wears it.
It isn’t until we come to a stop sign at the corner of her bookshop cafe that she says, “Turn left.”
So I turn left onto Spring Road and follow her directions until she says, “Here.”
I ease off the gas and take as long as I can before I have to come to a complete stop.
But then I finally stop and it feels like my life is over and doomed, and I’m not going to get back the love of my life.
Not to be dramatic, but I think I’d rather die than to drop her off at home tonight and never see her again.
It feels the way it did four years ago.
“Thanks,” she mumbles and reaches for the door handle.
“Wait—” I snap and she gives me a look before I get out of my car. I go around the front and through the windshield her brown eyes are wide saucers that I can’t seem to read.
I open the passenger side door for her and she’s looking up at me with the same wide eyes, and I don’t know what to say or do.
I’ve always opened the door for her. The door on the ferris wheel, the door to our old apartment, the door to my old car, the shower door when she’d join me, the door of anything we’ve ever gone into or out of.
I reach out my hand hoping she’ll take it and let me help her.
She doesn’t. She gets out on her own and I drop my hand, putting it in my pocket and feeling that sting in my chest.
I close the door after her and lean against the car. “Thanks,” she says again.
“I know where you live now,” I quip.
“I knew this was a mistake,” she sighs, opening her small purse and taking out her keys.
“Was it?”
“It is if you become a deranged stalker.”
I huff a laugh and cross my arms. “I’m not a stalker.”
“Give it some time,” she says. “I already see it happening.”
“I don’t mind the chase.”
“Oh, I remember.”
I arch a brow. “Do you?”
“Impossible to forget when all you did was beg me to go on a date with you.”
I scoff. “I did not beg.”
She guffaws. “Sure.”
“But I’m willing to beg now.”
“Beg or grovel?” Lana crosses her arms now and cocks her hip, her brow high and waiting.
“Both.”
“It’s not that easy, Christian.”
“Say it again,” I say quickly, without even thinking.
“It’s not that easy.”
“No, not that.” I push off the car and take a few steps until I’m towering over her, her head tilted back. “My name.”
Her breath hitches. “No.”
My hands flex and clench, aching to touch her and hold her. To mold themselves to the curves and dimensions of her body to reacquaint themselves. To hold proof of her existence.“Why not?”
“I don’t like your name.”
My lip twitches. “Liar.”
“Goodnight,” she says, her exhale shaky, “Christian.”
I bite my tongue and stifle the smirk. “Goodnight, Lana,” I say. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She’s already going up the stairs of her porch when, over her shoulder, she says, “No you won’t.”
“I will.”
“Nope!” She puts her key into her yellow door that is just…her.
“Yes, I will.”
“Stalker!”
“Persistent!”
“Annoying!”
And her door closes.
Her door is yellow, the house is a light gray, the railing around the porch and stairs are white, and it all fits. It’s a house she owns, all on her own. She made her dreams come true and she didn’t even need me.
I’m not a part of this life, and I’m not sure if I ever deserve to be.
I pull into the parking of Meredith and Marilyn’s Bed and Breakfast. Otherwise known as The M&M B&B in this town—that’s what we’ve been calling it since the couple opened it when I was six.
The place has been here for twenty years, and this will be my first time staying here.
After I unload my three luggage and my matching Louis Vuitton duffles, I lock my car and walk the four steps up the porch.
I push the door open and bells jingle above my head, and I see Meredith behind the counter.
She smiles, at first, but I notice the way it falters when she sees me. “Christian…you’re in town…?”
I smile. “Hi Meredith. I am, yes. I was hoping you have a room.”
Meredith purses her lips and nods. “Are you staying?”
A punch in the gut. More like a stab between the fourth and fifth ribs, but, fine.
“I plan to, yes.”
“Well,” Meredith sighs, crossing her arms. “Marilyn is Team Lana.”
I huff. “Who isn’t?”
She shrugs with her mouth and shoulders. “Haven’t met anyone who isn’t yet.”
I roll my lips in and nod, the grip on my duffle tightening. “Me either,” I sigh. “I suppose there isn’t a room for me then?”
Meredith sighs heavily through her nose and hops off her stool. “You tell Marilyn, I’ll kill you.”
I nod and her fingers click across the keyboard of her laptop. She turns and grabs a key from a slot. “Thank you, Mer.”
She shoots me a look and then flicks her eyes back to the screen of the laptop. “I’m not entirely Team Christian, just so you know.”
“I don’t expect you to be.” I’m not either.
Meredith huffs and puts the key on the counter. “You’ve got a lovely twin bed on the second floor.”
I dip my chin and take what I can get. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”
“Don’t mention it. Literally.”
It takes two trips up and down the stairs with all my luggage before I can find my room at the end of the hall, and I sigh as soon as I step in. It’s warm and humid. It’s barely the beginning of summer, but the nighttime is always cold.
After locking the door, I leave the luggage in the middle of the room and fall backward onto the twin bed, the springs screaming beneath my weight. I close my eyes for a few minutes and think over all the things I could possibly do to win her back.
Rowan was right. I should have come up with a plan.
All of Willow Springs is on Team Lana, and I can’t fault them. I can’t be mad about it. It’s the only team that makes sense to root for, honestly. I also didn’t expect this return to be an easy one. I knew I was going to get shit and I knew I was going to have to take it.
Maybe I’m just tired. I drove for hours this morning and haven’t been able to shower or relax.
Hell, I feel like I could just cry all night.
I don’t think I’ve sobbed my eyes out since rehab when I was forced to feel the lack of Lana Aurora Gomez in my life.
She was—is—still in my heart, but I didn’t have her. Still don’t. Yet.
Everyday I looked down at my palms and thought about how easy it is to lose something you thought you would have forever.
Loving people is like holding sand. You don’t hold your fingers together tight enough, it’ll slip and you’ll lose it because you just didn’t hold on tight enough.
And sometimes, people slip through anyway, but that’s just life.
Sand is easy to fall through the cracks, but Lana wasn’t sand, she was a diamond. I somehow managed to let her slip.
I didn’t hold on tight enough.
And every day I looked at my palms, I felt a phantom touch.
I closed my eyes and imagined my hands were holding her face and I was looking down at her smile, my thumbs pressed into her dimples.
Sometimes I pictured my hands on her waist, holding her close as she stood on my toes and we danced in our old living room.
Other times, I was just holding her hand, and it was enough.
But I could feel the lack, the missing weight of her presence.
Hands that were once full, hands that were once trusted to hold her heart, are now empty. I’m going to try so fucking hard to fill them again.
Feeling myself about to fall asleep from being so deep in my head, I force myself up. After the hot shower, I’m asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.
My car makes a weird noise. I keep telling myself I’ll get it fixed but once I do, I think I’ll miss it. Especially because it makes Lana smile and laugh hard enough for her dimples to show.
“It sounds like someone has a terrible case of diarrhea, Christian!” Lana wheezes.
“It’s only when I step on the brake, Lana.”
“Why don’t you just get a new car? Your dad would help—”
I shake my head.“I don’t want his money. He’d only hold it over my head.”
His company was growing and growing. Soon he’d need a bigger team. Bigger headquarters. More technology for everything he does that I have no interest in.
“Okay,” my girlfriend says softly, slipping her hand effortlessly into mine. “Then we’ll just…add more money to the jar, yeah?”
I nod.
“Thank you for picking me up from class,” she says and leans over the console to kiss me at the red light. “Do you think when you fix her up you can finally teach me how to drive stick?”
I look over at her and smile when she starts batting her lashes. “Fine.”
Lana squeals and peppers kisses across my jaw. “I love you.”
“I know,” I lean to steal one more real kiss before the light turns green. “How was class?”
She shrugs and puts her hand on my thigh. “It was fine. I’m rethinking business school though.”
“Don’t,” I tell her. “It’ll be worth it when we open the shop. You graduate in a year and a half. We’re almost there, baby.”
“I hope so.” She frowns.
We’ve been dating for two years now. Inseparable unless we have to go to work or class. But even then, we’re attached at the hip. We’re almost twenty two, and we’re figuring it out bit by bit. We’re saving—for her bookstore cafe, for a new car, for a house.
But, the more I think about it—
“Move in with me,” I blurt.
Her eyes widen when she looks at me, gaping. “What?”
I shrug, grinning and turning toward her apartment. “I’m always at your apartment anyway, so let’s just live together. Forever.”
She snorts, grinning just as wide as I am. “Okay then you move in with me.”
I laugh and park across the street from her apartment building. I reach over and kiss one of her dimples. “Okay then, Lana Aurora Gomez,” I say against her lips. “Can I move in with you?”
“Yes,” she breathes, smiling on my lips. “Yes, Christian Calloway, you can move in with me.”
I kiss her hard and soft. Deep and intently.
I never leave her apartment anyway. I refuse to be at my parent’s unless I’m picking up clothes or something I need for Lana’s.
And I go when they aren’t home so I’m not subjected to their abuse—physical and verbal.
Last time it happened, Lana was a wreck when I got to the apartment.
The moment she saw my face, she lost it.
You’d think it was her who my father beat.
I missed work and class for two days—split lip, bruised ribs, bruises around my neck. Dad is just your typical business-man-drunk. Mean, aggressive. An asshole. Pretty narcissistic. Someone who enjoys hitting his kid and making him feel worthless.
But with Lana, I feel okay. Lana makes me feel like the shiniest star in the sky and I see it in her eyes when she looks at me the way she does—like I hung the fucking moon. And I’d lower it for her if she asked me to.
“Well, this is easy,” she giggles.
“What is?”
“You already have a key and most of your stuff is already upstairs.”
“Convenient, isn’t it?”
“Extremely,” Lana smiles.
“I love you.”
“I know.”