29. Waverly
CHAPTER 29
WAVERLY
Fortunate:Mr. Kim’s Thai restaurant started selling sushi.
Unfortunate:I once had my palm read. She told me that I was destined for a life of loneliness. And on the same day I went to get a tarot reading, she told me, “Remember, nothing is ever what it seems.” Fitting. Really. Fucking. Fitting.
Roman’s eyes are wide. Our breathing has gone from erratic to paused. I seriously don’t think he’s let out a breath since I said his brother’s name. He lets go of me and slowly turns to face the same ghost that I am, presumably to see if I’m hallucinating, or if it’s really his brother standing before us.“Holy shit,” I hear him mutter under his breath.
“You—You’re alive.” I don’t know what else to say. I don’t know what to do. I don’t move to hug him, and neither does Roman, but he does reluctantly step away from me, putting a decent foot between us like I wasn’t just trying to cut him open and wear him as a coat.
Patrick’s eyes bounce from me to his brother a few times. He gives no emotion away. Not anger. Not disappointment. Nothing. “I…uh…can we talk?” He gestures to my apartment. Our apartment?
What’s happening?
I turn my gaze to Roman, and his sight is fixed on the rocks at his feet.
Look at me, please . My heart starts breaking all over again, but this time for the other brother.
He doesn’t hear my silent pleas. Or if he does, he ignores them. But instead, he walks up to Patrick, a tear sliding down his cheek, and throws himself into his arms. Roman starts to sob into Patrick’s shoulder, but Patrick just stares. At me. A look I’ve never seen before simmering behind his eyes. And I’m frozen by that gaze, the hairs on my spine standing on end like a deer caught in the headlights. All I can do is watch the two brothers embrace, dreading the inevitable conversation that’s about to follow. Willing them to be so overcome by brotherly emotion that whatever conversation we’re about to have can wait until tomorrow.
But after what feels both like an eternity, and not long enough, Roman finally pulls away. “Listen, man…”
“Don’t.” Patrick’s brows pinch. “We’ll talk, but I need to talk to Waverly first.” Patrick watches my reaction, but I can’t offer him anything when all I want to do is tell Roman that this changes nothing between us.
“Let me talk to Rome? Please?” I tuck my hair behind my ears. “I’m sorry. I’m just in shock…and I’m…” I walk up to hug the man I was engaged to over a year ago. He wraps his arms around me tightly, but his touch feels foreign to me now. Feels unwelcomed. Being wrapped up in his hug makes me feel like I’m doing something wrong.
He releases me and starts walking to my apartment. “Why don’t we all hang out? It’s been a while, right?” I nod and Roman’s jaw tics, offering his brother a tight smile, his eyes glistening with tears.
As Patrick strolls up the driveway, I turn to Roman who avoids my eyes. I can already feel him pulling away from me. Retreating to how it was before Patrick’s death. Or his disappearance. Or whatever the hell that was.
Roman doesn’t say anything except follows behind his brother into my apartment. He waits at the door, unlike Patrick who just waltzed in and made himself at home. Like I haven’t redone almost everything from the furniture to the paint.
“Thank you.” I squeeze through the doorway with Roman bringing us extremely close, which wouldn’t be an issue, but an extra pair of eyes are on us right now. Eyes that we thought were long gone.
He nods and Patrick claps his hands. “So! What’s been going on? It’s great to see you guys.” Roman and he exchange another hug before he pulls me into a hug. My nerves are on high alert. I feel like I’m cheating on my almost boyfriend with my risen-from-the-dead fiancé. This has to be made into a movie or something.
“Man. What…what happened? How are you here?” Roman asks, not moving from the doorway.
“I’d rather not get into that right now. Please. It’s been a long day.” Patrick opens the fridge and grabs a bottle of water. “You started buying bottled water again?”
My brows pinch. “Well, yeah. I couldn’t afford the water delivery service anymore.” That’s right, we were living the high life, getting spring water delivered in five-gallon bottles before he died. Or didn’t die.
Patrick unscrews the cap and takes a few swigs. “These shits kill the ocean.”
“Right. I guess I can budget the bigger bottles in again,” I concede.
It’s the strangest thing—feeling my newly found freedom and happiness that I worked so hard to get back drain from my body and mind in minutes. A feeling I’m not keen on, but it’s as if it’s unpreventable. And there isn’t anything I can do to stop it except to latch on to my only floating device.
Roman.
Roman clears his throat. “I actually have to get going.”
I know that look. I’ve seen it many times before, and he’s been open about hating the way Patrick talked to me sometimes. His jaw muscles are flexed like he’s trying not to say something he may regret.
“No. Stay?” I almost beg, my eyes pleading.
“No, no. You both have a lot to catch up on.”
I look at Patrick, hoping he’ll ask his brother to stay. He doesn’t. “Well… let me walk you out?”
Roman nods and I follow him out to his truck.
“Roman?”
He begins to turn away to leave, as if he’s forgotten that I’m standing here in front of him . I want to stay out here with him . Not chase his long-lost brother.
“Roman. Talk to me!”
He shakes his head. “This was never going to work, anyway. You’re you. I’m me. He’s back and we aren’t together. Nothing is keeping you here…with me.” He looks up at my apartment. His walls are up. He is back to the Roman who disappeared. The one who kept his distance all these years. I won’t let that happen again. I can’t let that happen again. It’ll break me. And more importantly, I can already see it breaking him.
I grab his shirt with my fists, tears streaming down my face. “Roman, please. You don’t mean that.”
“I don’t know what I mean.” His eyes widen in disbelief. “This…it’s crazy, right? We finally start to get our happy ending and now…” A slap comes from his arms falling to his sides.
He turns away and rubs his hands over his face as a loud growl erupts from deep within him. The gravel crumbles under his feet as he spins back and flies toward me, holding himself inches from my face.
“Of course I don’t fucking mean it! I’ve let myself fall for you, again. ” His hands cradle my cheeks. “And for some reason, every time I think that I can have you, I get emotionally and mentally slammed.” His shoulders sag in relief. “I’m sick…of being…slammed.”
Roman runs his long fingers through his hair, tugging at the roots, deep in thought. Silence fills the air between us until— “Please, Waverly. Don’t go in there. I can’t lose you again. I love you. I fucking love you.”
“You…” I lose my breath and can only muster a whisper. “You love me?” Trying to blink away the tears, I hold my hands over his.
The pads of his thumbs wipe away my tears. “I’ve loved you since I met you. Just…come home with me,” he begs, tears threatening to fall. “Come home and I’ll spend my life ticking off items on your bucket list.” He buries the heat of his face in the crook of my neck, and as a reflex, one palm cradles the back of his head, while the other gently rubs his back. The warmth of his breath causes me to shudder inwardly, and the warmth of his body causes me to melt. Thinking about losing him—this feeling is all too much.
He stands straight and our eyes lock before one tear falls. “You want to travel the world?! Done! You want to swim in what’s left of the Great Barrier Reef? We can do that, too.” Another tear falls. “If you want to open a lightning bug sanctuary, I’ll fucking build it for you. Somehow, but I’ll make it happen.” He cries. I cry. We cry together. “I will spend the rest of my life making you happy because you make me happy. Just… please…don’t go in there. Not right now, anyway. Come home with me. ”
Have you ever had a moment in your life when you feel everything slipping away—falling through your fingers. Hearing Roman’s pleas is breaking my heart. I remember after Patrick proposed I was dead set on believing I wasn’t happy because I was so used to the other shoe dropping. Well, here it is. The shoe has dropped. Both shoes are buried six feet under. At least I thought one of the shoes was long buried.
“Roman, I can’t… it’s not…” I can’t what? It’s not what? I don’t even know. I want to go home with him. But it’s not that simple. Patrick is back. My fiancé is back. We have so much to talk about. It’s not like I’m going to fall right back into his arms. How am I supposed to pick up where we left off? Patrick and I were complacent in our relationship. Right before the tsunami siren went off, I was already contemplating whether or not I made the right decision by saying yes to his proposal. But that doesn’t let me off the hook to just walk away from him and into the arms of his brother.But where the hell has he been for the last year?
This is all so complicated, but I need to have a conversation with Patrick before I can fall into another man’s arms. Nobody writes a ‘ How-to ’ book on these types of life events.
I place my hand on his chest, hoping he can feel my defeat. My unsaid promises to him. “We will talk tomorrow. Just…this is a lot.”
“I hate that I’m not over the fucking moon that he’s back,” his voice breaks while releasing a secret that was meant for just us. “I resent him. I’m a shitty fucking person, Waverly.” He doesn’t wait for me to say anything before sliding into his truck, closing the door, and jetting out of the lot, kicking up dust as he leaves.
“Roman!” I scream, hoping he hears my plea. “I love you, too. Come back.” I shout into the dirt he’s kicked up with the tires.
I fall to my knees and sob into my hands. “Come back,” I sob, as loud as possible.
I watch his truck disappear and stand there for a few extra minutes. I pushed him to go. And although I told him to leave, I stand there hoping…praying he’ll continue to fight for me . For us.
A few minutes later, Patrick and I are face to face. In the flesh. I haven’t moved away from the front door, and he hasn’t moved from the kitchen. He stands still and casual, with his hands tucked in his pants pockets.
Something has shifted between us. It’s not simply that he disappeared and came back. He’s a stranger. His entire demeanor has changed.
“Can you say something?” He gives me a nervous glance, urging me to speak, but I have no words.
“Would you like a coffee? Or a whiskey? Tea…” I ramble, scared of the silence between us. Do I hug him? I don’t feel the closeness we once had. Or maybe because it would feel like cheating on Roman. I never had a problem with hugging Roman when Patrick was around. The mental anguish of all of this is too much.
His gaze follows me to the kitchen. I’m in the same room as Patrick. “I’ll have some more water.” His voice is deeper, less intense than it once was. I get him a bottle of water as if he is a guest in the apartment we once paid for together.
He takes a seat at the kitchen table, and I place the bottle down in front of him. “Waverly, can you sit down?”
I obey, sitting across from him at the kitchen table, my nail absentmindedly tracing over the light oak pattern. His hair is much shorter than when we were together. It’s buzzed close to his head. His skin is tan, and he has lost a lot of weight. He’s no longer the bulky man I knew, but leaner. Like Roman.
Just the thought of him triggers a nagging in my mind that refuses to be stilled. “ Come home with me.”
One Huxley brother at a time. Patrick and I need to get things out in the open. Put an end to it all.
“How are you here?” I whisper.
“I was swept away by the wave.” Fucking, duh. “I was knocked unconscious and woke up in this little village off the coast. It was filled with eastern medicine doctors.” Patrick clears his throat. “I suffered from amnesia for about six or seven months. Slowly bits and pieces started to come back to me, but it wasn’t my current life that came back.”
Those words were like a knife to my heart. I know he had no control over what he remembered and when, but it still hurts. I didn’t come first when we were together, and I didn’t come first when we weren’t.
“I was having memories of my late teens—early twenties. Moving to California to be close to my family. Joining the Coast Guard, stuff like that.”
“We had a funeral for you.” Your mother was drugged for the better half of a year. “Have you seen your parents yet? Do they know?”
“I spent the day with them. Mom hugged me for an hour and Dad…well, you know him. He welcomed me back, hugged me, shed a tear or two, then made a sandwich.” I laugh. I would love nothing more than to be as unaffected as Harold.
The fact that he saw his parents before his fiancée...I’m rendered speechless. If it were me, I would run straight to my man, even if my mom had to wait an hour longer to find out.
Patrick sits up straighter in his chair and leans his elbows against the table, bringing himself closer to me. He’s still handsome.
“It was just a lot.”
I try to engage. “So you became a part of the village that took care of you? You’ve been gone for over a year now. And you said you had amnesia for six or seven months…what did you do after you started remembering?” Surely, he could have gotten in touch with his parents, or his brother, even if he didn’t remember me.
“Let me home in on what happened…really quick.” My resolve is dwindling the more I’m in his presence. He nods. “You get washed away. End up in a village with amnesia.” This is like a bad fucking movie that won’t end. “You start remembering your…childhood, essentially. But not me.”
Another nod.
“THEN! You do remember me, but even though you remember your family and me, you choose to live there and not get in touch with any of us…” The Italian in me has my hands flying around. “Just to let us know you are, in fact, alive?” This. Is. Insane. He has no excuse. Why am I giving him my time again?
“I…I…It was a lot to move from day to day.” He rubs his hands over his face. “I think I was sad. They would bring me food, involve me in their rituals. I had some acupuncture done.”
“Wow! Acupuncture, hm?” I snap, sounding like a bitch. I try to tamp down my frustration, but I’m failing miserably. “You used to tell me ‘That woo-woo stuff doesn’t work and that it’s all in my head.’”
This is outrageous, right? I’m sitting here in front of my once-dead fiancé. I should be stoked he’s alive, well, and here with me, but everything in me just feels dread. Guilt? Why the hell should I feel guilty? He was gone. He was never supposed to come back. I had to live my life and move on, and I did so with his brother. Which is kind of messed up… But you can’t help who Cupid’s arrow shoots. I’ve made my peace with it. And I’ll be damned if I retreat on that progress.
But it would also make me an absolutely terrible person if I didn’t hear him out. Even if it’s really hard to do right now.
“I needed something . I was falling into a massive state of depression.” His eyes fall to his lap like he’s recalling the dark moments.
“I’m sorry that happened to you, but I had a lot of dark moments myself over the past year…” There I go, sounding like he used to. Lacking any sort of empathy. He regards me quizzically for a moment.
His hands rub over his face that’s no longer clean shaven. Old Patrick thought beards were for the lazy. From the look of it, old Patrick really did die. Like me, he’s been reborn.
“Waverly, I know you have a thing with my brother.” The knot in my stomach twists, making me feel like I’m going to puke. “Have you slept together?”
No, but it was supposed to happen tonight. Hell, it may have happened against his truck if Patrick hadn’t shown up. I shake my head, trying to hide the disappointment.
Does Patrick even have a right to ask that? Such a murky moral line here. I could tell him that it’s none of his business. But is it? I guess we are technically still engaged. Nobody really gives you a rule book for when your fiancé comes back from the dead, but you’re into his brother.
Patrick closes the space between us and grabs my hand. “I won’t ask to pick up where we left off because that will be nearly impossible. But could I stay here?” In my space? Excuse me? A space that I sage daily and smoked it out with Palo Santo to release the negativity that was built up between these walls? Patrick’s eyes widen like he’s had an epiphany.
“I need to talk to Rome before I agree to anything. It’s only fair.”
His face falls. “I understand. That’s a good idea.”