On Wednesday night, I find myself standing in my living room, glancing around at all the boxes lining the walls. Everything I don’t need daily is packed. Well, almost everything. I’ve put it off long enough, and so I grab some boxes and walk down the hall to my library. I close my eyes, take a deep lungful of air, and let it out at the same time I open the door and step inside. Bracing myself for the destruction I caused all those weeks ago, and what I know it’s going to do to my already ravaged heart, I open my eyes to discover something very different instead.
The boxes slip out of my hand. All the mess has been cleaned and the books are back on the shelves. The broken, torn apart ones are arranged in piles on the rug. Piles that make up giant letters. Letters that spell I love you. He’s even used the scrunched-up pages to make an exclamation mark after you.
It’s hardly the grand gesture most girls would want after having their heart broken, but it’s the grandest one anyone has ever made for me. I step closer, looking down at the books I’ve wrecked; the same ones he’s painstakingly tried to piece back together enough to do this for me. Tears gather in my eyes, my nose stings, and my chest starts to rise and fall faster and faster. I drop to my knees, and for the second time, I fall apart in this room. But as the tears run down my face, splashing onto the taped-up cover of Wuthering Heights, I realize it doesn’t feel like I’m falling apart. I feel like I’m finally letting go.
Not only of the hurt Jared and I both caused, but of the hurt I’ve lived with my whole life. The kind of hurt that embeds so deep inside, you don’t even realize it’s there. Not until someone comes along who not only sees it, but accepts it and has the patience to wait for you to acknowledge it, too. It’s excruciating, letting a part of yourself go. No matter how much you need to or how awful that part may be. It’s still a part of you that you’ve carried within yourself for far too long.
It kept me company, that hurt. It gave me what I needed to protect myself in any situation. But nothing can protect someone from falling in love. From living.
It’s time for it to go. I run my hands over the books, the tape Jared used, the glue you can hardly even see, and the piles of pages that still have yet to find their way back home.
And I now understand why people say that goodbyes are always hard.
No Christmas lights decorate this part of town. It’s almost pitch black. The kind of darkness that blocks out the stars and makes you feel like it’s about to envelop you in its eerie embrace. I don’t let that stop me, though, as I lock my car and walk briskly up the driveway to the steps of Jared’s front porch.
Squaring my shoulders, I quickly swipe under my eyes, trying to stop the falling tears still somehow escaping. I cleaned my face before I left, but I guess they’re not finished. It figures that after I spend most of my life not shedding a tear over anything, I’ll spend days on end in tears in the space of a few months.
The door swings open before I can knock, and Toulouse meows, walking over Jared’s slipper clad feet. Slippers. He’s wearing grandpa slippers. He notices me staring at them and shrugs. “Don’t judge. It’s cold.”
I sniff, trying not to laugh. He’s giving me no shit about showing up here in the middle of the night with a tear-swollen face. That somehow makes me fall even more in love with him. He nudges Toulouse back with his foot; the cat gives him an annoyed look before turning his butt into the air and walking off into the house. “Come on, it’s fucking freezing.” He grabs my hand and pulls me inside. After locking the door, he turns around, still holding my hand.
I step closer to him. “Thank you.”
Understanding dawns, his sleepy eyes opening wider. “You saw the books? I was going to lay down shirtless, you know, to give it everything I’ve got, but then I realized I had no idea when you might walk into that room again. I could’ve been in there for days, and I’d be no good to you if—”
I throw my arms around his neck and kiss him. I kiss him like it’s the first and last kiss we’ll ever share. Because he’s given so many firsts to me, and it’s painfully obvious he’s going to have all my lasts.
My green-eyed hero.
My endless adventure.
My everything that matters.
He picks me up and carries me into his room. My lips break away from his to rain kisses all over his face. He chuckles, falling to the bed with me falling beside him. “You’re cute when you’re not angry with me anymore, know that?”
Grinning, I trail my finger down the center of his face, and he nips it when it reaches his mouth. “I want you to get rid of that couch.”
He nods. “It’ll be gone come morning.”
“Where’s your phone?”
“Nightstand, I think.” He pauses. “Why?”
I don’t answer him and, instead, roll over to grab it. Once I’ve found Stella’s number, I follow the steps to block it, hit delete, and toss his phone down on the nightstand.
Jared chuckles quietly. Rolling on top of me, he undoes the buttons on my coat, tugging my arms through when he’s done. I slip my hands under his black t-shirt, rejoicing at being able to touch his warm, smooth skin again. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I know I should’ve told you from the start, but I was so scared he’d—”
He shakes his head, pressing his lips to mine. “Shhh, I get it. I wish you had told me, but I get why you didn’t, and honestly?” He lowers his voice to a whisper. “It’s the cruelest, but most selfless act anyone has ever shown me.”
Tears clog my throat, but I manage to get out, “I think he’ll leave us alone now, but I understand if you don’t want to risk it. I never wanted to make you choose.”
He rests his forehead against mine. “He can lay the world to ruin for all I care. I’ve got insurance.”
A laugh erupts from me. “Yeah, but it’s not enough. Your brother, the bikes, your employees…”
“Hey, stop.” I blink. “It’ll be okay.”
I nod, letting out a huge breath. “Okay.”
I start tugging at his shirt, and he sits up, tearing it over his head, and then lowers himself back over me, kissing my chin then pecking my lips.
“I’m sorry. Whatever you do to me, whatever happens, I’ll never let myself do something like that again. But I swear I didn’t …”
“Shhhh.” I give him a pained smile. “I believe you.”
He lifts his head, wincing and cursing softly. “It’s just … I’ve been let down quite a few times in my life, and it’s almost ingrained in me to think the worst of those I care about the most.” He blows out a breath. “Almost like I’m sometimes just waiting for them to prove me right.” He rolls his lips between his teeth for a second. “I shouldn’t have done that with you. I should’ve pushed past the impulse to believe the worst, but it became all I could see. Then it became the worst thing I’ve ever done.”
More tears. He kisses the wetness from my cheeks. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
I sniff. “Okay.”
“Okay.” He nods, a smile trying to pull at his mouth.
I laugh, sniffling still when I ask, “How’d you get into my apartment anyway?”
He licks his lip. “Uh, I have my ways.” When I raise a brow, he puffs out a loud breath. “Fine. Turns out Frank has got an old Dodge he wants looked at. Besides, he knows my intentions were for the greater good.” He winks and I laugh again, tears still leaking from my eyes. We’re quiet for a beat.
“When you cry, I feel it here.” He grabs my hand, placing it on his chest, and suddenly everything ceases to exist. It’s only him and me and the words that shyly leave my lips next. “I love you.”
His lips part, eyes blinking. “Say it again.”
Laughing even more, I say, “I love you, Jared Williams.”
“Fuck.” He growls the word from somewhere deep inside his chest then dips his head and claims my mouth with his. We strip in record time for two people who refuse to stop kissing for more than a few seconds. Spreading my legs, he thrusts inside then takes my hands in his. My legs hook around his waist, my fingers linking with his while he stretches me and stares into my eyes. With his lips resting against mine, he starts to move in and out of me.
It’s slow, but the intensity, everything about these mere moments in time, fires through every part of me. His body lowers until he’s holding himself up on his elbows alone and bearing half of his weight on me. We don’t talk, the only sounds are the ragged breaths we exhale into each other. Until we finally start to crest the sharp edge of pleasure, falling into it together and groaning as we stare into each other’s eyes. Jared rolls to his side, hooking an arm over my stomach and pulling me to him until my head rests under his chin.
“Sleep, beauty.”
Dousing the couch in some lighter fluid, I step back and take stock of my supplies.
Coffee. Fire extinguisher. Matches.
Feeling tired but more awake than I’ve felt in years, I bend down, grab the matches, and light one. The flame bobs on the end of the stick, its tiny bit of warmth struggling in the freezing temperature of the winter morning.
Jared had already removed the couch by the time I woke up, and I made him drag it down the side of the house to the backyard. He gave me a funny look but did what I requested without asking any questions.
The questions came when I asked him if he had any lighter fluid. I told him my plan and marched out the back door with my supplies in hand. After bringing out a small fire extinguisher, he retreated into the house to get his coffee.
I toss the match, watching as it meets the flammable fluid and fire races across the old fabric of the couch.
The guy from the shack next door sticks his head over the fence. He’s missing three front teeth, has one speck of hair, and a beer can in hand. But he seems harmless. I remember him from the morning after I spent my first night here when he asked Jared for a cigarette as we were backing out of the driveway. It’s hard to believe it’s barely been a few months since that happened. The first of many times when Jared had crawled under my skin and left a confusing sting in his wake.
“Vera, isn’t it?”
I nod, my brow rising.
“I’m Don. Top of the morning to ya.” He gives me a toothless grin, his elbow slung over the fence. He must be standing on something on the other side, which is a little worrying. I make a mental note to make sure the windows are curtained off properly whenever I stay here from now on.
“Morning, Don.”
“Say, why you burning that couch for?”
Taking a big sip from my coffee, I bring my gaze back to said rapidly burning couch. “It’s contaminated.” I shrug. “Best to be safe. Never can be too careful these days.” My eyes lift from the flames to find Jared watching me as he leans over the railing of the back porch, a smile tugging at his lips and a cigarette and coffee mug in his hands.
“Ain’t that the truth,” Don mutters.
I turn back to Don, smiling.
“Well, cheers, Vera. Good to see you’ve decided to hang around.” He raises his beer, and I lift my coffee in the air, too. He then drops back down to his side of the fence.
“Ready for me to come put it out now?” Jared asks.
I stare at the fire again, smoke billowing up and into the air. Lifting my coffee to my mouth, I mutter, “No. Not yet.”