Play On by Samantha Young (33)

To say I was lost in a fog of confusion over the next few days was an understatement. I felt an itch inside me, a constant reminder that Aidan was walking out of my life. It didn’t seem real to me that Thursday morning in his apartment could be the last time I’d ever see him.

It didn’t have to be.

Aidan loved me.

Loved me.

Loved me.

Just me. Not the ghosts between us or all those reasons we were drawn together in the first place.

Just me.

Like I loved him.

So why couldn’t I shed my fear that by being with him, I’d become someone broken and lost?

“Because that’s who you were when you first met him?” Seonaid said when I finally got up the courage to ask her.

It was Saturday night, I’d blown through a terrible rehearsal with the rest of my cast members, and Seonaid had come over after I’d called to explain the countdown to Monday.

She brought beer.

“Thanks.”

“Well, you were. That’s nothing to be ashamed of, Nora. You lost a lot as a child, and then you left your family to be with a man who didn’t really get you, loved you, but by God, he didn’t understand you, and,” she sucked in a teary breath, “he died. Too much to lose and all it did was fill your head with guilt that didn’t belong to you. You were broken and lost. Finding Aidan made you feel less alone when you needed it most. He mended you, babe, whether you want to admit it or not. Finding him gave you faith that this world is filled with good. And then you lost him. You thought he walked away. And it broke what was left of you.

“But this time, you knew you had to put yourself together. And you did. You became a survivor and a fighter, and you went after all the things you wanted in life. That’s who you are now. So why on earth would you run from this thing you want in life? Because we both know you want Aidan Lennox more than you want anything. He’s consumed you from the moment you met him.”

That word, though: consume. That didn’t sound very healthy. Not at all.

“Does Roddy consume you, Seonaid?”

She smiled, lowering her eyes to the glass of beer in her hand. “I know to everyone else it looks like the bugger bewitches and bothers and bewilders me. But when we’re alone, he’s someone else. He gives me a piece of him that belongs to only me. And aye, he consumes me with it.” She looked at me. “If that’s madness, Nora, then I gladly give myself over to it.”

I envied her, her clarity of mind. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Talk to Jim,” Seonaid said.

“What?”

“Visit Jim. I like to believe he’s not really gone.” Tears wet her eyes. “And I talk to him, liking the idea that he understands us all now better than he ever did when he was alive. So talk to him. Maybe everything that has happened will start to make sense, and all the pieces will make a path that’ll lead you to the right decision.”

I took a swallow of my beer to avoid bursting into tears. And when I thought I could speak without crying, I said, “You’re the wisest, dearest friend I’ve ever known, Seonaid McAlister.”

The pressure of her smile caused her tears to spill over.

Sun dapple from the leaves on the tree above Jim’s grave caused patterns to dance across the dark gray of his headstone. I hadn’t been to visit since before I left for Indiana, afraid of seeing it in the same way I was afraid of returning to Aidan.

“I’m sorry, Jim.” I placed a hand on the top of the stone. “It’s about time I stopped evading the things that scare me.”

I studied the gold lettering on his stone.

I didn’t remember discussing Jim’s epitaph. I know Angie wouldn’t have gone ahead with something without my approval, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember discussing it. She’d chosen beautifully.

I hadn’t been in love with Jim.

But he’d been my closest friend for a number of years, and I loved and missed my friend.

The memories of our life together flooded me as if Jim were pumping them up into the hand I’d placed on his headstone. The nervous excitement of running away together, his patient gentleness the night we made love for the first time. How scared I’d been. How it took weeks for me to feel comfortable enough around him to start enjoying sex with him. How when we were together like that, I used to stare into his eyes, wishing that the connection I sought would somehow magically appear between us. I’d get lost in his lovemaking because Jim was good at it, and he was not a selfish lover, but afterward when we were finished, I’d feel more alone than ever.

As alone as I’d felt in that small, cramped room back in that unhappy house in Indiana.

Jim wasn’t the reason I’d lost myself.

I lost myself the moment my dad stopped loving me and started hating the world. Or maybe that wasn’t right, either. Maybe I was too young then to have even have found myself. Maybe Dad had thrown me off course. And Jim’s waves had buffeted me to the wrong shore.

And losing Aidan had forced me to get up and keep moving until I found what I was looking for. I found me.

I knew I’d never have found myself with Jim by my side. That I would’ve walked away from him. Hadn’t I already made up my mind to do so before he died? I could’ve done it too, because he never made me feel like Aidan does. I cared about Jim, but it wasn’t unselfish affection. I would have hurt him to walk away. And the sad truth is that as badly as I’d have felt doing it, it wouldn’t have broken me.

But walking away from Aidan, hurting Aidan, was going to break me.

There was no denying I was unequivocally in love with Aidan Lennox.

And by choosing my fears over him, I was loving him selfishly.

Wasn’t it time to trust him? To believe him when he said that he would love me for who I was now?

“Thank you, Jim, for bringing me here,” I bent down to whisper against the stone. “I did love you. In my own way.”

I straightened and walked swiftly away, making a vow that I would visit Jim more often. It was unwise to sweep the pieces of my past behind me simply because some of those pieces were jagged and painful. Each was a piece of a jigsaw, and I was the puzzle. I wasn’t complete without them. Jim deserved to be remembered, and I needed to embrace the memories of the old me too.

Because Aidan was right.

I was still that Nora. I was also eight-year-old Nora and twelve-year-old Nora, and I was Nora today. I couldn’t be who I was now without them all.

And if I liked myself as much as I proclaimed to, then why was I desperate to forget them, as if ashamed they’d ever been me? There were going to be days, hopefully few and far between, when I didn’t love myself very much for whatever reason, because I was human and no one liked themselves every day. Trying to protect myself from that was futile, and pushing away Aidan to protect myself from that was sightless and thoughtless. Totally unwise. That was a diplomatic way of saying I’d been a blind fool!

I sighed, feeling the pressure that had been on my chest since Thursday morning lift. I breathed deep but not easy. There was a man out there, after all, who I needed to convince to stay.

To forgive me.

To love me, even on the days I didn’t love myself.