Rivers

Until my phone starts buzzing across the nightstand, I didn’t remember I’d made plans for today. “Fuck.” Grabbing the phone, I answer it. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.” I hang up on Ridge before he has a chance to speak.

I lie there a few extra seconds and scrub my hands over my face. My body feels heavy as though it’s part of the mattress, but I push up just as my phone buzzes again. Fuck me. This time I answer and put it on speaker. “It’s lunch, not a fucking emergency. What the fuck, man? I said I’ll be there.”

“Rivers?”

My eyes dart to the screen when I hear her soft voice come through, filling my heart with hope. “Stella?” I’m greeted by silence but still hold it to my ear. “Stella?” Then the line goes dead. I try to call her back, but she doesn’t answer.

I’m wide-awake now but have no clue why she called, so I immediately text her: Call me back.

I watch dots creep across the screen, and then stop. “Fuck. Come on, Stella.” I wait a minute and then send another text: Please.

What feels like an hour passes. Of course, it’s only about thirty seconds, but then she calls. Thank God! I almost drop the phone trying to answer it. “Stella?”

“Rivers—”

My stomach drops. “Hey, how are you?” She’s texting and willing to call me. My mind spins to worst-case scenarios. “Is something wrong? Are you okay?”

“I’m . . . I don’t know how I am.” She releases a breath into the phone as if she’s given up. “I didn’t know if I should contact you again, but I had to.”

“You can call anytime.” I just need to hear your voice, baby. I’ve missed you so much.

She laughs nervously. “I came over last night to tell you not to contact me again, but now I’m the one instigating something I shouldn’t.”

She knows her limits, and I’ve become a hard one for her. I hate it.

Or maybe she’s dating an overprotective asshole who wants to control her every move.

I used to be an overprotective asshole when it came to her, but I never wanted to control or change her. I just wanted to protect her from the other assholes out there. Now here she is, and she’s dating one of them. My head hangs forward, my own guilt for this mess eating at me. “Is this about you seeing someone else?”

“I shouldn’t have come over last night either,” she says as if the visit is a sin she needs to confess to. “I shouldn’t be calling you now. What message am I sending? I’m hot. I’m cold. I’m on. I’m off. You know what I am?” She rushes the words when she says, “I’m weak. You make me feel weak, Rivers. So I can’t do this because just your presence messes with my head. If I open the door to you even a little, you’ll work your way back into my life as if you never left.” She chokes up. “Please don’t do this to me.”

Another crack in my heart deepens, and I close my eyes. “What do you want me to do, Stella? Forget you exist? It’s been five fucking years, and I haven’t managed to do that yet.” I hate the plea in my tone. I hate how desperate I sound, how weak she makes me. I’m at the mercy of this woman, and she wants nothing to do with me. But for her, I’ll plead. “Please, baby.”

The sound of her tears echoes through the silence between us. “I can’t. You’ve already reopened the wounds I thought were healing.”

She’s so careful when she speaks of our breakup, not wanting to tread on the grave of our relationship or disturb it. I’ll fucking tread on it. I’ll disturb it if it gets us talking. “I don’t want to do this over the phone, but I deserve a chance to tell you what happened.”

“You had a chance and didn’t take it. I’ve had to live with that.” She starts to speak, “I can’t do this . . .” and then goes quiet. A pause turns into silence.

“Stella? I’m begging for your time. Ten minutes. Half an hour. Anything. Please.”

“If I give you ten minutes, it won’t change anything. The damage is done.” I hear how she struggles to say what she thinks needs to be said. I hear her heart breaking through the line. “We aren’t the same people, and our situations aren’t the same.”

She’s taken. What the fuck am I doing? Am I willing to destroy the happiness she’s found for my own selfish reasons?

True love isn’t burdening her with my personal ambitions. True love is letting her be happy whether it’s with me or someone else.

I can’t do it. I don’t want to. I can’t give her up. She’s my everything.

I have to, though. I have to walk away, though the pain is already rivaling the day I walked away the first time. I begin to speak, but my voice cracks, revealing the fractures in my heart, so I stop and start again. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you the truth back then. I’m sorry . . . I’m just sorry about everything.”

Her sobs are heard even though I can tell she’s attempting to stifle them. “Stella?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you really want me to let you go?”

She sniffles again. “I need you to let me go.”

“Then I’ll let you go, but I will always love you.”

The pain overwhelms me, and my mind goes fuzzy. I don’t think goodbyes are exchanged. There’s nothing good about saying bye to her. Forever. But when I look at my phone, the call has ended.

I slam it on the bed behind me, wanting to smash it, wanting to destroy the conversation that will remain our last. “Fuck!” I shout, my hands trembling and my muscles tightening in rage. I can’t eat with all this anger coursing through me. Getting up, I take my phone and text Ridge: I can’t make it.

Ridge: Lazy ass fucker.

Ridge: Beers later?

Me: Yeah. Gallons.

Ridge: That bad?

Me: Worse.

Ridge: Sorry, man.

Digging a pair of shorts out of my suitcase, I pull them on. Everything’s dirty from traveling, but that won’t matter ten minutes from now when I’m pounding out my anger on the concrete.

I pull my sneakers and a pair of socks out, slipping them on after snapping on my wristwatch. I’m pushing myself today, and I want to know how many damn steps I cover.

Ridge: Maybe not gallons. We have an album to record, and your bros will kill me if I let you drink yourself to death. But doubles are on tap tonight.

I don’t know why that makes me laugh, but it does. I didn’t know him two years ago, but after traveling with Ridge on tour, he fits in like we’ve known him our whole lives.

Me: Doubles then.

Opening the fridge, I pull out an energy drink and down it. Not a good meal, but it will give me the hit I need to cover some miles. I head out the back door and around to the street.

It’s not a straight shot to the trail that wraps Lady Bird Lake, but it’s under two miles, so I head that way, wanting to see some water. I need the peace it brings.

Another reminder plays back with every step I run.

I’m taken.

You make me weak.

Like you always do.

Like you always have.

Please don’t do this to me.

My feet come to an abrupt stop near the lookout point. I anchor my hands above my knees, bending over and gasping for air. I thought running would clear my head and heal some of my heart, but the more air I take in, the more I realize that nothing’s going to heal me. Except her. It’s been years of fucking torture, and it’s not getting better.

I’m not getting better.

I’m getting bitter.

Please don’t do this to me.

Her words haunt me. All this time I thought it was her doing this to me.

The misunderstanding in the favor I did for a friend grows into a tornado, gathering strength as it travels the distance from then to the here and now. We’re victims in this tornado of emotion’s path, our love destroyed like our innocence.

There’s nothing left of me worth salvaging in the aftermath. When I think of her, see her beauty on the inside fighting to shine through again, I wonder if she’s the same as she was before we were leveled to nothing. Is there anything left of the girl I once knew?

Or has everyone taken what was good, so pure, and twisted her into what she has to be to fit in? Does the man lucky enough to call her his know the value of her worth? Does he treat her the way I should have, the way I once did? Is he worthy of her love? Am I?

No.

I press my hands against the rough bricks, letting the jagged cement dig into the palms of my hands. These are the same hands that play a bass guitar like I used to touch her, hitting her high and low notes with ease and finding the sweet spot by memory. Every time I hold the guitar she gave me, it’s almost like I’m touching her again—the strong strings, the bass beats, tightening and loosening to adjust to her needs, her desires, craving that sound she makes when our melody comes together.

We shouldn’t see each other.

My head falls forward, my breath still hard to catch, but I don’t think it’s from the running. When I open my eyes, I see the blood staining the mortar, and I pull back, not feeling the pain but knowing my hands have given me the only salvation I’ve found. Music. Without the band, I wouldn’t be here, but without her, do I want to be?

Instead of damaging my hands, I should be living the high life—fucking a different groupie every night, blowing cash like cocaine, being fucked-up enough not to notice the difference when I’m down.

But I’ve been there. Not so much the groupies but everything else. Knew changes had to be made.

Giving up drugs wasn’t hard.

Losing her was. Facing a reality of never having her again the hardest of all.

The pain of that day is fresher than the blood that slides to the tip of my finger and falls to the ground when I start jogging, my mind still caught in the vortex of my remorse.

A favor for a friend destroyed us. But . . . will the truth make a difference?

Or do I walk away and live with this regret for the remainder of my days? Do I leave her be, so she can find her happily ever after without me?

Just like when my mom died, maybe I’ve never had a choice. Maybe I was meant to lose her too.