Nixon
It’d been three long months, only made worse by the fact that in a few short weeks my fate would be sealed. After proposing to Shayna, I’d expected everything to magically fall into place. Like my brain would understand that I’d made my choice and my feelings for Charlie would quickly die off as I looked ahead to the future.
But it hadn’t worked.
I still dreamed about her, found my mind floating toward her whenever I lost focus for a moment.
As a way to counter my unrest, I’d thrown myself into school and studying.
But as I walked up the front steps, carrying my graduation robe, I had to face the truth. Study time was over…and my life was about to change for good.
Dread simmered inside me and I had to ask myself yet again why the hell I was going through with it. I hadn’t been able to answer the question with any kind of clarity so I just kept riding the wave, keeping everybody happy so I didn’t break hearts.
I was able to process my feelings in my journal. Yeah, it made me sound like a teenage girl, but I’d always been a writer and being able to pen my woes somehow helped. Traveling across the country with Charlie had reminded me of the long-buried passion, and each night after Shayna fell asleep, I’d pull out my diary and write a few pages. It was good to process it all—it helped me line up my logic and reminded me why going with the flow was the right thing to do.
I couldn’t break Shayna’s heart now. The ring was on her finger, the wedding mere weeks away. We’d come too far, and somehow I had to make it work.
Opening the door with a heavy sigh, I hung up my robe in the hallway closet and headed down to my room.
Music was playing in our bedroom, and as I walked down the hall, the words hit me with a brutal poignancy.
“I don’t want to feel like this tomorrow.”
I stopped walking and slid my hands into my pockets, soaking in the rest of the words to “Never Surrender” by Skillet.
It was supposed to be a love song. Surrendering to the woman you wanted to be with. But it was working completely differently for me. It was hammering home the fact that I didn’t want to be caught in this trap anymore. I didn’t want to trudge through life fighting to secure my happiness. I wanted to surrender. To be myself.
I wanted to feel actual joy without having to convince myself to do it.
And the only person I’d ever been able to do that around was Charlie.
Squeezing my burning eyes shut, I muttered, “Why the fuck did you leave me?”
I knew.
She’d told me. And I got why she did, even though she said she didn’t really want to.
It didn’t take away the pain and the hurt, but…
My eyes popped open.
But I never chased her.
I never fought.
I bought into my parents’ reasoning about how wild and unreliable Charlie was. I made myself believe that I was too plain and boring for her. I bought into it all as a way to understand, but the truth was still there, plain and simple…
Charlie Watson made me a happy man.
When I looked back on my life, the times I felt most alive were when I was with her.
So why the hell was I marrying Shayna?
Scrubbing a hand down my face, I headed for my bedroom and stopped in the doorway.
My fiancée was sitting on my side of the bed, going through my bedside cabinet. Books and my journal were laid out on the mattress, and my gut spiked with fear.
Shit! Had she read the journal?
I’d put everything in there…including the fact that I’d nearly slept with Charlie on my road trip. If Shayna read that she’d be crushed.
And that was when it hit me…revelation number two.
I was a selfish asshole.
A coward who was allowing Shayna to surge ahead with wedding plans and setting up our future when I wasn’t even into it. I’d been so wrong, thinking that I was somehow saving her pain.
But letting this happen was incredibly unfair.
Was I honestly expecting her to spend the rest of her life with a husband who didn’t love her with his whole heart?
It was time to man-up before she figured out that I couldn’t give her what she needed.
I cleared my throat, trying to counter the dread that was blocking my windpipe.
Shayna glanced up and smiled at me. “You get your robe?”
I nodded. “What…what are you doing?”
“I’m just getting the whole packing thing started. I figured I’d do some major culling first. I’ve thrown out two boxes of my stuff already, and I’m now moving on to yours.” She ran her hands over the stack of old books. “Do you know you’ve kept like every book from high school?”
That wasn’t true. I’d only kept the ones that had notes and doodles from Charlie in the margins.
“Biology, English, World History. Why are you keeping these? It’s not like you’ll ever refer to them again.”
I stepped into the room. “They’re memories, Shayna. That’s not the kind of stuff you cull.”
She rolled her eyes. “Your mother warned me you’d be like this.”
“Like what?”
“Clinging to the past.” Her smile softened with sympathy. “Don’t worry, I won’t throw away anything to do with Reagan.”
My mouth went dry. I hadn’t even thought about my late sister. She had nothing to do with my precious memories from high school.
“So, I was thinking maybe you could keep your journal and some yearbooks. But school stuff? As in notes you took in class…maybe not so much.” She cringed like I was a loser and laughed. “Besides, baby, we can’t fit this into a New York apartment. You either have to throw it out or store stuff at your parents’. It’s just reality.”
“But I don’t want it to be my reality,” I muttered.
“Excuse me?” Shayna’s frown was marked and quickly turning into the one I did everything to avoid.
But it was time to stop dodging conflict and face it head-on.
Pressing my lips together, I sucked in a breath through my nose and sighed. “I don’t want this.”
“O-kay.” She looked puzzled for a second and then started stacking up the books. “Fine. Keep them, but we’ll have to sacrifice something else. I’ve been looking into apartments in New York and even though our parents are helping us out, we’ll still be living in a shoebox. So, what are we going to sacrifice?”
All I could do was stare at her. She was beautiful with her sleek blonde hair and vibrant eyes. Her sharp, take-charge manner had pulled me out of a pit. But I couldn’t keep owing her anymore.
It wasn’t fair to either of us.
“Hello? Nixon!” She waved her hand in the air to grab my attention. “I can’t do this on my own, okay? I know you’ve been really busy with your studies and I’ve been in charge of everything else, which is fine, but I need you to focus now. We have a life to plan.”
“I know. Always a plan, right?” I snickered and shook my head. “From the day I was born, my whole life has been sketched out for me, carefully plotted and calculated so that I could have a safe, happy existence.”
Shayna’s eyes narrowed, her head jerking back like I was acting crazy. “Nixon, we’ve talked about this. We’ll live in New York until you graduate law school and then—”
“I don’t want to go to New York with you,” I blurted, then let out this relieved kind of laugh. There, I’d said it. I’d finally fucking said it.
Running her finger down the delicate gold chain around her neck, she started playing with the heart pendant. Her eyes were still narrowed, her forehead wrinkled in confusion. “I don’t understand.”
I raked a hand through my hair and closed my eyes with a sigh. “I’m sorry, okay? I just went along with all of this because that’s what everyone wanted me to do.”
“Wow, okay.” Shayna stood, and straightened her skirt before walking across the room to me. She was so much shorter without her heels on. If I tucked her against me, her forehead would nestle into the crook of my neck. I’d never feel that again after this conversation, and it was a sad kind of loss.
My throat was thick as Shayna rested her hand on my chest. I swallowed when she gently pinched my chin to make me look at her.
It was painful gazing into her eyes, but I made myself do it, because I couldn’t be a coward anymore.
“Well, where do you want to go, then?” She smiled.
I winced, hating that she didn’t get it. That I’d have to spell it out for her. “I need some time to figure out…what I want.” Stepping back, I took her hands and rubbed my thumb over the ridiculous ring Dad had brought back from Europe. My face bunched with remorse. “I know how much you want New York. And I never wanted to let you down. I wanted to be the man you deserve.”
“You are.” She touched my cheek but I leaned away from her.
“I’m not, Shay.” Letting her go, I put another foot between us and fought for the right words. “You deserve a guy who’s going to give you his whole heart. Who’s passionate about being with you and sharing the kind of life you want. I…I can’t do that.”
It was starting to dawn on her that I was launching into a break-up speech. The skin on her neck turned a mottled pink as she pressed her hand into her stomach.
“This isn’t happening,” she whispered.
Hating myself, I plowed on, needing to get it over and done with. “My heart belongs somewhere else. It always has, and I’ve tried so hard to move past it but I just… I can’t.”
She stumbled back from me and plonked onto the edge of the bed. Her eyes were round and unseeing as her chest heaved.
I crouched down beside her, gently resting my hand on her knee to try to somehow soften the blow. “It’s unfair to marry you, Shayna. I’m so sorry I let it go this far. I thought I could be happy. I thought…”
Sucking in a ragged breath, she pushed my hand off her knee and swiveled away from me.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Her fingers trembled as she threaded them together then gripped tight. She was blinking at the wall, her lips pinched into a thin line while she fought whatever emotions were trying to take her down.
I reached for her hands, desperate to make it better, but she jerked away from my touch.
“I’d rather you tell me now than the night before the wedding.” Her voice shook. She pressed her hand against her forehead. “Although it is only sixteen days away.” With a little whimper, she surged for the tissue box beside my bed.
Pulling out three, she bunched them against her eyes.
“I’m sorry.” I said it again, desperate to make it right without capitulating. I was in it now. I had to see it through.
She cried for a few painful minutes while I crouched beside the bed. My mind kept playing tricks on me, warning me of the repercussions of my actions.
I nearly folded. But I’d come this far; I couldn’t back out.
Finally Shayna glanced over her shoulder and sniffed. “Did you ever love me?”
“Of course I love you.” I sat on the bed beside her, running my hand down her back. “I just don’t love you enough to deserve you.”
She scoffed and shuffled away from my touch. “I hate bullshit lines like that.”
“I’m just trying to be honest. Which is really hard for me. I hate letting people down and I have seriously been trying so hard. But I can’t. I can’t be the husband you deserve. You are an amazing, wonderful woman and should be with a man who only wants to be with you. Someone who enjoys all the things in life that you enjoy.”
Her lips flatlined, her eyes narrowing into a heated glare. My speech was obviously doing nothing to comfort her, even though I meant every word of it.
“Who is she?” Her voice was sharp and metallic.
I hesitated until Shayna huffed.
“Don’t tell me I can’t have your whole heart and then not tell me who it belongs to!”
I swallowed and scratched the side of my neck. “A girl I went to high school with.”
“Charlie?” Her voice pitched high. “That summer fling?”
I stiffened and couldn’t help a confused frown. “H-how do you know about Charlie?”
She scoffed and slashed a tear off her cheek. “Your dad told me all about it. She was some reckless girl who wanted to pull you away from your family. Your mother was so upset, but you were so blinded by her influence.”
“That’s…that’s not true, actually.”
“Whatever. She was destroying your family, okay? If your dad hadn’t intervened, she—”
“What?” I cut her off.
Shayna frowned at my interruption. “They knew she was going to break your heart, so he stepped in to save you guys and keep the family together. And she did exactly what he thought she would. She just took off without a word, breaking your heart.” She waved her hand in the air then slapped it down on her knee. “That’s the girl you’d rather be with?”
“Protect me?” I shot off the bed and spun to face her. “What did he do? Did he say something to her?”
Her right eyebrow arched, but then she averted her gaze to the floor. “I don’t know all the details. He just told me that she was leading you astray and he had a quiet word with her to make sure she wasn’t going to ruin your life. But then she did. She just left! And that’s why he’s so grateful to me, and why he’s so happy we’re together. Because he knows I would never do something like that to you.”
My heart pounded, my head reeling as I tried to take in what she was saying.
Dad had intervened.
Anger bubbled. No wonder she took off.
He convinced her she wasn’t good enough for me!
And then Mom sold me on the fact that Charlie was some impulsive, flighty chick who wasn’t right for me.
Did she know about Dad’s quiet word?
I squeezed my head, breathing hard as I tried to rein in the heated emotions.
“Do you even know where she is?” Shayna spat. “You haven’t seen her in like four years. Unless you’ve secretly been having an affair with her this whole time.”
“No.” I shook my head, distracted.
“So, why now? Why on the brink of our wedding is this all coming to a head? You’re going to hurt a lot of people with this decision.”
“I know,” I croaked, finally looking her in the eye. “But all this time I’ve been ignoring the problem because I didn’t want to hurt you. I thought if I just tried hard enough, I could…” My shoulders deflated with a sigh. “I know I’ve said this already, but you need to marry a guy who can give you all the things you want. Someone who’ll be devoted and adoring. Someone you can be yourself around.”
“I am myself around you.”
“But I’m not me around you.” I sighed. “I can never fully relax because I’m always worried I’ll do something you don’t like. I go with the flow because it’s peaceful and easy, and you like it that way. But it’s not what I want.”
She gave me an incredulous look. I’d apparently hidden things pretty damn well, because my big confession was obviously coming out of left field. Her jaw worked to the side as she shook her head. She was clearly annoyed that I’d been living a lie this whole time.
“What…what do you want, then?”
“I want Charlie,” I whispered. “I want to be with Charlie.”
Shayna’s expression crumpled. Tears built on her lashes and quickly slid free.
I brushed them away with my thumb. “How do I make this better?”
She sniffed and pulled herself straight, gently flicking my hand away from her. “You leave. You take your stuff and you walk out that door. And don’t even think about contacting me again.”
Her voice was soft yet commanding. I almost felt wounded, but I knew survival mode when I saw it.
“I need the clean break.” She raised her chin. “I can’t drag this out and torture myself with the idea that maybe you’ll change your mind. Even if you do, I don’t want you back. This is it for us, so just go. The faster the better.”
Her hard line was pure defense. So Shayna. She’d never been one to mess around.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and asked in a husky voice, “Are you going to be okay?”
“Harper will be home soon. We’ll get drunk and curse your name.” Her glare was a mixture of pain and mourning.
I stood and moved away from it, opening my mouth to apologize again.
“Don’t.” She shook her head. “It’d be so much worse if you were saying this in five years.”
Dipping her head, she stood and walked out of the room.
The front door slammed shut behind her, and I was left alone to pack my stuff and leave.