Chapter 7

Brandon

I couldn’t believe it was actually her. As I sat there, watching her stare blankly over my shoulder, I knew she was depressed. There was a good chance she had undiagnosed postpartum depression, but I wouldn’t know until I asked her about how her recuperation from her cesarean section had gone. She said it had been rough but didn’t say anything else about it. The guilt she held onto from the crash suggested a bit of PTSD as well.

I wouldn’t know until we talked more, and I was relieved when she made another appointment with me.

Honestly, I never expected to see her again, but I recognized her the moment she walked into my office. Her hair was just as long and just as thick and just as dark as I remembered it. Part of me wanted to reach out and caress it. Run my fingers through it if only to regale myself with memories. Her eyes were the same, but they didn’t house the innocence and zest for life I remembered. It was like someone blew the candle out behind them, and her blank stares tugged at my heart.

Her skin was paler as well. That was a common phenomenon with people who were depressed. Coupled with her aching joints and that she wasn’t even aware she’d been crying, depression was very much playing a role in what was happening to her. My stomach lurched for her. I wanted to hold her and cry along with her. I wanted to tell her how sorry I was from the moment she made that first dig at me.

She needed to let out the anger she obviously still had toward me, but we had to peel back some layers first.

I had to get her diagnosed first.

“Knock, knock,” Michael said.

“Hey there. Just finishing up some paperwork,” I said.

“You up for a drink?” he asked.

“Fuck yes. Let me sign off on this last thing. All right. Let’s go,” I said.

I followed Michael to our local bar and slid into the booth. We were there so often the bartenders knew our orders by heart. Two beers slid in front of us as I sighed and leaned back, and Michael automatically started in on the questions.

“It’s the new girl, isn’t it?” he asked.

“We can’t talk about her file, remember?”

“Not asking you how it went. I’m asking you how it made you feel,” he said.

“Nostalgic.”

“Nostalgic? Wait, do you know her?” he asked.

“Oh, yes. I definitely know Melissa.”

“How?”

“She’s the one who got away.”

I saw Michael set his beer down as his eyes began studying me. I chugged my beer and waved it in the air, letting the bartender know I’d need another one, and all the while, Michael continued to study me. Another beer was set in front of me, and I thanked the hand that gave it to me, picked it up, and put it to my lips.

“Do you still love her?” Michael asked.

“I don’t have that right, not after what I did to her,” I said.

“What did you do?” he asked.

“I made her a promise to come back for her after college, and I married that Russian woman instead.”

“Oh, shit. Melissa’s that girl. Why the hell did you agree to marry that Russian woman anyway?” he asked.

“Her father was at the university teaching a one-off semester of Russian. They wanted to test run the language to see if the student body was interested,” I said.

“You wanted to learn Russian?” he asked.

“They have the highest rates of depression than any other nation on this planet. If I ever branched out internationally, at the time, I figured I’d go to Russia to do it.”

“Yikes. All right. So you took the class and …?”

“I stuck around to pick his brain about what Russia was like. You know, get the knowledge from a local. We went and got a drink, and we started talking about how he hoped the program would take off so he could get his daughter to the States. The drunker we got, the more the conversation morphed, and before I knew it, I was agreeing to being paid an exorbitant amount of money to marry his daughter to get her the citizenship he wanted her to have.”

“Holy shit, dude. That’s where you got the money to build your headquarters, isn’t it?” he asked.

“I invested it and let it sit until I was ready to build my business. Then yes, that’s what I used,” I said. “I figured it would only be for a year or two. Plenty enough time to divorce and get her settled in the States before I went back for Melissa.”

“But?”

“She wouldn’t grant me the divorce, said she’d fallen in love with me. She was a manipulative bitch, told me she was pregnant when she wasn’t. I took her back to my parents when I thought she was pregnant, and that’s when Melissa saw her. She was there trying to patch things up with her idiotic family, and I was there with this fucking manipulative Russian bitch on my arm.”

“So, she wasn’t pregnant?” he asked.

“No. She faked a fucking miscarriage, and I didn’t find out until later that she wasn’t pregnant to begin with.”

“How’d you figure that out?” he asked.

“When she got pregnant with Max,” I said.

“So, she was manipulative and a bitch, but you slept with her anyway?” he asked.

“She had long legs and nice tits. Who the fuck cared when I was drunk enough?”

“That’s why you sleep around, you know,” he said. “Because she got away, so you replace the hole you created with women who aren’t her to try and forget what you did.”

“I know,” I said.

“That’s why you wanted to help people, wasn’t it? Crusade around the world and write books. You wanted to help people because you couldn’t help yourself.”

“I get it, Michael. Back off,” I said.

“You still love her, don’t you? Did she make another appointment? Is she coming back to you?”

“Yes, Michael, all right? She’s the one who got away because I fucked up, and yes, she’s coming back next week. Are we done here?”

“Yeah,” he said as he finished his beer. “We are.”

I threw back the rest of mine before throwing a twenty on the table. I suddenly didn’t feel like drinking anymore. I pulled my keys from my pocket and rushed back to my car, racing home before Michael could catch up with me. I needed to think, and I needed to breathe. I never thought I’d ever see that woman’s face again, much less be accompanied by all the emotions the memories of her conjured. I had been a fucking idiot, and she deserved better. She obviously carried it around like I did, and my heart broke at the thought of it. She fell in love and got married. Created a family and had it ripped away. Her heart had broken twice, and in the midst of it all, she sacrificed herself so she could still be the provider and caretaker her daughter needed her to be.

But who took care of her?

I skidded into my driveway and schlepped on into the house. I tossed my keys and wallet into a bowl by the door as I poured myself into bed, suddenly exhausted from the entire day. Memories of her body came flooding back in an instant. The way her hips moved against mine, hesitant and exploratory. The way her lips kept peppering my ear with questions as I touched and kissed her beautiful tits. The way her pussy was so tight around my teenage cock as my lips ran down her skin.

The only thing I wished I would have done was taste her beautiful pussy. I was an idiot at eighteen. I had no idea the way women could taste. All I’d wanted to do was take her virginity, so I could feel like a man.

My cock was pulsing against my pants, and I pulled it out without a second thought. I remembered how her hair splayed across my chest. How wonderfully her hips rode mine underneath the stars at night. My cock leaked all over my hand as I remembered how her tits bounced for me. We’d been watching the stars as my fingertips played with her pussy, and soon she had straddled my lap underneath the summer midnight moon as my dick sank into her warm depths.

I pumped my cock while I remembered how delicious her kisses tasted. I thrust into my hand, recalling how she moaned every time I marked her skin. I could feel her skin pulsing against my neck, raising the hairs on the back of my neck as her sweet voice suddenly appeared in my ear.

“I love you, Brandon,” she whispered.

“I love you, too, Melissa. I’m coming for you. I’ll always come for you.”

I pumped hard into my hand as my balls curled into my body. My toes tensed, and my legs pulled taut. My hips were off the bed as I groaned out into my room. Her scent was underneath my nose as my come poured onto my work shirt. I stroked my cock, imagining I felt her arm slink around my waist.

I looked up, and for a split second, I saw her. I saw those golden brown eyes that twinkled with the stars. I saw her rich smile, her gleaming white teeth contrasting with her long, dark hair. I reached over to cup her cheek. I reassured her I still loved her. I wanted to tell her that I didn’t love the woman I married and that it was all just an arrangement and that I’d never stopped wanting her.

Dreaming of her.

Wishing for her.

But as my hand fell upon her cheek, she disappeared. My come slid down my shirt, plopping onto the bed next to me, and I sighed as I smelled her perfume from earlier today filling the caverns of my room.

My mind was filled with her, and all I wanted to do was help.