Bess
Two weeks later
It had been two weeks. Fourteen days. Three hundred thirty-six hours since I last saw Lane. Over twenty thousand minutes since any notion of ever having true love was shattered into dust. Like the hail now falling on the porch, that was the way my tears fell for the first three days after I fled from Pittsburgh.
Camper had driven me back, and I’d wanted her to leave. I’d been in no shape for any kind of reunion with my only friend from college. Not her, the one I had to shut out when I went to rehab at Rambling Brook. She was the one I was with when I used to pop Molly and smoke Mary and down Jack—all my oldest, closest friends. In the old days, we’d giggle and gossip and party some more, and that bad influence was the last thing I’d needed as I dried out in rehab.
Which made me think she was once again the last thing I needed as I fought my demons along with my pain. But Camper had stayed in the mountains with me for three days, lying in bed with me, wiping my tears, and making me tea. She’d been a huge help, and I wished she was still with me now as I sat on my couch over a week later, not knowing what to do with myself.
My hands shook, chills running up and down my spine as the memory of Lane standing in the coffee shop played on a continuous loop in my mind. I’d had the same conversation with Camper over and over those three days she was here. The words still reverberated in my head.
She and I had been cuddled on my bed. My head was tucked in her arm and she was stroking my back just like we did sometimes while watching a movie back in college. At twenty years old, I had no idea how much my body and heart craved that kind of touchy-feely attention. Now I knew why I’d loved Camper back then. Not because we partied together, but because she was the only person who’d ever given me any affection.
This most recent bout had been all her giving and me taking. Actually, it had always been that way. I’d always been a taker.
Anyway, we’d been snuggling and I’d repeat the same word I’d spoken for two days straight. “Why didn’t he just tell me? Why the secret? Why? I told him I was an addict, and he could have said it then. I told him I went to Pitt, and he could have mentioned it then. Why didn’t he? Why?”
My throat was raw from the word that seemed to be stuck on repeat, falling from my lips over and over again.
“I don’t know the answer to that, Bess,” she said as she stroked my hair. “He didn’t. I’m not an innocent bystander either. I ran off that night, leaving him to deal with you when he started asking questions. I was afraid I’d get busted too.”
Waving my hand in front of my face, I said, “Forget that. We were stupid, young, naive, and dumb, especially me. I’m glad you didn’t get busted for anything. You seem to be fine, and in a good place now. Me, I was an addict through and through. I needed a clean break.”
More tears came, flowing freely down my face as I returned to the subject of Lane. “But why didn’t he tell me? I mean, I don’t know what I would’ve done. I’ve been so dead set on leaving that time in my past, but he didn’t know that. There’s something else, some other reason why.” I paused for a moment, thinking back to all the times he became different, moody somehow in a way I didn’t understand. “The cloudiness in his eyes, the hard clamp I’ve seen him hold on his jaw, other little things I’ve noticed. That’s why, Camper.”
“I don’t know, sweetie,” she said with more back rubbing.
“I guess I didn’t matter enough for him to tell me. Maybe that’s why,” I’d said, settling on it as an answer before falling asleep in my old friend’s arms.
Now I sat alone on my couch, except for my dog who had jumped up and plopped his big head in my lap. Staring out the window, I still thought, Why?
But I knew I would never get an answer.
These days, I was back to night meetings. AJ was in rehab. I’d learned this from Shirley, who insisted he was sorry and also kept telling me that I should give Lane a chance. I was sick of listening to it, so I took advantage of AJ being gone and went to my old meetings.
Working my regular shift plus overtime, I still found myself with too many idle hours that I despised. I would watch the clock during those minutes, counting off the seconds like a kid waiting for her mom to get home from work. At least, that was what I imagined it felt like as I didn’t have the first clue.
Dwelling on the past, present, and lack of a future became my only pastime.
Even Brooks was sick of sitting. He’d jumped off the couch and was circling the door, when I decided to take him for a walk. Slipping on a lightweight sweatshirt and heading out the door, I was surprised when an enormous black Hummer came up my driveway.
“Brooks, stay,” I told my dog. He dutifully sat down next to my feet, waiting for further instructions.
I stood still, awaiting what latest drama had found my doorstep when Jake stepped out of the enormous vehicle. When he walked toward the porch, I didn’t move.
“Bess,” he said simply.
“Jake.”
He breathed out my name again as he came close, and I could smell his cologne. It was so different from his brother’s smell. Lane was drenched in cool confidence and sand and sun. Jake was cloaked in sheer masculinity and sweat mixed with Calvin Klein.
Lane was a refined Jake.
Jake was a raw Lane.
My head hurt from the comparisons, but I realized that Lane’s scent was only a cover-up for his real stench, much like the department store cologne was masking Jake’s latest workout.
But what was Lane’s regular scent? Was he normally cloaked in a mixture of expensive perfume from Miami babes or the cheap Walmart eau de toilette of hotel staff? Or was it that of a liar, a man who took pleasure in duping young women? Preying on their weaknesses? He certainly knew mine beforehand.
“Are you heading out?” Jake asked, interrupting my psychoanalysis of his brother.
“I was taking my dog for a walk.”
I started down the porch steps and yelled, “Let’s go, Brooks.” Of course, I had the stupid red leather leash in my hand.
“Can I join you?” Jake asked from behind my back.
“Sure,” I said without stopping.
Heading down the hill, my boots sticking to the spring mud, I glanced at Jake’s feet.
Brand new athletic shoes. Serves him right for bothering me.
“So, why are you here, Jake?” I said, cursing myself for saying the word why.
“Lane’s not doing well.”
Not looking his way, I shrugged. “I don’t know what you think I can do about that, even if I wanted to do something.”
“Bess, he’s a mess, but I’m the only one who knows it. He’s got his suit on, all perfectly tailored, and he’s wheeling and dealing, playing the role of big, accomplished CEO. He’s got this Florida bimbo and that Southern babe on his arm, but I know Lane better than anyone. This is haunting him.” He was by my side now, easily walking down the hill, his wide shoulders taking up almost the whole path.
Southern babe . . . Florida bimbo. That stung.
“Sounds to me like he’s fine.”
“He’s never been fine.” Jake grabbed my shoulder and stopped me in my tracks, turning me to face him. “Lane hasn’t been fine since our parents died.”
I gasped as a shiver ran through me from head to toe.
Jake frowned at me. “What? He didn’t tell you?”
“No.”
Jake grabbed his forehead, looking so much like Lane on that day in the coffee shop, it pinched my heart. “Geez, I would have assumed.”
“No,” I said slowly, my mind churning as I processed what he’d said. “But I didn’t really ask. It’s something about me I realized that day after Lane sent the necklace. Apparently I’m pretty self-absorbed, but I’m working on it. I need to learn how to be there for others in a way that no one was ever there for me.” I felt a lone tear drip down my cheek, at first thinking it was a raindrop, but knowing better.
Jake grabbed hold of both my shoulders and shook me. “So, why are you shutting him out now? I know he was wrong, and it’s not my business to even guess what the whole lying to you thing was all about. But he needs you now. All this coming back north, it’s never been good for him, yet he did it for you.”
A thundershower was pouring down my face now. “Why?” I asked, my throat tightening on the one syllable.
“You need to go to him, Bess. That’s for him to say. He won’t accept my help, but he needs someone.”
“What’s his problem with the north?” There I went questioning again.
“Let him explain that,” was all Jake said before turning and climbing back up the hill to his ridiculous car.
Four days later, before leaving work, I changed clothes and took the elevator to the eighth floor, looking for my only ally who could be impartial and objective.
Camper, Shirley, and Jake were all pro Lane. “Help Lane,” they’d say. “Hear Lane’s side, Lane needs you.” Or the kicker, “You don’t know what he’s been through.” I heard their words in my sleep and when I was awake, and they drove me crazy.
Ducking my head inside room 802, I called out, “May?”
May, who had been wishing for me to meet Mr. Right longer than anyone, seemed to be the only person I knew who could take a neutral stance, not pushing or pointing me in any one direction.
Well, her and AJ. I’d seen him in rehab the day before. His green eyes were cold and lifeless, his posture aloof as he slumped on the window seat, barely tolerating my visit.
“May?” I called again, this time a little louder, pulling myself out of my negative thoughts.
“Hey, Bess.” She peeked out of the bathroom, her hands and lower arms lined in yellow rubber gloves.
“You have a sec?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said, waving me in before peeling off the gloves.
I sat on the edge of the couch in the room, keeping my eyes down as I smoothed my hand over the paisley fabric. “I need your opinion.”
She sat next to me without a word, covering my hand with hers.
“I mean, your opinion without any of that Prince Charming bullshit. I’m a waitress, you’re a maid, and we work in a hotel in the middle of nowhere. Nobody is going to come and swoop me up.”
Squeezing my hand, she said, “Bess—”
“No, it’s all right,” I said, interrupting her. “It’s all right because at least that realization lets me understand why I fell for AJ when I shouldn’t have. I believed I didn’t have a chance with anyone else, so when he kissed me, I just let it happen. But then I felt what things could be like with Lane, and now I know what real feels like. All of a sudden, I understand commitment and unconditional love, those things I always thought were myths. But now they’re gone.”
I sighed deeply, then looked May in the eye. “And I think in order to move on and have anything close to that with someone else, I need to make amends with Lane. His brother came to see me and told me Lane’s hurting. Maybe I owe it to him to check on him, to put his mind at ease and let him know that I forgive him.”
“Honey, he’s hurting because he lost you,” May said, weaving her fingers through mine.
Laying my head on her shoulder, I said, “No. He just needs to be absolved of his guilt, and I should give that to him. After he gave me my heart back, it’s the least I can do.”
May dropped a kiss on the top of my head. “Bess, love, that man did more than give you your heart back. He pumped oxygen into it and watched it dance. If you’re asking me if you should go to him, I say yes. But not to absolve him. To love him.”
Her answer made my heart smile. Looking up into my friend’s face, I leaned in to place a kiss on her cheek and asked, “Can you watch Brooks again?”