Rhett
“AJ,” I hollered out as I entered the quiet space. When she didn’t respond, I figured she must have fallen asleep. I placed dinner on the counter and the single rose I’d grabbed as I passed my mother’s garden on my way up.
“Babe?” I said hesitantly as I walked down the hallway toward my room and froze as I stepped through the doorway. AJ sat on the bed, looking at a pile of photographs and what appeared to be letters. I had two choices here—I could play stupid, or I could admit that I already knew what it was she’d found.
“When were you planning to tell me?” AJ didn’t even look up, only reached out and picked up one of the photographs. My chest felt unbelievably tight, and breathing was even growing difficult.
“I was gonna tell you last night, but—” I paused when she finally lifted her head to look at me. “You were already so upset about your mother, and then Mikey was here this morning.”
I’d recognized the look on her face immediately. It was the same look she got when she was less than impressed.
“So this is my fault.” She lifted her hand and shook the photo she still held. “What about the past months? Because that’s how long you’ve had all these sweet little love notes from Harley. What about all those times, Rhett? You have had more than enough times to be honest with me.”
“I didn’t feel it necessary to give you more doubt. Those things are nothing.” I pointed toward the bed.
Suddenly AJ stood and used her hand to sweep across the comforter, making all the photos and letters go sailing through the air. “You’re wrong. They are something. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have kept them, you wouldn’t have hid them in your drawer so that you could reminisce.”
I stepped toward her and she held up her hand to stop me. “I had to hear it from your sister when it should have been from you.”
She hung her head, letting her arms hang loosely at her sides. I could see her shoulders rising and falling as she took one deep breath after another. “I was gonna tell you tonight.”
I wanted to reach for her. I wanted to hold her in my arms and assure her that Harley being here meant nothing.
“I should have listened to myself in the beginning. Because I think I always knew that this would happen.” A panicked feeling sucker-punched me. “She was your first love, and she’ll always have that special place in your heart.”
“AJ.” I stepped forward again, and when she tried to hold me off I ignored her movement. I wrapped my arms around her tightly and pulled her body to mine. “Let me explain.” It was something I should have done long ago, but I guess somewhere in my mind I’d thought if I ignored it, it would all disappear. Now there was a strong chance that Harley would be back in this area for good, and I couldn’t ignore this fear anymore.
“I think I need to go home, Rhett.” AJ pushed against my chest, and I just held her tighter. “Let me go.”
“No.” She had to be crazy if she thought that would be all it took for me to step aside. “Her being here changes nothing.” I leaned back and cupped her face in my hands, forcing her to look at me. “We are still us, and that isn’t gonna change.”
For a second that hardened look in her eyes softened and she lifted her hands to fist my shirt.
“I love you, AJ,” I confessed, still feeling panicked that I was about to lose her. “I’m begging you not to go, damn it. AJ, I need you. I need you and only you. Stay and talk to me, please, baby, please.”
“All those letters she wrote, the cards she sent…” The sadness in her voice squeezed my heart and literally made it ache. “If she doesn’t mean anything anymore, then why did you keep them?”
She lifted her hands to cover my own that still firmly held her face. She leaned into my touch and turned her head just enough to press a soft kiss to my palm. Then carefully she pulled my hands from her face, still holding them in hers.
“I think that you did a really good job convincing yourself that what you felt for her, you no longer felt.” I shook my head. “You need to decide what you want. What you truly want, Rhett, because I can’t live with this doubt in my mind. It was always a fear I had. And I’ll admit I let it go, but now I’m not so sure.”
Those moments in life when you feel like your life is moving on all around you, yet you are stuck, frozen in one single second—that’s where I was. It was like I couldn’t fucking move or speak. So many things racing through my mind—anger, frustration, hell, even confusion—they all had me hanging on the edge of fear.
AJ stepped around me and I could hear her behind me, yet I remained where I was, still trying to register her words.
She thought it was all a ruse, some game, she was the void feeler. After all our times together, all the things I’d told her, she still felt like Harley meant more to me than her.
When I turned around I caught her moving toward the door and my feet were suddenly on the move.
“Stop,” I hollered at her as she looked back over her shoulder. “God damn it, Allison Jo, will you listen to me for a minute?”
She continued down the stairs and I was hot on her tail.
“Listen to you what? Tell me that you’re still in love with her? Listen to you explain that even though you’ve spent that last seven months with me, you still have strong feelings for her? Stronger feelings than you hold for me? Call me stupid, Rhett, but I’m not gonna stand here and listen as my heart gets shattered. I don’t deserve that, not after everything I’ve given you.”
“Fine, I do love Harley.” She reached the bottom of the stairway and looked back at me with wide eyes. “But it’s not how you think.”
I reached the bottom of the steps, and AJ stood only a few feet away. “I’ve known her for a long time. We were friends long before we were more. And that—” She didn’t let me say anything more. She didn’t give me the chance to tell her that love isn’t how she had visualized it.
Instead, she rushed toward me and shoved me in the chest. “You said you loved me.” Another push, and I allowed her to get out her anger. I knew that if I didn’t I’d never get the chance to explain. “You said that you loved me and that you were happy. You told me you could see a future with me and that you’d never hurt me.”
I could feel her breaking down, slowing losing her strength as she continued to shove at me. It always broke me to see her in this state. After everything she’d been going through, the emotional distress of her family I think only added to the current state.
I’d reached the point where I could no longer wait it out as I gripped her wrists and held her close as she fought against my hold. “You told me my heart was safe with you.”
“It is,” I said as she shook her head no. “I love you, AJ.”
“But you love her too.” The words came out in more of a saddened whisper.
“Harley was my first of many things, baby, but you are my girl. You are the woman I love.” She blinked, and tears fell over her cheeks as her lower lip trembled. “A part of me will always hold a special place for Harley because she was a part of my life for so long, but what we had is over. All I want is you.”
When AJ looked up at me, her eyes were filled with unshed tears, and I leaned in to kiss her. “I don’t want her. I want you.”
We remained where we were, me holding her against me, gently rocking from side to side. I could feel her settling in and allowing me to keep her close. “I need you to believe me. I need you to let me love you.”
Fuck, I’d never felt so drained in my life.
“Is everything okay, Rhett?” The sound of my mother’s voice echoed across the yard.
“Yeah,” I hollered out, still holding AJ close, “it’s good, Ma.”
I felt AJ once again tug against me, but I wasn’t quite ready to let go of her. Part of me was terrified that the moment I did, she’d walk away.
“Please don’t go,” I whispered.
“I think I need to.” I felt like my heart was fucking breaking. “I just need some space.”
“Why?” I squeezed her tighter to me and buried my face in her hair, breathing her in. “Whatever you need, you can have it here. I’ll leave, or I’ll sleep on the couch, but please stay.”
“I can’t.” She looked up at me. “I need you to know.”
“Know?”
“That it’s really me that you want.” I throw my hands in the air in frustration and immediately recognized my mistake as she stepped back. “You say now that it is, but it was easy for you to make that choice when she was thousands of miles away. Now she’s here, and I know that if I give in now and accept that it’s me you want, I’ll be left to always wonder.”
I felt like there was something she wasn’t telling me.
“I love you, Rhett,” she whispered as she stepped back, and I stepped forward to keep her from getting too far away.
“Why do I feel like this is you telling me goodbye?”
“I’m just saying good night.” Though she offered me a smile, I knew it was forced. I’d been given her smile so many times, I knew the difference between genuine and fake.
AJ began to turn, and on instinct I reached out and grabbed for her, only managing to make contact with the bag that hung on her shoulder. It slid down her arm and she tried to stop it, but before she could, part of the contents spilled to the garage floor.
She scrambled to gather everything she could, her hands shaking in the process. I had that frozen-in-time experience as I stared ahead at one item in particular. A long, narrow box opened on one end, tucked just beneath the front tire of my truck. I was so lost in that moment that I didn’t even attempt to stop her when she hurried away. It was the sound of her car starting and her headlights shining through the opened door that brought me out of the haze.
I took off toward her car as she backed out of the space and turned toward the driveway. Shifting to drive, she hit the gas and was gone before I could say or do anything.
I couldn’t say how much time had passed as I stood there staring off into the distance in the direction AJ had driven. I just knew that when she drove off I felt like she took my heart with her. I felt lost, for more reasons than her absence alone.
It was the feeling of a strong grip on my shoulder that made me turn around. I looked up to find my father standing just behind me. He wore his jeans, boots, and a dirty shirt from a long day of work. He stared back at me with what I would explain as confusion and concern wrapped up as one. “You okay?”
Instead of answering him with words, I simply shook my head and began walking back toward the garage with one thing in mind.
“Was that AJ that left in a hurry?” I could hear Dad’s questions, yet I didn’t offer him an explanation. I rounded the side of my truck and knelt down to grab the box I’d seen there only moments ago.
Tipping it up, I found the box was empty, but the words on the outside jumped out almost as if they were neon lights in the dark night.
e.p.t. Digital Early Pregnancy Test.
I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me as I crumpled to the ground holding the empty box in my hand.
“It’ll be okay,” my father assured me as he helped me from the ground and led me toward the stairs to my apartment, but I stopped him and sat on the last step, still holding the box.
“I just need a minute.” I knew I needed a lot more than that, but for now, it was where I needed to start.