Brooke
It’s with some relief that I turn onto my street at a little after six in the evening. Despite it being my day to finish early, a sudden influx of customers a couple of hours before closing meant that I was asked to stay on. I didn’t mind saying yes, it’s not like I have anyone to head home to.
Lights shine out from most of the houses like beacons in the darkness. I envy the people in those houses. They haven’t come home to a cold, dark house every night this past week. They haven’t sat, staring into nothingness, while trying not to succumb to the desperate loneliness that threatens to engulf their soul. They haven’t questioned over and over whether their life has been a lie. No. They came home to light, love, and laughter.
It comes as a shock when I see lights from my house blazing out into the black night, creating a warm, familiar glow. I briefly consider calling 911 before quickly dismissing the idea. No burglar would be stupid enough to leave the lights on while they rob me. On second thought…
As I turn into the driveway, I notice the large SUV parked in front of the garage. The headlights on my car illuminate the tailgate so that I can clearly see the McAllister Construction logo on the back of the truck.
Brody.
For one beautiful moment, I’m overwhelmed with elation knowing that Brody is safe and that he’s finally home. Then that feeling of dread resurfaces at what he has come home to tell me. Whatever Brody has decided, he’s had eleven days to think about it. In my heart of hearts, I know that whatever he has to say won’t be good.
“Hello?” I call out meekly as I walk into the house.
No answer.
I walk past the door to the living room and head into the kitchen, placing my keys and bag on the counter as I sling my coat over one of the stools in one slick movement. Pausing only to take a deep breath before I go in search of my fiancé.
I don’t have to go too far to find him. Brody is sitting on the living room couch with his head in his hands so that all I can see is the top of his head and the tattoos on his arms. He’s wearing the same clothes that I last saw him in—white tee, cargo pants and work boots. The black company hoodie that he habitually wears has been dumped on the floor by his feet. A most horrendous stench is coming from his direction, so bad that I start to gag.
“Jesus Christ! Did something die in here?” I ask him, pulling at my collar so that my sweater covers my nose, blocking out the stench. Brody says nothing. “Cat got your tongue?” I try again, still he says nothing, not even bothering to raise his head to look at me. His continued silence makes my blood boil. He does not get to do this to me. “The least you could have done after disappearing for eleven days is take a shower.” I snap as I slump in the recliner on the other side of the room. “Actually, the least you could have done is fucking call me to tell me you were safe.” My use of a swear word finally gets his attention. I let out a gasp as I get my first look at Brody in nearly two weeks. The only way I can describe the way he looks is…haunted.
His usually clean-shaven face is hidden behind a couple weeks’ worth of growth. What skin I can see is pale, almost gray. Brody’s eyes, his beautiful gray eyes, are red-rimmed and bloodshot. He looks a lot older than his twenty-seven years, like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders.
“So,” I start, stamping down on the pang of sympathy that wells up for the obviously broken man in front of me, “what exactly happened that was so bad you had to disappear off the face of the earth for so long?” He stares at me in silence—his eyes usually full of love are devoid of any emotion. “I know your cell was working, don’t try to tell me it wasn’t. You texted Cade.”
Brody holds his hands in his lap, his knuckles white as he squeezes the blood out of them. He turns his head away from me, focusing on what I can only assume is a mysterious bit of fluff in the corner of the room that’s obviously far more interesting than talking to your fiancée, who you haven’t seen for half a month.
“He shouldn’t have told you,” he mumbles so quietly that I almost miss it.
“What was that? Did you say something? Because here’s me thinking that you’d forgotten how to speak, seeing as you were gone so long.” He whips his head back to face me, his expression one of fury.
“Brooke,” he warns, but before he can say anything else I hold my hand up to stop him.
“NO!” I yell louder than intended, and stand to start pacing the room. “There is no way you are going to get out of this, Brody McAllister. You are going to tell me what you’ve been doing for the last couple weeks and why the hell you did it.” I’m shaking with rage now. Tears of frustration flow down my cheeks as I unleash my fury. “I thought you were dead. DEAD, BRODY. I called every hospital in the area, begging them to tell me if you’d been taken there. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. And then I find out from your brother, your fucking brother, that you’d taken yourself off to the cabin to think. You”—I point at him—“didn’t even have the decency to call me to let me know that you were okay.”
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” he says quietly.
“Sorry?” I shriek. “Sorry? Sorry for what? Sorry that you were too much of a coward to tell me what’s going on in your head? Sorry that you couldn’t tell me that you were unhappy? Or sorry for all the tears that I’ve wasted on you while you were holed up in the cabin feeling sorry for yourself?”
“I wasn’t—”
“I’ve cried more tears in the last eleven days than I did when my parents died, Brody.” I interrupt him before he can say anything else, and slump down in the recliner while rubbing my hands over my eyes in an effort to rid myself of the exhaustion that I suddenly feel. An uneasy peace descends for a moment as I struggle with what to say next. I don’t want to ask the question, but I can’t live like this anymore. I can’t live with not knowing.
“Do you still want to be with me, Brody?”
Brody looks to the ceiling, as though asking for some sort of divine assistance. When he looks at me again, his eyes are full of sadness.
“No,” he whispers.
A feeling of nausea washes over me as I quietly start to sob. I’ve never felt as lost as I do right now. I’ve loved Brody all my life. I thought, stupidly it seems, that what we had was a love that would last a lifetime.
I tense as a pair of strong arms wrap around me, relaxing only when he buries his head in my neck. I don’t push him away…I can’t. If this is it, then I want one last moment of being in his arms. I don’t know how long we sit here holding one another, but I want this moment to last forever. To trap us in an eternal embrace until the end of time. It’s Brody who breaks the spell.
“I’m so sorry, Brooke,” he says as he gently pushes me away, before retreating back to the other side of the room.
I remain where I am, folding my arms across my chest as I mentally start to place barriers around what is left of my broken heart.
“You gonna explain to me what’s going on?” I try to keep my voice level as I speak. It would do no good to lose it in front of him, it’ll just cause him to shut down, and I’ll never get the answers that I need.
He looks pained. Scrubbing his right hand across his mouth as he tries to work out what he’s going to tell me. Knowing Brody, he’ll try to make it as painless as possible.
“Well?” I snap impatiently.
“Where do you want me to start?”
“Try why the hell you disappeared for eleven days.”
“I needed to think.”
“About?”
“Us.”
“So, you ran off to the cabin to think about our life, our future, and you didn’t want to involve me in any way while you thought about it?”
“It seemed the best thing to do at the time.”
“You obviously made up your mind.” There is a tremor in my voice now as I try not to start crying again. “Are you going to tell me why you needed to do this, because I’m at a loss here, Brody? As far as I knew we were happy.”
Brody lets out a long sigh before he answers. “I haven’t been happy in a while, Brooke.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I couldn’t.”
“Couldn’t or wouldn’t?”
“I forget you know me so well.” He lets out a humorless huff of laughter.
“Obviously I don’t, because I could have sworn that the Brody I know is happy and wants to get married to me.”
“I did, Brooke, I really did.”
“So what changed?”
“Me. I changed.” He starts to walk toward me before changing his mind and heads back to his safe zone behind the couch, and grips it hard. “I didn’t know how or what to tell you.”
“Is there someone else? Is that it?” I blurt out before I can stop myself.
“What? NO!” He looks shocked at my question. “No. I promise you, no.”
Inwardly, I sigh with relief.
“What is it then?”
“You want the short answer?”
“I want any answer.”
He drops his chin to his chest, loosening his grip on the sofa. When he raises his head to look at me, all I can see is sadness and remorse.
“I…we’re too young to settle down.”
“We’re twenty-seven, Brody.”
“And how many guys have you dated in your twenty-seven years, Brooke?”
“Two, and one of those was only one date.”
“Exactly.”
“I don’t understand,” I say, standing and moving over to the couch. I perch my ass on the arm and twist my body to face him. “What has how many guys I’ve dated got to do with the fact that you want to break up with me?”
“Everything.” His answer makes me bristle with annoyance.
“Brody, I don’t speak code. I’m barely holding it together, so excuse me if I’m not getting what you’re trying to say. See, from my point of view, my fiancé, who I live a happy life with, disappears for nearly two weeks, and I spend the first few days going out of my mind with worry. Then I get a message from his brother, who informs me that my fiancé is thinking about things. I then spend the rest of my time hardly eating or sleeping and wondering why my soon to be husband told his brother that he wants to break up with me, yet couldn’t be bother to so much as send me a message to let me know that he was still alive. So far, so good, right?” Brody doesn’t respond to my question, so I continue. “Then, miraculously, my…I don’t know what to call you anymore.” I gesture toward him. “My…I suppose ex-fiancé now…turns up smelling like something dead that was left to fester for a week and not giving me straight answers. As someone who is tired, hungry, devastated, scared, and still in the dark as to the reason why, and has spent the last week mentally preparing to be ripped apart by the person she loves, I would really appreciate some honesty from you right now.”
He crosses his arms over his broad chest; his face is masked in sadness.
“It’s…it’s just not working out.” His words are measured, almost like he is trying to say what he has to say with the least pain possible. “I’ve. I’ve never been single. I’ve never played the field. Sure, there was that one girl sophomore year of high school, but she was nothing. My whole adult life, I’ve only loved you.”
“You don’t love me anymore?” My words come out as a broken whisper.
“I do, Brooke. I love you with all that I am.” He scrubs his hands over his face. When he looks at me again, I see tears forming in his eyes. “But our relationship is suffocating me. It’s always been you and me, never just Brody or Brooke. I want to see what life is like with just me. No one sees us as separate people. It’s like they think one can’t live without the other. I hate that, Brooke. You must feel like that sometimes too.” I don’t…can’t say anything in response. I’m too stunned over what he’s saying, how he’s felt, and the fact that he’s never once given me a hint. “Everyone has this expectation that we’ll get married and have kids,” he continues. “To them it’s a certainty, but I’m not sure that’s what I want. I’m not ready to make that move and settle down. There’s so much that I want to do first. I want to prove to myself that I can live on my own, just be Brody, not part of a pair. I…I want to know what it’s like to date other people…”
The air in my lungs leaves me with his words. My ears start to ring, only hearing snippets of what he says next. Move out if I want him too…sell the house…could both stay here until we find a buyer…or he’s happy to buy my share.
“I’ve never wanted to hurt you. Ever. You’re still my best friend, Brooke,” he says as my focus comes back into the room. “I’d hate to lose our friendship. I want to find out who I am, but I can’t do that if we’re together.”
“Screw you,” I hiss, stomping toward the hallway. “I’m going out. While I’m gone, get a shower and then move all your shit into the spare room. I don’t want to speak to you again today,” I say, slamming the living room door in his face.