Aidan
One Month Later…
“It's really good to see you, man,” he says. “It's been a while.”
I nod. “Yeah, I've been kind of bunkered down up here,” I say. “Sorry I've been out of touch for a bit.”
Davis waves me off. “It's all good,” he says. “I can’t help but worry about you sometimes, man.”
I give him a wry chuckle. “Sometimes, I worry about me too, to be honest.”
Davis Rodgers is one of my closest friends. We met when we were in high school and have been close ever since. After high school, Davis went off to the military. He became an Army Ranger and served almost a decade running missions that were so top secret, he still can't tell me about them.
After he rotated home for good, Davis founded a private security firm – Spearpoint. Spearpoint mainly handles contracted security work for celebrities, politicians and other dignitaries, but Davis still does some consulting work overseas. His company has really taken off, and I'm glad to see it. He deserves it.
“Seriously, how are you holding up these days?” he asks.
I shrug. “Better some days,” I say. “Worse on others.”
He nods as if he understands – and I know he does. Davis understands the pain of death and loss better than anyone else in my life. He's been through it. More than once.
We're sitting on the back deck, having a couple of beers as the sun begins to slip toward the horizon, the sky starting to turn vibrant shades of red and orange, matching the foliage of the forest around us. The world is a riot of color and is simply breathtaking in its natural beauty. One thing I love about the mountain is the fact that it never gets all that hot up here. I hate the heat and humidity of the South.
I hadn't been expecting him when Davis showed up. But then, he’s never been big on formalities. He's always been the type to blow in and then disappear just as fast. He's a man who is constantly in motion and always on the go.
I always appreciate when he stops by, though. Davis and I understand each other in ways other people don't. It's good to have him around, even though I hadn’t seen or heard from him in about six months. But, he showed up this afternoon with beer and steaks. He even brought one for Oliver.
“So, what keeps you busy these days?” I ask.
“Been overseas for the last couple of months,” he replies. “Some Congressman needed bodyguards and requested I be there personally.”
“Where'd you go? Afghanistan?”
He smirks. “London,” he says. “As terrifying as that place is. Personally, I think having a security detail around him makes him feel more important than he actually is.”
I laugh and take a long pull of my beer. Davis idly scratches Oliver behind the ears, putting my dog in a near trance as he looks around at the trees that soar high into the sky. Birds flit by, their song filling the air around us, and an image of what Katie and I did on the table I'm sitting at with Davis, flashes through my head.
It's been almost a month since that day, and I still can't get it out of my head. I still think about it. Think about her. Of course, our time together had ended as abruptly as it had awkwardly, and I haven't been able to bring myself to fix the situation. I've avoided going down the mountain and haven't set foot in her bar since that day.
Which, I guess, makes me a world class asshole.
I ruthlessly push all thoughts about her deep down, and listen to the birds and squirrels chittering and chirping all around us. Other than that, the world around us is pretty silent.
“This place is really peaceful,” he says. “I can see why you like it up here.”
“I think it's what I need right now,” I say. “Some quiet and solitude.”
He nods, and I know he gets it. “You know, I'm thinking that I'm going to retire soon. Or at least, take a more hands-off approach to Spearpoint's day-to-day operations,” he says. “And when I do, remember that I’ve called dibs on this place when you move back to Savannah.”
I chuckle. “Retire? You're too young to retire, fool,” I say. “And besides, if you retire, you won't know what to do with yourself.”
“I think doing nothing but enjoying the peace and quiet for a while sounds nice,” he says. “I've had more than my share of excitement for one lifetime.”
“That's probably true,” I reply. “But, who says I'm ever going back to Savannah?”
He gives me a long look. “Because you're not the type to hide out in the mountains forever,” he says.
“Maybe I am now,” I say and look off into the distance. “A lot has changed. Everything's changed.”
“Look, man,” he says. “You suffered a horrible, traumatic loss. I get it. Going through something like that will fuck you up for a while. It will stay with you for the rest of your life, I'm not going to lie about that. But, eventually, you gain some distance. A little perspective. One day you'll wake up, and the pain won’t be as sharp and stinging. You're going to wake up one day, and not feel like you're on the verge of a mental or emotional breakdown. But, don't think it'll ever go away fully, because it won't. The pain will just dull over time.”
One of the things I appreciate most about Davis is that he gives me the straight and unvarnished truth. Most people in my life – even my brothers – try to tiptoe around the issue or attempt to soothe me with soft platitudes and promises that in time, everything will be okay again. It's not going to be okay again. Ever.
But, Davis knows what he's talking about when he speaks about the pain of loss. And I appreciate Davis' blunt honesty more than a thousand people telling me that time heals all wounds.
As hard as it is to hear sometimes.
“Tell me something,” I say. “You lost some people close to you overseas, right?”
He nods. “More than a few.”
I sit back in my seat and take a long pull of my beer as I collect my thoughts. I buy myself some time by taking another drink and scratching Oliver on the head. I really don't know what I was going to say there. The thoughts that are in my head are jumbled and chaotic, and little of what I'm thinking makes sense.
“I guess what I’m trying to say, is that in some ways, I feel like I'm being punished,” I admit. “Like I deserve this.”
Davis cocks his head. “Punished for what, man?”
“For not saving her,” I say. “For not being there to protect her.”
He looks at me long and hard, an expression of disbelief etched upon his face. I take a long swallow of beer and process the words I just spoke. That's the first time I've ever admitted that to myself – the idea that I'm being punished for my failures. As much as I still love Maddy, I know there are times when I feel like I'm being measured and weighed by the rest of the world. When I feel like I'm being judged for my failures.
On some level, I know the guilt I feel is what keeps me stagnant, and won’t allow me to move forward with my life.
Of course, there is a large part of my mind, and my soul, that doesn't believe I should be allowed to move forward and find happiness. That part that tells me my failure was so outrageous, I deserve a lifetime of loneliness and misery – and I tend to believe it.
“You don't really believe the shit falling out of your mouth right now, do you?” Davis asks.
I shrug. “Honestly, I don't know what I think or believe anymore,” I say. “All I know is that I failed Maddy and she's dead because of –”
“Because of some sick fuck who's still out there,” he says with real heat in his voice. “You didn't fail her, Aidan. There was nothing you could have done to protect her.”
“I wasn't there, man,” I say. “I wasn't there. If I had been, I might have been able to stop it from happening. She might still be alive if...”
I let my voice trail off as Davis lets out a long breath and sets his bottle down on the table a little harder than necessary. There is a hardness in his eyes, a set to his jaw, and a stern expression on his face that convey exactly how pissed off he is. Davis is not someone you want to screw around with. Even as proficient in Krav Maga as I am, I would think twice, and possibly a third time, before ever tangling with him. Davis is most definitely not a man to be tested or trifled with.
“You know I love you like a brother, don't you?” he asks.
“Of course, I do.”
“Good,” he says. “Then stop being such a fucking idiot. You did not fail Maddy. She's not dead because of you. And no one is judging you for it. That shit is all in your own head – and you need to get it out, or you're going to poison yourself. You go on thinking like that, and you will go fucking crazy, man. It won't be long before we find you having arguments with the trees up here and shit.”
I laugh despite myself and shake my head. He's pissed off but is doing his best to keep it reined in tight.
“It's hard, but I can't stop from feeling like I should have been there to protect –”
“Brother, by that logic, you would have had to be with her twenty-four-seven,” he says. “How unreasonable – or realistic – is that?”
Put in those terms – terms I hadn't really considered before – it makes sense. Being with her all day, every day, just wasn't realistic. Still, it doesn't wash away the guilt of not being there for her. When I close my eyes, I can see the fear and pain that was etched upon her face. I know she died afraid and hurting – and that, more than anything, wracks me with the deepest, most profound sense of guilt.
“Trust me, brother,” Davis says, “there is nothing you could have done. This is not on you. This is on one person and one person alone. You can't carry this weight. You shouldn't have to.”
“She died alone, man. She died alone, terrified, and in agony,” I say. “The things he did to her –”
“I know, Aidan,” he says, his voice slightly more gentle than before. “But, you need to put that out of your head. I know it's tough – it's probably the hardest thing you're ever going to do – but, you have to put this weight aside, brother. It's not yours to carry.”
“If only it were that easy.”
“I know it's not, man,” he says. “I've seen guys – guys I loved and thought of like family – die in the worst ways possible. And I know that shit can stick with you if you let it. It can drive you fuckin' crazy.”
“How do you cope?” I ask. “How do you get it out of your head?”
“By remembering the good times,” he says. “I know that sounds cheesy as hell, but it does help. When I feel that darkness creeping up on me, I take a little time to look at pictures, video, whatever. I remember them being alive. Happy. Smiling. Remembering them for who they were – not how they ended up.”
I take a long swallow of beer and nod. “And that helps?”
“Yeah, man,” he says. “It helps a lot. In time, you won't even need the pictures – all you'll remember are the good times and the smiles.”
“Yeah?” I ask.
He nods and takes a swallow of beer. “Trust me, man. You just need to fill your head with good shit and get that poison out. Visual reminders, like pictures, are powerful things.”
It's something I haven't really considered before, but I can see the logic of what he's saying. Maybe filling my head with Maddy smiling and happy will help banish the darker, grimmer images that still permeate my mind. Who knows if it will work, but at this point, I'm open to almost anything.
Davis looks down at the ground, a curious look on his face, and swipes at a small stack of dry, wildly colored leaves with his boot. When I see what he's uncovered, I feel my stomach lurch, and heat flare in my cheeks. He looks at me with a sly smile stretching across his face.
“You dog,” he says. “You low-down, dirty dog.”
He reaches down and plucks a pair of panties out of the pile of leaves. Katie's panties. Panties that have been sitting there, undiscovered, for almost a damn month. I stare at them, feeling a tightness in my stomach, but an awkward smile touches my lips. Davis holds them up in the sunlight, examining them from every angle, like a captivated scientist studying some new species of animal.
“Cute panties,” he says. “They don't really look like your size though.”
I can't stop the laugh that bursts from my throat as I reach out and snag the panties from his hand. I tuck them away into my pocket, out of sight. Not that they're out of mind though. I think back to fucking Katie right here on this table and feel my cock stir. Her body had been so soft, so supple, and so entirely delicious.
Although barbs of guilt still pierce my heart whenever I think about sleeping with Katie – or more precisely, the aftermath of it – I'm also consumed by a burning desire to have her again. I don't know how such powerful emotions can possibly coexist at the same time, but they somehow manage to do it quite well.
But, given the way things ended that day, I really don't see a repeat performance in our future.
“It's not what you think,” I say lamely.
“It never is.”
I laugh again, and take another swallow of beer, hoping he'll just let it go. But of course, he doesn't. That's just not Davis' style. He's a lot like my actual brothers that way.
“Who is she?” he asks.
“How do you know those aren't mine?” I ask, grinning at him.
“Aside from the size? They're not really your color or style, man,” he says. “I know you're more of a thong man.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I say.
Davis and I laugh together for a long moment. It feels good to relax a little. It feels nice not having to be “on” for Davis. He knows what I'm going through, and no matter how low my lows are, he's always there. Always listening to me. Encouraging me. Giving me advice based on the benefit of his own personal experiences. When I'm with him, I know I can let my guard down a bit and just be – however I feel at that point in time.
“C'mon, man,” he says. “Tell me about her.”
“Not much to tell, honestly,” I say. “It was a one-time thing. A mistake.”
“Mistake, huh?”
“Yeah. One that isn't going to be repeated,” I say and take a swallow of beer – the desire to repeat that mistake nearly choking me as I say it.
“Why do you think it was a mistake?”
I fall silent and stare at the amber-colored ale in the bottle I'm holding, letting my mind drift back to that afternoon. The memory sends a jolt of pleasure through me as I recall the way she felt. The sounds she made. The way she tasted. And although I enjoyed every second of it, I knew the instant it was over, that it was a mistake, and that it couldn’t happen again.
“Let me guess,” Davis says. “You feel overwhelming guilt for not just having impure thoughts about another woman, but having the nerve to act on them. You feel like you've somehow betrayed Maddy by sleeping with someone else.”
The way he says it makes it sound so ridiculous, but yeah, I guess that's kind of how I feel, in a nutshell.
“I know it sounds stupid –”
“Because it is stupid, man,” Davis says. “No disrespect, you know I loved Maddy like a sister. But, you can't stop living your life just because she's gone.”
“Easier said than done.”
Davis drains the last of his bottle, sets it down, and immediately opens another. “Yeah, I know,” he says. “And I'm not going to be one of those assholes who tells you that you need to do this or that. All I'm saying is that Maddy wouldn't have wanted you to live like this – wallowing around in your own shit. She would've wanted you to move on with your life. She wouldn't have wanted you to be alone, nearly three years later. She would've wanted you to be happy.”
My heart swells with that old, familiar pain once more. The guilt. The misery. The agony of having failed Maddy. Of not being there when she needed me the most.
“I take it back because I can see that brain of yours turning,” Davis says. “I will say you need to do one thing. And that's to get the idea that you failed her out of your head. This isn't on you, man. There's no way you could have seen it coming. No way you could have stopped it. Believe me, it sucks. But, sometimes, you have to accept that bad shit happens, and there is nothing you could have done to stop it.”
“She didn't deserve for that to happen to her.”
“No, she didn’t,” he says. “Nobody ever does. The one thing I do know is that Maddy wouldn't have wanted you to lock yourself away from the world. I know that as sure as I know my own name.”
I run a hand over my face and let out a long breath, a long moment of silence stretching out between us as I absorb Davis' words. On an intellectual level, what he says makes sense. On an emotional level, it's a whole different ballgame. So much guilt and grief still course through me that I don't know where one ends and the other begins.
Or even how to begin finding my way out of that jungle of shit.
“So, who is she?” he asks finally.
I turn to him, not comprehending the question at first. “Who?”
He gives me a smirk. “The owner of the unexciting but tasteful black pair of bikini-cut panties, of course.”
I lean back in my seat and take a long swallow of beer. As I think about Katie again, erotic thoughts rise unbidden in my mind once more. I don't even realize I've fallen silent until Davis' voice shakes me out of my reverie.
“Judging by that smile on your face, I'm thinking she's pretty hot,” he says.
“She's – something,” I say. “I mean, yeah, she's hot. But, she's – more than that.”
Davis' smile widens. “Oh yeah?”
I laugh softly and know Davis won’t relent until I give him something. So, I tell him about Katie. I share everything from meeting her to sleeping together – obviously leaving out the sexier details. He sits there and listens to it all with an inscrutable, yet slightly amused, look on his face.
“What?”
He shrugs. “Nothing,” he says and laughs. “You just sound like a boy with a crush.”
“Hardly,” I say. “I barely know her.”
“That's usually how crushes work, man,” he says. “There's the initial interest, followed by getting to know each other. Of course, you two skipped right ahead to the bang-like-bunnies part of the program. Kudos to you for taking the initiative.”
Davis laughs, and although I laugh along with him, that razor-sharp thread of guilt squeezes my heart tight.
“Look,” he says gently. “You’re obviously conflicted about sleeping with this girl. I get it, man. But, I can tell this is more than just a good lay for you. I can see it. And that's a good thing.”
“What are you talking about?”
“When you're talking about Katie, you have this light in your eyes,” he says. “It's a light I haven't seen in almost three years, man. You look more – alive. You look more like the Aidan I used to know. Honestly, it's pretty goddamn good to see.”
I take another drink and try to wrap my mind around it all. I mean, I can't entirely deny what he's saying. When I'm around Katie, I’m imbued with a sense of energy and vitality I haven't felt in a really long time. But that vitality wars with the guilt I carry inside of me, making one big, incomprehensible mess in my head – and in my heart. I don't know what to make of any of it, so I've been trying to not think about it at all.
“I don't know man,” I say. “I just feel so fucking guilty. I feel like I'm betraying Maddy. Like she's… disappointed in me. I'm choking on that shit, man.”
Davis takes a sip of his beer and scoffs. “First off, that's bullshit. You're not betraying anybody,” he says. “More than likely, Maddy would understand how fucked up you are about all this, and would tell you that it's okay. That she wants you to be happy.”
“I'm telling you, man,” he continues. “I think this – whatever it is you have with Katie – could be great. I think it's a really big step in the right direction. I think you should pursue it.”
“Then why do I feel like such an asshole about it?”
Davis shrugs. “Probably because you’re still twisted up about Maddy,” he says. “I'm telling you though, she'd want this for you, Aidan. She'd want you to get out of your own shit and be happy again.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I say quietly.
“It's all a moot point, though,” I say. “It's not like it's going to happen again.”
“Yeah, you said that,” he replies. “What makes you think that?”
I sigh. “Because things got weird right after, and we haven't spoken since.”
“Weird how?”
I shrug. “I should probably say, I got weird.”
Davis nods knowingly, as everything we've been talking about is probably finally starting to make some sense to him. Or, at least have the proper context, anyway.
“And how long ago was this little tryst?”
I cringe before I speak, preparing myself for the inevitable verbal onslaught coming my way.
“About a month ago.”
“Shit,” he groans, rubbing his hand across his face. “You've been ducking her for a month?”
I shrug. “I wouldn't say I'm ducking her. We just haven't connected since then.”
“Yeah, you're ducking her.”
I laugh. “I didn’t mean to. It's just – it's complicated.”
“It's only as complicated as you make it, brother,” he says. “You need to go talk to her and apologize for being a dick for the last month.”
“You think so?”
He nods. “Absolutely,” he says. “And then you need to get it through your thick fuckin' head that you can't live like this. That Maddy would not want this for you, and that you are not to blame for her death, man. Go to this Katie – and apologize until you're blue in the face. Make this girl yours. You deserve to be happy.”
Unlike most people who try to tell me what Maddy would want – like they knew her intimately – Davis and Maddy were very good friends, and spent a lot of time together. Maddy cared about him like family – just like I do. So, his words carry real weight with me.
Not that it makes everything magically disappear, but it does give me some good food for thought. The woods are filled with the sound of birdsong, the fading sunlight of the October afternoon, and there is a strong sense of peace and tranquility in the air.
“So,” Davis says. “How about we grill up those steaks?”
I give him a grin. “I thought you'd never ask.”