A Love So Tragic (2 page)

Nic’s eyes slam shut, and he tilts his head back. I watch his pulse thump in his throat, his jaw tense, and then, he lowers his face and those murky green eyes of his bore into me. Angry, betrayed, wounded. “It’s just a ring,” he says. “Keep it. Just a ring.” He shakes his head as he puts the car in reverse.

We ride back to his house in silence. When he stops in his driveway, I get out. I'm ashamed, I'm hurting. I don't want to leave him, but I have no choice. I walk to my car; he walks to his front door.

“If he hurts you…” he mumbles, glancing back at me from his porch.

“Nicolas, I—I, it’s so complicated.”

He doesn’t pause, his stride doesn’t slow. And seconds later, the screen door slams closed. And never has the sound of a door closing held such finality, such force.

A week later, I’m standing in a courthouse, marrying another man. I’m not even wearing a dress; I’m just in a pair of jeans and a summer shirt. Saying these vows to a man I have little feelings for, it’s like putting a bullet in my own head, but I’m doing what I feel is right for the child who has no choice in the matter.

Four years later

“Please, Peyton.” Momma pauses, struggling to take a deep breath. “Just throw it away. Honey…” She places her hand on mine.

I intertwine my fingers with hers and fight back the tight feeling creeping up my throat.  Her skin and the whites of her eyes are a deep yellow from the jaundice. She's dying, the cancer has spread too far. And as stupid as it sounds, I never really believed she would die. I stare at her bony fingers laced between mine; the hands that braided my hair when I was a little girl, that have cared for me, wiped away tears all my life. I just cannot comprehend my life without her. If ever a person was someone’s world, she is mine. She is everything to me. I’ve been holding out hope for a miracle, but at this moment, I’m forced to take it all in.

This is death.

“Baby, please. I can't die knowing that if he finds those things—I can’t hurt Isaac by letting him think I helped you hold onto that piece of your life.” She attempts to lift her head from the pillow, but lacks the strength and lies back down, closing her eyes as she squeezes my hand in a silent plea.

“Okay, Momma,” I answer, but don't move.

“It's where—” she coughs and fidgets with the oxygen mask. “It’s in the top of the closet.”

I hesitate before rising from the bed to walk across the hall to my old bedroom. I pull open the door and my eyes scan over the shelves, stopping on a binder and two old, crumpled Adidas boxes shoved in the corner next to the blankets. My stomach knots. There's an entire relationship crammed inside those boxes, notes and ticket stubs and cards—things I should have let go of long ago, but couldn't.

Several times a year I come lock myself in this bedroom, spend hours reading through the letters, and fall into a sobbing heap on the bed because I'm pathetic.

Dread mounts in my chest as I grab the binder. My heart bangs against my ribs and I tell myself:
Don’t open it. Throw it away. Don't look.
Unlike all the times I’ve pretended I can nonchalantly toss this part of my past away, I know I have to this time, and that makes this much worse. I sit on the floor, leaning back against the far wall. This is the last time I can do this. This is the last time I can hide in this closet and feel him like this which means I’ll cry harder this time.

Flipping to the first handwritten page, my heart jumps into my throat. 

Happy Anniversary Pretty Girl,
              

This may make me seem like a fucking pussy, but love does that I guess, and besides, I can just imagine the smile on your face when you read through this, so that's worth it.
 

Pictures are snapshots of memories, and we have tons of those to look back on. We can remember our past by looking at photos, but I want you to always be able to feel our past. Words make you feel, and I always want you to feel how much you mean to me, never question how much I love you. When we get into fights and you hate me, I want you to be able to read these words and feel how much I love you. Forever and always because there is nothing that could take my love for you away.

Life is unpredictable, and I want to always be a constant in your life, no matter if I'm dead or alive. When you're old, I want your wrinkled hands to hold these letters and know that the kind of love we had is what true love stories are based on. So unbelievable that no one else would ever believe it weren't fiction. This is our love story...

It’s a love that is raw. And unforgiving. And that's just how it should be because those are the emotions that will strip you bare and never let you go. I don't ever want to let you go.

I love you, Peyton.

Nicolas

I read that letter over and over, dwelling on the fact that I screwed it all up. I thumb through pages of letters and poems, and he was right, these are feelings.

His words take me back in time, pulling emotions as I read over them. These tattered pages keep my heart tethered to Nicolas, allowing me to still feel that ungodly sense of want wash over me, and then, when I let the reality set in, these letters brutally gut me. Reading them is a slow, masochistic form of suicide to my heart. They make me question my life, my decisions. These letters are the only thing I have left of Nicolas, and now I am being forced to part with them.

I sit, hanging on every word, trying to burn lines from some of the poems into my memory. I cry, and when I feel utterly broken, I cram the letters back inside and gather everything into my arms. I quickly make my way through the living room and out the door to the side of the house. I can't believe I am actually going to throw this part of my past away.

Nic and me have been over for four years, but still, even after everything, I can’t seem to let him go. To let go of something you love, you have to forget it, and I will never be able to forget Nicolas.

After I threw those boxes away yesterday, I went back inside and cleaned Momma’s house. One of the ladies she used to work with is supposed to come visit her today, and Momma has always been one of those southern women who apologize for her house being a mess even though she just mopped and waxed the floors. That’s a habit I’ve somehow picked up, almost like that’s how you greet someone when they visit your home: ‘Thanks for coming by, please excuse the mess’, you say as you guide them through your sparkling foyer.

I’ve been on autopilot for the past twenty minutes of the drive and am a little shocked when my tire bumps over the uneven pavement at the end of her driveway. I put the car into park and cut the engine. Staring at the house I was raised in, I take a breath. It’s all so different now. There used to be a feeling of comfort that washed over me when I pulled into this driveway, but now, all I feel is dread.

The very second I step out of my car, the humid air surrounds me, slicking my skin with moisture. When I get to the door, I pause. This is always the worst part of the day, standing in front of this door, terrified to walk inside. My stomach knots, my heart sits in the back of my throat, and I exhale as I turn the knob. No lights are on in the house, but the sun filters in through the windows.

“Momma?”

It's silent except the tick-tock of the grandfather clock down the hallway and the birds chirping outside the window. I don’t like silence. My panicked pulse hammers through my ears.

“Momma…” I slowly round the corner to the living room, and my heart plummets.
She’s just asleep.

Swallowing, I take cautious steps toward the couch, fighting back the watery pain building in my eyes. My chest tightens as I stare down at her. I’m not ready to let her go. Even though I’m an adult, I need her more than I need anything else in my life. 

“Momma,” I whisper, leaning over her as I skim my finger across her arm. It’s still warm, but she doesn’t move. Her chest doesn’t rise, and it’s now that I’m this close that I notice her eyes aren’t completely shut. I want to scream, but I can’t find the strength. Weakness falls over me. My knees buckle, and I crumple to the floor next to her, sobbing, my hand still resting on her arm.
Wake up, Peyton. Wake the fuck up. Make this stop!
But you can’t wake up from life. I lay my head on her chest and listen. The absence of her heartbeat is the worst silence I’ve ever experienced.

Balling her shirt in my fist, I weep. “Please,” I whisper. “I can’t…”

But no pleading will ever change this.

There is an absence that overwhelms you when you lose your mother, and it’s one I can’t explain. It’s emptiness at its greatest, a chasm ripping through the core of your soul. Your mother is the one person who has been with you throughout your life. Her voice is the first you hear before the world even knows who you are, her heartbeat the song of comfort your life forms to, and when you lose the person who gave you life, part of you dies along with them.

Lindsey falls back onto the bed. “Stop it!” she giggles, glaring up at me.

I freeze. Arching a brow at her, I lean over the mattress.  “What if I don’t want to stop it?”   I hover over her face and smirk. “You like it anyway.”

She giggles as she grabs my face and yanks my mouth to hers. I push my hands underneath the flimsy material of her dress, sliding over her thighs. She reaches down, lifting her back from the bed as she tugs her dress over her head.

“No bra?” I ask, smiling. “Sexy.”

Her nails scratch over my back before she pushes my boxers off and yanks me down on top of her, wrapping her long legs around my waist. “I know how you like stuff like that,” she says before kissing me and threading her fingers through my hair.

This has become routine. Her. Us. Sex. It’s not that it's bad because it’s not, but after a year, well, there’s not much excitement.

So I fuck her.

Hard.

And halfway through, she rocks against my hips, pushing against me in an attempt to slow me down.

“Not so hard, Nic,” she says mid-moan. “Go slower. Softer.” Her hands rub over my shoulders before grabbing the back of my head and bringing my face to hers for a kiss. A slow kiss.

I ease up and within seconds her breaths deepen, her head turns to the side and she’s moaning. The second she’s done; I pick my pace back up. My muscles tighten, my jaw clenches and I come. I go to push off of her, but she grabs onto my bicep, locking her eyes with me.

“I love you,” she whispers.

Freezing in place, I stare at the pillow. Her fingers drum over my shoulders, waiting for me to respond, but I’m not going to lie to her.
Why the fuck did she have to go and say that? Damn it, Lindsey.

“Nic?”

I close my eyes, willing her to just let it the fuck go, but really, what woman is going to let that shit go?