Love Me Not (23 page)

“Heath, it’s me.”

Elizabeth.

I stood and went to the door. Both she and Rachel were there, smiling at me.

“The hearing was today,” Elizabeth said. “The judge sided with me.”

My lips curved. “Congratulations.” Then I remembered my manners and stepped back to allow them inside.

I thought I heard Marie’s door opening. I was able to get mine closed before I had to deal with her.

Rachel and Elizabeth looked around the room. It was a little messy. The table with all my papers was the worst. The decorative pillows that came with the couch were on the floor—they annoyed me. And the tank top I’d gone running in was draped on the back of one of the dining chairs.

The tank top—that reminded me I wasn’t wearing a shirt. Rachel glanced at me, not at me eyes. She was a good girl. Surely, she hadn’t seen too many half-naked men before.

“Excuse me,” I said and then took the few steps into my bedroom.

I opened the closet door, the only closet in the place, and kneeled on the floor. I hadn’t bought a dresser and hadn’t gotten around to going to a store that sold hangers—grocery shopping was my limit. So, my clothes sat in small, neat piles on the closet floor. Most of my clothes were dirty, but luckily, I had one clean T-shirt left.

“When’s the last time you slept?” Elizabeth had followed me.

I picked up the T-shirt and unfolded it.

She kneeled next to me.

“I don’t remember,” I said.

A pause.

“You’re not going to get over her, are you?”

I said nothing. Time heals all wounds was a load of shit.

“She doesn’t deserve you,” she said.

My head turned, and I glared at her. “You don’t know her.”

“If she doesn’t see you for the man you are—”

“She did.” I stood and fiddled with the damn shirt, trying to find the opening. The fucking shirt wouldn’t cooperate. I smashed it into a ball and hurled it at the closet door. The door thumped and then vibrated from the impact.

I stared out the window.

Silence.

Elizabeth stood and her voice was gentle. “You were better before. Did something happen?”

I almost ignored her, but I didn’t want her to leave. “It’s worse when I’m alone.”

“And your thoughts go haywire.”

I nodded.

“And your dreams.”

I kept staring out the window. “Yes.”

“That’s why you haven’t been sleeping. You don’t want to see her.”

My voice barely made sound. “She always leaves.”

With that quiet movement of hers, she stepped closer and held my hand.

I turned to look at her and did my damnedest to force a smile. “I’m happy for you. You’re free now.”

Her voice was gentle. “You know I’m always here for you. I won’t leave—I promise.”

I took a breath. “Women like me,” I said. “They’re attracted, I get that. But they never stay. I don’t know why. It’s just the way things go.” I couldn’t ignore history anymore. I lost my mother, Cassie, Penny, and Kimber. It was simple logic that losing Elizabeth was a matter of time.

She squeezed my hand. “I promise.”

I wanted to believe her.

Chapter 40

Freelance

Shirt finally on, I led Elizabeth back out into the living room. Rachel was sitting on the couch.

“Sorry I don’t have anything to entertain,” I said.

Rachel’s smile faltered a little, as if she had something on her mind—as if she’d heard my conversation with Elizabeth. Of course she had. Only ten feet separated my couch and bedroom.

“Would either of you like a glass of water?” I said.

“Actually,” Elizabeth said, “we’re here to steal you away for dinner. I called, but you didn’t answer.”

“Sorry.” I glanced down at myself—track pants and a T-shirt. “I’d better change.” I disappeared for a few minutes. Hopefully, jeans and my white button-down were nice enough for wherever Elizabeth wanted to go.

We were in Elizabeth’s car a few minutes later. I refused Rachel’s offer that she take the backseat. The drive to the place Elizabeth wanted to go, a steakhouse near the beach, was about twenty minutes.

We were on the freeway when Rachel turned in her seat. “My friends are still talking about you.”

“About what?” I’d barely talked with them.

She grinned. “A couple snuck pictures of you and have them on their phones.”

“Hopefully only the girls.”

She laughed. “And they try to get your phone number from me. I have to lock my phone now.”

“How’s Brandon doing?”

Her grin widened. “Trying to get my attention.”

“You knocked his ego down a couple inches.”

“Good.”

I laughed a little. In the rearview mirror, I saw a smile in Elizabeth’s eyes.

“So, everything went all right at the hearing?” I said. I was still concerned with how difficult all this had to be on Rachel.

“At least my dad stopped arguing,” Rachel said.

Elizabeth rested her hand on Rachel’s knee.

“What you did was very brave,” I said. “It couldn’t have been easy.”

Her lips curved feebly.

“Are you all right?” I said.

She nodded. “I’m just…really disappointed in him.”

“But you don’t have to stop caring about him. He’s still your dad.”

Her smile turned up a bit more. “That’s what Mom said.”

“She’s a smart woman.”

She finally smiled fully and turned back around in her seat.

It was a few minutes later, and she didn’t even look at me in the mirror, when Elizabeth said, “I keep getting calls from Penny.”

I stared out the side window the rest of the ride. No matter what she’d done, she was still my sister, and I would always love her. But I wasn’t ready to put it behind me, and I didn’t want her to see me like this. It was bad enough that Elizabeth did. I was starting to believe, with my one-year deadline growing ever closer, that perhaps I should push Elizabeth away as well.

Elizabeth didn’t bring up Penny again, and the three of us had a nice meal. My attire was borderline acceptable. Good enough, I figured—as long as Elizabeth wasn’t embarrassed by me. But I also decided I at least had to buy some hangers.

The conversation centered mostly on Rachel’s impending move to Gainesville. She’d made it into the University of Florida, and once she found I’d gone there, she picked my brain. She seemed nervous to be on her own. I told her to call me if she needed anything. I hoped she understood the offer was good for more than just campus directions.

The rest of the summer flew by, faster than the scenery on my daily run. Elizabeth spent as much time as she could with Rachel. Then it was time for her to leave. I went over to Elizabeth’s house that morning to help load Rachel’s car—and so I could be there for Elizabeth. They both cried and hugged a lot. And then Rachel was gone.

Elizabeth and I spent the rest of the day sitting around her house. We fell asleep in the middle of watching some boring-ass movie. I woke up around three a.m., with Elizabeth leaned against me, peacefully asleep. I sat perfectly still and let her rest. The next couple weeks were likely to be difficult for her—she was alone now in an empty house.

She’d promised to be there for me, so I decided to reciprocate that promise. I’d do my damnedest not only to be there but also to be a pleasant companion. I knew she understood what my broody silences meant. She shouldn’t have to deal with my unhappiness.

And for a while, it seemed to work. I did everything I could not to think of…I didn’t even let myself think her name. When I dreamed about her, I ripped myself out of bed and forced myself to think of something else, anything else. Sometimes I went running in the middle of the night.

I bought music for my phone and found the headphones that had come with it. Metallica blaring in my ears helped drown my thoughts or, perhaps, beat them down with noise. I started having headaches, but if anything, that was helpful. It was harder to think through the pain.

Sometimes, especially in the middle of the night, I went to that church. It had to be the only church whose doors were still always open—most churches seemed to mean that figuratively, not literally.

When I sat on a pew and looked up at the cross, my mind calmed for a little while.

The woman I’d seen before, apparently some kind of caretaker, came out to say hello sometimes, always with that bright smile. From a distance, the shadows obscured her face, but I could always see her smile. She never asked why I came in the middle of the night, why I never came to services. She only greeted and told me to take all the time I wanted. And once in awhile, I came in the afternoon, just so I could hear her sing. Eventually, her songs were “The First Noel” and “Silent Night.”

One of my journal entries ended up focusing on her, the only person other than Elizabeth who I saw on a regular basis. That got me to thinking.

The next day, I went to the church and talked with the woman for a few minutes. Her name was Estelle, and she’d been cleaning the church for over forty years, before most of this area had even been built. Then I asked if I could write something about her and try to sell it to one of the local papers. She said she didn’t see why anyone would like to read it but that she didn’t mind.

Within a week, I had a short article written and sold.

I contacted someone I used to know at
The Times Union
, someone I used to work with a lot back when I did freelance for a living. He seemed happy to hear from me.

I decided I’d do some more articles like that, not for the money, obviously, but to help keep my thoughts focused. I started to wonder if maybe I could
actually
move forward, not just pretend for Elizabeth’s sake. Maybe I wouldn’t have to push Elizabeth away in order to save her from my hell, and maybe my life wouldn’t be so fucking hard. I couldn’t quite catch a vision of it, couldn’t quite imagine what I’d feel if somehow I stripped off my yearning for the auburn-haired girl. I wasn’t sure what I’d have left, what would be left of me. But maybe I could find all that along the way.

Writing and research ate up my days. My eyes stopped being bloodshot all the time, and Elizabeth told me I was looking better.

Now if I could just make the dreams stop.

Chapter 41

What Might Help

Maybe I could let Kimber hate me without hating myself.

I meditated on that idea for a while. Perhaps it was just the hope of the season that was affecting me. I hadn’t properly celebrated Christmas in a long time, but I loved the season, or at least I used to. This year I really tried to absorb it. I helped Elizabeth put up a tree and went shopping with her. I even bought a couple of gifts.

“So, um, are you going to get something for Penny?”

Elizabeth and I were at Best Buy so she could pick out a new laptop for Rachel.

“I don’t know.” I moved on and looked at tablets.

Elizabeth followed. “Maybe you should send her a letter or something, just let her know you’re okay.”

I turned on one of the tablets. “Is she still calling you?”

She hesitated. “Yes, but she stopped asking me to get you to call her. She just asks how you’re doing.”

“What did you tell her?”

“That you’re doing better.”

“Then she can stop worrying.” I walked around to the other side of the display.

“She needs to hear it from you.”

I wasn’t sure when Elizabeth had become so sympathetic toward Penny. I wasn’t about to argue with her, especially about this.

I really wasn’t sure what to think about Penny. I wasn’t even sure how mad I was anymore. Thoughts of her inevitably led to thoughts of how we parted, of why. That was a banned subject in my head. There seemed to be a lot of those subjects.

“You should get one of those,” Elizabeth eventually said.

I looked up. “Get one of what?”

She pointed at the iPad in front of me. “How do you do your research without a computer?”

“There’s this place with lots of books and even a few computers called a library.”

She rolled her eyes. “Smart ass.”

I did buy an iPad. She was right—I needed to move into this century. And maybe it could help in my efforts to focus. The library wasn’t always open, and the middle of the night was when I most needed to think about other things.

But I also realized it shouldn’t be this hard. I should be able to get through one night’s sleep peacefully. The days I seemed to be getting through okay—Elizabeth seemed happy with my progress—but the nights…hurt.

Finally, I decided what might help, what had helped after Cassie was gone.

After I loaded our bags into my trunk, I sat in the driver’s seat.

Elizabeth took the seat next to me. “I feel bad leaving you alone.”

“Like you said, I’m doing better.” I put the car in gear and backed out of the space.

“Are you sure you won’t come?”

“Spending Christmas with your cousins, whom you barely know, isn’t my idea of fun.” Rachel had mentioned to her that she wanted to see a white Christmas, so Elizabeth was taking her to see family in Pennsylvania.

“I know,” she said. “I just—”

“You worry too much.” I looked over at her. “I’ll be fine, Elizabeth.” And besides, it was probably wiser to try my new plan with her out of town. I wasn’t sure she’d understand, and I didn’t want her to know I was still having a hard time.

Elizabeth left the next day, the day before Christmas Eve. That night, I showered and changed into the jeans and button-down shirt she’d given me. If this plan worked out, I’d have to buy more clothes.

I looked at myself in the mirror. Sometimes I had a hard time seeing what everyone else saw.

The clothes fit well, especially across my chest and shoulders, and I smelled nice—I’d bought some cologne, the same kind I used to wear. The scent reminded me of the days when getting laid three or four times a day was normal. I almost couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that almost a year had passed since I last had sex. I planned to put a stop to my abstinence tonight.

Chapter 42

The Dance Floor

I got in my car and drove toward Philips Highway. At first, I thought my discomfort was nerves, though this wasn’t the kind of thing I usually got nervous about—getting laid was easy.