The Reason I Stay (38 page)

Unable to speak, I motion with my hand, asking her to give me the scoop. With a big-ass grin, she does. “While I was at the hospital, Tom and I used to cross paths in the hallways when I was being taken for scans and stuff. We’d chat a little. He’d smile, all flirty, and look at me as if I wasn’t wearing pajamas and no makeup. It was like despite everything, despite my leglessness, and the bloating from medication, and the overall mess, I was still the prettiest girl in the world.” She looks down at her hands and twists a ring on her right middle finger, but I can’t peel my gaze from her love-filled, beaming face.

“He’s freaking gorgeous, so obviously, all the nurses were sweet on him, but still, he’d come every day to my room to eat his lunch and we’d talk. We became friends, and the friendship helped me deal with the anger, and the pain, and the prosthetic. Honestly, I don’t think I’d have made it without him. Five months ago he asked me out on a date, and I said yes. We’ve been together ever since.”

I’ve never thought I’d feel gratitude toward someone I’ve never known, but I do. I’m thankful to Thomas for doing what I didn’t, for being there for Lea instead of me. I’m thankful that he valued her the way I never did. I’m thankful that he’s proven to her that not all men are douchebags like me, and that despite what I did she deserves to be loved.

“He sounds like a great guy. I’m really happy for you.”

She smiles at me with the same honesty I used in my words, and we stare at each other the way old friends do—with understanding, and forgiveness, and a bunch of other stuff I don’t deserve.

Suddenly uncomfortable, I clear my throat. “I bet your mom is shooting fireworks at you two. She’s always had a soft spot for doctors and movie stars, right?”

“No, she had a soft spot for any man who wasn’t you,” Lea deadpans.

Both of us crack up at the honesty—and truth—in that statement. Mrs. Simmons hated my guts with a passion. “Smart woman, that mother of yours.”

A crease forms between Lea’s blue eyes at my teasing. She opens her mouth to say something, but Anitra stops by with her pad and pen in hand.

Lea places her order first and then Anitra looks at me, asking if I’ll want my usual order of chocolate-chip pancakes. I feel Lea’s eyes burning a hole in my face as I nod and thank Anitra, calling her by her name nonetheless.

When I return my gaze to Lea, her brows are pulled together.

“What?”

She shakes her head. “I don’t know. You’re different.”

“Different how?”

“I don’t know.” She props her head on her hand and looks at me with intent for a second, like she’s a judge deciding on a verdict. It makes me fidget. “Not seeing you wearing a pompous-ass suit and slicked back hair that seems like it was actually licked by a cow is pretty weird. Seeing you being this nice guy who knows waitress’s names, and orders junk food is bizarre—so I’d say: disturbingly different.”

The smile on her lips tells me she’s not disturbed at all. In fact, I’d say she’s enjoying the change.

I raise a brow. “What would you say if I told you that I also drive a truck now, and that I had girlfriend?”

“I’d call on an exorcist priest, because some spirit must have taken over your body.”

I laugh. “Bring on the cross and bible, sister.”

Lea tilts her head and looks at me in silence for a while. Her eyes narrow, but I just hold her gaze with honesty. The shock in her face—which is reinforced by a whispered “fuck me” when she realizes I’m being honest—is hilarious.

“Sorry, I can’t,” I tease shaking my head. “I now have a strict rule of not screwing committed women—or, as a matter of fact, any woman who isn’t Lexie.”

Anitra comes back to our table with a couple of mugs and a pot of coffee as Lea stares at me, unblinking. Since Lea is shocked-gaping, I thank Anitra for both of us, and start adding cream and sugar in our cups.

I push Lea’s in front of her, and start sipping from mine. She stares for so long that I start to worry if maybe I shouldn’t have mentioned Lexie to her, but then her expression changes.

She looks at me through soft, amazed eyes. “You feel in love.”

The smile I give her above the rim of my mug makes her grin back at me.

“Tell me about her, Matty.”

And I do. I tell her the basics about Lexie, and falling in love, and my time in Jolene, but she keeps asking questions and demanding more information. So I end up telling her about selling my car and starting a business. I tell her about meeting Lexie’s family, and secretly asking her uncle for permission to marry her. And finally, I tell her about becoming a supernova and feeling hollow.

Unlike all of my other friends, when I tell her about the break-up and of how badly it broke me, she looks at me with such sadness in her eyes that you’d think she was the one hurting. I know that Eric felt for me when we talked, but Lea is feeling with me. For the first time I understand the concept of empathy, and it amazes me that it comes from the person who should feel it the least toward me.

Our food arrives, and as we eat Lea asks questions only a lifelong female friend would even think to ask. They’re all stupid and awkward for me, a guy, to reply to, like details concerning our first date, and what was it like to kiss her for the first time. I answer to everything as best as I can, and as if we were never lovers, only good friends, she swoons at every detail of my love story with the same intensity in which I ache for it.

When out plates are empty and I have nothing else to say, she asks the first question that doesn’t make me roll my eyes. “Why didn’t you tell her?”

I twist my mouth, as if the reply is obvious. She tilts her head like it isn’t.

“If anyone in the world knows why, that person is you, Lea.”

She pulls the corners of her lips downward and shrugs like she doesn’t know what I’m talking about. I run a hand through my hair in frustration.

“I didn’t tell her for the same reason why I took off your seat belt, even though I was driving hammered on a snow covered road. I’m a fucking selfish asshole. I wanted something, so I did what I had to do to get it without thinking about the consequences. I seduced you so you’d suck my dick because I was horny, and didn’t want to wait. I kept secrets from her so she’d love my unlovable self.”

Her lips twist in a smirk. “What the hell are you talking about, crazy? You’re many things, but unlovable is something you’re definitely not.”

“C’mon Lea . . . we were best friends with benefits. You were a model and perfect, and now, because of me you’re half-cyborg. If that’s not the action of an unlovable douche-face I don’t know what is.”

“Number one.” She uses her right middle finger to indicate the number. “Even with one less leg, I’m still fucking perfect.” A smile softens her expression as her index comes up. “Number two: I’ll grant selfish-ass and douche-face. I’ll even add that you have—or at least, used to have—many character flaws, like the drinking-your-face-off, and your overall I’m-sexy-as-balls-and-I-don’t-give-a-shit-about-anyone attitude. But you’re also funny, real, and just the right combination of sexy and cute, which makes you a very easy person to love.” She raises a brow and smirks. “And you should believe me, since I’ve spent months trying really hard to hate your guts.”

“And why don’t you?”

“Because after a year of therapy, I’ve realized that despite your many flaws, what happened to me has very little to do with you. Your fault that night was getting behind the wheel wasted. However, you never forced me into anything. It was my freaking car, Matty. I was sober and handed you the keys out of my own will. As for the rest, that’s as much my fault as it was yours.”

I stare unblinkingly at her. It makes no sense that she’d place any amount of the blame onto herself. It doesn’t matter whose car it was, or why I was driving it, I’m a guy, and I should have protected her. I should have kept my dick in my pants, and made sure she was safe. End of the goddamned story.

Confusion and anger swell inside me as I shake my head. “No fuc—”

“Don’t you even start,” she cuts me off like a bulldozer, her sweet voice taking on a demanding tone completely unknown to me. “Unlike what you think, you didn’t have to seduce me into doing anything. As always, I was willing—actually, I was
dying
to have my face on your crotch. It was why I handed you the car keys, genius. So if you hadn’t messed with by blouse and unbuckled my seatbelt when you did, I’d have done all of those things myself. My leg would still have ended up on the dash, and the accident would still have happened. I lost my leg the moment I sat down on the passenger seat. The guilt isn’t yours alone, and since I let go of it, you should too.”

I let out an exasperated sigh. “I don’t know how to do that. Every time I try it comes back in spades. I tried to run away, but every time I closed my eyes to sleep I saw you, bloody and screaming. I tried to block it out, push it out of my mind and be happy, and it blew up in my face. So how can I forget?”

“You can’t. You remember it, and let the pain show you the meaning in all of that.”

I look at her like she’s crazy, because maybe she is. You have to be crazy to believe this self-help shit, but she just continues to speak. “My therapist says that every tragedy carries a greater meaning that will change our lives, and make us transcend ourselves somehow. The problem is that we’re unable to see it while we’re trapped in that moment. Only when we free ourselves from it, when we accept what happened and look at the experience in hindsight, are we able to find it.

“Like you, I thought that was total bull-crap and maybe it is. I don’t know. What I do know is that after months of being depressed and angry and bitter at you and at life, one day I accepted what happened, and my fault in all of it.” She touches her hand to her chest and takes a deep breath. Because I’m entranced watching her, I do too. The scent of fresh coffee and syrup fills my nostrils as my heart thumps at a faster pace.

She locks her eyes with mine and smiles. “At first it was hard, but then it was kind of awesome. I finally realized that losing a part of you doesn’t mean you need to lose the rest. I lost my leg, but I regained control over my life. I’m no longer tied to a contract that dictated what I could eat and how I had to look. I’m no longer hostage to the sick, twisted obsession I had with you that I spent so long calling love. I’m finally free to be myself, to find someone who loves me, and to do something I’m passionate about.

“Losing the leg sucked. I still dream about the agony of that night. I still have phantom pains, and I’m still adapting to life with my cyborg leg, but I’m also the happiest I’ve ever been.” She takes her eyes from me and fidgets with her phone. “And after everything you told me about Jolene and Lexie, I know that you went through the same.”

She pushes the device toward me. I straighten my back in the chair and lean forward to look at the small screen. My breath hitches when I see the email I sent to her.

An avalanche of memories fills my mind, and mixes with everything she just told me, and it’s like the whole past year is a big puzzle that finally falls together. She’s right; from the moment I typed Jolene, Alabama into my GPS I’ve been reliving, transcending and making peace with my past actions. Through it I found my purpose and the life I’m meant to have, the life I want to have. This realization makes it kind of ironic that my non-acceptance of that peace—as in, keeping my past a secret—is exactly what cost me that freedom.

I contemplate the irony for exactly five seconds before I realize that I’ve reacted towards Lexie the same way I reacted with Lea. Instead of standing by her side, facing my mistakes, and working through my crap to make things better, I acted like a coward and ran.

In Lea’s case I told myself that my father had forced me, even though I knew that was crap. I desperately wanted to be out of Seattle, and away from my guilt. And in Lexie’s, I convinced myself that I was being selfless and giving her what she wanted, but deep down I knew I was being, once again, extremely selfish. After all, leaving is a lot easier than trying and being rejected again.

Panic at the thought that I’ve finally managed to screw things up beyond fixing makes my already hollow chest feel like a vacuum chamber. My insides pull and compress until I can barely breathe. In a desperate need for air, I pull at the neck of my sweater, and lower my head with every intention of knocking it over the table until my brain decides to check in and formulate a plan. And then I feel cool fingers sliding over mine.

I raise my head to look at Lea. Her fingers squeeze mine, and she smiles the way friends do, with compassion and understanding that need no words. Like the Grinch, I feel my shrunken, dead heart grow a bit, and I finally find the courage to say the words I never spoke out loud.

“I’m so very sorry, Lea. I wish it had been me.”

Tears fill her eyes as she lets go of my hands, and fidgets in her seat. Confused, I watch as she wiggles her way to the end of the bench, twists her body around, and with the aid of the tabletop and the back of her seat, stands up. She looks at me, her eyes asking me to stand with her, and without a second thought, I do. She takes a couple of limped steps in my direction and in the blink of an eye she folds her arms around my neck.

After a moment of shock, my arms wrap around her. Her body and this hug feel familiar and strange to me all at once. I know her contours, but I no longer remember how to fit her against me. I remember her flowery smell, but being close to it no longer makes my body buzz. I feel the warmth of her skin, but I no longer want to consume it. All of these changes make this hug comforting in a way our hugs never were. I like it.