The Reason I Stay (39 page)

With her head propped on my shoulder, she whispers, “I’m happy it wasn’t you. I’m even happier that we’re friends again. I missed you.”

I smile and tighten my arms around her, because I missed her too. She kisses my cheek before we slide back into our seats and resume our conversation. This time, however, we stick to lighter topics, which include an impromptu birthday celebration, one to which I protest, but Lea insists upon.

Minutes later, Thomas—a tall man, with coopery hair and gray eyes that look at Lea as if she’s his reason for existing—comes in and sits with us. He takes my presence a lot better than I would have if I were in his place, and by the time I pay the bill—having insisted on doing so in full—I consider that I’ve made a new friend.

When we finally make our way outside the diner, Lea makes me promise to stay in touch. I hug her one final time and thank her for all she’s done for me, and watch as her and Thomas walk hand-in-hand in the opposite direction of my building.

As I walk back to my apartment, I’m finally sure of what I’m supposed to do to fix my life. I’m also finally at peace.

I
f there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that break-ups are a paradox.

Moved by grief, you tell the one who wronged you to leave, and you mean it. You desperately want that person gone and out of your life so they can’t hurt you anymore. However, as soon as you find yourself in that lonely peace you felt you needed, you can’t stop to doubt the decision you were so sure of. You doubt it not because you feel you were wrong, which you know you weren’t, but because unlike pain, true love doesn’t fade away due to distance. And so you spend days and weeks and months missing, aching, and longing for the one you love, and remembering the pain that tore you apart. The combination hurts just as much—or maybe more—than the hurt that caused you to end things in the first place.

This has been my life for the past four months.

Day after day I live, because there’s nothing else I can do, but I don’t feel alive enough to do things I normally would, or even to notice basic things, like the change of season. All I know is that one day I need a jacket to walk to work, on the next I don’t. One day the flowers were blossoming, on the next they were wilting from the scorching heat. One day we were playing Tanie’s wedding, the next it was her wedding week.

My new detachment from life has Tanie thinking that I’m depressed, but I don’t think I am. I smile, and talk to people, and even laugh when something really funny happens. I help with her wedding plans, and play with Kodee, and hang out with the Valentines. I work, and I eat, and I shower. I don’t think that the world is made of suck, and that the doomsday is coming. And most importantly, I don’t cry. Ever.

The thing is, my love for
him
is still there, branded in my heart, strong, and powerful, and all consuming.
He
’s become this ghost I can’t run away from, a constant presence in everything I do, and a fleeting sight everywhere I go. Living in the house we shared, working in the place we met and being around people who, despite my vigorous requests not to, repetitively slip his name into conversations, won’t allow me to forget.

As a result, I miss and think of
him
a bit more every day, which is exhausting. I push through my obligations and all the wedding things because I don’t give myself another option, but aside from that, I honestly can’t find the energy to do much else. I especially can’t find the energy to go out with Tanie and friends, as she keeps inviting me to.

Although I know that she understands my reasons, I also know that those reasons are the very things that make her think I’m inching closer to Cuckoo Land. In all honesty, there’s not an hour that goes by in which I don’t wonder the same thing.

On the Thursday the week before Tanie’s wedding, I start my last hour of work rolling napkins around sets of silverware with Jen sprawled over the station counter and yawning nonstop. This is the third day in a row that Jen has been sleepy during work, and after five years working together every day, I know that can only mean one thing.

“You should take a test?” She looks at me through squinty eyes that make me chuckle—or at least, make me make the throaty, choking sound that passes for one of my chuckles these days. “A pregnancy test, nerd. You’re probably pregnant again.”

She grunts. “Ya think?”

“Hmm . . . yeah. Last time you were this sleepy was when Scotty happened.”

Jen looks out in the distance for a while, and I return my eyes to my boring task. Suddenly, she scares the life out of me with squeal as her back straightens, lifting her from the counter. “I’m pregnant!” Before I get to congratulate her, the grin on her face vanishes, and she collapses back over the counter. “I’m too tired to be happy.”

I let out a weak laugh. “Then go take a nap. I’ll wake you in an hour when my shift is over.”

“I can’t just go nap, we’re working.”

I lift a brow at her, and do a slow once-over of the deserted diner before returning my gaze to her face. “I really don’t think that the zero people here will mind your absence much, or at all.”

“You really don’t mind?”

As much as I love having Jen around, my reply to that question is a big, fat NO. Since you need way less energy to be by yourself than to be around others, alone time has become somewhat of an addiction of mine lately.

“Nope. Go enjoy sleep while you still can.”

She laughs, kisses my cheek, and drags her feet toward the corridor leading to the back room. Finally alone, I take a deep breath and busy myself with every mechanical prepping task we hate to do. I’ve found out that the busier I am, the less crazy thoughts and memories of
him
I have, which means that keeping busy has become another addiction of mine.

For the next twenty-something minutes, I finish the silverware, marry condiments, and do inventory of the bar. The last task on my list, and hopefully my day, is to restock the freezer with beers. When I come back to the front of the house, pushing the cart with three cases of beer bottles from the stock room, the completely empty diner is no longer empty.

Frozen in place, I gasp as I stare into a face so gorgeous it makes everything else in the world seem ugly in comparison. I look from deep-blue eyes with silver sparks that make me think of stars, to those perfect smirking lips that were made to fit around mine. I look from the red plaid shirt that clings to the chest and arms that feel like home, to shaggy blond hair, which is currently being tucked behind an ear, and my hands tighten around the cart handles, offering support for my weakening knees.

My heart pounds franticly inside my chest as I squint, and I tell myself this isn’t happening, that
him
being here is nothing but a dream. I take a deep calming breath through my nose, and slowly open my eyes.

My eyes fill with pathetic tears as I see him still sitting there, staring at me and looking like the most perfect ghost I’ll ever see. The smirk on his lips is gone, and he’s fussing with his hair, but he’s still there. At booth nine. Looking right at me with an expression that seems just as overwhelmed and awed as I feel.
Oh, God!

I have no idea of what to do with myself. On one hand, I know that I should run over to the back room to get Jen. Heaven knows I can’t be alone with him; I’ll probably end up doing something incredibly stupid, like kissing him, or telling him I still love him. On the other hand, I can’t find the strength—or the will—to move or stop looking at him, or stop feeling an overwhelming joy that he’s here.

As if he’s feeling the exact same emotions as I am, he stares unblinkingly at me and in silence, we hold each other’s gaze for a few moments. And then, out of the blue, he lets his head fall down to the tabletop a couple of times. For the first time in four months, I let out a real, normal-sounding laugh that makes him lift his head from the wood just long enough to look at me with his signature smirk in place before resuming the head banging.

I laugh again at the ridiculousness of it as my feet move toward him. As soon as I’m standing at the side of the booth, an avalanche of memories, good and bad, floods my brain, making me feel strangely inadequate in my own skin. I try to push that feeling aside with a deep breath.

“Welcome to The Jukebox.”

He
straightens his back in the chair, and gives me a face-splitting grin that makes my limbs feel like overcooked spaghetti. I place a hand over the table for support. He looks at it and tucks his hair behind his ear. It takes a herculean effort on my part to keep my index finger from tapping in reply, but I manage it.

His grin falls a bit. “Hi, Lexie. How are you?”

I take a deep breath through my mouth. “I’m okay. You?”

“I’m good. What happened to all the people?”

“I dunno.” I shrug. “It’s been like a graveyard here all day.”

He nods attentively, as if I just told him the secrets of the universe. I wonder if he’s also feeling like this is probably the most awkward conversation we’ve ever had, and then he tucks his hair yet again and I know he does. I try to give him a smile to lighten some of strangeness away, but it comes out completely stiff, and only makes things worse.

He fidgets a little. “You look good.”

I let out a single chuckle, and lift a brow. “Thanks, but I really don’t. I look like a mess.”

“Not to me,” he says without a drop of humor as his eyes hold mine. “To me you’re as gorgeous as always. It’s really good seeing you. I miss—”

“Would you like to hear the specials?” I cut him off with the most pathetic shaky voice in the word.

My breathing quickens to the point where I’m almost panting, and I know that’s extremely rude, but I can’t allow him to finish that sentence. I know that if he does then I’ll say that I miss him too, and I can’t do that. I can’t allow myself to open to him again.

The light I just saw on his face vanishes. In its place there’s a tinge of sadness, but his smile stays in place. I’m so thankful for it.

“Yes, please.”

With a tiny nod, I recite the two specials of the day. He orders the chicken stake, fried okra and sweet potato option, and a beer. My hand shakes a bit as I write down his order, but I don’t think he notices. Although I don’t look at him, I can feel his eyes watching my face.

“Anything else?”

He doesn’t reply right away, which makes me lift my eyes to him. He’s got his right arm bent over the tabletop, and his chin propped on his hand. His index finger rubs his clean shaved chin as he continues to study me. His gaze is different than it used to be, hotter and softer all at once. Because my body is stupid for him, its instant reaction is to straighten my spine and dilate my pupils.