by Pam Godwin
If she went home, maybe he would wear her down and convince her to stay. But she would never forgive him. Never forget. He’d decimated the very foundation of her existence. She didn’t have the energy to rebuild. Couldn’t fathom starting over at age thirty-one.
She didn’t want a life without him.
His messages would go unanswered. But she wouldn’t depart this world without the final word.
Tears fell in steady streams down her cheeks as she opened the camera on her phone, switched to video mode, and pressed record.
“Mason, you dumb son of a bitch. You fucked up. You fucked around, and you fucking lost me. I’d say that I hope it was worth it, but I know it wasn’t. The moment you put your dick in her, you ruined both of our lives.”
The light post across the bridge illuminated a halo behind her, but the screen showed only her face. A ghastly, puffy-eyed, old face. She stared at the image for several seconds, shocked by her reflection.
“The face staring back at me isn’t mine. It’s the face of a defeated woman. I don’t recognize her. I don’t accept her, and I fucking despise her for the things she cannot change.” She swiped at the torrent of tears, unable to rein in the fury in her voice. “I read your messages and listened to your voicemails. You claim it was just sex with that woman, that it meant nothing. If that were true, why do I feel so dead? I used to get tingles every time I thought of you. Now I just feel cold and sick with this slimy, hateful sensation stuck in my gut. That’s never going away. So I have a choice. I can live with the pain. Or I can end it.”
Her hands trembled so violently she jostled the phone. Readjusting her grip, she swallowed. Blinked. Cleared her voice.
“Maybe I feel too much. Do I? I think I do. I think I loved you too much. Certainly more than you deserved. So I’m going to stop that. I’m just going to stop feeling. I gave you thirteen years, and what did I ask for in return? Fidelity? I wish you would’ve told me that was too much to ask. Maybe you didn’t know. But you should have. You’re a fucking doctor. All that schooling to learn how to heal people, and in the end, you hurt the person who loved you the most. Well, you can just fuck right off. You did your thing, and now I’m going to finally do something for me. I’ll see you in hell.”
Numb, she stopped the recording. She was spent. Empty. There was nothing left.
She had no living family. No one to mourn her death.
Except him.
He would watch the video after she was gone, and maybe it would wreck him so completely he would eventually follow her off the bridge. It was the cruelest, most selfish thing she could do. The person she was before would’ve never been so vindictive.
But that person was already dead.
She opened her email to forward the video to him. By the time he received it, she would be at the bottom of the river.
The tightness in her chest choked her breaths. Her eyes were so hot and swollen it was like looking through ripped scabs. She rubbed her lashes and squinted at the screen.
A new email had popped up. Weird. It wasn’t in her inbox but in the unknown account she’d logged into weeks ago.
Her finger hovered over it.
No. Forget it. She should just send the video and be done with this.
But that account… Why was it receiving an email now? It had never been used. No incoming or outgoing messages ever.
A month ago, she bought a jacket at a thrift store in El Paso. In the pocket, she’d found the email address and password scribbled on a scrap of paper. At the time, the romantic in her had been drawn to the username.
Tommysgirl.
Someone had created it a few months before she’d acquired the jacket. They seemed to have forgotten about the account.
She’d forgotten about it, too.
“It’s not important. Just delete the account and erase everything.”
She didn’t want anyone thinking she’d been having an affair with a guy named Tommy.
As she switched to the account to remove it, her attention snagged on the subject line of the message.
I need you.
Three words, so simple and ambiguous, yet they sneaked beneath her desolation and shone a blinding light on the most broken parts of her.
She desperately needed to be needed.
The fog in her head lifted as she quickly opened the message and read the first line.
I know you’re dead, but you’re still my girl. I need you.
Her gaze skipped to the bottom of the letter and landed on the signature.
Tommy.
Who was he? Who was Tommy’s girl?
Her heart hammered as she absorbed the rest of the email.
I’ve been avoiding this email account. I mean, I created it and gave it to you the day I lost you. It’s like I knew I would need to write this letter to your ghost.
Maybe that’s fucked-up, but I need you to hear me. I don’t think I can keep going if you’re not out there, somewhere in the ether, listening.
They said you died in that car accident, but your spirit is too bright, too big, to just vanish. You always smiled at me like you were part of a better world, so I think that’s why you left. You were destined for something greater.
I wish you could tell me where you went. Is it nice? Are you alone?
It’s dark here. Everything feels haunted. All I see is shadows, the ones you left behind. They’re in the hallways at school, on the trails we walked between our houses, and in the rocks we climbed in the desert.
Your ghost belongs to me. It’s the only thing I got to keep. All your possessions were snatched up by extended family and sold off. But your ghost is mine. Except I can’t wrap my arms around it. I don’t know how to hold it and kiss it.
I miss your lips.
I just want to be with you.
You were supposed to grow up and become the strong woman you were meant to be. I couldn’t wait for you to grow up with me.
How could you leave me here to live without you? I want to be mad at you, but I miss you too much. I miss you.
I just…miss you.
It’s not fair what happened to you and your family. Or what’s happened to me. I guess I can be angry about it forever, or I can just try to…be.
You’ve been gone for six months. Did you know that? Does time move the same where you are?
My mom makes me see a therapist because I won’t talk to her. Funny how, when bad things happen, people make it worse by feeling sorry for you. I see the pity in their eyes, the shared looks of concern. What they’re thinking and not saying is that I’m horribly fucked-up and make everyone uncomfortable.
Grownups are clueless. They think they can fix things, like I need someone to take care of me, but mostly they just want me to act normal.
I can act normal and feel brave and still find myself falling.
Maybe that’s what love does. It gives you hope then throws you off the cliff into terrible darkness so that every memory stays with you into infinity.
I’m drowning in memories. I remember when you were born, when you started walking, talking, and running faster than me. Jesus, you were fast. I was always chasing you, wasn’t I?
Now I’m chasing shadows.
You know what really messes me up? The fact that I’ve been waiting my entire life for you to get older, and now you never will.
You’ll always be fourteen. Three years younger than me this year. Four years younger than me next year. The year after that, five years younger. I have to graduate from high school in the spring, knowing that you will never join me on the other side.
All the dreams we talked about—college, marriage, the dogs, the kids, the house with the pond, everything we planned… Our future died with you. We did everything right, and it all turned around on us.
You’re mine, but you’re not. Mine to protect, but I can’t do that, can I?
I guess you don’t need protection where you are. You’re free from danger and pain. Congratulations on being free. But I’m
still here, reaching for you and waiting for you to reach back.
Losing you feels like I lost myself. When I try to talk about it, I hear a noiseless hush. Echoes, maybe. Like strangled screaming from somewhere inside me. That really sucks, you know? I can’t talk to the therapist. It’s a waste of goddamn time.
But writing the words to you… I don’t know. This is easier. I don’t feel so helpless and weird. Because I know you’re listening without judgment. Even when you don’t like what I say, you’ve always listened.
Maybe if I keep writing, if I tell you about the guy who misses his girl, no matter how bad it is, I won’t be stuck in this story anymore. I’ll be the author of it.
Authors have the ultimate power. They can save a character. Or kill him off. I like that idea.
Shit, I need to go. My mom’s calling for me. I think she’s lying about how bad her cancer is. I’ll tell you about that another time.
Thank you for listening.
I wish you were here.
Yours,
Tommy
A lump knotted in her throat, and her tears cascaded with a vengeance. She read through the email again and again, hurting for him through every word. He was only seventeen. Just a kid. Yet he had more strength and maturity than she did at thirty-one.
Boy, did that put her pathetic life into perspective.
What the hell was she doing?
She sat back against the guardrail and pointed her toes toward the black nothingness below. Nighttime insects buzzed around her, and in the distance, the rushing river beckoned.
“Mason cheated on me.” She spat the words off the bridge.
She repeated it over and over. Every time she screamed it, the statement was no less true, but it started to lose its power over her.
So he cheated on her. Was that really worth killing herself over?
Yes.
She thought about it and asked the question again.
Maybe. I don’t know.
Mason hadn’t died in a car accident. His life hadn’t been stolen from her. He was an unfaithful husband. A dirtbag. A man who didn’t love her enough to be faithful.
This kid, Tommy, was dealing with something far more tragic, and she didn’t sense a hint of suicide in his email. He was powering through it, pushing forward, despite the excruciating pain and loneliness.
If he loved his girlfriend even a fraction as much as she loved Mason, he was hurting. Inconsolably. The more a person loved something, the harder it was to lose it.
She felt that loss at the center of her bones. It was a winless battle she didn’t want to fight.
Until she’d read that message.
Now she didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t email the boy. If she did, he would stop writing to his girlfriend and lose that outlet to express his feelings.
He needed someone to hear him, and deep down, she knew she needed to listen. She couldn’t compare his misery to hers. It wasn’t even in the same realm. But she related to his words and felt his insecurities like they were her own.
He gave her strength. But was she strong enough to start over? She wasn’t seventeen anymore.
She wasn’t ninety, either. Age was just a number. An excuse to give up.
Mending a broken heart felt impossible. But that was life, wasn’t it? Everyone got their heart broken at least once. Now that she’d experienced it, she knew how to avoid it.
She wouldn’t go home. She would never fall in love again. She could focus on a career. Did she still want that?
Did she still want to jump?
It would be easier.
Since when did she ever take the easy route?
Fuck, she was just so tired. Exhaustion pushed in from every direction, pulling on her limbs and straining her insides. It hurt to breathe.
Maybe she should go back to the motel and sleep on it. But if she stepped away from this bridge, she knew she wouldn’t return.
So she stayed. Deliberated. Reread Tommy’s email. Listened to Mason’s new voicemail messages. Then she watched her video through a fresh sheen of tears.
On the screen, she looked like a raving lunatic. A sad, pitiful victim crying out for help. That wasn’t her. It was just a moment, one she’d needed to give herself. If she was brave enough, she could put the video and all thoughts of suicide behind her.
She deleted the recording. Then she sat in the silence and allowed herself to grieve.
Hours passed. She remained on the bridge until the first rays of dawn broke over the horizon.
She hadn’t slept. Hadn’t jumped. But she was no longer crying.
After spending the evening imagining what her life would look like without Mason, she had a plan. It wasn’t dreamy or exciting, but it was obtainable. She could get by with a broken heart, and maybe someday, she might find a way to be happy as a single woman.
The sunrise stretched pink and lavender fingers across the rippling surface of the river below. In the light, a fall at this height felt a lot more daunting.
Her moment to jump had come and gone.
Woodenly, she gathered her things into her bag and checked her phone.
Another email had been sent to Tommysgirl ten minutes ago. She opened the message.
Me again.
I fought with my mom last night. Turns out, I was right about her cancer.
The doctors give her six months to live.
I really need you.
Are you there?
“Yeah.” She stepped away from the ledge and trudged to her car on bare feet. “I’m here, Tommy.”
Eldorado, Texas
Present Day
“I’ll only be gone a month, Evan.” Rylee breezed past him, her mind running in a million different directions. “The lights are on timers, so don’t mess with the switches.”
“At least tell me where you’re going.” Evan caught her arm, stopping her at the front door. “You owe me that much.”
“Bullshit.” Anger flared as she whirled on him. “I had one rule.”
“I never agreed—”
“No expectations. No commitments. No possessive behavior.”
“That’s three.”
“All synonymous with no clinging.”
“I’m not…” He followed her narrowed gaze to his grip on her arm. “Jesus.” His fingers sprung open, releasing her. “Don’t break my balls because I give a shit.”
“Stop.”
“Stop what? Caring about you?”
“Yes.” She grabbed her backpack and slung it over her shoulder on her way out the door. “My bills are paid through next month. You’re listed as my emergency contact, but nothing is going to happen. It’s just a sabbatical. My first vacation ever.”
“Rylee.” He stepped in front of her, blocking her exit off the porch.
“Evan.” Impatience clipped her voice.
His bright blue eyes searched her face as his hand crept along her jaw, soft yet demanding. “Let me in.”
She’d let him in her bed, and that was enough.
More than enough.
In the ten years since her divorce, she made it a point only to have sex with strangers. She didn’t do relationships. Never slept with the same man twice. She didn’t let people in.
Then Evan moved into the house next door.
For the first few years, she turned down his persistent sexual advances. Didn’t matter how goddamn good-looking he was. A one-night stand with a guy who lived twenty feet away was a terrible idea.
But Evan was confident and aggressive and gorgeous in all the ways that spoke to her. So it happened—late one evening, after too many beers and a long bout of loneliness.
Drunken stupidity had been her excuse the first time. But the sex was good. So she let it continue. With one rule.
No clingy attachment.
Except they were together a lot. His place. Her place. Several nights a week. Until she woke one morning and realized he was the only man who had been in her bed in over a year.
Sh
e’d broken her own damned rule.
Not only did she have sex with her next-door neighbor, but she’d also become monogamous with him. That was dangerously close to a relationship.
“I need to go.” She tried to step around him.
“You have no obligations for the next month.” He stayed with her, sliding a hand into the back pocket of her jeans, his fingers squeezing her butt as he tucked their hips together. “Give me a few minutes.”
She pulled in a calming breath, which inadvertently drew his sexy, masculine scent into her lungs. He smelled amazing, but she was immune. Damaged. Closed off to anything beyond a casual hookup.
Ten years hadn’t dulled the thorns inside her. If anything, time had made her harder, icier, more set in her ways. She wasn’t looking to change. Detachment suited her career and safeguarded the life she’d built for herself.
But it didn’t negate the fact that Evan was her friend. Her only friend. He didn’t deserve to be stonewalled.
She lowered the backpack to the porch and rested her hands on his biceps. Thick, corded muscle stretched the sleeves of his shirt, every inch honed through manual labor in his construction job.
At age forty-three, he was two years her senior, divorced, and living paycheck to paycheck just like her. His modest two-bedroom house was well-kept like hers. He drank cheap, domestic beer like her. His life was humble, unsophisticated, and honest. Like hers.
But unlike her, he had no reservations about putting himself out there—his generosity, his vulnerabilities, and his overprotective heart.
Evan was a catch, and every unattached woman in their small Texan town wanted him. He needed to stop wasting his time with her.
“All right.” She straightened her spine, wishing she were anywhere but here. “I’m listening.”
“You should see the look on your face. It’s as if a conversation with me makes you physically ill. It’s not like I’m asking you to marry me.”
