Ghost in His Eyes

by Carrie Aarons

  Carson squeezes my hand, and I know he’s trying his best to stay quiet and not punch something. Hell, I am so ashamed I stayed in it, I want to punch something too.

  “I was restricted on where I could go, he monitored everything I bought and started to track me using a phone finder app. The first time … the first time …”

  I can’t bring myself to say the words, but I have to. We need everything out on the table.

  “The first time he hit me, I thought it was a dream. I didn’t think it could be real, that I was actually in that room. I swear, it was like my body was floating somewhere else, watching it happen. And the next day, when the bruises formed on my wrist and thigh, he apologized. Swore up and down that it would never happen again. And I couldn’t … so many men in my life had left. Dad had turned into a shell of the person he was. I wasn’t confident enough to go through another loss, and so I needed to make it work.”

  “I. Could. Kill. Him.” Carson’s words are vicious, bit back with venom in his mouth.

  I pressed on, needing to purge it all. “The last time … it was so bad. I ended up in the hospital, and Dad came to get me out. I didn’t go back to school, and I had to press charges. I still hold a restraining order, but … he’s still out there. The judge let him off with probation because he was a first time offender. I felt so stupid afterwards, I should have said something earlier. I should have been stronger.”

  “Hey!” His voice raises. I can almost see the hair stand up on the back of his neck. “None of this is your fault. Do you hear me? He should have never touched you in the first place. Jesus!”

  He hits the sand, turning away to collect himself.

  “This tears me up inside, baby. Because I never want you in harm’s way. I only want you to be perfect and happy and safe. I … I mostly hate that I wasn’t here. That you felt the need to stay with him in the first place.”

  Carson pulls my body to him, and I nestle into his hold. His warmth covers me, and I close my eyes to inhale his clean, soapy scent. He is everything that Wes was not. Caring, patient, kind, an equal. I realize, in that moment, that there is nothing else holding me back.

  “I love you.”

  The words renew a sense of strength in me, and I know that this time, loving someone won’t be a weakness. It will be a gift, a path to a future.

  I feel him move, and then we’re face-to-face, his eyes smiling even while his jaw hangs open.

  “I mean it, Carson Cole. Even if I’m a million miles away, even if I’m in the middle of the ocean. I am in love with you.”

  And this time, I know it’s real. Not that it wasn’t when we were teenagers, but that was young love. We hadn’t been through anything, we hadn’t taken life’s hardest curveballs and survived them. This was enduring love, the kind that had flickered for years and had never burned out.

  As the sea that marked the milestones of our lives drifted in and out, I sat with the only boy I’d ever love, and let it wash us clean of every blemish of our pasts.

  26

  Blake

  I had never, in my life, walked into an office full of people and been expected to socialize and work.

  As a teenager, I’d taught surfing lessons down on the beach to tourists in the summer, and it rarely ever needed many words. In college, I hadn’t worked, something Dad had promised I’d never have to do if I went away to school. And after I’d come home, I’d studied, gotten my degree, and started my business. Sure, I’d had to go on some business meetings to gain clients, but that was usually one-on-one.

  So entering Carson’s office and seeing a bunch of heads turn towards me was a little terrifying. I looked at the floor, at my gray flats stepping one by one onto the hardwood.

  “Blake! Oh my God, I’m so happy you’re here, I can’t wait to go over everything with you!” Melissa comes bounding up and throws her arms around me.

  And officially breaks up any tension that was sitting on my shoulders. “Hi, I’m excited too. I brought some new files for you to look at.”

  She sweeps her hand around the room. “Everyone, this is Blake, our genius graphic designer you’ve all been raving about. And Blake, this is everyone! You can meet them later, but first, I brought donuts in for your arrival.”

  She takes my arm, and I’m instantly a little bit more relaxed. I’ve never had a girl friend, but I could see Melissa being the kind of person who could bring me out of my shell. The office is the same since I saw it when I came to visit Carson here, but I now realize it has gotten an upgrade since I was last here over a decade ago, and it looks professional but still homey. Professional pictures of the island’s horses hang on the wall, and Mac computers line a certain wall with screen saver pictures of tourists on the jeep horse tours.

  “Ugh, I walk in this kitchen and want to eat them all. Come on, sit!” Melissa grabs a plate and loads it with donuts from the famous local shop down the street.

  I have to admit, the sugary sweet smell calls to my nose and when she places the plate on the table between us, I can’t help but reach for a vanilla.

  “So how has your week been going? I feel like I haven’t spoken to you in ages.”

  I swallow before talking. “It’s been good, busy with people getting ready for fourth quarter taxes. But I love this time of year out here. The cold ocean, getting ready for the holidays.”

  Melissa nods. “Yeah, but I have to go home to New York for the holidays. Some day, I’ll get my big family to come down here. It’s just so peaceful down here, and I bet it’s even better out on Carova.”

  I nod. “It is, but it can get lonely.”

  “Well, at least you have Carson.” Her comment means to pry. “Okay, that was a horrible non-question. It’s just … you should know I’ve never seen him happier. And I like you too, so I’m happy for you guys.”

  She’s too nice, I don’t know how to handle her. So I’m honest. “That’s really nice of you to say, and I appreciate it. We’re doing well, better than I ever thought we could be. But to be honest, I’m not … the most open person. I don’t have … friends. So I really want to be your friend, as stupid and childish as that sounds, but just bear with me because I’m a little awkward.”

  Melissa smiles. “I talk enough for four people, so don’t worry, girl, our friendship will be a breeze. Okay, go see your man and then we will get to work. I have so many ideas for some new campaign ideas and I just know your input will be genius.”

  She skips out of the room and leaves me by myself to wander the office. If I remember correctly, the office suites where the couple of executives sit are in the back, down another hallway, so I take it. The first one I find is empty and dark, as is the second. But when I reach the third door, I see light spilling into the hallway and hear a familiar voice.

  “No, we need to track the pregnancy rates, because new horses are important. Okay … okay, get the tags on them, but gently. Just … don’t spook them, okay?”

  Carson is talking to someone on the phone, and hearing him in business mode is kind of sexy. Peeking around the door, so he can’t see me, I observe him in his big black office chair. Sitting straight with one hand spread wide on his wood desk, his dark hair tousled like he’s been running his fingers through it. The first button on his shirt is undone, like he’s been fiddling with it, and his eyes are focused on something on the computer screen. He looks … commanding. It’s hot, seeing him in boss mode. I want to stand here all day just watching it, but I also want to walk in and have his eyes on me.

  It’s crazy how much he makes my body react by just looking at me. I’d forgotten that in the years we’d been apart. Even now, as adults, he could make me go from normal to blazing hot in just seconds with a sweep of those chocolate pools.

  I mouth the word “hi” as I walk into his office, and his eyes light up. Something crackles at our connection when I enter the room, and it’s the kind of intimacy that can’t be learned or found over time. With Carson and I, there has always been that innate somethin
g between us. Like it was put there at birth, and we were meant to discover it the first time we ever laid eyes on each other.

  Dropping into one of the chairs across from him, I wait for him to finish his phone call. Three minutes later, he hangs up.

  “I’m not sure it’s a good idea to have you in my office alone.” His smirk has me rising and crossing behind his desk.

  “Oh, and why is that?” I sit on his lap in a bold move for me, and twine my arms around his neck.

  He finds my hips and goose bumps race down my skin. “Because the boss is going to do some naughty things and that might not be acceptable for an employee.”

  “Good thing I don’t work for you, I work for Melissa.” And with that, I silence him, slanting my lips over his.

  As his tongue tangles with mine, I grind against his lap, fully aware that I’m quickly making him rock solid.

  After a few minutes of making out like horny teenagers, Carson breaks it off. “As much as I want to take you right here on this desk, the door is open and I’m pretty sure these walls are paper thin. You look amazing though. Can you keep this on when I get to your house tonight?”

  I give him one last peck and stand up. “I’ll think about it.” It felt fun to flirt and be lighthearted. “How is your day though?”

  He sighs, but smiles. “Good, I’m getting more used to it everyday. It’s easier because of the staff we have, they save my job almost three times a day.”

  Setting down my bag, I sit on his desk. “You don’t give yourself enough credit. You’re doing a really good job. Well, I’ll leave you to it, boss. I need to go be a graphic genius and make your business even better.”

  “I tell her I love her and she gets all cocky on me. There is that wild girl.” He winks at me.

  “I love you, too.” I blow him a kiss because I’m feeling silly.

  Walking back to Melissa’s desk, I ask her if we can go into the conference room to talk. I don’t feel comfortable discussing ideas out here in the open where anyone can join in, and it’s hard enough just to be in this office full of people. Slowly, I’m getting more social, but I don’t want to push it.

  For the next two hours, Melissa and I go through all of her ideas for next year’s marketing campaigns, and what graphics I can create to provide the association their biggest reach. We joke throughout the meeting, and I learn that Melissa is one of four from a big Italian family. She promises to show me videos from her Christmas at home, because I don’t believe that fifty people can fit in a three-bedroom ranch. I can’t imagine that much chatter.

  “What are you doing for New Year’s?” she asks as we wrap up the meeting.

  “I’m not sure, it is still two months away.” I laugh at her eagerness.

  “Well, we do something with the younger folks around these parts, a house party of sorts. You and Carson should come. It’s a lot of fun, and there is no pressure.”

  I didn’t know what Carson was doing for the holidays, hell we had just sorted out all of the issues between us, and I hadn’t wanted to bring it up.

  “Maybe, that sounds fun. I’ll ask him.”

  As I walked out to my car, plans with my boyfriend set for later, I literally patted myself on the back. Today had been a huge accomplishment.

  Every day now, I felt more like my old self. More like the girl who was never afraid of anything, and could take any curveball the world threw at her.

  27

  Carson

  Two nights later, and I’m staying at Blake’s again. It’s become a habit now, going about our days separately and then coming together when the sun goes down. We make dinner, watch a TV show, talk, or she reads while I watch veterinary surgery videos on YouTube.

  There is a quiet camaraderie about being with her; we know each other so well, yet so much time has passed that we learn something new with each interaction. The other day, Blake revealed that she no longer drinks coffee, as it gives her headaches. When I knew her in high school, she lived off of those foamy Frappuccino drinks, bouncing off the wall like some caffeine addicted fool.

  She learned that I love murder mystery shows, and often like to talk about who the possible murderer could be during the episode. Now, when we watch them together, she shushes me the entire time because she says it ruins the mystery.

  Blake uses a certain kind of toothpaste, while I tend towards an electronic toothbrush. She leaves her shoes lined up neatly on the landing near her front door, and hums while she cooks. There are so many little things about her that I never got to see after I left, that I never got to experience because I didn’t see her grow into the person she is today.

  It’s fun to learn about each other, but it’s bittersweet. Because if I’d come to my senses or if she’d reached out, we could have done it a long time ago. I try not to dwell on that though.

  We’re finishing up the meatloaf and mashed potatoes Blake made for dinner, and The Beatles sing through the record player. Rhett is softly snoring on my shoe under the table, and I’m so satisfied that I can’t remember being this purely happy in my entire life.

  “You’re a fantastic cook, I’m stuffed.” I compliment my girlfriend, reaching for her hand across the small kitchen table.

  Although there was never a conversation about labels and status, we knew what we were to each other. From the moment I’d come back, from the moment we’d kissed on that night in her hallway, we had been bound to each other. Ours was a love story so historically written that there didn’t need to be a conversation. We were a couple, always had been and always would be.

  “Is it too early to get into bed?” Blake rested her head in her other hand.

  It had been a long week, and nothing sounded better than getting naked with her in bed right now.

  But right before I was about to say we should, the last ray of the sun caught something in the window, diverting my gaze to it. Standing high on its hill, set out further than anything else on Carova’s beach roads, was our Horse Shack.

  We’d yet to go back to the place that held so many memories for us. I think we were both scared, entering a place that we’d had so many firsts. And a terrible last.

  But it was time. “Let’s go to the Horse Shack.”

  Slowly, she turns her eyes to look at the same house I’m looking at. “I haven’t been in that house in ten years.”

  I stand, never letting go of her hand, and pull us gently to the window. “Well, I think it’s time that we go back.”

  She nods, and we gather some things. Blake puts away the plates while I change my work shoes for boots. She grabs a blanket while I make us a thermos of hot chocolate. If we’re going out there, we are going to stay out there until the bitter tastes in our mouths are gone.

  Wordlessly, we lock up the house and make our way out to the Horse Shack, the cold night air invading our fleeces. The place looks almost untouched, a memory from our past sitting right in front of us. Hand in hand, we pause at the front door, a piece of wood that has been weathered and hacked at with age and kids joking around in here.

  “Let’s rip the Band-Aid off, shall we?” I smile at her and push it open.

  As we walk inside, I’m hit with so many scenes from our past. The first time she challenged Joel and I to come in here. The wall where I’d first kissed her. The corner of the first floor that I’d made us a picnic in when we were fifteen.

  But the first floor had never been our place.

  “It’s all so much the same.” Blake breathes, and I lead her toward the stairs.

  We don’t need to talk about where we are going. Our souls meet in the place, the center of our universe exists on the second floor of this house where the stars and moon shine freely.

  When we get to the second floor, she drops my hand and walks to the jagged edges of the floor where the wall was seemingly ripped off, and sits with her feet hanging over the side. I join her, and look out onto the moonlit bay.

  “I should have never said those things to you the last time we were here,
” she whispers, not looking at me.

  I hear her echoed words ringing through the room. How she blamed me for Joel’s death, how she said I should have gone after him or stopped him. When she told me she could never look at me again and that I should leave our home forever. That she could never love me again.

  “And I should have never left. We both did things we regret, but it’s in the past.”

  She leans into me. “I hate that we lost so much time.”

  “Such is life, and we’re still young. We have all the time in the world, baby.” I wrap my arms around her.

  “It’s so beautiful, I forgot how majestic it was up here. Our special place, just for the two of us.”

  We listen to the sounds of the ocean and the bay for a while.

  “Our love is like this house, Blake. It’s old and wise, aged with years. It may be shaky at times, but the foundation is solid. The doors may get blown off, the siding may weather … but we are always going to be here. We are always going to survive, make it through, standing tall. That’s how deep my love runs for you. And it will stay that way, forever.”

  A warm hand on my cheek turns my head, and I’m caught with desirable lips on my own. She shows me how deep her love runs for me with her actions, and there is not a need for any more words.

  28

  Blake

  Carson’s words spill over my heart like the warmest love potion, like the most delicious glass of wine meant to bewitch the soul and make a person fall in love.

  And that’s what I am. A person in love. So incredibly in love with a man who is so much more worthy than I deserve.

  I move into his arms, my lips never leaving his. I kiss all of my feelings into him, use my body and hands to describe this bigness in my heart that is only for his soul.