Chaser

by Staci Hart

  He laughed, squeezing me once more before we rolled out of bed, got dressed, and packed up our things. The car service sent a driver to take us back to the harbor. I watched the Hampton house disappear behind us and I sighed, missing the magic of the place within seconds.

  The diner was somehow cozy and upper crust all at once, and my omelet was incredible, stuffed with bacon, tomatoes, avocados, and buttery crab meat. And an hour later, we were climbing back onto Midnight Caller.

  We readied the ship, cast off the lines, pulled in the fenders, and then we rode out of the harbor, back to the ocean and down the coast. The day passed too quickly, and every minute took us closer to the real world. Our reality was so much more complicated than the last twenty-four hours had been. All I could do was hope that if we just held onto each other, we’d be all right.

  It was almost dusk by the time we made it back into the marina in Manhattan, the sun dropping down in the sky too quickly. He pulled the boat into the slip and hopped onto the dock to tie us up.

  He smiled at me as he climbed back in and stepped into the cockpit. “Come home with me.”

  I stood. “I wish I could, but I should get back and get cleaned up. I have some work to do before tomorrow. It’s my first day with the kids.”

  He wrapped his arms around me. “Well, I’ve got about an hour’s worth of closing down the boat to do. Did you want to hang out? Bobby’s here. He can give you a ride if you don’t want to wait.”

  “Nah, that’s all right. I’ll just take the subway.”

  “You sure?”

  I smiled up at him. “I’m sure. Thank you, Cooper. For everything.”

  “Don’t thank me. This won’t be the last time. Maybe we can take a week or two this summer, just you and me and the Hamptons.”

  I sighed, imagining we were back there already. “That sounds glorious.”

  He smiled. “Can I see you tomorrow?”

  “Absolutely. I’ll come by after work.”

  “Seems like a million years from now, after having you all to myself.” He kissed me sweetly.

  A big part of me didn’t want to leave his side for even a minute. “I know. I’ll text you, okay? And I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “All right.” Cooper helped me out of the boat and handed me my bag, then stepped onto the pier. He threaded his fingers through mine before kissing me once more. “Be careful. I’ll talk to you later.”

  I hesitated, almost afraid to leave. Like the minute I walked off the dock, the magic would disappear. But I tried to have faith. As scared as I was, I had to trust that we would be all right. That everything would work out.

  I smiled, looking forward to that time as I stretched up on my tiptoes to wind my arms around Cooper’s neck and kiss him deep. He picked me up, and my sneakers dangled off the ground.

  I broke away, smiling at his lips.

  “Tomorrow.”

  His lips brushed mine once more. “Tomorrow.”

  He set me down, and I turned to leave, looking back over my shoulder at him. He stood on the dock with his hands in his pockets and the most brilliant smile on his face, watching me as I walked away.

  My heart skipped as I walked out of the marina and toward the train station. But when I turned on my phone and it connected for the first time since the morning before, my notifications went nuts. Texts rolled in, piled on top of each other, and I pulled them open, wondering what the hell was going on.

  West: Hope your date is nice and that you have a good reason from hiding him from me. Text me if he turns into a creep.

  Lily: Dude, a package came for you like five seconds after you left.

  There was a picture of a box sitting on our kitchen table. I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk when I saw the hand addressed label.

  It was from Jimmy. I held my breath as I scrolled through her texts.

  Lily: WTF could Jimmy have sent you? Rose and I are dying. Tell me I can open it.

  Lily: Just kidding, that was really forward, but text me and freak out with me.

  Lily: Okay, you’re obviously super busy getting your junk rocked, but Rose and I have been staring at this for twelve hours and we’re dying.

  Lily: Do you guys really have zero service? This is balls!

  Jimmy: Hey. I sent you something, my tracking says it was delivered yesterday. Let me know if you got it and call me, if you want. I’m around.

  I felt like hurling as I picked up my feet and pulled up Lily’s messages. Just got back. On my way.

  My phone dinged within seconds. THANK GOD. I hope it was amazing. Hurry up.

  My mind spun around in circles, and I headed down the stairs of the subway station, through the turnstile, and stepped onto the train. The tables had turned, tilting my world sideways. New Maggie was nowhere to be found — Old Maggie had taken her place and found herself sitting scared and alone on the train, wondering how she’d gotten there.

  I barreled out of the 86th St. station and to our building, up the stairs and into the apartment. The door opened with a whoosh that sucked all of the air out of the room. Lily and Rose sat at the table, their faces turned to mine. No one spoke.

  All I saw was that box.

  Inside that box was everything I was trying to forget.

  I dropped my bag and stepped toward the table in slow motion, picked up the scissors and sliced through the seam, through my name on the label, splitting it in half. My eyes locked on the dark crack, not wanting to know what was inside and knowing I couldn’t avoid it. Not anymore.

  I took a breath and opened the box with trembling hands.

  It was like a time capsule straight out of my past. Jimmy had assembled the package with care, choosing things that he knew I would understand, that would remind me. Our prom picture. A photo of us at a football game, me in my cheerleader uniform and him a sweaty, smiling, hulking mess, football helmet in hand, our smiles bright and carefree. Movie ticket stubs. A velvet box full of dried rose petals. A picture of us in the Bahamas after he asked me to marry him. And when I picked that up, what lay beneath stopped my heart.

  I knew that black satin box. I knew what was inside without looking, but I picked it up anyway with quaking hands, the hinges squeaking softly when I opened it. The light caught the two-carat diamond inside, the ring I’d worn every day for a year until the day when I was supposed to wear it forever.

  I closed the box with a snap, my fingers numb as I picked up the letter in the bottom of the cardboard box with my name on the front. I opened the envelope and unfolded the paper inside, sinking into a chair as I read.

  Maggie —

  These months without you have been the worst of my life. I found all of this in our closet, the box full of our memories, and it was too much. I’ve been giving you space, but I can’t stay quiet anymore.

  Tell me what I have to do to get you back. Tell me what to say. I love you, and I always have. Come home, Maggie. Because my life doesn’t make sense without you in it.

  —Jimmy

  Tears spilled down my cheeks, hot and fat, so fast I could barely see. I closed my eyes, ribs aching as I dragged in a skipping breath, letting it out with a sob. And my past rushed back to me, overwhelming me. It wasn’t what was in the box. It was the deluge of my memories, the ghost come back to haunt me. To push me over the edge.

  “Oh, God, Maggie,” Lily whispered and reached for me.

  I shook my head, hands clasped over my mouth. Beaten. Broken. My eyes found the picture from the football game again, what felt like a million years ago and yesterday. We looked so happy. I thought we were happy.

  Everything about him was constructed, manufactured to make me feel safe and wanted, and it was all a lie. I didn’t believe that he cared about anyone but himself. But for years, for my entire adult life and even before, Jimmy was all I’d ever known.

  The memory of him, of seven years of loving him — it all crashed into me.

  Everything I’d been hiding from, everything I’d been running from had found
me.

  I couldn’t breathe, though the tears still fell, my heart beating so hard in my chest that I felt like I’d been shot. My fingers tingled, black spots swimming in my vision.

  Rose turned my chair. “Maggie? Breathe, Maggie.”

  I tried. I tried to slow down, closed my eyes and held my lungs still, but they sucked in another frantic breath, sobs shuddering through me until the black spots spread.

  And then they were gone.

  GRAVITY

  Maggie

  THE CHILDREN’S FACES WERE TURNED up to mine, eyes full of hope and wonder as I read to them the next morning, feeling like I’d been hit by a steam roller. Which was to say that I felt nothing. I was stretched out and flattened.

  Numb.

  I’d opened my eyes after passing out the night before to find Lily and Rose leaning over me¸ looking terrified. And the tears fell. They fell in the shower, mingling with the scalding water that beat down on me like a fiery baptism. They slipped down my cheeks and into my ears, onto my pillow as I lay in bed, alone.

  Lily wanted to stay with me, but I didn’t want to see anyone. I didn’t want anyone to see me.

  I wanted to disappear.

  I’d woken up feeling nothing. Got dressed and left the apartment in a daze, came to the shelter and did my job. I didn’t check my phone until the morning, and when I finally did, I found texts from Cooper, saying he hoped I was asleep and had gotten some rest. Said he couldn’t wait to see me.

  My chest was hollow as I messaged him back, telling him I was busy and that I’d be over after work. And then I put my phone in my bag, unable to check it again. I just couldn’t.

  The one thing I’d learned after all was said and done: I wasn’t ready. I hadn’t even been close to being ready. What I had been doing was fooling myself. Pretending. I was too broken, so broken that I’d been walking around, stuck together with duct tape and bubblegum, acting like I was fine.

  I didn’t trust myself to make decisions about Cooper. He gave me his heart, and I took it too soon. And now, I was about to drop it. Break it. Shatter it.

  So stupid. So careless.

  Maybe it was for the best.

  I hadn’t been enough for Jimmy — how could I ever be enough for Cooper Moore? I believed that he wanted to try, that he’d do the best he could to only be with me. I wanted to think he could do it. But the only other boy I’d ever given my heart to didn’t care for it. He just wasn’t equipped, and I couldn’t be sure that Cooper was, either.

  But the scariest thing of all — my feelings for Jimmy were back, buzzing around my head, around my heart, reminding me of everything I’d lost. The love I’d never had to start with.

  I could see a dozen ways out of my mess, and no path was easy. In my favorite one, time healed my wounds, Cooper earned my trust, and we could be together. But every other path ended up in heartache, mine or his. Or both.

  I couldn’t risk any more than I already had.

  I turned the page of Cinderella, the version by Hilary Knight with the most lovely illustrations. It was the same one my mom read to me as a girl, the one I always used in class. The kids sat at my feet, leaning forward as I read. I didn’t need to look at the words. I knew them by heart.

  For so long, I believed in fairy tales. That Jimmy was my prince, and I was living my happily ever after. But the reality was that my life was the opposite of a fairy tale. My prince lied. My happily ever after didn’t exist.

  No, if my life were a fairy tale, it would go something like this.

  Once upon a time, there was a girl named Maggie who was honest and true, who danced her way through life with sunshine in her eyes and a smiling heart.

  One day she met a beautiful boy with a beautiful smile who showed her what it meant to love, and her gravity shifted until her whole world revolved around him, her sun, the middle of her little universe that he filled with laughter and happiness.

  But then the sun went out, and in the darkness, she found the truth.

  That beautiful boy had lied. His smile was plastic — the truth cracked it until it crumbled, like sunshine cracks thirsty earth. And her little universe blew apart, sending her spinning, flying into the darkness with nothing to grab onto, nothing to stop her.

  She closed her eyes to hide until she felt the warmth of a new sun, a bigger sun, a sun brighter than she’d ever seen before. But he pulled her in too fast. She couldn’t trust his smile, couldn’t let herself believe. And as she spun around him, he pulled her closer, spinning her faster and faster until she couldn’t hold on.

  And so she flew away once more into the dark, feeling free and lost in equal measure.

  I read the last page of Cinderella and closed the book. The kids smiled up at me, and I smiled back against the hollow in my chest. We moved to the table where strips of orange construction paper and yarn waited for their tiny fingers, and I sat them all down and began to help them assemble paper pumpkins.

  I felt a little like Cinderella, like I’d gotten to live a dream life for just a moment before I had to face reality again. The carriage smashed into pumpkin bits. The shoe was lost. And now I had to tell the prince that I couldn’t be with him after all.

  So the clock ticked on, counting down the moments before the magic would end. And when the time came, I packed up my things and walked the blocks to his apartment. Rode up the elevator and knocked on his door. And if my heart could have felt, it would have broken.

  Cooper

  An entire day of elation, a weekend that changed my life, a month that had opened my heart — it was all washed away when I opened my door and saw Maggie.

  She looked small, grey and dull everywhere except her eyes. Her eyes were on fire.

  Alarms rang as I watched the curves of her face, looking for answers, knowing what she felt without her needing to say a word. But I asked her anyway, afraid to move.

  “What’s wrong?” My voice was tight. My heart was tighter.

  “Can I come in?”

  “Of course.” I pulled open the door and stepped out of the way, and she walked past me, into my apartment.

  I closed the door, barely able to hear over my pulse rushing in my ears. Her hands were clasped in front of her, fingers twisted together, flexing like they did when she was nervous or scared. I didn’t speak, just waited until she was ready.

  I was the king of waiting.

  Her words were soft — she wouldn’t look at me. “I’m sorry, Cooper.”

  My heart stopped, starting again like a kick drum. “Why are you sorry? What happened?”

  She shook her head. “I … I came home to a package from Jimmy. A letter. I thought I was ready to do this, but I’m not, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was careless, I just … this weekend … I was just so caught up in you. But Jimmy’s not gone. And that’s not fair to you.”

  “Do you still love him?” My voice was rough.

  The honesty in her eyes hurt almost as bad as the words themselves. “I don’t know. I don’t know how to let go of him … I’ve never even really tried. I just ran away. But I can’t run away anymore.”

  I couldn’t speak.

  “I’m broken, Cooper. I thought I was ready, but I’m not. I don’t want to hurt you, and I don’t want to get hurt. I don’t know what else to do but take some time to sort through it all.”

  I hung onto a sliver of hope. I could give her time. I’d give her anything she wanted. “I’m here, Maggie, and I’m not going anywhere. Whatever you need, whenever you need it, I’m here.”

  She took a shuddering breath with her eyes on the ground. All I wanted in the universe was to pull her into my arms and hold her. I just loved her too much to do it.

  She shook her head, her eyes on her fingers. “Cooper, I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  A tear slipped down her face, and I stepped toward her, chest aching as I cupped her cheek, urging her to look at me.

  “Hey,” I whispered. “Maggie, y
ou didn’t do anything wrong. Do you hear me?”

  Her eyes were bright and open when she met mine. “I wanted to be okay. I wanted everything to be fine. I thought it was, but it’s not.”

  “It will be. I promise.” I kissed her forehead, and she leaned into me.

  “I should go,” she said softly.

  I knew she didn’t want to, but I stepped back anyway, let her go. Watched her walk away, not knowing if she’d ever come back to me.

  Maggie

  The only time I’d felt alive all day was when I was there, with him.

  I’d wanted to stay. I’d wanted to fall into his arms where I was safe. But he wasn’t safe with me. I’d been selfish enough.

  The second I walked away, the fire in my heart turned to ash, blowing through me. Empty.

  Time was stretched out and strange as I made my way home through the park at dusk, the sky golden, the trees green and rustling from the wind. Fallen blossoms skated and spun across the path in whirls and currents before flying away.

  My mind was everywhere and nowhere as I walked the path, then the blocks to my building and up the stairs. And when I opened the door, I found Rose and Lily waiting for me, sitting at the kitchen table with drinks.

  Lily’s blond hair was loose, her blue eyes soft. “Hey. You okay?”

  I set down my bag. “No.”

  “As suspected. Whiskey or gin?”

  I cracked a smile. “Whiskey.”

  Lily motioned to the Maker’s on the table. “You heard the woman, Rosie.”

  I felt the slightest bit better and took a seat as Rose poured drinks.

  “So, here’s the deal,” Lily said with a smile. “We can talk about it, or we can not talk about it. We can get piss drunk, or we can stay sober. You’re the boss.”

  I took a deep breath, thinking about it. “Let’s start with this and see where we end up.”

  Rose passed the drinks out and raised her glass. “Fuck it.”

  “Fuck it.” Lily and I added and clinked our glasses together.