by V. T. Do
“Why would I do that?”
“Because I want to be alone tonight. Take me home, please.”
“No.”
“Wyatt.”
“I said no, Emery. I’m not taking you back to your house. I’m taking you home with me. And then I am going to fall asleep tonight with you in my arms.”
“I’ll call a cab.”
“I will tie you to my bed if that’s what it takes.”
“You can’t do that!” I yelled, indignant.
He laughed. The bastard actually laughed. “Baby, I am three times your size. I think I can.”
“That does not give you the right to physically force me to stay.”
“No. Being your boyfriend does.”
I saw red then. “You do not own me! Being my boyfriend does not give you any right to force me to do something I don’t want to do!”
His shoulders sagged then. I knew the fight had left him. “I know, baby. I know. I’m sorry. I misspoke.”
“I want to go home, Wyatt.” I sounded like I wanted to cry. And that was just pathetic.
“Emery, we have to talk about this. I am so fucking sorry she was like that tonight. But you have to give me the chance to explain. Maybe then... I don’t know. Maybe then you can see where she is coming from.”
“You mean it’s okay for her to treat me like some evil college student, using her nephew just for the experience of having sex with an older man?”
His hands tightened around the steering wheel. “No, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“There’s no other way to take it. Your aunt hated me on sight. And I don’t know why.”
“Then let me explain.”
“Not tonight,” I said tiredly. I didn’t want to hear anymore. I had been nervous about meeting his aunt. Perhaps even a little excited. But now I was dejected. “Please just take me home. We can talk about it when I don’t feel like my emotions are all over the place. With the way I’m feeling, I’m not sure I can even muster up the energy to listen to you.”
“Fine, we don’t have to talk tonight. But I want to spend it with you.”
“I don’t know.”
“Emery, please don’t punish me for my aunt’s actions. I’m with you. Right here, right now. And I want to be with you for the rest of the night. I want to feel your body wrapped around mine, and I want to have breakfast with you tomorrow.”
How could I say no when he put it like that? Instead, I said nothing. Wyatt took that as my consent and continued on, turning into the underground parking garage.
When we got out, I felt Wyatt close to my back as I walked to the elevator, as if he was afraid of letting me get too far away from him. And that was how it was the rest of the night. He was right there when I changed out of my clothes, right there when I brushed my teeth and when I slathered moisturizer on my skin. The only time I got a little space was when I needed to use the bathroom.
When we got into bed that night, Wyatt didn’t waste any time pulling me into his arms. I could even admit to myself how much I needed to be in his arms. I snuggled in close and buried my face in his chest, sniffing his addictive scent.
Wyatt played with my hair. I drifted in and out of sleep, listening to the steady beating of his heart.
I heard him whisper to me then. “You’re the most important person in my life. I will do whatever it takes to keep you.” He kissed my head, inhaling deeply. “Give me a chance to explain. To tell you the secrets that weren’t mine to keep in the first place. And don’t give up on me. Don’t hate me.”
Half asleep, I could only nod.
I fell asleep with those words seared in my brain, wondering why they felt more like a foreshadowing of something tragic.
***
Early dawn light filtered through the tiny opening between the curtains. I watched the sky as it changed colors, my face resting on Wyatt’s naked chest, while I focused on his steady breathing.
An occasional snore or two would sneak out between his lips, and I smiled every time he mumbled something incoherent under his breath. I turned my head slightly upward to watch his unguarded expression during slumber.
His eyes were closed, his lips slack, and his jaw unshaven. I used my index fingers to trace along his eyebrows. He had great eyebrows, their shape symmetrical, dark and thick, but not bushy or unkempt. I took in his lashes, dark like soot around his eyes, and kept going, down to his pointed nose, slightly crooked, and to the full lips I couldn’t get enough of.
I functioned on fewer hours of sleep than Wyatt, so I was always up before him, and I couldn’t get over how much I loved the silence.
I loved the minutes between when I would wake and when he would wake, loved the silence that filled the space between us, and especially love the contentment I felt whenever his arms unconsciously tightened around me, as if he was afraid I might disappear at any given time.
When my finger made its way down to his lips, they twitched. I moved my hands away and watched as he woke up. When his eyes opened, the gray irises were dim from sleep before awareness slowly seeped in.
He smiled at me.
“Did you know you smile in your sleep sometimes? What were you dreaming about?” I asked.
“I do? I don’t remember my dream,” he said, his voice gruff. I could listen to him speak all day.
I cupped his cheeks, letting my hands run along his jawline. “You do. I think it’s endearing.”
His smile widened. “Good. Cause I find you endearing.”
“You’re cheesy,” I said, giggling.
“Cheesy for you.” He wiggled his eyebrows, and I lost it then. I let out a throaty laugh as Wyatt pulled me on top of him, my legs entwined with his, while the big white blanket protected us from the cold morning.
I laid my head on his chest, my fingers drawing relentless patterns across his skin.
“What are you writing?” he asked after a minute or two.
My fingers paused, before picking back up again, writing the same word over and over again. “Your name,” I said softly, as my finger made an L, then an O, V, and E.
I was writing his name, signed with my promise. Was this how it was supposed to be? To love someone so much that the rest of the world ceased to be significant.
I wasn’t supposed to be like this. I was supposed to be by myself. To depend on myself. Yet I was beginning to see that I needed Wyatt more than my next breath.
Loving him hurt.
That was the only way I could describe it.
Loving him hurt me so bad that I could scarcely live without it.
***
Late the next morning, I was called into Richard Gillian’s office. When I walked in, I noticed a small cardboard box on his desk right away.
He stood up and walked around his desk, enfolding me in his arms. “How are you, Emery?”
“I’m doing really good, actually.”
He smiled. “You sound surprised.”
“I had thought it would be a while before I could get on with my life.”
He patted my shoulder, his kind blue eyes softening in understanding. “Life goes on, whether we want it to or not. There is nothing wrong with finding happiness in the little moments, even if we are without the people we love.”
“I know,” I said. And I did. But sometimes I wondered if I was happy too soon. That I wasn’t doing justice to my grandpa’s memory if I could move on with my life so quickly.
As if he could tell what I was thinking, Richard said, “I knew your grandpa for half a lifetime. And I can say with confidence that there is nothing he would want more than for you to be happy.”
“I know,” I said again, looking away from him.
“Come, sit down. You must know why I asked you to come in.”
“The bank released the contents of the safe-deposit box?” I asked.
He nodded. “I looked through them, only briefly, and found the key you were looking for.”
“Really?” I grabbed the cardboard box and held it in my lap.
<
br /> “Yes, along with some photographs, and what looked to be some documents in a yellow manila envelope.”
“Thanks, Richard. I think I’ll look through this at home.” I stood. Richard did too. His expression shuttered then, making me pause in my movements. “Anything else I should know?”
He shook his head. “No, everything you need to know about your grandpa is in there. Can I just say one thing?”
“Yes?”
“Your grandpa was a good man. But he had made so many mistakes. I think he lived most of his life looking for redemption. I’m not sure he ever found it. But he was a good man.”
I spoke slowly when I said, “I know he was.”
Richard shook his head, as if wiping away an errant thought. “He loved you more than he ever loved anyone else in this world. Even his own children. You know that, don’t you?”
“I know he loved me. I’ve never questioned it.”
“Good. If you ever need anything, please don’t hesitate to call me.”
“Thank you, Richard.”
“Let me walk you out.”
I nodded, hugging the box to my chest. Richard opened the door for me, and we walked out together, the silence between us seeming to be filled with question marks neither of us wanted to address.
***
I drove home, the sky turning dark and gray, fitting my mood perfectly. I couldn’t help but be aware of the box I had placed on the passenger seat, as if it was silently calling out to me. Its meaning felt heavier with each and every mile that brought me closer to my house.
When I finally pulled into the driveway, the weather had taken a turn for the worse, the wind blowing every which way, making the branches from the trees shake with terror.
I hurried inside, shutting the door behind me to block out the wind, and instead of going to my room, I went straight to my grandpa’s office. I placed the cardboard box on the desk and took a seat there, looking around at my surroundings. Everything was still as I’d left it, even the horrid metal box I’d wanted to get into a few days back. Now, it felt life-altering. As if I shouldn’t try to open it, because then I wouldn’t be able to go back to a time when my grandpa had been perfect in my eyes.
Everything about it felt like the ugly truth, when I would much rather live with a pretty lie instead.
I leaned back against the chair, trying to think of a reason to hold off on going through the contents in the cardboard box and opening the metal one. When I couldn’t come up with one, I still sat there, buying time.
With a deep breath, I grabbed the cardboard box first, laying the contents of the box out on the desk. There was a small key, like Richard had said, a small stack of pictures, and finally the envelope.
I grabbed the key first and inserted it into the metal box. It unlocked with a click, the noise deafening in the silence of the room, save for the sound of the wind outside.
My heart pounded in my chest as I opened the box. My assumption had been correct. There was a stack of papers in there. They were letters, all addressed to my dad.
Isaac Caldwell.
I had gone most of my life having heard his name only a handful of times, so it felt strange to see it written on these white envelopes in what was a very feminine handwriting.
The envelopes were all unsealed, their frayed edges curled and yellowed with age.
I made a move to open the first one, yet the second my fingers touched the letter inside, I hesitated. I couldn’t bring myself to read them. The man had been gone almost five years now, and he was more of a stranger than my dad, so I couldn’t bring myself to invade his privacy.
I didn’t know how to explain it, but I knew the letters contained things he didn’t want to share with anyone else but the person who had written them to him. And it felt like I was disrespecting him somehow, someway.
I placed them back inside the metal box and closed the lid, though I didn’t lock it. As far as I was concerned, the letters were safe inside my grandpa’s office.
I grabbed the stack of pictures next.
What I found surprised me even more than my dad’s letters.
They were old pictures, from the looks of it. The first several in the stack were of my grandparents. I had never met my grandma. She died before I was born, and I knew it had been from suicide. Aunt Helen said my grandma had battled depression her whole life, and it only got worse after my dad was born. That was why they never had more children, even though I knew my grandpa had wanted more.
In these pictures of them, they looked happy. The only time my grandpa had smiled with his whole face was when he was smiling at me. I had never seen him lose that reservation with anyone else, not even with my Aunt Helen.
And yet he was smiling like that in these pictures with his wife. He must have really loved her.
I smiled, loving the fact that at least I’d have these pictures.
The next one was of my grandpa and my dad. My dad couldn’t be older than thirteen in this picture. They had their arms around each other, and it looked like they were on a fishing trip, each wearing identical tan fishing vests, fishing poles resting on their shoulders. They looked close. Which surprised me, because I knew there had been bad blood between my dad and my grandpa.
I never asked why that was. I assumed it was because of the drugs. But now I regretted never asking my grandpa.
Was the answer really that simple? That drugs had ruined their relationship just like they ruined my father’s life? Or were the drugs the aftereffect of something else? Something bigger.
I flipped through the next picture and then the next, and they all told me the same thing. That this family used to be happy. Then one day they weren’t. And I didn’t know why.
When I got to the last one, I stopped, trying to figure out what I was seeing.
This couldn’t be right.
I was seeing something that made no sense.
It was a picture of my dad and Wyatt’s aunt, Erin. Younger, happier versions than the ones I knew. My dad was a druggie and Erin was cold and judgmental, but in this picture, they were just two kids who seemed very close. My dad was obviously older than Erin by at least five years. He was on the cusp of adulthood while Erin still had this look of innocence about her. She had to be about sixteen in this picture.
Her hair was tied up in a ponytail, and she was looking at the camera, smiling, with a mouth full of braces. She missed the look my dad was giving her. A look he couldn’t disguise in front of a camera. It was the same look I gave Wyatt when he wasn’t looking.
My dad was in love with Erin. And she might be in love with my dad as well, with how close she was sitting to him in the picture.
So what happened?
I once thought my grandpa had built an unbreakable legacy. Something I would be proud to tell my children about someday.
That my grandpa was unbreakable.
Now, I wondered what kind of legacy he had left behind, and whether or not I wanted to be a part of it.
I wasn’t sure how long I sat there, only that the wind had stopped howling outside, and my insides felt numb.
My phone rang in my pocket, startling me out of my stupor, and I quickly gathered up the pictures in one hand, shoving them along with the yellow envelope into one of the desk drawers.
Taking out my phone, I answered it after seeing Joey’s name on the screen.
“Hey,” I answered.
“Hey, you. What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Absolutely nothing. Why?”
“Wanna catch a movie? Cole has to work late, and I’m bored.”
“Sure. That sounds great. I’ll meet you there?”
“Yeah. See ya.”
I held the phone to my ear long after she hung up. The screen turned black, and I stood there, trying to understand what I had just seen. Nothing made sense. And I was beginning to question whether or not I wanted to make sense of it all.
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Point of No Return
Wyatt
My Aunt Erin was not a bad person.
She was just a person who had experienced a lot of hurt in this world. And that had turned her into a cynic. She was also the last person I should have introduced Emery to. I knew that now. When we went to dinner that night with her, and I had told her I wanted to introduce my girlfriend to her. And I stressed how important Emery was to me, and that I would do almost anything to make her happy.
I couldn’t promise my aunt the same thing, because I realized when the night was over that if I was forced to choose between Emery and the one person who had taken care of me growing up, the one person who had loved me unconditionally, I would always choose Emery.
It was her face I wanted to see in the morning, it was her smile I thought about during my morning runs, and it was her eyes I wanted to fall into. Without even trying, Emery Caldwell had become the most important person in my life.
I was hit with the realization that I could no longer try to make my aunt happy, not at Emery’s expense, and I didn’t know how to tell her that. When I went to see her the next morning, I was greeted with the sight of my aunt’s red eyes, which told me she had spent the morning—and maybe the night before—crying.
“She has his eyes,” she said.
I didn’t know who she was referring to. Emery had both her dad’s and her grandpa’s eyes. But on her, they were kind, filled with the sort of innocence most had lost by the time they reached their teens. The kind of innocence I’d kill to make sure never disappeared.
They were the kind of eyes a man like me could get lost in. “She’s innocent in all of this.”
Aunt Erin laughed then, one I had never heard from her before. It sent chills up and down my spine. “So was I, you know. I was innocent in all of this. My only fault was having been born.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, because that was all I could say. None of the terrible things that had happened to my aunt were her fault. And yet it was those things she carried with her, unable to escape the scars they had left behind.
“Does she know?”
I didn’t need clarification. I knew what she was referring to. I shook my head. “No.”
“She’ll hate you, you know. She’s going to find out sooner or later, and she’ll hate you for keeping those things a secret from her.”
