by M. R. Joseph
"No!" she yells in my direction.
"Why, Harlow? Tell me why not." I step in front of her, not even giving her a chance to get away from me. She crosses her arms in front of her chest like she's protecting herself. Every step she takes to try and move away, I’m right in front of her.
"You know why. I don't feel that way about you anymore, Cruz."
"Now we both know that's a bunch of bullshit. You don't kiss someone like that if you don't feel anything for them."
She turns to me with fire in her eyes and she yells, "Oh, yeah? What about what happened in there almost two years ago." She points to the back door of Jax where sits the bathroom where it all began. "I felt nothing for you that night. You were a guy who I saw and wanted to fuck. That's it! Nothing more. I don't remember anything else. You are still just a guy I fucked. Nothing more. You were my friend, that's what I remember. Nothing more."
I call bullshit all the way from here to Timbuk-fucking-tu.
I take her by the shoulders and I shake her, yes I shake her and I’m not gentle about it.
"That's fucking bullshit and you know it. You know who I am, you remember me, you remember us. I can see it all over your face. Every time you see me I can see it in your eyes. I can read it on your face. As soon as you realized it was me under that fucking mask, I saw it on your face. Deny it all you want, Harlow, but I know the fucking truth!"
Maybe that was a bit loud and yeah, maybe I shouldn't be shaking her the way I am but I don't give a shit. The woman needs to know that she is mine and always will be.
"Get off me, you animal! There's no look on my face. You want so bad for there to be one that now you are grasping at any kind of semblance to try and prove something that just isn't there. I don't have the feelings I once had. Move on, Cruz, and accept it."
I let go of her shoulders and grab her chin so she looks directly at me. She tries to get out of my grasp, but I’m not letting go.
"Look at me, Harlow. I will never accept it because you can deny it till your blue in the face. I will never let you go." I take my hand from her chin and I pick up one of her hands and place it over my heart. She goes stiff but I continue.
"This will never belong to anyone else. Never. I didn't give up on us when you were lying in that hospital bed. If you were still lying there, just breathing and existing, I'd still be sitting in that fucking chair next to your bed. So don't stand here and tell me to move on ’cause it will never happen. Get that through that cracked skull of yours."
She slaps me hard across the face and when I let go of her hand she walks away down the alley.
"Where are you going? You're drunk." I jog after her but she just walks at her own pace, swaying a bit. She hugs herself with her arms and she's no longer crying but she looks angry.
"Harlow, stop walking and talk to me." I grab her arm and she retreats.
"Leave me alone. Go away, Cruz." I stop as she continues to move.
Angry, I yell out to her,
"That's right, Harlow. Walk away the way you always do."
She turns around and flips me the bird. Classic back-in-the-day Harlow. I turn and go back into the bar. I push people left and right. The crowd is thick and I just want to go follow her as much as I just want to let her go. I keep swimming through the crowd until I feel a hand on my arm.
"What the fuck, Cruz? You told me you were working." Craw rips off his mask and looks pissed.
I shrug his hand off.
"I needed to see her. I had every intention on being here."
"Jesus, Cruz. Why can't you just let it be? She's seeing someone anyway. Just let her be fucking happy."
I push my hands through my hair aggravated because he just doesn't get it. I push my finger in his chest, not hard, but enough that he can understand what my point is.
"You don't get it, Craw. You've never loved anyone so you're not going to get it. You just don't give up on what we had and as much as she tells me she doesn't feel anything for me with some of her memory coming back, I know she's lying. So I’m not just going to let her be. I’m not going to just give up."
He swallows hard and shakes his head because for one, he knows the kind of person I am, and second, he knows in his heart how Harlow feels.
He looks around and I know he's looking for her.
"Where is she?"
"We got in a fight?"
"Is she okay?"
I’m not going to tell him what I did before we got into the fight. That will piss him off even more.
"She's fine. Pissed off at me, and she walked away but I have a pretty good idea where she is headed. Let the girls know she's okay and in good hands."
Not looking happy, he nods anyway and walks away, and I bolt out the door to a place where I’m praying she's returned to.
***
Because she walks so slow from her injuries, it's not hard to trail behind her a block or two. Even though the streets are filled with people in costumes roaming the streets, it's not hard to spot my girl. My eyes never leave her as I see her limp along. It breaks my heart when I see it because it only reminds me what could have been prevented.
I stay back when she reaches our houses on Barnacle Lane. I watch her walk up the wooden steps. Each step she takes looks painful and I just want to go and lift her and carry her up, but I also don't feel like getting punched in the balls. It's bad enough Morty is going to wind up turning into a Monk from not being anywhere but my hand since last year.
Christ, how things change.
I lean against the street light post until she goes into the house. I wait. The light for the living room turns on, then turns off a few minutes later.
She went to bed.
I go up to the house and find the hidden key to Porter's parents’ place. I gave my key back a long time ago but I remembered the one that was always hidden in case any of us forget ours if we were out and came home.
I go to my old room and sit on the bed. I touch the wall to the other house. On the other side of it I know is the room Harlow is in. I rest my forehead against it and wish things were different. I stay like that for a few minutes and try and lay on the bed, looking up at the ceiling, but I know sleeping is not an option. I'll just go to the place that reminds me of her, of us.
I make my way out the back door to the dock. It's dark and cold. The fall weather has arrived and soon winter will be here. I reach the dock and I see her. Sitting there with the chair facing the water. I can see her hair flowing off the back of it. I hesitate going to her, but this is my baby, my love, and I have to see if she's okay.
When I reach her, I just stand behind her with some distance.
"I don't know why I’m here. I don't know what this all means, but something told me to come out here." When I hear her speak those words I take my hand to my chest and feel the crushing of my heart. I slowly walk over to the other chair and sit in it. It faces her instead of out into the bay. She has a blanket wrapped around her and her legs are tucked up underneath her.
"I’m sorry I did what I did, Har. It's just that...." I let out a breath and run my hands through my hair. "It's just that I need you to know what my life is like without you. As hard as I try to stay away, to move on and do other things with my life, nothing seems to work."
She doesn't look at me when I speak, she just keeps staring out into the darkness.
"I lived a meaningless life before you came into it. I was just this guy who wanted to have fun with my friends and meet girls, and well, you know the rest. But then you walked into Jax that first night and without even knowing it, that night was going to change me forever. I was changed forever."
She chuckles a bit, it's sarcastic, but it's better than silence.
"When you were in that coma and you were just laying there, I ran the scenario in my head a million times about how I could have changed it all. I could have stopped it all and we would be sitting here happy and still in love instead of you hating me."
She turns her head to look at me. "I do
n't hate you, Cruz." Then she turns back to the water.
I ease back in my chair. "You don't love me, either."
She let's out a breath. "I didn't say that. I don't know what to feel or what to do. I'll come clean to you because I can't keep it from you any longer, but yes, I do remember a lot. More than I’ve led you to believe, and as much as I hated what you did tonight, it reminded me and made me think."
I don't dare ease my chair toward her or even attempt to touch her as she tells me what I’ve suspected. I just want her to talk to me.
"What, um, what do you remember? If you want to tell, go ahead."
She turns to me, tucking her hair behind her ears.
"I keep having these dreams constantly about this place, about this dock. I remember us being here, the first night after you told me your feelings for me. I remember how it felt, how I felt about you. It's just very confusing because I’m not supposed to feel what I feel."
"Why not? Why aren't you supposed to?"
"It's complicated," she replies.
"’Cause of this other guy?"
She looks surprised and sad at the same time.
"How did you know that? Did I tell you?
"I live with Craw. I have been. He told me about him. You work with him."
She straightens up in her chair and leans forward.
"You what? Since when?" Her tone is angry and I didn't want to tell her this way but it's as good a time as any.
"Since I started school. I called and told him I got a job in North Ridge and that I got into Ryland. I asked him if I could stay with him until the semester was over. I was going to come back and forth between Sandy Cove and my shifts in North Ridge during summer."
She laughs and shakes her head. "Oh, my brother is going to hear it from me."
"Please don't give him shit for this, Harlow. I didn't give him much of a choice."
She gives me a slight, closed-lipped smile.
"I figured as much."
She snuggles deeper into the blanket and rests her head on the back of the chair.
"So why did you do it all? School, the job, the move. Seems like so much especially when summer gets here."
She doesn't know how beautiful she is when she speaks. She doesn’t know how much I’ve missed her, and how being this close to her makes me miss her even when she's right here in front of me.
"It's worth it. Being near you is worth it all."
She shakes her head. "See, Cruz, you can't say stuff like that to me."
Those words make me forget about keeping my distance so I get up and stand in front of her. She bends her neck back to look at me.
"Why can't I? You can sit here and tell me you don't hate me, but can't tell me you love me. Knowing that there's some other guy in your life, but I’m not allowed to say that everything I have been doing is for you in the hope that you would remember us?” I look at her warmly with my eyes and try and make her comprehend what I’m saying exactly. “Harlow, do you know the research I’ve done over the past few months about your condition? I’ve even talked with specialists about it. Familiarity is why I’m doing what I’m doing and it's working." She stays where she is but turns her head away from me.
"So you tricked me? Is that how you thought I would remember things?"
I crouch down to get to her level but I still don't touch her.
"I didn't trick you, I just wanted to do it slowly. I wanted you to try and remember without it being forced on you. I thought if I moved where you were, got to see you every chance I could, you'd slowly start to come back to me. It was never meant to trick you."
She looks at me finally and our gazes lock and I know this woman more than I know myself. I know she believes me and I can see in her eyes that, yes, she does love me.
"And what about tonight? You grabbing me and kissing me wasn't some sort of a trick?"
I shake my head and smile remembering what it felt like to kiss her again.
"No, no trick. It was just that I saw you and I needed to kiss you. I apologize, but can I be honest with you?"
She chuckles. "You really can't say anything else to surprise me, so go ahead."
That's what she thinks.
"I know you don't remember how in love we were. I didn't tell you I was in love with you until it was too late, but we were. We were really in love. The times we were apart, I didn't sleep well, as it was hard to breathe without you being near. When you woke up, you just remembered me as this guy who brought girls back here all the time to sleep with. We were just friends, then I fell in love with you, and I never in a million years would I have thought it would happen. I didn't believe in love, never wanted it, but that was until I met you."
She starts to cry and that's the last thing I want. She buries her face in her hands and let's out a sob. I go to reach for her, but I stop myself. I don't want to scare her off.
"Harlow?" I say softly.
She looks up at me and brings her hand to my face and looks into my eyes as she continues to cry.
"I’m so...scared, Cruz. I’m so scared. I feel so much and I can't help it."
I put my hand on her face and mimic what she's doing to me.
"Why, honey? Talk to me."
"Because I feel things for someone else too and I...I can't hurt him and I can't hurt you."
I understand what she's saying to a certain extent. I don't have to like it. Actually, I fucking hate it and the thought of it makes me sick. This is Harlow. Her heart is so big that I couldn't expect her not to like someone else when she doesn’t remember what we had. I used to be unreasonable, but in this case I have to let what it is be. I don't have to like it, but I can't lose her, either.
I wipe away her tears and I hold my own back because sharing her shouldn't be an option. It should never be an option. I don't want her to feel the same way about this guy as she feels about me. It can't happen, but I’ve learned this past year some things you can control, and others you can't.
But I'll fight like I was taught. Determined soldiers don't let the enemy in, and whoever he is, he is the enemy.
"I didn't want any of this, Cruz. I didn't want to meet someone and have my memories of us come back. I don't know if I can deal with this. I don't know if I can handle it."
I grab her and hold her in my arms and let her cry into my chest, which she does. I stroke her head and close my eyes. I let her warmth bathe me and I hold her like I’m afraid she'll run again if I let her go which is exactly what I believe would happen.
She grips at the back of my shirt and digs her nails into my flesh, sobbing, and it hurts so much to see how conflicted she is.
She's my love, my heart, my soul, and to see her in such turmoil kills me.
Harlow pulls away from me and I wipe her tears. Black lines stream down her face and I make them go away, just like I want to do with her pain.
Her blue eyes bore into me and she searches my face and I do hers.
"Kiss me, Cruz. Please? Just kiss me."
I sink down to my knees, relinquishing my pent-up nervousness. I cup her face and do what she asks. My lips meet hers tenderly. I taste her lips at first, just feeling the smoothness of them on mine and I’m suddenly in a place where I’ve wanted to be for so long. These lips, the soft sounds she makes as I kiss her, this spot on the dock, I’m in nothing but heaven and if this is all she wants from me, then so be it. I'll take anything she's willing to give to me.
Her tongue darts out and begs for my lips to let her in and I don't hesitate. Licking inside her mouth and feeling so much emotion in this kiss is the thing I crave. The thing I need behind all the pain we both have been through. There's so much to this kiss and it's not only me this time. She shares this. She kisses me back with the incredible fire that this girl possesses. She pulls away and buries her head in my neck and I hold on to her for dear life.
"Cruz, can we go upstairs now? Can you just...hold me for tonight? Please?"
I look at her with so much love and devotion. Her eyes
tell me she is battling so much confusion.
"I'll do whatever you want me to do, Harlow. I just want to be wherever you want me to be." I pick her up and carry her as she rests her head on my shoulder. I carry my girl to her bed. I lay her down carefully, watching her beautiful hair spread out across her pillow, and I kick off my shoes and climb into the bed next to her. I slide underneath the blankets and feel her warm body so close to mine.
I silently thank the gods for this moment. She turns to her side facing me and there are no words. Only eyes. Blue looking into blue. There's such a deep connection without actual words having to be spoken.
"When I saw you that night so long ago in that bar, I could tell you were something special. All I had to do was touch you again to realize how true that was. It's the same with what's going on inside your head. That's what I think. I didn't get to touch you again until long after that night. All I had to do was feel you and look at your eyes. I knew then I loved you and I’m sorry I didn't tell you sooner."
Yep, the big solider boy has a tear coming out the corner of his eye. The big, tough man who fought in the war is crying. Pussy, maybe. A man that finally has love and hope in his heart? You're damn right.
She sweeps the tear from my eye, smiles at me, and closes her eyes. She doesn't respond, but that's okay. She just takes my arm and places it around her and she snuggles in. I can feel her heart against my chest and I’m sure she can feel mine because it beats so fast. It only beats for her. So I'll stay the night with her until the sun comes up and whatever follows when the new day begins, I'll take it. For now, I'll just bask in this moment and feel blessed that I have her in my arms.
CHAPTER 16
Torn
Harlow~
I slept like a rock last night. Deeper than I have in a very long time. I’m sweating and I feel a weight across my body as I lay here on my side. I look down to see the tattooed arm of the man who lies with me and it feels so right, yet something in my belly says it's wrong…or right. My mind just can't seem to win this battle.
