by Anne Connor
I rush out of my house to my car. I go out to find Travis. Time slows down as I pass between our houses. I know he isn’t home, but I know where he might be.
Travis
The thick, steeled toes of my combat boots tease the edge of the rock. There’s water down below, and if I fell, I wouldn’t get hurt. Not seriously. The water is cold down there, but it’s not freezing yet. We still have about a week before the water below me would threaten to kill me before I could swim to the edge of the rocks. Before it’s frozen over and I’d crash through the surface, kicking my heavy feet and screaming into the vast expanse under the water. The rocks would stab up at me, and maybe I’d scrape my back on them, maybe not. Maybe I’d have my jacket on, maybe not.
I don’t know. I don’t know what would happen. I don’t know how it would happen.
Fuck, I don’t even know what I’m thinking. It’s all abstract and it’s all dull.
I don’t know what I’m thinking.
Or why.
Or why I’m even bothering to think at all.
I just want it all to end. I thought I’d made peace with my choices, but the truth is that I haven’t even begun to understand the effect my choices had.
She stayed here because she had no other choice. I took that away from her. She always wanted to get out of this town and find a better life for herself. But instead, she stayed here because she had no other choice.
And it was my fault. I made her have to rely on her father for help. I held her back. I held her back, when I should have helped her escape.
I don’t know how I can make this up to her. I don’t know if I can.
“Travis!”
I swear I hear her calling my name through the trees. I can feel her softness around me, cutting through the rocks I’m standing on. The rustling in the trees behind me gets louder, the softness enveloping me.
“Travis.”
She’s right behind me now. I turn around to face her. I’m so close to the edge. I’m so close to falling.
But she won’t let me.
“Daisy,” I breathe, my core warming. She smiles at me. She waves. Her pretty lips part and she she’s about to say something, but she doesn’t have to. She’s here for me.
Every single moment, every single glance. It all meant something. When everyone else gave up on me - my father, my neighbors - she was here for me. She was here.
“It’s okay, Travis. Come here. We’re going to figure everything out together.”
I step toward her. The rocks are slick beneath my feet, but I find my footing. The ground becomes solid. I wrap her up in my arms and she puts her cheek on my chest.
“I’m sorry,” I breathe in the scent of her hair. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”
“You don’t have to apologize anymore. It’s okay.”
“No,” I say, taking her arms in my hands. “I spoke to your father.” I swallow thickly. “He told me you almost dropped out of grad school. That I broke your heart.”
Daisy exhales shakily.
“You did break my heart,” she says, “but I chose to stay here and wait for you. I chose to keep the ring. I chose to take that job at the police station. I didn’t tell Dad I had another offer in the city.”
I look down into her deep blue eyes and tip her chin up, crushing my mouth to hers. Our kiss ignites me from the inside. I can’t get enough of her.
“I will take you anywhere,” I say. “I will take you far away from here, or I’ll take you home with me and make you happy. Anything you want, Daisy. Anything you want. Just stay with me.”
“I’m not going to let you go,” she whispers. “Ever.”
I take her in my arms and kiss her, our mouths crashing together passionately. My hands roam her body, and my mind feels free. Like I’m not tethered to the ground anymore. I feel like I could fucking fly. I could get away from here. I feel like I could pluck my Daisy from the ground and take her anywhere with me. Pluck her from the dirt and keep her.
My cock steels against my pants, and as she pulls her mouth away from me, her eyes glow, half-hooded and with the start of a glimmer of a tear.
“There’s something you have to know,” she says, stepping away from me and taking my hand. “My dad told me. They suspect you in some crime. I know it’s not true. But I think it would be best if we went to the station together and got this all figured out.”
My blood runs cold at her words. They suspect me for something because they want to. Her old man wants me to go away for a very long time. He wants me to go down, to go away, to stay the fuck away from his daughter.
This time, I’m not letting it happen.
This time, I’m going to tell the truth.
There’s no one at the check-in desk today because it’s Sunday. The station is technically closed to the public. But she lets us in, swiping her pass over the sensor to make the door open with a high-pitched beep.
We walk through the hallway, heading to the back where the sergeant on duty is sitting.
It brings me back to that day. The day of my mom’s funeral.
My boots on the cold gray floor. They were heavy that day, just like they are right now. I reached out and felt the walls. They felt narrow around me. I knew I wouldn’t be able to touch them again. I knew the next time I was in this hallway I’d be in handcuffs.
There was no question that I would take the fall for Alec. I never even considered letting him go down for what he did. It wasn’t just to quell my guilt, though. It was never just for that. Of course that was part of it. I thought subjecting myself to my own personal penance would start to heal me.
I thought…
I thought about Alec. I thought about his daughter, about his wife. I thought about how he treated my mom like his own mom. Fuck, after my father left, he was at my house as much as Daisy was. And when the house almost went under and I had to pick up the extra hours at the garage, he was there.
He was there. He was there when I couldn’t be.
When I wouldn’t be.
“It’s okay,” Daisy says, putting her hand on my back. “We’ll get through this together.”
We continue through the narrow hallway and finally reach Colin, on duty at the back of the station. He knows who I am, and he stands up slowly as we approach his desk.
His eyes dart back and forth between me and Daisy; he doesn’t look surprised to see us together, but he doesn’t know who to address first.
“Daisy,” he says, “Mr. Bloom is in trouble here. I’d suggest you go home. It’s what your dad would want.”
She looks down at the floor and shakes her head.
“No,” she says quietly. My heart tenses up when I see my girl standing up for me. “I’m here with him. He has something to say.”
Colin’s expression becomes hard, his eyes narrowing into slits as he peers at Daisy.
“You’ve done enough for this guy,” he says. “Go home.”
He puts his hand on the small of her back and begins to guide her toward the hallway, back where we just came from. She complies. She walks away from me. I know she’s doing the right thing this time. I can’t expect her to save me. I can only save myself, but it hurts. It hurts to see her walk away, to listen to Colin.
She looks back to me, shifting her chin over her shoulder. One corner of her lip curls up into a slight smile, but it’s fake. It’s an attempt at reassuring me, but it’s not working.
Colin continues to escort her toward the hallway, and I stand in the middle of the police station. I almost feel hopeless. I almost feel helpless.
But then I see Daisy stop. She turns back toward me, with fierce intensity behind her big blue eyes.
“No,” she says to Colin, though she’s looking at me. “I’m not leaving.”
Colin takes a step toward her, erasing the distance between them with one motion. Her eyes flicker up to him as his jaw clenches.
“Daisy,” he says, putting his hand on her shoulder. My chest fills with a wave of heat when I see him t
ouching her. “I said go home.”
She breaks away from him and walks toward me. The light coming through the high windows illuminates her in a cascade of light.
“And I said I wasn’t leaving.”
She throws herself against my chest and wraps her arms around my neck.
All I want is for this to end. All of the lies and the secrets, the false words. I want all of it to end. I want to take her away from here.
“It’s okay, Daisy. You go and wait for me. I believe the officer has some questions for me.”
I watch her smile fade and she goes. But this time, she isn’t confused. This time, she knows I’m innocent. This time, I won’t leave her again.
I won’t leave her ever again.
Daisy
I can’t believe I’m allowing myself to let him fend for his own in there. But I know how this all works. If he’s under arrest, he can invoke his right to counsel. It doesn’t look like he’s done that, though.
As I sit in the waiting area, I peer out the window. Night has fallen, but the sky is bright and grey. It looks like it’s about to start snowing at any moment.
Headlights cut through the parking lot as a car pulls in slowly. I quickly recognize it’s Dad in his police car.
He comes through the front door of the station and lingers by the door.
“Is he here?” Dad asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “I told him about the warrant. He agreed to come in.”
“And Colin is here?” he asks, coming toward me.
“Questioning him now.”
Dad starts toward the back of the station and I sigh, sinking lower into my chair and pulling my hoodie up around me tighter. All of the waiting and the uncertainty is making me feel desperate.
The door to the back opens, and Colin steps into the waiting room.
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” he says.
I get up and start toward him, and he holds the door open for me as I walk past him.
“I just have a few questions about where you’ve been the past few days,” he clarifies.
My stomach flips over. Travis must have named me as his alibi.
He has nothing to hide. I have nothing to hide.
I want to bring everything out into the light.
I want to tear down the walls and tell the truth and make them all see that Travis isn’t what they think. He isn’t who they think.
I follow Colin into the back. I don’t see Travis or Dad. They’re probably in one of the interrogation rooms. Colin sits down behind his desk and motions for me to take a seat facing him.
“A man matching Travis’ description robbed about three thousand dollars from a liquor store in Derby. Can you please walk me through your whereabouts this weekend, Daisy?”
His lips curl up into an expression I can’t read. I don’t know if he’s messing with me, trying to make me nervous, or if he’s just so confident that I can’t supply an alibi for Travis.
It doesn’t matter what he thinks. I tell him exactly where I’ve been this weekend. I tell him exactly where Travis has been.
I’m tired of the lies. I’m tired of Travis having a dark shadow over his head, following him wherever he goes.
But I can’t go back. I can’t clear his name. He made his decision a year ago.
All I can do now is go forward.
I hear the gravel crunching under his tires as I wake up. The sound is reassuring. It’s the sound his car used to make in the unpaved parking lot of the bowling alley when we went there every Friday night back in high school. The sound is familiar.
It’s not just the gravel, though. It’s the frost from the first snowflakes of the season gently falling down around us, covering the fallen leaves. But I can still see the bright orange and red on the trees. They’re still fighting the snow.
“Hey,” Travis says as he shifts into park. He sighs deeply, running his hands along the steering wheel. My fingers reach over to his forearm, and my fingertips run along his skin. You can get a tan from being outside in the fall and winter. Sometimes the sun reflects brightly off the pure white snow. That’s not what’s happened to him, though. He hasn’t had that chance yet. But he will.
He isn’t going back to prison. Colin and Dad were satisfied with his alibi, and even though I saw the disappointment in Dad’s eyes when I told him I was with Travis at the quarry, I didn’t regret anything.
I’ll never regret telling the truth.
“We’re home,” I say, smiling up at Travis. His body seems weary, but when he looks at me, his eyes seem excited and fresh. The deep pools of blue are the same as they used to be, too. His body may have changed over the past year, but he’s still the same. He still looks at me with the same longing.
That desire’s grown up quite a bit, though. But it’s still the same, deep down.
We’re both still the same.
“I don’t know if I’m dropping you off at your place or bringing you back to mine,” he says, scrubbing the side of his face with an open palm. His smile flickers in the darkness of the car. We’re parked between our two houses, but I know where I want to go.
He leans over, taking my face in one of his hands, running his thumb along my lip, under my chin. He tips my chin up and kisses me gently on the mouth, his soft, sexy lips lingering there before he captures me. I hear a whimper escape my lips as he curls his hand around my neck and pinches me gently with his fingers.
“You know where I belong,” I say as he pulls away from me.
“Yeah,” he says, looking deeply into my eyes. “I do.”
We make our way over to his house, the car doors slamming behind us and punctuating the silent night. All of the lights in his house are off; it seems so empty. I haven’t been here since the funeral. I’ll never forget it. Travis didn’t let it show, but I knew how empty he felt. I’m only now beginning to learn how guilty he felt, too.
Travis is proud and strong, and he doesn’t want help from anyone. He’s brave but confused, and he’s perfectly imperfect.
We don’t complete each other. Neither of us will ever be perfect or whole. But our flaws compliment each other’s, and we can give strength to each other.
“I remember this,” I say as we enter the sunroom. “Your mom loved her plants.”
Glancing around, I realize they’re all wilted and they’ve outgrown their vessels. They haven’t been taken care of.
“We’ll bring them back to life,” I say, slipping a dying leaf between my fingers. It’s still on one of the long ivy vines that snakes up the side of the house. We can bring it back to life.
Travis lets me into the house without saying anything. He starts toward the stairs, but he stops and turns around to me.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever be redeemable,” he says. “But I know what I want. I just want to live next door to you forever.”
I sigh and step toward him. He looks so sexy, even though he’s tired and has been through so much today. I just want to run my fingers through his tousled hair and feel his hands roam my body.
“I don’t want to live next door forever,” I say softly into the darkness between us. “Next door isn’t close enough. I want...I want to live with you, Travis. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but when we’re ready.”
As soon as I say my words, my heart clenches up inside my chest. I want him now. I want him tomorrow and forever.
And I wish I still had the ring he gave me.
Travis steps toward me and pulls me in close, wrapping his arms around my waist.
“Whenever you’re ready,” he says. Then he takes my hand and leads me upstairs to his room.
It’s been long - too long since I’ve been here. I step into the room, the bare wood floor squeaking under my feet. The room still smells like him, the way it smelled back in high school. I step over to his window and pull back the thick, heavy curtain.
“It’s so weird seeing my house from here,” I say. “It’s weird to see my room from here.”
My head
is still reeling from everything that’s happened, and the strangest thing is seeing my house from his. I feel like everything’s been turned upside down.
Except him...he’s like a rock solid foundation in all of this.
I never stopped loving him. Even through all of the confusion, and doubting myself...I never stopped loving him.
I feel Travis come up behind me and envelope me with his arms. He kisses the top of my head, and my body warms from the inside. I lean down and kiss his forearm, the hard flesh beneath my lips softening slightly.
His arms cross in front of me, and his hands come down my sides, to my waist, turning me around slowly. He leans down and captures my lips with his, and gently sucks on my bottom lip. I feel my eyebrows knit together in the center as a wave of heat flows through my belly and then lower, spearing me between the legs.
He keeps me close as his teeth nibble on my lip and one of his hands snakes up my back, to my neck. This move always made my knees weak, like jelly. He holds me up, but I feel like I could collapse from the pure eroticism of his body. From the pure pleasure he’s giving me.
His fingers dig gently into the back of my neck as he forces my mouth open with his and guides me over to his bed. He lays me back gently, my back arched, and his hands behind me, guiding me down softly.
“I love you, Daisy. I alway did.” His lips tear away from mine for a moment, and I drink his words in.
“I know,” I breathe. He crawls on top of me, nudging my legs open with one of his knees. He puts his hand between my legs, cupping my pussy, heat radiating between us. He comes up onto his knees and pulls his shirt off from the bottom with both hands, revealing abs and corded muscle, and flashing his gorgeous, bittersweet smile. Both of his hands come down on either side of my stomach, caging me as he kisses my belly.
A soft moan escapes from between my parted lips, and I bite down to stop myself. But it’s just out of habit. I don’t need to be quiet, and I don’t want to be. My heart clenches knowing that we’re the only ones in the house, and that it’ll stay that way.
