I lean against the glass and huff my warm breath on the window. With my finger, I draw the outline of a heart, and then brush the moisture away. I close my eyes and attempt to conjure Hew once more. When I open them again and peer through the glass, a car pulls into the driveway. Whoever it is doesn’t get out, they only honk the horn over and over. Then finally the driver leans forward and when I see his face, my heart absolutely stops.
Somehow I conjured him.
Chapter 51
He
My palms are sweaty. They slip and slide over the leather of the steering wheel as I pull into the driveway. I haven’t seen Shea since I ran away from her that last day in California. I had a reason, but even still, it wasn’t fair to leave her like that. I’ve felt nothing but sick guilt since then.
These last two months, I moved out of my sister’s basement and into a small studio in San Francisco for my new job. As I’ve been settling in, I’ve been trying to figure out if there’s any possibility that Shea and I could truly be together. For me, I can’t stop thinking there’s a reason that everything happened the way it did, and in my mind, I’m constantly reliving every joke, every touch, every kiss, every caress, and every other second we spent together. But the question is: Will she forgive me when she understands how we’re connected?
I turn off the ignition and decide to just blast the car’s horn. If she’s here, she’ll see me. I lean in toward the windshield and look at the upstairs rooms. There, her beautiful face presses against the glass. She smiles and my heart melts with happiness, my eyes aching to look at her again.
Several seconds later she pushes through the screen door, races across the porch, down the stairs, and runs barefoot across the browning grass. I jump out of the car and meet her in the middle of the front yard.
“Hew!” She screams so loudly that the birds in the trees take flight. As we’re about to collide, she leaps into my embrace and locks her legs around my waist, anchoring herself to me. She doesn’t waste time talking, she just kisses me and I comply, allowing her to mold our bodies together. Finally being with her again is like coming home.
“Shea!” her dad screams from the front porch. “What the hell are you doing? Don’t you know who that is!”
Sollie Winters rushes down the steps, muscles tightening beneath his flannel shirt, ready to attack me the way he did several months ago when I came to meet Shea (who is not really named Shea) for the first time. Back then, I needed to apologize to her for ruining her life. Step nine of Alcoholics Anonymous—making amends. But the difference now is the last time I came I only wanted her forgiveness; this time I came to ask for her love.
Shea gives me one final squeeze before she slides down my body and I try to savor it, knowing that this may be our last. As I expected, she doesn’t know who I am. She spent a year and a half after the accident in a hospital to heal her body and mind, and was most likely shielded from the outside world. She wouldn’t know my real name, but she will in five seconds.
Sollie grabs Shea by the wrist, swinging her out of the way just before he cocks his arm and lands a punch square on my jaw. My head whips to the side and a spray of blood bursts from my mouth. Just like before, I don’t fight back.
“Dad, no! Stop! What are you doing?” she cries out and pulls him by the shoulders, forcing him away.
I reach for my mouth to wipe the blood, but stand firm to meet his oncoming accusations.
“This guy was involved in your accident!” Sollie’s arms swing at his sides, ready for another round.
Instinctively I cringe a little, but inside, I know I still deserve all his hatred.
“What? No, Daddy. This is Hew. We met in California. He’s my friend.”
“Tell her, you bastard!”
“Shea,” I say softly, wanting to stall because I know how much this information will hurt her. How this could tear us apart forever. Now that I know who she really is, I know her back story and all the pain that I caused her, I know I ruined her goddamn life, killed her fiancé, and made her lose her mind. I know every single fucking detail. “This isn’t easy for me to say.”
Shea pushes away from her father, crying, “No, no, no.” She covers her ears, swaying and turning back and forth, winding up like a spinning top at the thought of what I’m about to reveal. “No, it’s not true. There was a woman driving that car. It can’t be you!” She grinds her teeth and jabs an angry finger at me as her arms and body begin to shake.
“You’re right,” I tell her.
“See! Dad, you’re wrong. You’re wrong. Thank God!” She rushes to hug me, pressing her head on my chest, and my heart beats faster. I desperately want to return the embrace, but I know I don’t deserve it. She still doesn’t know everything.
This time I look over Shea’s head to Sollie, whose jaw has dropped. He’s stepped away from us in silence to stand with his wife, who has just appeared from the house. I think he finally sees right through me, through Shea. It’s hard to deny when you see us together, even I can see it from within our bubble. We’re in love with each other, but it’s so fucking tragic, like a damn train wreck that you don’t want to watch but can’t pull your gaze from. We each fell in love with the person who ruined our lives—Shea through no fault of her own, and me for being in a stolen car for a joyride in a drugged-out drunk fest with my sister, Beth.
Shea and Bren were just standing in the wrong spot, having a romantic moment, kissing, and not paying attention to the car that lost control and swerved in their direction.
“God, I’m so happy to see you.” Shea’s hands are all over me, but she still hasn’t lifted her head.
When I look over at Sollie, he simply gives me a nod, as if he knows that what I’m going to tell her will be enough to keep us apart forever. Shea is the only one who can make me stay away. Not him.
Sollie and his wife look at me with what appears to be pity on their faces, before turning around and going back inside. But they their maintain their watch over Shea from inside the house, their silhouettes framed within the front windows.
Chapter 52
She
Is he real? God, I hope so! I think the words over and over, rubbing my face against Hew’s chest, trying to determine if he’s really here.
He’s going to tell me something bad; I know it. Something I may have fabricated for him to say in my fantasy world so I can push him away, and give myself reason to never see the hallucination of him again. I couldn’t push him over the cliff like Luke; I love him too much. He would have to do something far, far worse to make me hate him.
Before I have time to organize my thoughts, Hew grasps my upper arms and sets me away. Frightened, I look up into his intense eyes.
“Shea.” He swallows, and his Adam’s apple bobs at my eye level. “What I have to tell you is difficult for me, but you need to know everything.”
I shake my head; I don’t want to know.
“Two years ago, I was a different person. A very lost person. I partied too much with my sister, I did drugs, became an alcoholic, and dropped out of college right before I graduated. I was a fucking mess.”
Hew drops his hands and I step back. I can’t believe what he’s telling me. He’s too good a person for this. I know it. I’ve seen the proof of it in every second that we’ve spent together. He’s lying.
“I had been two years sober when I met you, done a year in jail for stealing a car, got released on good behavior, and had a long bout of community service. I had even gone back and finished school while interning at a small company in Baltimore. Even though I moved in with family to make it work and save money, I’d gotten my life back, was moving everything in the right direction, and looking for a new job in San Francisco.”
“Please, no,” I whisper.
“Beth was my best friend and I was her younger brother.” Hew’s eyes begin to glisten. “Like so many nights, we’d gotten out of control. She and her boyfriend stole an expensive car from a ritzy hotel downtown. When they picked me up
, Beth was driving, and she was smashed out of her brain. We went drag racing down Pratt Street. She ran a red light and swerved to miss a pedestrian. She ran off the road and . . .” His words drift off.
“No.” I hit him in the chest. “No, I won’t let you lie to me just so you can leave me. I can’t let you leave. I love you!”
“I wish I were lying. I wish I could wink and make you believe that it may not be true. But I would never lie about this, you’re too important to me. You’re the only one who knows the complete truth.”
I break down, simply fall to my knees and howl. I’ve been through all kinds of pain, but not the kind where everything that’s right and wrong with me collides into a horrendous mess.
He bends down. “That night, Shea, the car drove over the walkway, hit two people, and plunged into the freezing water of the harbor. When the car filled up, I quickly ran out of air, and I couldn’t save Beth. I broke my way through the windshield and swam to the surface. Up top, Bren was barely holding your head above water and you were unconscious and badly injured. He asked me to save you, and I did. Even though I was fucked up, somehow I maneuvered your broken body to the ladder at a nearby floating dock, and lifted you out of the water. You had an open gash on your jawline, blood covering your face, soaked into your short red hair.” He runs his finger over the old scars on my face and I jerk away. “But I knew I had just saved an angel from the pit of hell. It was the only thing that I had done right up until that point in my life. The only thing.”
Every muscle in my body is rigid with anger. I step away, putting distance between us, but Hew continues to talk. It’s like he won’t shut up.
“That’s why I left you in California. When you hit your head on the rock and the blood covered your face, I flashed back to that night. Maybe that and the combination of you cutting your hair shorter, like it was back then, and telling me you wanted to dye your hair red finally made me recognize you. My brain was so cloudy the night it happened from being so high and whacked out of my mind that I only remember all the blood and the hair. When I realized who you were, I was scared that you could never love the person who ruined your life, so I waited until I knew you were safe and then I left.”
“Why didn’t you save Bren? Why didn’t you go back for Bren?” I charge at him to beat my tight fists into his chest and arms. He just stands there like an immovable wall, watching me, allowing me to hurt him, which makes me angrier.
“I did go back!” Hew says, finally defending himself. “I jumped back into the water but Bren was already gone. It was night and the water was too dark. I couldn’t see anything. No one could find him. Not until the divers came.”
“I hate you!” I lunge forward to attack him. “Leave!” I yell, shoving him again. “I hate you!” I scream so loudly that it feels as if my voice shreds my throat.
Hew walks backward, looking like a wounded animal, but he doesn’t bother giving excuses or attempt to change my mind. He just slides into the driver’s seat of his car and starts the engine, as if he has said everything he needed to say.
And he did. He said everything he needed to make me hate him and never want to see him again. Real or fantasy, I’m already trying to rip any part of him from my soul when his car backs out of our driveway and peels away.
Chapter 53
He
I swerve over the gravel and dirt road, speeding away from Shea’s family farm. Screaming with anger, I bang the palms of my hands on the hard curve of the steering wheel until I can’t take any more pain. When I’m a mile away, I slam my foot on the brake pedal, forcing the car to skid to a stop just off the street into a field of dying grass.
Did I expect her to take this information any other way? How could I possibly ask her to love me after I’ve ruined her? All of her scars are because of me. Me! And finally, after these two years I thought I was getting my life back and moving on? What a cruel joke. Now that I’ve met this stunning person, I’ll have to lose her forever, just like I lost my sister. Shea was right on the first day that we met; destiny is a bitch and not only is this payback, it’s torture.
I rub the heel of my palms into my eye sockets, then slide them up my forehead, trying anything that will relieve the extreme pressure building inside my skull. Any second now, I know I’ll explode. So I do the only thing I can think to. With quick movements, I lean across the seat, pop open the glove box, and reach for what’s inside. I hesitate, hand hovering for a moment over the silver flask given to me at a wedding years ago, before drinking was ever a problem.
Since that night at the party in California with Shea, I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t exactly been on my best behavior. And every drink I’ve taken since then, I’ve hated myself a little more. My guilt about that horrible night in Baltimore has grown exponentially since falling in love with her. When I was in jail after the accident, my family told me what happened to the girl from that night. I felt remorse, yes, but now I bear a new level of pain. Before, my choice of coping was to try to repress everything that happened and control every aspect of my life, which was easy to do when you’re in jail. But since I was released, it’s been so hard to do, an exhausting battle that feels like it will never really end. From experience, I know that dulling my feelings is so much easier, and there’s only one way I know how.
I snatch the flask with one hand and quickly open the driver’s door. I jump out with it and take off running. In a full sprint, I rush across the field, dodging rocks and trees. I push my body to the brink as if this is some kind of torture session. I have a choice to make. I can be a better person, do the right thing, or easily slip back into the well-worn suit of the old me.
When I fondly remember how much easier and carefree things were back then, the don’t-fuck-up voice screams at me like a soul entrenched in the flames of hell, and says, “Remember where that got you the last time?”
With a quick decision, I slide to a stop, extend my arm behind me and whip it forward, throwing the flask into the air. It spins, arcing across the sky, and lands in a pond with a splash, disrupting the ducks floating nearby. Rippling rings expand from its impact point, growing until they reach the edge where I’m standing and violently shaking, trying to regain control over my body and mind. But the good news is that the voice has finally stopped yelling.
My shoulders slump. The tension releases and I drop to the ground, out of breath, out of energy, and finally ready to give in. This is it. I can’t do this anymore. And though I’ve told myself this before, there is a new more prominent piece of this fucked-up puzzle, one more important than me—Shea. I owe her this, for everything I did to her, her fiancé, and their families. And for everything I did to mine.
My family.
I let those words settle on my tongue for a moment. They feel foreign. We haven’t been anything that resembles a family since the accident. At least, not where I’m concerned. Out of fight, I fall to my side in the dirt, curl into a fetal position, and I cry for everything I’ve lost, including myself.
I want to be better.
I need to be better.
I will be better.
From here on out, I’ll do everything in my power to be good enough for Shea. For me. For Beth. For my family or anyone else who decides to be in my life. I make the promise to myself.
The list of promises grows as I watch the sun set. When it dips behind the trees, closing the curtain on another day that I’ve ruined, or maybe managed to save, I pull myself together. I was supposed to be at my parents’ home for Thanksgiving dinner over an hour ago. And though I’m sure they’re not missing me, I decide that now, more than ever, is the perfect time to try to make amends.
• • •
As I stand outside my parents’ home in Annapolis, I close my eyes and hear chairs screeching over wood floors, silverware clinking against Mom’s holiday china, and the hum of pleasant conversation. Just as I step onto the stoop, everyone inside breaks out into laughter. Listening, I can make out the distinct sound of each famil
y member’s voice, and I ache inside. I lift a hand to my middle, feeling an actual physical pain at how much I miss all of them, for the loss of what we used to be, and for not really knowing what will happen when I walk inside.
I press my hand on the door and sigh. If I leave, a holiday can be happy for everyone else for once. They haven’t seen me since I moved for my new job almost two months ago. My sister Ashley, who had been letting me stay with her before I moved, had extended the invitation for tonight. Even though she’s the closest to me of all my family, she probably never expected me to actually show up. The truth is that I probably wouldn’t have, if it weren’t for making the trip to come clean with Shea.
Just as I turn to leave, the door creaks open. “Hi,” a small voice says through the screen door.
I turn to see my sister Layne’s daughter, my three-year-old niece, Beanie, her eyes wide and bright with happiness. She’s too young to know to hate me like everyone else. She bases our friendship on the time we spend playing princesses.
On unsteady tiptoes, she reaches for the latch and the screen door pops open. Her little toes curl over the door’s threshold. “Come play with me,” she says with an adorable lisp. “I want to show you my new Barbie.” Then she stretches out her tiny hand.
With her large doe eyes looking up expectantly, she might be the only person inside this house that I can’t refuse. I reach out, and she wraps her small chubby fingers around one of mine.
He + She Page 18
