by Mj Fields
Love is timeless.
Page 9
Love is at its truest when it is mirrored: his to hers and hers to his, theirs together.
Page 10
Love shows in her empathy.
Page 11
Love is in the compassion she carries.
Page 12
Her love is because of his.
Page 13
Love needs not a word. It’s in the way we treat each other.
Page 14
Love’s moods are dependent on physical feelings, so forgiveness is necessary until the second trimester.
Page 15
Love needs no excuses.
Page 16
Love is vulnerable.
Page 17
Love isn’t affected by ups and downs.
Page 18
Love grows deeper every day.
Page 19
Love is her, and I am so blessed.
Page 20
Love is in the little caramel on the corner of her mouth.
Page 21
Love grows stronger when it’s just the two of us.
Page 22
Love’s blessings are growing inside of her.
Page 23
Love will grow even more with four.
Page 24
Love is still and peaceful. It’s in her slow, sweet breath as I lie next to her with her head on my chest.
Page 25
Love is in everything we do to protect love.
Page 26
Love is love, still.
Page 27
Our love is forever, Thomas Hardy. Yours, mine, and our children’s...forever
I close the book before placing it in the exact place I picked it up from. Then I take a deep breath and let it out slowly.
Twenty-seven pages of what they meant to each other. Some his, some hers, some telling of deceptions in the name of love, and the last a promise from a stubborn woman to a dead man.
Chapter Twelve
It will be okay. — H. Mowry
Ava
He fell hard. I heard it. I even felt it. But if I expected him to walk away, I needed to do the same. I needed to push harder to get through the pain, whatever it may be. I am grateful that it was time to feed the kids at the same time he fell, or I would probably have felt more of a need to help him.
Seeing him on the floor was no different than seeing him the night he fucked me the first time. He showed vulnerability, and I hate that he does that to me. I hate it, and I need to not think about it.
I also hate the fact that he looks at Chance the way he does. It would have been so much easier if he just left us all alone. Maybe he will. Maybe he will, and I won’t have to look at him and allow myself to feel compassion for him.
I grab his bag off the floor and see something blue sticking out of the zipper.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I whisper as I unzip the bag. “Son-of-a-bitch.”
I pull out the blanket, one of Chance’s, the one I knew was in his car seat and couldn’t find all the way home from...home.
He stole it. He stole his blanket.
I wonder what else he has taken. I will find out.
I pull the bag behind me as I carry a basketful of Luke’s clothes and the rest of today’s laundry mishaps to the laundry room. I decide to do his first since the babies have at least a month’s worth of clothes they have yet to wear, all laundered and either folded in their dressers or hanging in their closet.
I can’t decide on what’s clean and what’s dirty, so I throw in all his clothes. Then I kneel down and look at the other things inside. Two things will be accomplished by doing this: I can do his laundry, which will make us even for the fact he seems to think he has to cook, and I can see what else is in the bag.
An old shoe box catches my eye. It’s small and certainly couldn’t hold his shoes, so I assume it contains something he has hidden.
When I open it, I see envelopes, dozens and dozens of envelopes. But what makes my chest tighten is that I know who these envelopes came from. I know because they are all from me. Piles of them wrapped in rubber bands, some bigger than others, and he has them sorted by year.
Seven years of letters.
Why? Why has he saved them? And not only the letters, but the envelopes.
I pull the rubber band off the biggest pile to see who else’s he saved, flipping through them hurriedly and noticing he wrote something on the back of almost every one of them.
I flip over the pile and start looking at the backs.
Little Miss
Then
Small Town, USA
The Truth
Don’t You Wanna Stay
The Man I Wanna Be
The House That Built Me
If I Die Young
Need You Now
Gimme That Girl
She Won’t Be Lonely Long
As She’s Walking Away
And it goes on and on.
What the hell is all this?
Frustration breeds tears, and I shake my head, trying to wish them away.
“It means not a fucking thing,” I tell myself. Because, if it did, it means he lied to me, and when it comes to Luke Lane, I lie to myself. He told me the cold hard truth.
I throw the letters across the room then pull my knees up to my chest, hugging them tight and trying to hold myself together. That’s when I hear him clear his throat.
Fuck! I scream in my head.
“Ava, what are you doing?”
I glare up at him. I want to say, That’s a stupid fucking question, but he’s not a stupid man. Wait. Yes, he is. Proof of that is all over my laundry room floor.
“Laundry,” I answer through clenched teeth.
“Tough stain?” he asks.
I want to kill him. I look down instead. He doesn’t get to know I’m so...pissed at him, but he does.
“I need you to turn around and walk—” I stop when I see how swollen his knee is. “Jesus, Luke.”
“Just need a couple pills and maybe some clothes.” He points at the towel he’s wearing.
I stand up and look in his bag. He has a pair of rolled up black underwear, a crisp white tee-shirt, and everything else is in the washer.
“Is this good for tonight? Everything else is in the wash,” I explain.
He takes the shirt and pulls it over his head. “You’re doing my laundry?”
“You made breakfast and dinner,” I say, staring at his knee.
He takes the boxer briefs out of my hand. “Make a good team.” Then he cringes when he tries to bend his knee.
I snatch his boxers out of his hand and look up as he looks down at me. He doesn’t move; he just stares.
“Lift,” I order, looking away from the intensity in his eyes.
When I look up again after he has stepped into the boxers, I notice his chest is rising and falling a bit faster, and then I see other things following suit.
Shocked, I look at his face.
He shrugs. “Least I know it’s working.”
“Oh, my God, Luke.” I stand up quickly. “Go. Get—”
“I could use my pills.” He turns as he pulls his boxers up, dropping his towel.
Damn him.
I fumble through his bag, grab the pills, and twist off the cap. “How many?”
“Two should do.” He turns back around, and I hand him two. He throws them in his mouth and swallows. “Thanks.”
“You took them without water,” I point out the obvious.
He nods then looks at me oddly. “Can I see the bottle the pills came from?”
I reach down and grab it, then hand it to him.
His eyes widen and he mumbles, “Fuck.”
“What? What’s wrong?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing. Just gonna be out of commission for a bit.”
“Why?” I snatch the pills back and look at the bottle.
Take one pill every six to eight hours as needed for pain on a full stoma
ch.
“Why did you tell me two pills?” I gasp.
“Haven’t taken those in a month. Forgot they were in there.” He turns and slowly walks out the door.
“Do we need to go to the hospital?” I call after him, scurrying around and picking up all those stupid letters, placing the rubber band back around them before putting them in the shoebox then walking out of the laundry room.
“No,” he calls back. He is standing at the fridge, pulling out the milk and bowl of pasta.
“Are you sure?”
He looks at me from over his shoulder with a slightly amused expression. “I’m sure, Ava.”
“What can I do?”
“Nothing. I’m gonna eat then crash.”
“Are you sure? I mean—”
“As much as you wish me gone, Ava, you’d have to give me a hell of a lot more than two pills.”
“I don’t wish you dead, just...” I pause.
“Gone. Yeah, I get that.” He takes the bowl of pasta out of the microwave, using a pot holder this time.
His words...My words tossed back at me in a joking matter or not, they sting.
“I don’t know how to do this; where to go from here,” I say in a tone that sounds just as defeated as I feel.
“Neither do I,” he says, sitting on a bar stool. “Gotta be done, though.” He closes his eyes then blinks a few times before placing his hands on the island to push himself up.
“Do you need something?”
“Bed,” he slurs out as he stands.
“But—”
“Ava, can you carry two hundred pounds of dead weight twenty feet?”
I shake my head.
“I need a bed.”
He moves slower than usual, and I feel awful and helpless and...What the hell did I do?
I grab the milk he had taken from the refrigerator and quickly pour him a glass. Then I grab the bowl of pasta and head into the room behind him.
He sits on the bed that looks too small for him, and before thinking, I open my mouth.
“Luke, can you make it to my room? I mean, I don’t sleep in there, anyway, and it’s bigger. More—”
“I’m fine, Ava,” he cuts me off as he positions the pillows then lies back, looking incredibly uncomfortable.
“I don’t sleep in there, anyway,” I repeat, trying again.
He pushes himself up. “If I don’t, are you going to keep arguing that I should?”
“No, but you look...uncomfortable.”
He sighs as he stands and blinks again. “Just need to close my eyes, Ava.” His words are slow, making me nervous.
I watch him walk with one hand on the wall, and by the time he gets to my room, his legs are shaking.
He looks at the bed, closes his eyes, then shakes his head. “Not sure I want to be in here.”
“It’s a bed. Lie down.”
As he pushes back the duvet cover and sits, I realize what I have insisted on. He’s going to sleep in mine and Thomas’s bed. It’s not just a bed, and he, Thomas, is probably upset with me now.
He’s dead, gone, but this is still his bed.
I feel Luke wipe away tears I didn’t realize were falling and pull away from his touch.
“Told you this was a bad idea,” he whispers. Then he tries to sit up and fails.
“He’s dead,” I voice, causing my chest to tighten. “He’s dead, and you’re—”
“I’m sorry, Ava. I wish I could take his place,” he slurs as his eyes close.
“I don’t wish you were dead,” I tell him, hoping he is still alert enough to hear me.
“Glad to hear it.”
“Luke?”
He opens his eyes to see me holding up the milk.
“It says to take on a full stomach.”
“Blue eyes, I can’t right now.”
Blue eyes? He’s never called me that.
I shake my head. No, no, no.
“You need to figure it out.” I put my hand under his head and lift him.
“Ava,” he grumbles.
“Just drink it.”
“Then you’ll leave me alone?” he asks in a bit of a slur, and his voice is deeper.
I nod. “Yeah, then I’ll leave you alone.”
He pushes himself up. “I can hold the cup.”
“You’ll spill it,” I argue, ignoring him.
After he drinks the milk, he looks at me. “You loved him.” The sincerity in his eyes is sweet, like he finally understands.
“And he loved me.”
He sighs as he lies back. “I mean it, Ava. For you, I would take his place.”
“I don’t want you to die, Luke. I don’t want anyone to die. I just want him back.”
“Understand,” he whispers.
“And your friend?” I ask, grabbing a tissue and wiping the corner of his mouth.
“I would have traded places with him so he could see his boys grow,” he answers softly.
His boys.
“The letters,” he mumbles. “Songs that reminded me of you and home.”
Songs? What is he talking about?
“Got me through some tough times, blue eyes. I’ll do the same for you.”
“Go to sleep.” I want him to stop telling me things he should have told me years ago. Had he, I would not be the reason Thomas Hardy is gone.
My love killed him. And in his death, I lost my right to be loved.
“Ava?”
I jump. I thought he passed out already.
“Yeah?”
“Make sure I’m still breathing when the kids—”
“What?” I gasp.
“I’m fucking tired, and I wanna make sure...”
I grab his arms and pull at him, trying to get him up. “I’m calling an ambulance.”
“No need,” he says, in a drug-induced fog. “Love that little boy, Ava. Love him so fucking much, and I’m afraid you are gonna make me stop. Can’t stop, and I can’t hurt you.”
“Luke, get up.” I pound my fist on his chest.
“Need to sleep.” Then he is out.
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
I run out and grab my phone, ready to call an ambulance, when I see the skull and crossbones magnet on the fridge.
Poison control.
Chapter Thirteen
It wasn’t me. - L. Alvarez
Luke
My head is groggy, and my skin is heated. I attempt to open my eyes, but the glare from the sun beating through the window and down my body forces them closed.
“The sun hasn’t shined in a fucking week,” I voice out, trying to cover my eyes.
I hear movement and turn my head in its direction before opening my eyes, seeing Ava walking quickly out of the room. Then I look down and see my knee is wrapped in an ace bandage with pink teddy bear paws sticking up, as if trying to escape.
Beside the bed is a glass of water and ibuprofen next to a notepad with dates and times. My name is written in script in the header.
Ava. I would know her handwriting anywhere.
Handwriting. Fuck, she saw the fucking letters.
I remember talking to her last night. I think she called poison control. I asked her about the kids, and she told me about the babies’ birth and the medical problems they both faced. I remember talking about Thomas, and her getting pissed when...Oh, fuck, I told her about the book and page number twenty-five where he all but admitted he lied.
Love is in everything we do to protect love.
I know she got pissed at me. I know I held her...I held her.
Fuck, that wasn’t supposed to happen. Double fuck; did I kiss her? Did I try anything? Did we fuck?
I reach under the blanket, finding my boxers are still on, and my dick is as soft as a baby’s ass with no evidence of fucking.
I push myself up and look for my phone. Then I remember I left it in my pants pocket, which were left in the bathroom. Christ, there is nothing like waking up and not knowing shit. How the hell do people function when the
y take those fucking things everyday like clockwork?
As soon as I push myself up to standing, I see the bathroom door, the master bath. I walk in and look around. There is a stand up shower, and a corner bathtub that has two little seats in it. The kids.
I smile to myself.
After taking a piss, I wash my hands then dig out my toothbrush and toothpaste from my toiletry bag that I find on the white, granite double sink countertop, and brush my teeth. When I finish, I look up into the mirror and see Ava walking in with both kids on her hips.
“Let me know when you’re all set. They need a bath.”
“I’m good,” I reply, rinsing out the sink.
I look up again, and she looks away, but the little ones are beaming at me.
How beautiful are they? Fucking perfect.
“Not sure all that was said last night, but—”
“Not in front the them,” she whispers.
“Well, I was kind of talking about them.” I smile. “Hoping you can remind me of last night’s conversation.”
My leg is killing me, but Chance squirming and trying to get to me is overshadowing the pain.
Fuck it. I walk over and hold my hands out.
“Come here, Chance Thomas.”
Ava looks at me, eyes wide.
“What? I like his name, Ava.”
“I wasn’t even thinking—”
“My father’s name was Thomas.”
“Tommy...Thomas. Right. Well then.” She looks at Chance as she hands him to me.
“It’s perfect,” I declare, holding him up. “Just like you. Your mom did a damn good job with you, Chance. Look at you...perfect.”
Ava glances at me. “You feel up to helping?”
My chest swells with joy. Whatever it was I missed last night seems to have made things better today. It’s a win.
