I’m the first to admit that Mom can most definitely be overbearing and put her nose where it doesn’t belong. More often than not, though, I’ve grown to see how much of her behavior is from love, and for the fact that Hunter and I have put that woman through pure hell for the past thirty-one years. She deserves a little more respect than to be pushed away when offering to help. Of course, I would never admit that to her, but I’m trying to be more understanding of her incessantly helpful ways.
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Give Gavin a kiss for me.”
As the call ends, Tori passes by the living room with her purse in hand. “Are you going somewhere?” Because I don’t think you should be going anywhere after what happened today.
“I need to go see my therapist,” she says.
“I think that’s great, but does your therapist take walk-ins?” I ask.
“I called her, and she told me I could come in,” she corrects me.
“I’m glad you have someone to talk to; it’s important, but I can’t understand why you can’t talk to me? I want to be here for you and support you in any way I can. I’ve tried to make that clear, and I’m sorry if I haven’t done a good enough job at showing you.” I stand up from the couch and walk over to where she’s standing, trying my hardest to make the necessary effort here. Grabbing her hand, I hold it up to my heart. “This is killing me, T. Whatever has been going on with you or us these past couple of months, it’s hurting me a lot. I love you. I want to see you happy again, and I want us to be the way we were.”
Her voice breaks as she begins to talk. “The only ‘us’ you know is from the time we were dating until the time I got knocked up.” I hate that she still refers to the pregnancy as getting knocked up. She’s not eighteen. “I was happy.”
“Well, we can get back to that.” I sound like I’m trying to fix something she might not want fixed. It’s a fear I’ve desperately tried to avoid considering.
“We can’t,” she says.
“Okay, so if we can’t go back to what we were last year, at least treat me like your husband. Talk to me. Use me as a second therapist. Let me in, Tori. Just tell me what’s wrong.”
She pulls her hand out of my grip and takes a step back. “If I tell you what’s wrong, it would mean I’d have to start at the beginning, and that’s not something I can do.”
“You told your therapist everything from the beginning,” I argue.
She clutches her purse against her chest and narrows her eyes at me as if I just said the most degrading thing I’ve ever said to her. “My therapist has known me since I was thirteen years old. I don’t have to tell her everything from the beginning because she was there at the beginning.”
“What does that even mean?” I plead, needing some kind of answer or hint as to what she’s talking about.
“It means; I don’t want to talk to you.”
“But, I want to talk to you.” Isn’t this what I’m supposed to be doing for the woman I love? Fighting for her. Is this what love is? Because if it is, it fucking sucks.
“I know,” she cries. “When I can figure out how to start from the beginning, I promise, you will be the first person I do it with.” And that has been the biggest and most important thing she has said to me since the day I met her.
From the beginning…my mind isn’t going anywhere good, and it’s circling around a thousand thoughts of what she could be referring to. She comes from a good family—wealthy, happy, and put together. It’s not adding up.
“Fine,” I tell her. “I’m here when you want to talk. Even if that’s never.” She presses her lips together, and takes the step back toward me. Her hands press into my shoulders and she rises up on her toes to kiss me, a soft and very quick kiss, yet the most affection she’s shown me in what must be more than a month now.
“I love you for understanding,” she mutters. “Thank you for sticking with me through all of this.”
Through all of what? It’s like I missed some kind of world-changing event that evidently happened right in front of my eyes. That doesn’t just happen.
CHAPTER SIX
TWELVE YEARS AGO
IT’S BEEN EIGHT weeks and three days since Cammy told me that she and her family were leaving Connecticut. She didn’t know when, how quick or slow the process would be, but her parents made her miss the last two months of school, as well as graduation.
I’ve been sitting on the back bleachers, away from the crowd—away from the parents with cameras, and my classmates who are signing each other’s caps and other memorable tokens from our high school days. I’m here and I did my thing, for Mom and Dad. That’s all I’m giving though. It didn’t feel right receiving my diploma the way I know Cammy dreamt about receiving hers. She shouldn’t have been forced to miss this. I took pictures for Cammy and kept her on the phone during the speeches so she could at least listen. She’s a glutton for punishment and wanted to hear the ceremony, so I helped her do that.
When Principal Valler yelled, “Congratulations!” to our class, Cammy disconnected the call. I don’t know how she listened as long as she did. When I’m finally alone, with a moment to breathe air that isn’t being shared with my three hundred classmates, I call her back. The phone rings a number of times but she picks up, hoarse voice and all. “Hi,” she says quietly into the phone. “Sorry—”
“You have nothing to apologize for. This isn’t fair.”
“It’s not just that, AJ,” she says, though my name is hardly audible with the increasing weakness within her voice.
“What is it?” I ask her what’s wrong as if I can’t list a hundred things that could be upsetting her right now. Although there are probably more than a hundred things upsetting her.
“They sold the house,” she says. “We have three weeks to pack everything up and leave.” We knew it was coming, but I convinced myself it would take all summer due to the decline in real estate right now, or so I’ve heard Mom and Dad talking about.
“We have three weeks,” I tell her, trying to sound positive regardless of how I feel.
For the last eight weeks, we’ve talked a whole lot. We patched over our broken hearts with a common understanding of loss. I forgave her for hiding the decision on what to do with our daughter, since I understand it was out of her control too. The anger I felt for her at that moment was the same anger she had been feeling toward her parents for months. We’re together in this, no matter what. We both have broken hearts—hearts that will never find where they truly belong, even though we try to say we did everything we did for a good reason. I think that’s bull, and if it makes me less of a man or less of an adult to think that way, it’s because I’m seventeen.
Our relationship has changed. It changed when we found out she was pregnant. It was less about the number of kisses I could steal before her father would turn on the porch light and almost catch us on the side of her house—less about the quietness of my shoes hitting the porch roof below her bedroom window—less worry about my raging need to be with this girl in every way humanly possible. I took part in ruining our lives, and I’ve punished myself every day for it. I did what I could to convince her that she looked beautiful every morning at school. Even though I noticed the swelling in her face as well as the rest of her body, she was still beautiful to me. I spent my time reassuring her our lives would be okay, even though I was pretty sure they never would be again. I spent the days and months falling in love for the very first time, and it was all about the girl I wanted to be with, not the girl I wanted to get with. It was different, and maybe that’s why guys my age don’t usually know what love is—they’re too busy trying to explore new interests, feel new sensations, experience the thrill of danger and stupidity. Yeah, it’s all stupidity. Putting all of that bullshit aside, like most people who are beyond the age of high school years, then there’s room for love.
“Right, only three weeks,” she says, sniffling into the phone.
“Th
en we have texting…and courier pigeon.” I hear a quiet giggle with that one, and feel like I’m doing something for the better, rather than just making her cry more.
“I’m scared—” she says, her voice suddenly sharp and strong.
“Of—”
“I’m scared you’re going to realize how much you hate me when I leave. You’re going to have time to think about what I did and how selfish I was, how I handed away a life that belonged to us. It’s going to happen, and I know I can’t prevent it from happening but I’m scared for when it does. I’m scared that will be the end of us, and it sucks because I know there can’t be an ‘us’ as it is anyway. So whatever is left of your feelings for me, will likely be erased and masked by your rightfully horrible feelings toward my decisions.”
We’ve had this discussion so many times over the past couple of months. I get it. I might have gotten over it, but I will never move past it to the point where I’ll be okay with giving up our daughter. I understand. I will always understand, but that doesn’t fix the pain. “If that were going to happen, it would have already happened.”
“We’re going to change, AJ. We’re going to grow apart if we can’t grow together. There’s no way around it.”
“Can we try not to?” I ask, realizing how silly and naive I sound.
“I want to,” she whispers.
“There’s always another way,” I tell her, not thinking this through thoroughly, even though I’ve been thinking this thought for weeks now.
Her voice sounds a little perkier when she says, “What is it?”
“Let’s move somewhere. We’ll put college on hold until we can support ourselves, and we can be together, drown in sorrow together, grow together, and put our lives back in some order for our daughter who should have been able to depend on us.” As the words dribble from my mouth like drool, they sound a little scarier than when I was reciting them in my head. It sounds real. It is real. I have less than five hundred dollars in my savings account and no experience for work, no real life skills either. But I love her and I’d go into this plan blind if it meant keeping her close.
“You want to run away?” she asks. “With me?”
“Yeah,” I say, sounding a little less sure than when I just explained everything.
“I don’t know what to say.” She truly means it. I can hear it in her voice, the truth being: she isn’t sure, which means she might think this is a good idea. What if this is a horrible idea? Giving up my scholarship is a terrible idea. I shouldn’t have spit that out. I shouldn’t have been thinking about it for the past month. But I’d be thinking about it forever if I hadn’t said it. I should let her decide and go from there. I can’t see Cammy running away from her parents, going against the grain, giving up college and a life she deserves to have. At least if she makes that decision, she’ll know I was willing to give it all up for her. I’d be happy knowing she knew that, even if she didn’t want to give everything up for me. She needs to know she’s loved more than I need to know I’m loved. I feel strongly about that.
“You can think about it,” I tell her.
“AJ, there you are!” Dad shouts from twenty feet away. “Why aren’t you celebrating with all your football buddies out there? They were just talking about some party at Chad’s tonight. Oh, are you…” he walks a little closer. “Are you on the phone?” He’s mouthing his last words, seeing that there is a phone pressed against my ear. “Is that Cammy? Your mother told me you weren’t―”
“Dad!” I shout. “Give me a minute.”
Cammy is laughing on the other end. “I’ll call you later,” she says. “Thanks for being everything to me.”
“I couldn’t be anything less,” I tell her.
“Love you, AJ.”
“You too.”
“What in the world has gotten into you, son?” Dad asks as he steals the empty seat next to me on the bleacher. “I’m worried about you.”
“I’m good, Dad.”
“Cold feet about college? Totally normal. I was the same way.”
“Nope, no cold feet.”
“Does it have anything to do with the fact that your friend, Cammy, is being dragged out of town by her parents because she was pregnant? Did you know she was pregnant? You never mentioned a word to your mom or I these past few months.” He pauses briefly with contemplation. “Although, I guess you haven’t really mentioned Cammy all that much either.” Dad’s words stun me like a Taser. He doesn’t associate with Cammy’s parents, and she kept her pregnancy pretty well hidden. I don’t know how he found out, but in this small town, news like that somehow gets around. “I know how it must feel knowing that someone you have been friends with for so long is suddenly going to be gone, but girls are going to come and go throughout your life. You’ll make new friends like her, son; don’t worry.” Here I thought I was naive. The one smart thing I’ve done in my late teens was never admit to my parents who I’ve been dating. This conversation would be a lot different right now if I had.
“Dad, I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”
He slaps me on the back and winks at me. “You got it, kid. You should go enjoy these moments with your buddies over there. It’s an occasion you’ll want to remember. Trust me.”
“I’d actually like to go home right now,” I tell him. “I graduated, Dad. I’ve got my diploma and all of my memories for the last four years. My life here is complete, and I feel like I can walk away from it all now and be okay.”
“What are you going to do with yourself all summer?” he asks, standing up from the bleachers. “Oh, I know. You just got yourself a job working for me, installing carpets. Sound good? The pay is twelve an hour.”
A job. Money. It’s the first step to making my plan work. “Yeah, Dad. That’d be great.”
“Well, this is going to be a fantastic summer,” he says cheerfully. “Hunter’s coming home next week, and it’ll be just us three men working together for the next eight weeks until I lose both of my good men to school.” Geez, he’s getting all sentimental on me. “You know, son, you spend your life raising two boys to be men, and then they turn into men and you have to let them go. It sucks.” What I thought was going to be a long, drawn-out signature Dad speech, ends abruptly. I look up at him from my seat and I see a tear in his eye. “I’m so damn proud of you, son. I really am.”
I don’t deserve that. If he had any idea what I’ve done and what I’ve caused this year, those words would never find a way out of his mouth. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. I ruined lives this year. Including my own.
CHAPTER SEVEN
LIKE ANY COMPLETELY sane person, I’m standing in the middle of the bedroom I have shared with Tori for the past year and I’m circling around, looking for a place to start. Top drawers are always where women keep their private shit, at least in the movies. Feeling only slightly bad for doing what I’m about to do, I pick up the picture frame with Tori and I shoving ice cream into each other’s faces from our first date, and turn it around to face the wall. “Sorry, babe, but this is for your own good,” I say to the back of the frame.
I pull open her top drawer, feeling a little more guilt spill through me as I push her black laced panties to the side.
After running my hands over every pair of panties she owns, I pull my hand out and close the drawer. Following with the next three drawers, I come out empty-handed each time. Before more guilt finds me, I’m on the ground, searching beneath the bed. Nothing here either.
My last resort is the closet, because I refuse to dig around through the basement right now, plus it’s mostly my junk down there anyway. When we moved in together last year, Tori came with very little. I believe it was less than a dozen boxes, three suitcases, a duffel bag, and a cosmetic bag. I never thought much of it, but I guess it was a little weird. Being in our late twenties, I’d expect us both to come with a decent amount of baggage. Turns out, she’s been hiding said baggage all along. The joke is on me.
Still, with my last ounce of hope, I open the closet door and search from the top down to the floor. She has a million fucking pairs of shoes but no answers as to why she’s turned into a damn loon. My anger is getting the best of me when I tear down shoe boxes from the top shelf, looking to see if there’s anything behind them. Of course, there’s nothing. Why would she be hiding something? Fuck!
I shove everything back in, one box at a time, replacing it exactly as it was. As I position the last box into the closet, the lid pops off and a bunch of crumpled pieces of notepad paper flies out. What the hell is this?
I lift the box up and dump it on the bed, finding at least two dozen crumpled balls of hot pink notepaper. The idea of unraveling them makes me feel uneasy, but I have to know what this is. I uncrinkle the first one and smooth it out over the bed, finding words written in thick black marker.
The note reads:
This was a bad day. A very bad day.
The written words appear childish, not like Tori’s perfect handwriting. I begin unraveling more notes, lining them up on the bed. At first, I don’t know what order they go in but now I see each note is numbered by days.
In the order I have laid them out, the notes read:
Today was number two. I know this isn’t right.
Today was number five. We’re scared.
Today was number six. No one will care.
A Missing Heart Page 7
