Love Always,

by Sonya Loveday

  “You tell me.” I met his questioning gaze head on. “The hardest part of being human is figuring out what you want in life, let alone being okay with that.”

  He looked away from me. Looked down at what I had written on his arm. “Be free? That’s what you wrote?”

  I didn’t say anything. Didn’t know what to say.

  “What’s happening here, Maggie? What do you want from me?” he said, plunging his hands through his hair.

  “I just want you to be free,” I said, wrapping my arms around myself. “Be who you want to be and not what you’re told to be. Be honest with yourself. To yourself. Be human.”

  “Honest? You want me to be honest?” he asked, pushing up from the blanket and moving to stand at the guardrail of the platform.

  “Yes,” I said, unable to keep the tone from sounding desperate.

  “I’m—I’m practically engaged,” he said on an exhale, his hands gripping the rails as he looked out over the ocean. “How’s that for honesty?”

  “Did you ask her?”

  “Of course not,” he admitted, looking over at me. His eyebrows were two dark lines against his hardened features.

  “Then why agree to it?”

  He pushed off the railing. Leaned back against the sill where the lantern glass used to be. “I don’t know,” he said, his head in his hands.

  “You sure are full of a lot of don’t knows, Phillip. At what point are you going to finally be honest with yourself? Because deep down, you do know what you want.”

  “And that is?” he asked, turning to me, practically begging me to tell him through his gaze.

  But I wouldn’t give it to him that easy. I wanted him to figure it out for himself. I wanted him to want me when he knew it was what he wanted. I wanted it to be his choice, not say it because of pressure.

  “That isn’t for me to decide,” I said, turning away from him.

  Just then, the sky decided to open up and drown us in a deluge of warm, heavenly tears. Scooping up the blanket, Phillip put his arm around me as we made our way down the staircase to the back door entrance.

  Rain blew in on belching gusts as Phillip handed the quilt to me and then used his entire body to push the door shut.

  “There are candles in here,” I said as I handed him back the quilt and moved across the room.

  I heard the pop of fabric as he laid the quilt down on the floor while I found the candle jars and matches I had left behind before.

  After a few strikes of a match, the dark room was lit with soft light.

  Phillip stood by the corner of the quilt, hands clasped on his neck as he asked, “What now?”

  “We wait it out,” I said, setting the candles down on the metal steps of the spiral staircase. “This storm won’t last long.”

  Our shadows jumped and flickered against the walls as he turned to face me. The look on his face told me he was on the brink of exploding. That everything he had been dodging had finally collided somewhere inside him.

  I stood, staring at him with wide eyes, wondering what he was going to do. What I wasn’t prepared for was the wildness that jumped to life in his gaze. The heat and passion and longing that poured from a place he had only just decided to tap into.

  In three strides, he had me backed up against a wall.

  THE CANDLELIGHT PLAYED AGAINST HER skin like a dreamy blanket of softness as the rain pounded down around the outside of the lighthouse.

  Agreeing to come with Maggie felt like something that had happened to me in another life. To another version of myself where the girl I was falling for could be mine, and the life I wanted was within reach. Where money took a backseat to love and duty.

  I wanted so desperately for that to be true, and to not feel like I was standing in the middle of an abandoned room with an equally abandoned soul.

  How easy would it be to pretend that my life was all my own. That I had choices. That I could do as I pleased because it pleased me.

  Because it pleased her.

  How did you shake the yoke of responsibility that was around your neck so tight that taking a full breath became an impossibility? How did you live in a moment, and then walk away from it as if it didn’t exist?

  She consumed me. My thoughts. My days. My everything.

  She made me want things I couldn’t have. But I wanted them anyway. And I wanted them with a blinding passion that crept into the shadows of my everyday life.

  She pushed me, but not in the same way as my mother. Not at all, because she only wanted me to accept who I really was. What I really wanted.

  What do I really want?

  I wanted her, and I couldn’t have her. And realizing that was my breaking point.

  In a blink, I was across the room and had her backed against the wall, caged within my arms. The rough concrete chilled my palms, but I didn’t move as her eyes held me captive.

  Every nerve in my body was painstakingly aware of her. The way my mouth was inches from hers as I breathed hitched breaths against her skin, enjoying her every shudder. The way the heat building between us set a blush to her skin that could rival any rose.

  The way the desire in her gaze matched mine, waking a need I could no longer repress.

  Her face tipped slightly. Lips upturned for a kiss I desperately wanted to give, but feared if I did, I wouldn’t be able to stop.

  But I couldn’t back away from her either. I thought she knew it too, because she pressed herself closer against me, and it unleashed something inside of me there was no chance of controlling.

  “Maggie.”

  I whispered her name against her lips and tilted her face back. The small movement exposed the column of her neck, sending a thrill deep to my core. I brushed my lips against her hammering pulse, smiling against her soft skin when she whimpered in response and shifted her body closer to mine as her hands moved up my chest. Her fingertips slipped through my hair as our lips touched, breathing each other in with unsteady breaths but not yet giving in to the fire.

  Grabbing her hips, I lifted her leg, telling her without words that I wanted her wrapped around me as I let the overwhelming feelings she brewed up inside me loose.

  She wantonly met me, throwing her arms around my neck and wrapping the other leg around me, her blue eyes wild with need. Neither of us could catch our breath as our faces lingered dangerously close. As she licked her lips, signaling the invitation.

  I brought my lips down on hers. Claimed her the only way I could in that moment, branding every move, every noise she made to a spot in my mind where I’d be able to pull it back and recall it all detail by detail.

  Our lips danced as I held her close and kissed her with a fire only she could ignite. As the world quieted around us, leaving only the sound of our pounding hearts.

  Never in my life had I been so worked up by a kiss. By a moment. I could hardly keep a hold of Maggie, because my body shuddered so hard with want.

  And then, as fast as the fire had consumed us, it was over.

  Maggie’s legs slid down my hips until she stood in front of me, breaking the kiss. My breath, hitching hard in my lungs, matched the pace of hers. I felt like I’d run a marathon. I wanted, no, needed her badly. So badly I ached. My body jerked in response to what I’d unleashed. It was powerful, commanding me to sweep her off her feet and lay her down. Keep her so close to me that we wouldn’t be able to tell where she ended and I began. I needed her like I needed my next lungful of air to survive. And it scared the shit out of me, because I wanted her in my life that desperately.

  “It’s all right, Phillip,” Maggie said, reaching up to touch my cheek as she placed her hand over my pounding heart. “I’m not going anywhere. We can make this work.”

  Everything inside me came to a screeching halt as I looked into her loving eyes and saw a future that ended with her tears and my shame. My father’s words echoed in my brain. He would ruin her. Ruin this.

  How could I be so selfish?

  Pushing away from the wall,
I paced the floor, plunging my hand through my hair as I tried to make sense of everything that was happening. It was… it was just happening so fast. Too fast.

  And her kiss left me reeling.

  “What are you so afraid of?” she asked. I could hear the underlying hurt I had caused by not saying anything back, and I winced. “Am I so beneath you that you wouldn’t be willing to give this a shot? I know you don’t love Sophia. But me… you can’t deny what’s happening here. Between us.”

  “Maggie, you have to—”

  “No! I hate lies, Phillip, and I won’t pretend like I’m unaware of this connection we have. I see how you look at me, and I felt how you just kissed me. This could be good, Phillip. This… it feels right.”

  I scrambled for the right words to explain why I had felt so overwhelmed by the feelings she’d opened inside of me. “It’s not you, Maggie… I just—”

  She flinched back, fear hidden beneath the anger brewing in her eyes. “Oh, I get it,” she said, cutting me off. “It’s that whole ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ clichéd shit.” She snorted as she made her way over to where I stood.

  “No, it’s just that I don’t know—”

  Her eyes creased into thin slits as she said, “I thought you were different than the rest. I thought…” She sighed, chewing her bottom lip as she looked away from me. “You know what?” She threw her hands up. “It doesn’t matter what I thought. I should have known better. You’re no different than the other rich boys who come around every summer,” she muttered, bending down to pick up the quilt and rolling it up in her arms. “You had your fun. You got your kiss. Now, let’s go.”

  Anger rippled through me. “That’s not fair, Maggie! You don’t even know what I was going to say! If you’d just let me explain!” I was frustrated she’d shut down on me so quickly. A look of pain rolled over her once-starry gaze.

  “Maybe you’re right, but it doesn’t matter, Phillip. You and I both know that once you leave here, you leave me. And this—” She gave a half-hearted gesture. “This will just be a memory of the one summer where you walked on the other side of the tracks for a little while.”

  I felt like she had just punched me in the gut. “Maggie, that isn’t it at all,” I said, catching her by the elbow and forcing her to turn to look at me.

  She tugged her arm free, but stood her ground. “Oh?” she snapped as her brows arched. “What is it then? What are we? Better yet… who am I to you, Phillip?”

  My heart staggered. Did she not know? Could she really not see? My mouth opened and closed on the millions of things I wanted to say to her about how she made me feel.

  “Your silence says enough,” she said, hissing through her teeth as she spun on her heel and wrenched open the warped door.

  She disappeared into the rain, leaving me gaping at the empty doorway with nothing but my memories.

  When I was about seven, my mother had hired a new nanny. She had been the only bright existence in my life, and I clung to her like a lifeline. She was always playing games with me and taking me places. Our last adventure together had been the fair. We’d spent all day riding rides, playing the carnival games, and inhaling cotton candy, candy apples, and a number of other foods the fair offered. Before we left, she’d won a small, black-and-white tiger and gave it to me.

  When we returned home, I was a sticky mess with a grin that went from ear to ear as I clutched the stuffed tiger to my chest. My mother stood in the middle of the living room with a slight frown on her face as I told her all about the fun we had. She never said a word; she just ripped the stuffed animal from my hands and made me go to my room. The worst part was she fired the nanny as I trudged up the stairs, blinded by the tears that sprung to my eyes when I realized I’d never see the stuffed tiger or my nanny again.

  Maggie’s presence in my life restored some of that. The feeling of living, feeling… being.

  I wanted to set sail on that imaginary ship and meet her at the edge of summer at Rum Cay. I wanted that more than anything in the world. And it killed me knowing it would never happen. That it could never happen because my family would see to ruining her life, which, in turn, would ruin mine.

  But Maggie as my friend, first and foremost… that could happen. I refused to let anything take her completely from me.

  Darting out into the rain, I ran to catch up with her. I made it all the way back to her Jeep and spun a full circle. Where could she have gone?

  The storm raged overhead. Thunder rumbled against the sky as fingers of lightning forked along the brewing darkness, lighting the clouds with an eerie glow as I made my way back toward the lighthouse.

  It was there on the beach I saw her as another sheet of lightning spread out against the sky. Her hair snapped in the wind as she stood facing the water as if daring it to come to her.

  “Maggie!” I yelled against the wind. She didn’t turn. She didn’t even acknowledge me when I walked up and stopped beside her. Another round of thunder rolled over us. Water ran down over my face, blurring my eyes as I struggled with what to say to make it right between us.

  Moving around to stand in front of her, I peered down into her eyes. “Maggie, I’m sorry,” I yelled so she would hear me over the storm.

  She shook her head. “Do you even know what you’re apologizing for?”

  I took an involuntary step back. “Maggie, I want us to be friends. I need you in my life.”

  Her hands came up as she pressed the tips of her fingers against her closed eyes. When her hands dropped, her eyes snapped open, finding mine as she asked, “And what about what I want?”

  “That’s the thing about friendships, Maggie. They’re give and take. What do you want? I’ll do whatever you want to do to see you smile.”

  I saw it then. The way she pulled in a deep breath and held it for the briefest moment. When she unleashed her thoughts, it floored me. “I want you. Just you.”

  I knew what she meant, but I couldn’t feed her false hope. Not when the direction of my life had been carefully plotted, and if I tried to interfere, then both our lives would become a living hell.

  I closed my eyes. “You’ll have my friendship until my dying breath, Maggie. I swear it. You have to trust that it’s not what I want, but it’s the best decision for both of us. For our futures.”

  She turned away from me then, marching further down the beach, putting a distance between us not only in space, but in my soul.

  I jogged up to her, putting my arm around her and pulling her against me. She allowed me to hold her, but only briefly before she pushed herself out of my arms. “You don’t get to do that, Phillip. You can’t tell me one thing and then do the opposite. You can’t promise me forever and then give me only a glimpse of it in between.”

  My heart broke hearing her voice crack as if she were crying. Was she crying? I couldn’t tell with the water sluicing down our faces, but her mouth was pulled at the corners, trembling as she searched my eyes.

  “It’s all I can offer you, Maggie. You know what my life is like. You know I’m being pushed against a wall by my mother—”

  “You have the right to make your own choices, Phillip. You!” she shouted in my face.

  I’d never seen such anger in her. Never witnessed hurt etched so deeply between her brows.

  She slammed her hand against my shoulder. “Wake up, Phillip. Wake up and realize you’re not living! Take control of your life and damn everyone else!”

  Something snapped inside of me. Maggie pushing me for what she expected of me. My mother pushing against me, trapping me into a web of her making.

  I felt cornered. I felt alone.

  “What do you know about it anyway? You stand here and spout dreams in my face as if it’s something I can just reach out and take. Life isn’t like that, Maggie. My life is especially not like that. I have responsibilities. Plans!”

  “Are they what you want?” she shouted back.

  “No, they aren’t! But I can’t just shuck off my responsibi
lities and run away from it all. Now, can I?” I couldn’t help the hate-filled words I hurled back at her. “But you wouldn’t understand it, would you? No one has ever tried controlling you! You’ve never had expectations to live up to that immerse you into a pool of self-loathing. You don’t wake up every day and go through it on auto-pilot only to wake up the next day and do it all over again!”

  “Whose fault is that? Mine or yours? You’re letting everyone else control your life and one day, you’ll wake up as an old man wishing you’d have listened to me!” she spit back.

  I grabbed her by the arms and pulled her close to me. “Damn it, Maggie. I don’t want to fight with you, but you’ve got to understand where I’m coming from. You can’t just do whatever and say whatever to me, thinking it will change anything. It only makes it harder on me! I’m pulled in so many directions that my head spins. The only thing real has been you, and now you’re pushing me just as hard, if not harder than, the life I’ve temporarily escaped from. I don’t need another Mother and I damn sure don’t need another Sophia in my life!”

  Her hand cracked across my cheek. “That was a fucked-up thing to say, Phillip. Go back to your life. It’s been great knowing you.”

  My chest heaved as I broke off my tirade and let her go. She didn’t deserve that, but she needed to hear it. She needed to understand that by pushing me, I felt even more cornered. I needed her to understand. Needed her to be the one who stood beside me like she’d done over these past few weeks.

  She stormed off, and I let her go. Turning my back on her, I chose to watch the waves. They were at least a steadfast thing. Coming and going. Always dependable.

  Our entire argument played over and over again as the rain did its damndest to pelt me into the sand. I could deal with the words we’d shouted at each other, but what I couldn’t deal with was the hurt—the absolute devastation—I’d watch come over her face right before she walked away from me.

  I felt it roll up from the soles of my feet—the grief, the anger, and the pain. It traveled at high velocity up my spine until it bowed my back and my eyes met the storm clouds above me. I had no choice but to let it go before it consumed me. And when I did, I hollered at the sky until my throat felt like I’d swallowed broken glass.