Stay Awhile

by Gia Riley

  “What makes you think that?”

  “I feel it. Call it mothers intuition or whatever you want, but she knew what was going on the day we got this picture taken. She kept his secret while I was standing two feet away from the evidence.”

  “He had the whole world and didn’t even care.”

  “I thought it was so special she didn’t want a toy. Now I realize it was her way of trying to keep us whole without upsetting Connor, and while keeping me as far away from the truth as she could.”

  I should have realized something was off, but I was stuck in the middle of my own dilemma, trying to figure out how to make my husband want me again. Like her, I thought if we could get on the same page, maybe even relive some of our greatest memories, the man I loved would come back to me.

  “I failed my daughter.”

  Garrett takes the picture out of my hands and places it on the bed. “You didn’t fail. I heard what you said to her while you were putting her to bed. That’s not failure. Nothing you said to her at Grace’s house today made you a failure either. It made you the strongest woman I’ve ever known.”

  Laney’s eyes closed quickly tonight. She was so exhausted from yesterday and today that she drifted off pretty quickly. But after about thirty minutes, she woke up crying. It was close to midnight by the time she calmed down again.

  “I’m so tired,” I tell him. “I just wish it would all go away.”

  Garrett stands up and kisses the top of my head. “Get some sleep,” he whispers. “You’ll feel better in the morning.”

  Never asking if I want to sleep in his room tonight, he just assumes I wouldn’t want to. And I miss him as soon as he walks away. For some strange reason, I feel like we’re moving in the opposite direction of where I thought we were headed.

  The last thing I want to do is go in reverse, but I’m afraid it’ll look like I never cared about Connor if I move on too quickly with Garrett—all because of his death. That’s not at all how it is. It’s not at all how it was. I’ve wanted this.

  Garrett said he’d wait and that he was here to stay, but there’s only so much one man can take before he gives up. Whether I’m awake or asleep, he’s who I want next to me. Because as hard as life has been, he’s been my rock.

  Following Garrett down the hall, I slip into his room as he’s pulling his T-shirt over his head. I hate that he looks surprised to see me when he tosses it into the hamper. We shouldn’t have separate rooms or need permission to touch each other. Not after all he’s done for me and all we’ve shared.

  “Can I stay?” I ask him.

  He doesn’t move closer, he stays where he is as his eyes search mine. “It’s hard for you to be in your room, isn’t it?”

  I nod, because every time I look at the floor in the middle of the room, I have the phone in my hand and Connor’s voice in my ear. I’ve scrubbed the carpet over and over, trying to convince myself the stain and smell is gone from where I got sick. But no matter what I do, or how many times I clean, I can still hear the gun and imagine all the blood.

  My admission has Garrett moving closer—moving until his hands slide down my sides and over my hips. With little effort, his hands grab my thighs and he hoists me in the air until my legs are wrapped around his waist.

  He could easily toss me in the center of the bed, taking what he wants, but he doesn’t. Instead, he takes two small steps in the opposite direction until my back is against the wall.

  Despite hitting it harder than he intended, he doesn’t ask if I’m okay or if he’s hurting me. He’s not at all gentle with me as his fingers dig into my skin. It’s the right amount of pain for the way I feel inside. It’s like he knows I’m so desperate to feel something other than sadness.

  “Tell me you want me, Megs,” he whispers against my neck just before he kisses and licks his way from my collarbone all the way up to my ear.

  “I’m sorry I’ve been so out of it,” I tell him as I grip his shoulders. My nails are digging into his back, but he doesn’t flinch.

  “Don’t apologize,” he says. “Even though things have changed, I still want you so bad, Megs. You’re all I think about.”

  There’s so much I need to say to him, but instead of letting me speak, he kisses me. It’s not a gentle kiss, but tonight isn’t about being careful. Tonight is about letting go.

  “Garrett, before we get carried away, I need to tell you.”

  “Tell me what?” he asks as he sucks on my bottom lip.

  Since honesty is all I’ve ever promised him, I decide to start at the beginning. No matter how much I want to fast forward to the good stuff, I take a breath and feed off of his strength.

  “I miss him,” I begin, already wishing I had started differently. What I’m going to say isn’t about Connor. It’s about the man who has been loyal to me for as long as I’ve known him, but my mind’s going a mile and minute and all my thoughts are a jumbled mess. It doesn’t help I’m pressed up against this wall.

  As I struggle to get back on track, Garrett’s patience starts to waiver. I can tell he needs me to start over, and he needs me to start making sense.

  It’s now or never.

  He deserves this.

  But the longer I take, the more he thinks he’s losing me. ‘I’m right here. You have me’, I want to scream.

  All he sees is a scared girl who can’t get her priorities straight—a girl who has what she needs right in front of her but keeps going back and forth with herself because she’s scared. And I don’t want to be scared anymore.

  Slowly, Garrett lets my body slide down the front of his until my feet sink into the plush carpet. Another second or two passes before he takes his eyes off me and doesn’t look back.

  There’s no way he can believe I was going to reject him.

  Waiting against the wall, hoping he says something to end this uncomfortable silence, he turns the light off and pulls the sheets back on his side of the bed. He doesn’t offer for me to join him, or pat the blankets next to him as a clue that he doesn’t want me to leave.

  It’s like a knife to my heart because had I been brave enough, I was going to tell him that while I miss Connor, I love him.

  Garrett

  NO MATTER HOW LONG I stare at the ceiling, all I can think about is Megan. I don’t know what happens to me when she walks in my bedroom, but every single time, I lose control. Something inside of me snaps, and I can’t get her under me fast enough.

  Things were headed in that direction again tonight, but there I was trying to show her what she does to me and all she could do is tell me that she misses Connor. It hurt like hell as soon as she said it, and I reacted the only way I could. I let go of her and walked away before I said something I would regret.

  Now that I’ve had time to process it, I realize I overreacted. I should have let her talk because she deserves to be heard. There’s so much she has to work through every time she looks into my eyes. Sometimes I wonder if she ever compares the two of us, but no matter what her thought process may be, I never get the impression she’s any place other than with me.

  Of course it’s going to take her more than a day or two to stop missing him. Hell, maybe she’ll always miss him. If I want to be with her forever, that’s something I’m going to have to come to terms with. My jealousy will never be her fault, and that’s all this is—raging, out of control, jealousy.

  I need to make things right, so I fully prepare to get down on my knees and beg.

  The glow of light shining from beneath her door leaves me hopeful that she’s still awake. It’s not closed the entire way, and I easily slip into her room, completely unnoticed.

  Megan’s on the other side of the bed, crouched in front of her suitcase with a shirt in her hand. The second the worn spot in the floor board groans under my feet, she glances over her shoulder. Not the least bit impressed with what she sees, she goes back to folding her clothing without saying a word.

  Fuck, I really screwed this up. Swallowing my fear, becau
se this woman makes me more afraid than I’ve ever been in my life, I clear my throat. “What are you doing, Megs?”

  “Putting away some clothes,” she says in an eerily calm voice. It’s void of everything, even the sadness. It’s like she suddenly stopped caring.

  Kneeling beside her, I take the shirt out of her hand and lay it on the floor. “Look at me,” I tell her.

  She doesn’t.

  “I’m sorry, okay?”

  Still staring into the tightly packed suitcase she never bothered to unpack, she says, “You didn’t let me finish.”

  “I know I didn’t. I was an asshole.”

  The tone of her voice changes, and she’s no longer unaffected when she says, “You’ve never given up on me before. That’s what hurt.”

  I need her to believe me when I tell her, “I’d never give up on you, Megan.”

  She turns her head and finally looks at me and I realize that for the first time, she’s sad because of me. I’m supposed to be the guy who takes away her pain, not the one who adds to it. “I know this isn’t easy for you, baby.”

  “Do you? Because I want you so bad, Garrett. But when I let myself want you, I feel so guilty. Like I’m somehow destroying Connor’s memory by being with you. Tonight, I wasn’t going to let that happen to us. I was going to fight through it no matter how much it stung—for you.”

  “I’m sorry,” I tell her again, hoping it’s not too little too late.

  Neither acknowledging nor accepting my apology, she knocks me flat on my ass when she says, “I’m going home after the funeral tomorrow. Laney’s getting the casts off soon, and she’s doing better with her chair, so I can handle things from here on out.”

  That’s it? She’s crazy if she thinks packing up and leaving will keep me out of her life. Putting space between us isn’t going to solve anything; it’ll only make me want her more.

  I can love Megan from anywhere in this world—and that’s exactly what I plan on doing.

  “No running. Remember?” I ask her, needing her to tell me she’s not going to take off and try to avoid me. I’m not perfect, but I deserve a chance to make it right.

  She licks her lips and picks at her fingernail—both nervous habits to avoid looking at me for too long. “I’ve been chasing happiness my whole life, Garrett. All these years I thought I had it—that it couldn’t get any better, so I had to make what I had work no matter how much it hurt me. I can’t do that again. I need easy—I don’t want to have to prove that I’m worthy anymore. For once, I just want to be enough.”

  “You are enough, Megan. You’re so much more than enough. You always have been.”

  Her eyes fill with tears and as soon as she blinks, she sets them free. With a shaky voice she says, “I tried to move on with you so fast—probably too fast. But I let myself crave forever with you because it felt so real. In my heart I believed any day with you was better than the lie I was living.”

  “We are real, Megs. We’re never going to be anything but real.”

  “I don’t know, Garrett. I’m in no place to have a clue about what I want. I thought I was, but I’m not. You walking away from me tonight was the best move you could have made. I’m not ready for this, and you deserve more than I can give you.”

  The first step she takes, I reach for her before she can get away from me again. “That’s not true. We can’t change what already is.”

  When she doesn’t respond, I hold on tighter. It pains me not to be able to pick her up and take her back to my bed, but pushing her into being with me isn’t going to get us anywhere. She’ll only run farther, and then I’ll lose her and Laney forever.

  “Just think about it. Okay?” I tell her, desperately needing her to listen. “Think about how good we are together.”

  Stepping out of my grasp, she closes her suitcase and sits on top of it, facing me. Her chin rests on the tops of her knees, and she looks so much younger with her hair in a ponytail and no makeup on her face. She looks just like she did in high school.

  Like a man possessed, I suddenly want to give her my last name and keep her here forever. I want her in a white dress walking down an extra-long aisle, so I can take my time appreciating every step she takes toward me. And make-up sex. I want a lot of make-up sex with her.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” she questions with her head tilted to the side, just like Laney does.

  “I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

  She smiles and even manages half a laugh. “You’re stupid.”

  Instantly, I’m transported back to a simpler time. “You used to tell me that every day in high school. Homeroom was my favorite class, you know. Especially once the administration stopped doing it alphabetically.”

  “Homeroom was a snooze fest, Garrett. We sat there and yawned our way through the morning announcements.”

  I shrug. “Didn’t matter as long as you showed up.”

  “Show up? I had perfect attendance.”

  Nodding, I tell her, “I know. Why do you think I did, too?”

  She stands up and climbs into the bed, trying her best to hide her smile. I want nothing more than to climb in next to her and hold her until the sun rises. For a minute, I think she might want that, too.

  I’m so close to making it happen, but when she walks out my front door tomorrow, I want her to remember what she’s missing. I want her to crave my touch as much as she misses my affection. Because I’ll never be able to forget what life feels like with her by my side.

  As far as I’m concerned, there’s no better way to live. And I’ve got a lot of living left to do.

  Megan

  “HOW ARE THINGS WITH GARRETT?” Vanessa asks as we walk the path from the car to the church. The air smells like snow and reminds me so much of Connor. He lived for this weather.

  “I love you for asking, but I can’t talk about Garrett when I’m supposed to be memorializing someone else.”

  Because of her job, Vanessa’s world revolves around deaths, divorces, and generally depressing situations. For her, this is almost routine. To me, it’s so much more than that. It’s the end of an era.

  Before I left for the funeral today, I moved back home and said goodbye to Connor in my own way. I spoke to him like he was sitting at the table across from me, smiling as he shot his straw paper at my nose.

  “You’re sure you want to do this?” I ask myself as I wheel the suitcases to the curb. No matter how conflicted I am, deep down, I know it’s the right decision.

  If I want a real relationship with Garrett, I need to take a step back. He’s taken on so much responsibility in such a short amount of time that keeping things the way they are is only setting us up to fail. I can’t risk us falling apart before we have a chance to enjoy life without my past getting in the way. Because, with the way things stand now, we’re barely clinging to a future.

  Whether I sink or swim on my own, Garrett has shown me that he’s always going to be there to pick me back up. I love him for that, but it’s time to see if I can stand on my own two feet without help from him or Vanessa. It’s just as important that my daughter sees my strength as it is for me to find it.

  With Laney at Grace’s house while I make the move, I unlock the front door to my house and push it open. Sucking the unexpected stench of bleach up my nose, I gag a little as I close the door behind me.

  It may not smell the way it did when I left it, but all my things are how I remember them. The carpet’s freshly vacuumed and the blinds open to let the sunshine in. The cleaning crew Vanessa hired did their job so well, I can’t find a single sign that Connor was ever here. It’s both humbling and terrifying.

  As I walk from room to room, I thought I’d feel Connor’s spirit lurking, but there’s no chilling reminders or goose bumps on the back of my neck. Instead, it’s like he never existed. The closet is only half full and all his clothes are gone. His drawers are empty and the nightstand next to his side of the bed is empty.

  Sitting on the edge
of the bed, the same scared feeling of forgetting him returns. At the last second, I changed my mind, and I didn’t want to be the one to go through his things. Thinking it would be too hard, I told Vanessa what to look for and to get rid of the rest. Now, I’m wondering if I made a mistake by having someone else do it. Maybe if I had taken care of it, I’d feel more connected to the space around me.

  Checking my closet for my favorite black dress, I pull some black stockings out of my top drawer. Never in a million years did I think I’d be getting ready for Connor’s funeral a couple months shy of my thirty-fifth birthday.

  But as soon as I place my heels on my feet, reality sets in. Today, I’m going to a memorial, and I’m burying my best friend.

  Before I can even think about doing that, I sit at the kitchen table, in my usual seat, staring at the chair Connor always claimed at dinnertime. Just looking at his place setting reminds me of years of meals, a ton of burnt recipes, and the absolute worst—him sitting right here with a gun in his hand.

  “Connor,” I whisper. “I don’t know if you can hear me or not, but I need you to listen to me. I need you to hear what I have to say, so that I can start tomorrow without the weight of your choices dragging me down.”

  “As much as I miss you, I still hate you for what you did to us. I hate you for lying. I hate you for cheating. I hate you for not marrying me, and I despise you for hurting our little girl.”

  I let the tears that follow run down my cheeks, allowing myself to cry for him one last time. Because as much as I hate him, I loved him twice as much.

  When I can find some semblance of my voice, I continue. “I’m sad you thought the only way out was to end your life. I’m devastated Laney won’t get to grow up with your guidance and love. And I’m destroyed because as angry as you’ve made me, you’ve been a part of me for three quarters of my life.

  “You’ve taken so much from me, and all I can think about are your eyes, your smile, and the day you put a ring on my finger. I see how much you adored Laney when she was born and I hear you laughing the first time she called you, Dada.