by Marci Fawn
“Ah, you see,” she says, noticing my frown. “This phone isn’t on. This phone doesn’t even get any fucking service out here. But this phone? If it were on, I bet Faith’s been texting me, begging for ways to get back with you.”
“I didn’t break up with her, remember,” I smirk. But Sabrina is going something with this so I don’t fight against her.
“I remember. But you forget,” she grins, turning her phone on, “that my friend is very angsty. I have a plan. Come here.”
I move closer to her until she nods and pushes a hand against me, shoving me back a little as a playful reminder not to crowd her space. She’ll get Faith and me right again, like she always has. We’ll just need to work together.
Sabrina tells Faith that we still have some time together and we need to keep the family together as best we can, for Dawn. And then they can figure out an explanation for the little girl. I feel bad about using my daughter as an excuse to get close to Faith, but…
What can you do?
Nothing, River. Calm down.
We get in a classic car I didn’t know anyone up here had and drive down into town. There’s a market Sabrina wants to go to, so she can grab some stuff to make food.
Then after she finds a store she’ll like, she’ll say they don’t have what she needs there and ditch both of us. That’s the plan.
I nod at Sabrina from where she sits in the passenger’s seat, and she nods back. Faith and I are together in the back with Dawn in the middle.
Thomas is driving, so I can’t kill him right now without risking a car accident hurting either of the three, much as I want to. But my anger is subsiding.
I put an arm around Dawn and move it around Faith too, mainly aiming at holding her. She doesn’t fight it; the scowl she tacks on at the end looks like just that. An add-on.
This is temporary. I know it is. She can’t mean any of it.
We get to town and we all leave, our feet hitting the cobbled stones of an old road. I hold the door open for Faith, helping my girl out as Thomas goes off.
He’s looking for somewhere safe he can park, unlike the space beneath the tree close by where we might be hit, he says. He works for a boxer but he’s not at all a lover of danger. I make a note in my head to give him shit about this later.
The streets are filled with carts full of food, and Sabrina’s excuse is actually a good one. I grab an orange from a stall and pass some money to the man working there, then split it up into little pieces – littler for Dawn, but she’s learning to handle big kid food now, more than ever – and pass them to the two most important women in my life.
“You know,” I say, catching Faith’s attention with my smirking tone. “If Sabrina decides she doesn’t want to cook, I’m plenty capable of making dinner too.”
Faith snorts, slamming herself against my shoulder playfully.
“I don’t believe you,” she says, her tone betraying that she’s happier around me than she ever is alone. “You’d probably burn it.”
“I’ll have you know I’d be a great housewife,” I wink at Dawn, and she giggles. I joke, but I’m a great cook – and hopefully Faith and Dawn will both know some day. We walk through the market, making plans of what to do today to bond and have some fun, and we all smile. But I’m just thinking of them and the future, and how I can stretch this out into other days –
Just because you take it day by day doesn’t mean you only think of the one.
55
Faith
River isn’t with us. He’s standing right beside me but it’s like he’s not there – he doesn’t know I know, I think, and I’m not going to tell him. I wonder when he leaves. I can’t ask. But even as my heart constricts, I’m happy.
I’m with him. If not for forever, for now.
I stand beside him but from a distance, watching him move from where he is in the kitchen. He starts at one side of the room and ends at a cabinet, opening it and grabbing a box of cereal he must’ve chose when we went to that market.
“I can’t believe you chose familiar food when we could experience Greece,” I say. But as soon as I say it, it’s a reminder to the both of us that he can’t experience it anymore because he’s leaving. I’m leaving too… Tomorrow. But I could stay longer, if I wanted.
He can’t.
“And I can’t believe you insisted on not letting me cook,” he says, moving closer to me with a sad grin on his face. He raises his hands up in the air like he’s under arrest, feigning helplessness. “So here we are.”
“The food she made was lovely.” I think about it. It was simple, some type of pasta dish with veggies. She was trying out a recipe she’d gotten from a man at market, someone Thomas knew. They’re going to end up together, I just know it.
“Does that bother you? Sabrina and Thomas, I mean.”
He pours his cereal into a bowl and stares at me in confusion for a second as he eats.
“Why would it?” Another spoonful goes in his mouth. I don’t know why I can’t quit watching. I should already be over him – we’re over now. This game of pretending as if we aren’t over tomorrow.
“I don’t know. I know you hate him,” I say. I need to back out of this conversation. If I’m not careful, he’s going to know I eavesdropped and he’s going to know exactly what’s going on.
I guess I’m a lucky girl because he just shrugs at me. He finishes his food quickly – how can he eat that much and still stay so muscular?
He sticks the bowl in the sink, giving it a quick rinse off before leaving it there. He turns his head to me, smiling, and he moves past me out the door through the kitchen.
“Final stop in Santorini, better hurry up so we’re not late!”
His words aren’t happy, and his forced tone betrays them. I nod after him, realizing he can’t see me a few seconds too late. I watch him go out the door, scavenging through the cabinets myself and grabbing a granola bar or two to bring along for Dawn and I.
It’s our last day.
It’s going to be a long one.
“What do you want to do, sunrise?” River picks Dawn up in his arms, calling her by that new nickname she loves so much. It’s perfect for her and I love and hate that he calls her it. He loves her so much, and she loves him… It’s going to break everyone’s heart when he goes.
I bite back the thought, bile rising in my throat. I hear Dawn reply that she wants to go look at the little villages she saw past town, and I smile. My daughter is so simple, in the kindest way. She doesn’t know adult pain, or greed, any of the things that are causing us issues right now. And she’s so unaware of all of it.
I make my way from the porch where I’ve been standing over to both of them, and they wave as I walk. Sabrina’s decided to stay home to get some of the stuff packed up before our flight tomorrow, but I know exactly why she chose to stay – her leg has gotten so much better than it was at the start of the trip, and she has a man around.
She’s a dominant woman – the type of fun she likes to have involves riding.
I look down at my feet away from my daughter and… River. I don’t know what to call him. I’m just thinking about what it would be like to have him above me again, and I cringe inside, not knowing why I still feel this way even through the pain.
River looks at me and he’s about to open his mouth to say something, but I’m a lot better at interrupting him and speaking faster than I was when I was seventeen.
“Let’s go see the little houses,” I say, and I smile down at Dawn as I take her hand. I can’t pick her up without hurting myself anymore – my back was sore the other day from it, and it makes me sad.
I look up to the feeling of River’s eyes on me, a feeling that always leaves my skin covered with goose bumps – in a good way – and tingling. I smile up at him, too, then, and he takes my hand. Less hesitantly than I was expecting.
“Oh,” I say. I’m not sure where the word decided to come out of my lips. I’ve lost a lot of control of what comes in and ou
t of my mouth these days.
“That’s right,” he responds, and this time the smile he gives me isn’t so tight, and I feel a bit of the suffocation in my chest starting to loosen. Dawn completes the moment, her little hand grabbing onto River’s and dragging us towards the road on our way to other roads made of cobblestone. We’re not taking the car today.
We’re going to look at the little houses.
Dawn finds a beautiful white rose she decides to keep for herself. I don’t have the heart to tell her that I’m pretty sure roses like that don’t grow in Santorini – at least not naturally – so I let her believe that it came from the sidewalk where she found it.
River catches my attention with some waving – no shouting, I notice, which is what catches my attention the most. I look at him, and turn Dawn’s back to him as I realize he’s asking me to. There’s a flower cart ahead of us, spilling flowers out everywhere. He’s helping the man pick them up, and I’m pretty sure Dawn finding this particular white rose wasn’t intentional…
Although I know River, so maybe he did actually knock over a cart just to see smiles on our faces. Either way, it’s working.
I keep walking away from him down to a little café we saw earlier and had intended to get dinner at.
It’s late now, and they’re starting to close, but they have that late night menu where you can only order specific things for a small price. I’ve always wanted to go to a place like this, but I wonder if Dawn should be out this late.
She assures me that she’s not that tired, and we order food. I pick something I want out for River, intending on us splitting both of our meals. Dawn gets something that I think might be a twist on macaroni, and it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.
What does surprise me are the small flowers River hides behind my ear when he comes up to the table. He sits beside me, and we eat, laughing, smiling, and just being happy. This is what happiness looks and feels like – a little girl and a strong man, who I need more than I’ve ever needed anything.
It’s easier tonight. He is so easy to love and it’s easy to bond with him, to have fun, even if it’s our last day together.
The walk back to the villa is tougher.
But once we’re inside, it’s the hardest I’ve ever been. We’re up on top of the stairs before I collapse in his arms, my tears spilling out onto his chest. This isn’t the first time I’ve cried on him, but it’s the first time it’s been about him.
And he knows it.
He doesn’t apologize. He just holds me, whispering in my hair.
“I have something to show you.”
And he takes my hand and we walk the short distance back to our bedroom – somewhere I thought I’d lie alone for the rest of these nights. I was so, so fortunately wrong.
He tells me to stay and I do, wondering if I should put my hands over my eyes and cover my sight. But I don’t.
He kneels down under the bed, pulling out his luggage. I notice that most of his clothing has been hung up in my closet, too, so I wonder what’s in there.
Until he pulls it out.
“These are for you two,” he says, his voice steadier than either of us could possibly feel.
“Dawn deserves a father, Faith… Even if it’s not me.”
His voice breaks and it kills me inside. I know what this is. The envelopes, the SD cards. There’s videos on them, he explains.
He’s recorded all of them the past few days, and it explains all those times he’d seemed distant and I thought he was mad at me. He was just busy, making sure that she was okay, that we were okay – “even when I’m not there.”
I break out in tears again. He sets it down on the bed and goes to me, and we’re moving towards each other, and falling in each other’s arms.
His mouth is on my mouth and my hands are on his skin. We touch, our hands roaming each other’s bodies like we’ll never be able to touch each other again.
“River,” I kiss his throat, his shoulders. I tug at his shirt and pull it away from him as he tries to touch me, kissing his chest. His hands take away my clothes and his hands go to my hips, looking for a way into my panties as he touches me. I burn a slow fire I’ve felt before, and I need to take advantage of everything I can before this is extinguished.
I fall to my knees, opening the fly of his pants. He’s hard for me, and I look up at him before looking down again, and I kiss the tip of his cock. My hands go to his hips and I pull his pants the rest of the way down; he’s always touched me, always done what I’ve wanted him to do, but tonight I want to show him I love him.
I kiss his cock again, looking up at him as I take the head in my mouth. I suck it lightly, taking in more and more of him, sucking deeply –
His hands go in my hair, pulling at it as he groans. He spasms and comes in my mouth, and I swallow all of it, wanting to keep something inside of me. He picks me up in his arms and carries me to the bed, and I move to move the gifts he’s left me –
He does it first, and then he’s placing me down on the bed and cuddling in next to me. We both want more, but not enough to ask for it.
For now, this is enough.
Our love is enough.
It has to be.
56
River
Faith’s hair sprawls out along my arms and tickles me awake. It’s so easy to fall asleep with her next to me, but so hard to stay asleep with the way her body curls up to mine.
She’s so soft and warm – I want to protect her, to make her feel as safe with me as it does here. She’s made a cocoon of the blankets, and it’s silly. I move a blanket up over her shoulder, careful to keep her comfortable but careful not to wake her as I stand.
Last night was the last night.
I need to go. Or else Thomas will leak those pictures. It has nothing to do with me – it has everything to do with Faith, though. If those were out there, her life would be ruined. I couldn’t care less about my career. I want to stay with her.
And I will. I will be with her.
But for now, I have to go. I have a flight to catch.
I pull my things from the hangers I left them on, throwing them into my suitcase without a care. I’m careful to leave the one hoodie I know Faith loves.
And I’m tempted to put it on her – she’s shivering in her sleep and that blanket isn’t enough. But I don’t want to wake her up…
That’s half a lie. Half of me wants her to wake up, to tell me not to leave her, and for her to beg me to stay. If she does that, there’s no way I’ll go. I’ll stay with her and we’ll be happy and…
All of the torment we’ve been through these past few days would be for nothing and Thomas would leak those photos of us on the beach. I clench my jaw, tensing. I have to get back to the States. Much as I don’t want to, I have to get back to my career.
I place the hoodie over her arms as lightly as I can. I’m about to press my lips to hers for a quick kiss, but I stop myself before I even feel her breath on mine. That’d wake her up, surely. There’s no way I can do it.
Fuck.
There’s no way I can leave… I can’t be the bad boxer who doesn’t give a fuck about anyone again. I don’t even have the desire to destroy myself, anymore. I need to be here.
For Faith. And for Dawn. And…
Shit.
I shake my head, trying to get rid of the thoughts that live in my head like demons. Then I descend the stairs, knowing that no amount of head shaking will get rid of the pain I feel – in my heart, and in my head. Everything about this is wrong.
I’m outside the house and already starting on the road when I turn around to stare at the window to the room we sleep – slept – in. Tearing my eyes away from it, I leave. It’s still dark out, and the light of the world fits my mood just fine.
Goddamnit.
Checking into the airport is an entirely different experience than first checking into it when I was first checking in with Faith. This isn’t even the same airport that I’d crashed into with
Faith and beat up Jason, then went with her to Greece. Hell, this isn’t even the same airport we’d arrived in after we got off our cruise and the ship somehow managed to mix up Sabrina’s bag, and we’d all gone together to go grab it.
Still, I can’t help but look for similarities and imagine how Faith would look standing there. I can’t stop myself from thinking about what she would say or do in any situation, and how I would react, and where it would lead us…
Now isn’t the time to be thinking about this. Not many people know about what I have going on with Faith – well, they do. It’s all over the tabloids. Thing is, no one believes it.
I just have to be able to pass off the bad boy act I’ve had going for the past few years and everything will be the same as it was before.
I don’t want it to be the same. I want Faith. I wonder what advice she’d have about this. She’d either say one of two things –
Okay, no, she’d say one thing. It’s only the Faith in my imagination that’d beg me to stay with her. Faith would probably just tell me I need to go. Because I do.
And as I sit here in this uncomfortable plastic airport chair, I realize…
Faith let me go. She told me we wouldn’t work out because she’d heard everything Thomas said, and she understood.
I had told her I’d tell her in the morning what was going on, even though I’d never intended on it…
So I never told her.
And she never asked.
It never came up because she didn’t want to talk about it and make me feel worse, because she knew I would try to talk her out of it and maybe stay and make things worse and –
Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck, I am a horrible person.
I’m about to beat the shit out of the chairs next to me when I hear a couple voices pipe up. There’s a few guys and maybe one or two girls. They look to be around my age and I scowl, wondering if they’re about to start shit with me or pick on me. That never happens to me, but it could with some tough guys trying to impress a woman, and I’m really not in the mood. But then their mumbling voices start making actual words and I’m hearing what they’re saying –
