Love's Secret Torment

by Stacy L. Darnell

  ‘Over my dead body, will I let you have her.’

  I stood up, walked in the bathroom, and looked at my reflection. I knew the answer to my question when I looked in the mirror that night after he stormed off.

  And now that it was all said and done, and I stood looking back into the mirror, I couldn’t live with what I fucking saw. The black mark on my soul grew as the tears ran down my face. His sad, regretful expression after I spoke the wretched words “Fine, little brother, if that’s how you want it” haunted my mind.

  I turned around and punched Aunt Robin’s bathroom wall.

  Fuck!

  I washed my hand off in the sink, avoiding that damned reflective glass.

  As I walked past the wet-bar, I stopped and grabbed a rocks-glass and poured myself two fingers of whiskey. When I slumped back down on the couch I groaned aloud again at the sight of that damn little black velvet box.

  Two months after Alec died, our lives finally started to fall back into place. We’d both taken a leave of absence for the spring semester at Auburn, planning to return for a class or two in the summer. Thankfully, the admissions office said we could do that. It was just too soon after Alec’s death for us to even consider trying to concentrate on classes.

  I was still on a month-to-month lease in my condo. Emmett had stayed over again, and we were having coffee at the breakfast bar in the kitchen. I knew it was a perilous line we were walking, falling so easily into the patterns of the past, when it felt okay for us to be together and love each other. Before we knew of our mutual connection with Alec. But then fate had to have her cosmic laugh and torment our hearts, and with one phone call, ruined three lives.

  I knew it was coming, but it didn’t prepare me for the physical pain my heart felt as the argument unfolded. We would be going back to Auburn at end of the month when my lease had been fulfilled. Emmett wanted us to move in together. He didn’t want to stay at the frat house with Riley and Quinn. He said we needed our own space.

  But that morning in the bathroom, as I took my shower and looked at his products sitting next to mine, I suddenly felt like I couldn’t breathe.

  I stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around myself, then walked over to the vanity where I saw his toothbrush next to mine, and in the drawer laid his comb and razor. The urge to run hit me with such force, I felt like I’d lost my breath. I remembered the few times that Alec stayed over, his things in all the same places. However irrational, it felt like Emmett and I being back together somehow erased the importance of Alec in our lives.

  With a shake of my head, I pulled myself together, dressed, and joined Emmett in the kitchen. He immediately cleared his throat, and I knew that was it. He was going to ruin everything, because I wasn’t ready. He pushed his laptop away, and of course, the screen was on the Auburn Apartment Guide’s website. God, I couldn’t breathe.

  Please don’t do this, Emmett, I thought. Alec’s dead. He’s gone, yet I can still see where his things used to sit, and now are holding yours instead. The memory is like a flash beacon of the hope he had for us to get back together, and it’s hurting my heart. It’s making me feel like we’re doing something wrong. I know we aren’t, but my guilt is overwhelming, and in my mind, I can still see that tormented look in Alec’s wary eyes, right before he fell.

  “Peach, I want to start looking at apartments in Auburn. I need to get everything out of my old room at the frat house, so it’s open for the new guy Riley said wanted to move in, if I wasn’t coming back before the summer session starts. I’ve only actually slept at my Aunt’s house a handful of times these last few months.” He pointed to his laptop. “Looking at these listings, I just can’t see us both paying money for separate apartments when we know we’ll always be staying with each other. Why don’t we just do it . . . let’s move in together. I can pay for the rent, or, if you’d rather, we can split the cost. We could get a place somewhere close to campus.”

  I was flustered and searched for the right words. “Well . . . that just, it just doesn’t make any sense at all. Why would we do that?” I asked. “I mean, you have to have your own place, Emmett,” I said with a snarky undertone I didn’t actually mean.

  “Sam, what the hell are you talking about? It makes perfect sense!”

  “No, Emmett, it doesn’t!” I continued. “No, I’m sorry, please . . . I’ve been thinking a lot lately, and we can’t be together, let alone live together,” I choked out as tears began to roll down my cheeks. I looked up at Emmett and his tormented, lost expression will forever be burned in my memory, an expression I put on his face yet again. I hated myself for it.

  “You know what?” he asked as he slammed the screen on his laptop closed. “I can’t do this. I love you, and damn it I know you love me, too. But I get it. You’re hurting and mourning Alec’s death. Well, guess what Sam? He was my brother, and I’m hurting, too! He’s gone, and I’ll never be able to talk to him again! The last time we talked was the night before he died, and—”

  “Wait, what? I thought you guys hadn’t talked for weeks?”

  “Peach, haven’t you even wondered how I was able to get to the hospital so fast that night?” he asked with a frustrated sigh.

  “Well yeah, but so much was happening. Alec had just died, and when you were holding me, I felt so lost. I had so many conflicting emotions, but I do remember asking myself how you got there so fast.”

  “I was already in town.”

  His words shocked me silent.

  “Look I wasn’t planning on coming to Atlanta. But I just couldn’t stop thinking about you. It had been nearly a month since you left, and I hadn’t slept well in over a week. I stayed away, Peach. Damn it, I didn’t even call, and I wanted to, so much. I needed to hear your voice, even if it was only one word. I needed that connection. But if I had answered your calls or replied to your text messages, I knew I would lose my mind, and I was trying to respect you and Alec being together.”

  “But you pushed me away! You told me to be with him—and I wasn’t—by the way. We were keeping it just friends. As much as he wanted us to, I just couldn’t be with him like that again . . . not while I was in love with you.”

  Emmett stood and leaned against the counter. He roughed his hands through his hair and sighed. “I was so tired, Sam. The mornings were the worst. I always reached over to pull you into my chest and watch you sleep. God, I loved watching you sleep. The way your chest would rise and fall with your breaths, your hair laying around your face. But you weren’t there. And it punched my gut every damn morning.”

  I stood and walked over to him, pulling him close and wrapping my arms around his waist. “Emmett, it was hard for me too,” I whispered.

  “I just wanted to see you. I needed to see you. So I got in my car and went for a drive, you know . . . to think. I didn’t have a plan or know where I was going. I just drove until I went past the first sign for Atlanta, and then I knew what I had to do. I thought, if I saw you with Alec, if I knew you were happy with him, maybe it would convince me you were where you needed to be, and it wouldn’t hurt so much anymore.”

  “Emmett . . . I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I missed you, too. And we weren’t together like that. But you never came to see me. You never called. I had no idea you were in town. How could I have known?”

  “I got a hotel room, and I just sat there. After I got there, I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing you with him, seeing his arms around you, holding your hand, or kissing you. I know I pushed you to be with him. I didn’t know you decided not to give him a chance. I drove all that way, thinking that seeing it would fucking fix it for me, but once I was there, I realized it would be too much. So I went down to the hotel lounge to have a beer, and just sat there thinking. I decided it was no kind of life the way I was living, and I was going to fight for you. I called Alec, and he finally agreed to meet. We talked, and I told him that I loved you and I wasn’t going to give you up without a fight. Looking back, I’m sure he was thrilled to
keep my presence a secret.”

  “Oh, Emmett . . .” I whispered.

  “Yeah well, dear brother didn’t exactly take kindly to any of it, especially when I told him I knew you loved me, too.”

  “What? Why would you say that?”

  “Because it’s the truth Sam!”

  “He had a right to know what we had was more than just a rebound fling for you. And that you weren’t just another random hook-up for me. He deserved better than our deceit. I know, we didn’t know about each other then, and y’all were broken up when we were together, but I couldn’t sit there and lie to myself anymore . . . or to him.”

  I dropped to my knees, sobbing with my head in my hands. And, of course, he was right there, picking me up and carrying me to the couch.

  “Peach, stop. Breathe. Just relax.”

  “Oh God, Emmett.” I grabbed a Kleenex and wiped the snot from my nose. “That morning, before Alec fell . . . I told him I was in love with you—that I loved both of you—but I couldn’t be with him the way he wanted. It was selfish to tell him. He didn’t need to know. You had left me, I didn’t think we would ever get back together. But I felt like I owed him the truth. I didn’t want him to think that he could win me back or lead him on. I watched the light leave his eyes, Emmett, like my disclosure broke his spirit. You told him the night before, and I . . . I confirmed it that morning. He was so devastated. Dear God, what did we do?”

  “Sam, the railing broke. Alec fell. It was an accident. We didn’t do anything. We both loved him. Just, please, Peach, please . . . don’t push me away. I can’t lose you again. Don’t throw away what we have. We can be together and try to live a happy life. I feel like Alec would have wanted us to heal and move on, together. He wouldn’t have wanted this pain for us.”

  “Are you crazy? We can’t be together! It’s not right. You have to go,” I ordered with a sniffle. “I can’t even think about this. How can we even consider going on like nothing happened, being together when Alec is dead? God, Emmett, he looked so sad, thinking God only knows what. He looked like he was empty. I’ll never forget that tormented look in his eyes, his pain.”

  I reached for Emmett then, but he jerked his hand back away from me so fast, he knocked the vase off the coffee table, and it crashed on the tile floor, sending shards of green glass everywhere. He didn’t stop though. He just walked over to the kitchen counter and grabbed his sunglasses and car keys. I jumped up and ran to him.

  “Emmett, please, stay. Where are you going?”

  “Sam, don’t. If this is it, then just fucking say it. I can’t do this. I have to go. Guess it didn’t matter in the end, did it? I have no brother, no girlfriend . . . I have nothing.”

  “Emmett, please . . . I love you.”

  “No, Sam! You said it’s done. Clearly we’re done. Don’t say we have to walk away from each other, that it’s not right for us to be together, and then in the same breath tell me you love me. You need to sort this shit out in your head.”

  “But I do love you . . . that hasn’t changed.” I whispered.

  “Don’t you dare say you love me. Never again.”

  He opened my condo door and walked out, never once looking back.

  Oh God, what have I done?

  I curled up on the couch and lost myself to my sobs, to what could’ve been, but never would be. I cried until there was nothing left inside, so barren and lost, all I could do was fall asleep, still mourning for our three broken hearts, two broken lives, and the one we lost forever.

  A little over two weeks later, I received a letter from Emmett. It was beautifully written, yet heartbreaking at the same time. I must have read it over and over a hundred times.

  I set his letter down on the coffee table, sunk back into the couch, and stared at his beautiful face on my phone. It was a picture I’d snapped while we were kayaking the Tallapoosa River, what now felt like a lifetime ago.

  I wanted to call him. But I didn’t know what to say, the way we left things . . . was volatile. I loved Emmett. Not having him in my life—was like trying to have a beginning without an end—my heart rebelled at the possibility that this was our end.

  It had only been a couple of weeks since Sam and I had our big fight. They were some of the longest weeks of my life. I missed her every day. I missed my little brother. I hated the way fate had interfered in our lives. I didn’t think Sam would even answer the phone when I called her. But the idea of us going to Hawaii, to celebrate Alec’s life and say our goodbyes, felt like the perfect place to send him off to peace. We talked about it and both realized that we needed closure. I was happy, relieved, and shocked when Sam hesitantly agreed to go with me. I hoped the trip and closure would help start healing the aching holes left in both of our hearts from Alec’s death, and I wanted to fix the problems between us. I needed her in my life.

  I hadn’t shown or told Sam about the little black jewelry box. It still sat in the dresser drawer in my room at Aunt Robin’s house, where I put it after finding it among his belongings from the hospital. I hadn’t even looked inside. It wasn’t meant for me. I’d been waiting for the right time to give his token of devotion and love to her. But I never found the right moment. I thought maybe during our trip to Hawaii would be that right time for her.

  We’d decided to celebrate his life by saying goodbye in the Toro Nagashi way, a Japanese tradition of lantern offerings on the water. Sam thought it would beautiful, peaceful, and I had to admit, it looked pretty awesome. We would release a floating memorial, a little lantern sitting on top of floating boards with written messages of things we wanted to say, our goodbyes and prayers for a peaceful afterlife.

  A week later we left for Hawaii. Bittersweet. That’s what the trip was going to be. Painfully beautiful. The seatbelt signs were on, and we were getting ready for takeoff. I’d flown a lot in my life, so why I was white-knuckling it was beyond me. I was relieved to have the man I loved at my side again. I prayed we could fix our problems and reunite for good. The last couple weeks without him had felt unbearably empty. But maybe it was letting go of Alec that was weighing so heavily on my heart. It should have been a relief to pay him our last respects . . . but I feared it wouldn’t be. Alec would always be in my heart—in both of our hearts, but I wasn’t sure we’d ever truly heal.

  “Peach, are you okay?” Emmett asked, gently squeezing my hand.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Well no, actually, I’m not, but I will be,” I assured him, even to my own ears they sounded like hollow words. I saw his eyes sadden with the pain and guilt that always lingered there.

  “Maybe, when we get settled in the cottage, we can see if we can find a local craft shop and pick up a few supplies for you to make some jewelry pieces. They’d be great gifts for Tamron and Alison. Much better than buying something made somewhere else anyway. I love watching you design,” he said.

  I could feel my cheeks flame just from the look on his face—pure adoration. I didn’t know what I’d done to deserve him, but he was always able to heal my broken heart, and being with him again already made me feel a little better. He had a connection to my heart and eased the pain there.

  I smiled up at him and replied, “That’s a good idea. I haven’t made anything in a while. It’ll be nice to get back into it again when we get home.”

  As the seatbelt lights turned off, Sam visibly relaxed. I wasn’t sure why she was so wound up about the flight. Maybe it was just the trip itself. I knew we’d both been looking forward to it, yet also dreading it at the same time.

  Holding her hand in mine, I closed my eyes and thought about Alec. I didn’t know how I was going to say goodbye to him. For so long, he and Aunt Robin were all I had. After Mom and Dad’s accident, nothing was ever the same. It was always just us. Now that he was gone, I just didn’t know. I didn’t feel as empty as I thought I would. I was sure that was because of Sam. She made everything easier. Brighter . . . lighter.

  When she designed her pieces, she got this focused happy look about
her. It was mesmerizing. When she’d finish and bring it over to show me, a look of pride would take over. It was simple. Her intense concentration and sense of accomplishment was beautiful.

  Those were some of the few moments when my soul felt clean and my heart felt lighter. I felt like she could heal the brokenness of my heart and soul. My sanity was in her little hands. She had no idea how powerful a hold she had on me.

  I leaned back on the headrest, and let my thoughts drift to Alec. I thought of all the times we’d spent together growing up and the mischief we caused. We’d gotten into a decent amount of trouble when we were young. Spent a lot of time grounded, but we’d communicate through our made-up Morse code by tapping on the bedroom wall between us. We had a lot of good times, but also our fair share of fights, too. None, however, were as deeply hurtful, nor had created as wide a chasm between us, as our fight over Sam.

  We never had a chance to heal the damage over that one, and our last words continued to haunt me. I would never be able to share them with Sam. I didn’t want her to know how selfish and desperate I’d been. I didn’t want her to know how black my soul had become.

  As we made our final descent and the jet circled for landing in Honolulu, Sam reached over and laced her fingers through mine. It felt like a lifeline, and I exhaled with relief. She squeezed once before rubbing her thumb back and forth along my wrist. It was a small gesture, but the implication was significant. She was ready, and so was I.

  As we made our way through the airport, I couldn’t help but look at all the travelers and wonder if it was as hard for them to take each step as it was for me. Were any of them taking a step closer to saying goodbye forever, to someone they’d loved their entire lives? My throat felt tight, and I had to fight back the tears as we made our way to baggage claim. There was an empty spot in my heart where Alec used to dwell.