The fact that I’ve never, ever, seen her like this has me in a state of panic. My heart is racing and my mind is reeling and I can’t help but think the worst. Did somebody die? I dismiss that thought right away. If anyone was hurt or in danger, I would know—she would have called or texted; if not her, someone. I shift to the next logical explanation. Is Beckham okay?
“Sweetie, talk to us.” I don’t notice that Sarah is next to me until she speaks. She kneels and places a comforting hand on Addie’s thigh, but her plea for answers is ignored.
“Addison,” I beg.
I gasp as her face contorts in pain and she coughs out a sob. “Beckham. Broke up. With me,” she cries.
Her news freezes time for a second.
“Ho.Ly. Shit,” Sarah mutters, each syllable it’s own sentence.
I’m not a swearing woman, but I fully support her choice of words. My state of panic escalates—what comes after panic? Is there a word for it? Because if there isn’t, I’m pretty sure I can supply a definition if someone else can think of the word.
“Addie, what do you mean? What happened?” I know that trying to get anything out of her is useless when she turns her back to us—but I need answers. I need answers now. “Sarah, stay here. I’ll be back.”
I’m out of the door, down the stairs, and pounding against the barrier that separates me from the information I seek in a matter of seconds. The answer my fist demands doesn’t come as fast and I pound harder. When the door finally swings open, Grayson towers in front of me. For the first time ever—man, I’ve had my fill of firsts this afternoon—I’m too distracted to even remember what it is he can do to me with his barely-there-dimple smile. Except, he’s not smiling. In fact, he looks almost just as worried as I feel, which only fuels my desire to get to the bottom of this mess.
“Where is he?” I demand to know.
“Ave…” he murmurs, shaking his head in warning.
“No. You will not tell me no! Where is he?” I feel like my claws are about to come out, claws I didn’t even know I had, as the protective-twin in me takes over.
“He’s here. But Avery—”
“She’s broken! Broken! So help me God, if you don’t get out of my way…”
I’m not sure how to finish the sentence. Who am I kidding? Sonny is the last person I could convincingly intimidate with a threat. Yet, despite my laughable disadvantage against him, he gives in and steps aside. I shoot him a glare, unable to stop myself from expressing my displeasure with having been delayed on my mission, as I stride into the apartment. Then I see him and my feet are like cement, bolting me to one spot.
His glasses are on the coffee table and he’s sitting hunched over on the couch, his elbows propped against his knees and his face buried in his hands—that is, until he looks up at me. His eyes are bloodshot; his eyelashes are wet with tears; and the sight of his brokenness takes all the fight out of me. The truth is, I love him, too. Addison is my other half, but Beckham is an extension of her. I don’t know what is going on, but it breaks my heart to see either of them in this much pain.
“Fiddle sticks,” I curse. I run my fingers through my hair, coaxing the long straight strands away from my face as I try and gather myself. “Can you tell me what’s going on?” I ask gently. “Because she can’t.”
He shakes his head, as if to deny me—but then he speaks. “It’s hard to explain,” he croaks.
“I don’t doubt that it is.” I find that I can move my feet again and I slowly make my way to sit on the coffee table in front of him. I rest my hand against his knee as I lock eyes with his. “Could you try, anyway?”
He stares at me for a long time. The silence that settles between us is thick, coated with unasked questions and unspoken answers, but I’m patient. I keep my mouth shut and try my darnedest to convey my open mind and understanding heart—I want so desperately to understand. Finally, he speaks.
He speaks of the love he has for Addie, first; these aren’t the words that I need to hear, for I am certain of the truth behind such proclamations like I’m sure the sun will always rise in the east and set in the west. He then admits that he did—or, I suppose, is in the middle of breaking up with my sister. I don’t try and connect the dots between his actions and his motives, knowing I’ll get too confused trying to navigate that logic all on my own. Instead, I listen carefully as he assures me that he’s doing it for her. He says that he needs to figure some things out before he’s ready to take the next step with Addie. He insists that he can’t do that while he’s in a relationship laden with the expectation of their pending marriage.
I’d be lying if I said I understood. My dating history is a joke compared to what he and my sister have. Sure, I’ve had a couple boyfriends in the past, but I’ve never been in love; I’ve never wanted to marry any of my exes. My lack of experience makes the weight of this situation and Hammy’s decision something I can’t fully wrap my head around. At the same time, though, I trust him. I learned a long time ago that I could trust him with my sister’s heart and my gut tells me that if he thinks this is the only way he’ll ever be ready to marry Addison, then he should do it.
Obviously, this isn’t easy for him either. Why would he put himself through this if he wasn’t sure that it was the wisest decision? And isn’t it admirable, the lengths he is willing to go to ensure that Addison gets the best version of him in marriage?
I sigh, breathing out a bit of the sadness that fills my chest as I settle into the reality that there is the flip side. Addison’s broken heart. “She needs you right now,” I tell him, giving his knee a squeeze.
“She kicked me out,” he replies feebly.
“That may be so, but that doesn’t make her need for you any less.”
He doesn’t respond, but it doesn’t bother me. I know now that it’s time for me to go. I’ve received my answers and I need to go check on Addie. I stand and squeeze his shoulder before heading for the door. Sonny, who is still positioned as gate keeper, offers me a sad smile when our eyes meet.
“I’ll walk you up,” he says, opening the door for me.
I nod as I cross the threshold. We climb the stairs to my apartment quietly, somberly, and before we reach the front door, my eyes are blurry with tears and my chest is constricted by a cry that I’m not sure I want to let out.
“Hey, are you okay?”
I nod, but I convince neither myself nor Sonny. I stop a few feet from our destination and cover my eyes with my hands as I start to cry. I hate it that I can’t stop myself. Do I have the right to be upset? This isn’t even my relationship.
“Just because it’s not your relationship doesn’t mean that it doesn’t break your heart, too,” says Sonny as he pulls me into his arms. It’s then that I realize that I must have spoken my thoughts out loud. “I’d be lying if I said this whole thing didn’t scare the hell out of me, too,” he continues.
“Really?” I whimper, wrapping my arms around him to return his embrace. His warmth helps to sooth me.
“Yeah. I mean, it kind of feels like an alternate reality, doesn’t it? With Beck and Addie breaking up and Jack and Claire getting engaged? No offense to them, but—”
“I understand what you mean,” I assure him.
“It’s not forever.” I’m startled out of Grayson’s arms at the sound of Beckham’s voice. I wipe my tears away, suddenly feeling guilty as I’m caught in the act of crying over a broken relationship that belongs to him and not me. “May I?” he asks, pointing toward the door.
“Please,” I insist, taking another step away from Grayson so that he might pass.
I watch as he slowly enters the apartment, Sonny and me following him in. Addison is still curled up on the couch, her back to the door. Sarah, who sits on the arm of the couch, looks up as Hammy heads directly for Addie. He doesn’t hesitate when he reaches her, but scoops her up into his arms and cradles her against his chest. Her hands clasp together around him and she buries her face in his neck as he kisses her temple and
whispers something only she can hear. We all watch as he carries her to her room, shutting the door behind them.
I don’t know how much time passes as we lay stretched out on her bed, holding each other, neither of us speaking a word. She’s no longer crying, cluing me into the fact that she’s trying to remain calm long enough to understand what it is that I’m trying to do. I’m content to let her process, prepared to wait indefinitely for her to be ready to continue an open dialogue. Even if she isn’t able to fully understand, which I can accept, we need to at least be on the same page about what will become of us moving forward.
When she clears her throat, I’m pulled from my thoughts. She shifts in my arms so that she can look into my eyes. Her lips move but nothing comes out and she has to clear her throat again. My heart breaks, knowing that her tears have robbed her of her voice—and I’m the cause of her tears.
“How long?” she manages.
“I don’t know. A few months? A year?” I answer honestly. Her eyes well up once more. “I know that answer sucks, but I don’t know.” She nods and a tear spills down her cheek. “I have been praying about this, you know that, right?”
Her chin dips in another nod. “I believe that. But Beck—” her voice hitches as she chokes back her emotions, “what happens when we grow apart? A year? We’ll be strangers…our lives will be headed in different directions by then.”
“No,” I insist, placing my hand against her cheek. I stare into her eyes, exploring her rich brown irises while I try to convey the gravity of my conviction. “Never. We will never be strangers. No matter what happens. That’s not the point of all this.”
She positions her hand over mine, pressing my palm urgently against her face. “I’m having such a hard time understanding the point.”
I’m unable to stop my eyes from closing. The pain I see in her face fills me with doubt. Am I making a mistake? Will I lose her? God—help me. “Every day that goes by that we’re not engaged, my heart grows a little heavier,” I begin, digging for words. “I know it’s what you want. I know you’re ready to start planning our future. I love you for being so certain about me—about us.” I open my eyes and find hers once more. “But thinking about the future—the details…it freaks me out. While I keep pushing the idea farther and farther away, you keep pulling it closer and closer and I just—I can’t do this to you. I can’t do this to myself—I can’t keep fighting this battle. I’m not strong enough.”
“So this is my fault? You think I’m pressuring you?” she whispers, anguish pulling at her brow.
“No, baby—no. I’m just not ready. I know I sound like a broken record, but that’s it. That’s the truth. I truly believe, from the bottom of my heart, that I just need room to…grow, I guess. I need room to let God do what He’s got to do with my heart to prepare me for the future—our future.”
“Our future.” She repeats my words, as if they will bring her strength. “Our future.”
“Yes.”
She inhales deeply and exhales slowly, moving her hand to cover my cheek. “Can I still talk to you?”
“What?” I blurt out, my heartbeat suddenly accelerating with panic. “Of course. This is going to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done, I can’t imagine not being able to talk to you on top of everything else. I mean, we need boundaries, for sure—but we can be friends.”
“Friends.” She speaks the word as if it tastes sour in her mouth.
“It’s not ideal, I know. Maybe it’s selfish of me to ask, but—”
“Friends,” she interrupts as another tear frees itself down the side of her face. “I’ll take what I can get.”
“Addison—”
“A part of me, a small part of me, recognizes that you’re doing this out of love. Another part of me, a bigger part of me, is scared—I’m so scared, Beckham. And what sucks is there’s nothing you can do about it. Nothing I can do about it. Nothing. I have so many questions and you have no answers and I get it,” she coughs out a humorless laugh. “I get it that your lack of answers is why we’re breaking up right now…which makes me even more scared.”
“Babe, I need you to trust me.” I slide my hand down her back and around her waist, pulling her closer. She clings to me in response and I lean my head forward to press my forehead against hers. “Trust me. Trust the God who guides me.”
“Okay,” she whimpers.
I bring my lips to hers and kiss her lightly. “I love you. So much.”
“I know,” she says, her lips grazing mine. “I love you, too.”
I kiss her again. Unlike the passionate and desperate kiss we shared in the heated moment we fought our way through earlier, this one is slow and sensual—this one is melancholy, drenched with goodbye.
When I pull away, she snuggles against my chest and I rest my chin on top of her head. I know I should leave soon; I know that the longer I stay, the harder it will be to follow through with this plan…but I don’t want to let her go. Not yet. “Do you mind if I just hold you for a while longer?”
“Please do,” she replies. So I stay, leaving only after she drifts into a soundless sleep.
It still completely blows my mind that in a span of twenty-four hours my wide-receiver/close friend/roommate got engaged and my best friend/brother/mentor broke up with his girlfriend of five years. To say that our apartment has been emotionally charged would be an understatement—it’s like a minefield. I’ve literally been tiptoeing my way around, unsure whether or not I want to run into either of them.
It’s been two days since Beck and Addie broke up and one day since Claire flew back home to Arizona. Beck’s mood has been all over the place, which I can understand. He’s grumpy, irritable, and sad; but some moments he is okay—laughing, even. Though, I’ve noticed, his smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. Jack, on the other hand, has also become quite mopey, which has taken me by surprise. After riding the emotional high that was the aftermath of Claire’s acceptance to his proposal, he took a turn for the worst after she left. I thought maybe he’d be able to keep himself together for longer. I was so wrong. I think back to Avery’s comment about how this might be the longest summer break, ever, for him and Claire…
Yeah—and me, too.
With our semester over, our schedules are different from the routine we’d settled into over the last five months. Now, I can’t be sure when either of them will be a home or at work. I know that I shouldn’t avoid them—because they can both use a friend right now, and I happen to be the most emotionally stable—but it’s just a bit overwhelming. It’s not just their moods I’m weary of; my thoughts have also got me feeling pretty anxious and confused.
It hasn’t escaped me that I’m not only the one person in the apartment who isn’t emotionally distressed, I’m also the only chicken-shit. Jack and Beck might both be miserable, but their misery is derived from risks they were willing to take in the name of love—risks that pale in comparison to the one that I haven’t even been willing to seriously entertain. The more I think about it, the more I realize how ridiculous I’ve been.
Beck is right. I need to ask Avery out. Who am I kidding? Beck, Jack, Claire, Addie, and Sarah are all right…I need to go for it.
The thought crosses my mind like a song on repeat. The more I think it, the more I realize how desperate I am to actually do something about it. Then reality sets in. I set aside all the things she makes me feel, I set aside the memories that prove how compatible we are, I set aside the fact that I know she likes me just as much as I like her, and I realize why I’ve never told her how I feel. My lack of bravery isn’t because I’m afraid of rejection, it’s because I’m afraid of what might happen to her beautiful, pure, soul if I ask her to be in a relationship with me and I bring along all my baggage—baggage that could swallow her whole.
I know the past is in the past. I know that I’ve been redeemed and saved by the grace of God. I know that I’ve been forgiven and set free—but I just can’t shake the feeling that the darkness and the empt
iness that I’ve been rescued from is still a part of me. It’s my history, my testimony, and it can’t be forgotten; my actions can’t be erased. She deserves better. She deserves the best.
And yet, I wonder—shouldn’t she get to make that choice?
I throw my sheets off of me as I get out of bed. I need to get out of my head.
I drag my feet out of my room and I rake my fingers through my thick waves, out of control after a night of sleep. As I make my way into the living room, I spot Beckham sitting up at the breakfast bar, hunched over something. I yawn and try to mentally prepare myself for any of the possible moods that he might be in.
“Hey,” I mumble as I pull a carton of milk from the fridge.
“Hey,” he mumbles back.
I can’t quite tell how he’s feeling from his one word greeting, so I take a chance and try and strike up a conversation as I reach in the cabinet for a bowl and a box of cereal. “What are you doing?”
“Journaling.”
I stop mid-pour, my breakfast temporarily forgotten as I actually look at what he’s doing. Sure enough, there’s a journal sitting in front of him and he’s got a pen in his hand. In the three years that I’ve known Beck, I’ve never seen him write in a journal. In a notebook, yeah—in the margins of his Bible, sure—never a journal. “Since when do you keep a journal?” My question is no longer an attempt to decipher his temperament. My curiosity is genuine, whether he’s in a bad mood or not.
“Since now.”
“Care to explain?”
He pulls his glasses off with one hand before running the other down the length of his face as he frees a sigh. “I was at work yesterday, restocking the shelves with a new shipment. I came across these journals and something told me I should buy one. So I did.” He shrugs self consciously, returning his glasses to his face. “I figure…I don’t know—I figure I should document this season of my life. I imagine there will be a lot I need to pray about and process; plus, I thought I’d kind of use it to write to Addie. This whole boundaries thing—I just need someplace to write down the things that I can’t talk to her about right now.”
The Promises We Keep (Made for Love Book 1) Page 9
