by June Gray
“I’m sorry, Elsie. I was a selfish bastard.” He grasped my hand on the table. I tried to let go, but he held tight. “I’m so, so sorry.”
I shook my head and tried to keep my lips from trembling. “It might be too late, Henry. I really don’t know how you can prove to me that you’re sticking around for good, that I can trust you again.”
“I don’t know how either,” he whispered. It was the first time since he’d come back from Korea that I’d seen his confidence falter. He looked genuinely fearful, a feeling that then spilled over onto me. “I have no clue how to gain your trust back.”
I looked away, trying to collect my thoughts and steady my breathing. I didn’t realize until that moment how angry I still was, how unwilling I was to forgive him. He had made the past few years of my life miserable; I’d have to be a saint to forgive and forget so easily.
“Elsie?” Henry asked tentatively, giving my hand a squeeze.
I looked down at our hands, then up at him. “I received a job offer in Denver,” I said with more bravado than I felt. “And I’m going to take it.”
The breath whooshed out of him in one word: “What?”
“A big design company in Denver offered me a job. I’d be crazy to turn it down.”
“I didn’t know you were looking,” he said, his eyebrows drawing together.
“I was, several months ago, before you came back. Even before I met Seth.”
The frown deepened. “When did you find out?”
“Monday.”
His face turned red and the veins in his forehead swelled. “So these dates are all for nothing? I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out how to make you love and trust me again, but you’re leaving anyway?”
I jerked my hand away. “You’re not seriously angry that I’m leaving, are you? Because at last count, you’ve left me a grand total of four times. This is our history, Henry: I trust you, then you leave. Well guess the fuck what, you’re not the one who gets to leave this time.” I slid out of the booth, gathered my purse and jacket, and stalked out. God, it felt so gratifying to finally be the one to do that.
My jubilation was short-lived, however, when I got outside and remembered that I’d come here with Henry. I stood over by the Harley and gave the back tire a kick, imagining it was his crotch I was inflicting pain upon. The guy had some nerve.
Henry came bursting out of The Red Cup a minute later. The worry on his face eased when he saw me standing in the parking lot. “Elsie,” he said, stopping a few feet from me. He didn’t say anything for a long time; he just stared at me with deep lines creasing his forehead.
“Just say it, Henry! Demand that I stay in Oklahoma for you, because that’s what you do. You demand and take. And me, I give.” I choked on the words. “But I’m done giving.”
“Then tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it,” he said with a desperate tint to his voice.
“I don’t know what I want you to do,” I said. “I only know what I need to do.”
* * *
That night I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling for a long time, just thinking about my life—where I had been and where I was headed.
There was no question in my mind that I loved Henry, but was it worth more than my love for myself? I had given him so much, had followed him and waited for him, and still it hadn’t been enough.
He had come back for me, and even though I wanted nothing more than to finally get to our happily ever after, a little voice in my heart kept insisting that I needed to do right by me first. My job here had become stagnant, the promotion I’d been hoping for dissolving when the company fell on hard times. The job in Denver was going to be a leap in my career. Now more than ever I needed to put my own future first even if it meant leaving my past behind.
If Henry really loved me like he claimed, he would do the right thing and set me free. I had let him go once, to go find himself; he needed to do the same for me now.
So it was with an aching heart that I turned on my laptop, composed a new email, and told Rebecca Holt of Shake Design that I was going to take the job.
3
THE LAST DATE
I didn’t hear from Henry for the next few days, which was just as well. I didn’t need him around trying to change my mind, clouding what had become my clear path. On Friday I put in my official letter of resignation at work and had an emotional talk with my boss about my career. She told me that she would have done anything to keep me, but that she unfortunately had no raise or promotion to offer. It was tough to say good-bye to the place I’d called home for the last several years, but deep in my gut I knew it was time to move on.
When I came home from work that night, Henry was waiting for me in the apartment parking lot. He got out of his car when I emerged from my own and he approached me tentatively.
“Hey,” he said with his hands in his pockets.
I gathered my purse and coat, not meeting his eye. “Hi.”
“How are you?”
“Exhausted,” I replied, heading toward my apartment. “You?”
“Pretty shitty.” He followed me inside, both of us too tired to deal with manners. He stood in the living room with his hands in his pockets, looking like he wanted to say something but not knowing if he should.
“What?” I asked, a little irritated.
“I passed the written exam and physical. Next week I have the initial interview.”
“Oh. Congratulations,” I said, busying myself by decluttering the kitchen counters. “I handed in my letter of resignation.”
He sighed, his shoulders visibly sagging. “So you’re still leaving.”
I couldn’t look at him because I knew what I’d see on his face was going to make me cry, and the last thing I needed to do right now was lose my composure. “Yes. I have to start in three weeks.”
“When do you move?”
“Next Friday.”
“I’ll help you.”
I looked up in surprise. “You want to help me move?”
He rubbed a palm across his forehead. “What else can I do, Els? You’re leaving and there’s nothing I can do to stop you. So I’m going to spend every last minute with you, even if it means helping you leave me.”
“Henry, you know this isn’t about you, right?”
“Yeah,” he said softly. “I’ve been thinking and thinking and even though I hate it, I know you have to do this. I left you once, it’s only fair that you do the same.”
“It’s not about being fair or about getting even. It’s about pursuing a dream, even if—”
He nodded. “Even if it doesn’t include me.”
“I have to do this,” I said, a tear slipping past my defenses. I quickly wiped it away. “Otherwise, I’ll always wonder what if.”
“I understand, Elsie,” he said in a broken voice. We were quiet for a long time, just staring at each other, until he said, “Can I hug you now?”
With trembling lips, I walked over to where he stood and fit myself into his arms. He kissed my forehead in that tender way I loved so much. “I love you, Els.”
I wasn’t able to return the sentiment, not because I didn’t feel it but because saying it meant I’d forgiven him.
“I’m really sorry for what I did to you, Elsie,” he said. “For leaving you and making you doubt yourself. For hurting you and making you doubt me.”
I nodded against his chest, feeling a lump in my throat.
“I’m never going to hurt you again. I’m back for good.”
“I want to believe you.”
He held me at arm’s length, looking into my eyes. “I’m sticking around, Elsie. I’m going to be by your side until you tell me to go. I don’t know how else to prove to you that I’m here for good except by just being here day after day,” he said. “Please try to believe me.”
“I
want to believe you,” I repeated. “That’s all I can do right now.”
He pulled away and headed toward the door.
My heart leapt into my throat, that undercurrent of worry turning into a full-on tidal wave. “Where are you going?” I asked in a panic.
He spun on his heel. “I’ll be right back,” he said quickly. “I just have to get something out of the car.”
I forced myself to nod and calm the hell down.
To my relief, Henry came back less than a minute later with a large canvas in his hand. “I wanted to give you this,” he said, turning the painting around. “For your new place.”
I thought it might have been the painting from the Red Cup, but this was different. The style and colors were the same but there were two stylized faces on the canvas, one oval and one square. The faces overlapped, meeting at the lips.
“I can’t decide on a title. Either H and E, or The Kiss,” he said with an embarrassed shrug. I reached out to touch it but he said, “Watch out, it might still be a little wet. I just finished painting it less than an hour ago.”
“Thank you,” I said, trying to make sense of my emotions. I kept trying to suppress that warm ache in my chest, telling my heart that I couldn’t afford to fall back in love with Henry again, not right now. As I looked at the canvas, I reminded myself that the painting was a good-bye present.
I had almost convinced myself to stop wanting the impossible, when he said, “On second thought, I think I have a new title.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
His blue eyes were bright, illuminating the one thing that had always been true about us. “It’s called I Will Love You Always.”
* * *
I ordered Chinese food and Henry stayed for dinner. I figured it was the least I could do since he had just given me a meaningful gift. His undying love in exchange for a box of steamed rice and General Tso’s chicken; it was almost a fair trade.
After dinner, we sat on the couch and watched Top Gear. Several minutes into the show, Henry’s arm came around my shoulders and nestled me close.
I don’t think either one of us meant for the kiss to happen. I looked up to ask a question the same time he was bending down to whisper in my ear and our faces bumped into each other.
“Sorry.” He swallowed as his eyes flicked down to my lips.
“It’s okay.”
We were quiet for a charged moment, then he leaned down and whispered huskily, “I’m dying over here, Elsie. I don’t know what to do with myself.”
“What do you want to do?”
“This.” He leaned down and touched his lips to mine, gently at first, then becoming bolder. I kissed him back, feeling a moan rise up from my throat. In that moment I was ready to forgo everything else—yes, even that fantastic job—and just stay in Henry’s arms forever. We could paint and make love and while the days away, entangled in each other. We could be happy.
I pulled away, wrenching myself from the daydream before I was too lost. “You should go home, Henry,” I said, covering his mouth with my hand. He raised his eyebrows and tried to speak but I held his mouth shut. “Yes, I’m sure.”
* * *
Our third date began early the next day when Henry came knocking at my door at nine o’clock with a bouquet of flowers in his hands.
“What’s this?” I asked, still drowsy from sleep. I had only just managed to rinse my mouth and twist my hair into a bun before I’d answered the door.
He handed me the bouquet of flowers, which, upon closer inspection, consisted of paper rolled and folded to look like roses. Some flowers were plain red, while others were made from pages of a book.
“My buddy’s wife makes them, so I ordered some for you,” he said, sticking his hands in his pants pockets.
“They’re beautiful.” I looked closer, trying to figure out what book the pages came from when I saw the name Mr. Rochester. The story of Jane Eyre seemed strangely appropriate; the inexperienced woman refusing to accept anything less than what she deserved from the only love of her life.
“I remember you said a long time ago, after Brian brought you flowers on your first date, that they were a waste of money because they died anyway,” Henry said. He touched a finger to one paper rose. “These will last forever.”
“Thank you,” I said, surprised that he remembered a throwaway comment I’d made many years ago.
I caught him checking out my shorts and tank-top attire as he walked inside the apartment, but he tried to play it off with a shrug. “I’m going to go change before your eyes fall out of your head,” I said.
“Please don’t. I have a soft spot for that tank top,” he said. “Or rather, a hard spot.”
“It’s too early for sexual innuendo,” I groaned.
He laughed. “Okay,” he said, holding his hands up in defeat. “No innuendo at least until after breakfast.”
I set the flowers down on the counter and went to the fridge to get some eggs.
“Where’s your coffee?” he asked, and retrieved it when I pointed the bag out. He filled the coffeepot and started a brew. He found the bread on top of the microwave and placed two slices in the toaster while I cooked omelets, then placed them on plates. It was all too easy to fall into our old pattern.
“What do you have planned for the all-important third date?” I asked, sipping my coffee as we sat across the table from each other.
“I was going to leave that up to you,” he said. He took a moment to finish chewing his toast. “Today, we are doing anything you want to do.”
“That sounds like lazy planning to me.”
He grinned. “The past two dates were about me. I didn’t mean to be selfish about it; all I wanted to do was show you a little bit more about myself. But today is about you.”
“Whatever I want to do?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Even if you just wanted to have sex all day,” he said, nodding gravely. “I would make that sacrifice.”
I laughed and rolled my eyes. “You wish.”
The laughter slid off his face. “I do,” he said.
I felt my face heating up. Was it hot in here? “I’m going to go take a shower,” I said, pushing away from the table. “And no, that’s not an invitation for you to join me.”
“Well, damn, I’ll do the dishes then,” he said with a grin and gathered the empty plates.
* * *
For our third and final date, I chose to go down to Dallas to see Julie and Will a day early. I had already planned on driving down there on Sunday because my parents were flying in to meet their grandson, but I wanted to get to know Julie a little better before my parents met her.
The three-hour drive in my Prius afforded Henry and me some time to talk nonsense and just shoot the breeze, but even though our conversation consisted of mostly jokes and innuendo, the air inside the car was stuffy with words that were not being said.
We arrived at Julie’s house around two in the afternoon. Will seemed a little shy at first, which was not surprising since we just met the week before, but he warmed up when Henry handed him a rubber-band gun we’d bought at the Cracker Barrel restaurant on the way down.
“Cool!” Will said as Henry demonstrated the toy, shooting me in the butt while I talked with Julie.
Julie shook her head with a tiny smile on her lips. “You’re a bad influence, Henry.”
“Jason would have done the same,” he said with an impish shrug. He turned to Will and asked, “So your mom doesn’t buy you toy weapons?”
“What are weapons?” Will asked.
“Guns, bows and arrows, rocket-propelled grenades.”
“No,” Will said with a puppy-dog look. “She only gets me Legos and video games.”
I looked at Julie’s frown, suddenly understanding where she was coming from. Jason had been killed by a gun; of course she wouldn
’t want to introduce those same things to her son.
Henry must have sensed the change in Julie because he said, “Okay, no grenades. How about a Super Soaker then?”
Julie nodded, flashing him an appreciative smile. “Super Soaker’s fine. Even a Nerf gun is okay,” she said with a resigned sigh. “But I draw the line at flamethrowers.”
* * *
We all went to a fun little place called JumpStreet, per Will’s request, which was an indoor play area made up of trampolines. One half of the room was taken up by long swathes of trampolines made to look like bouncy racing lanes. The other half was set up in different sections, with a dodge-ball court, a few slides, and an area for smaller children to play in.
I’d thought that Henry would sit it out and just watch from the sidelines, but he seemed more excited than Will. Julie and I opted out of the bouncing, not because we didn’t want to play, but mostly because I wanted to know more about the woman who had known a side of my brother I’d never seen.
We sat at the tables by the waiting area, watching through the Plexiglass wall as Henry and Will jumped. Will grabbed on to Henry’s hand as they stepped onto the trampolines, still a little wary of the unsteady ground beneath his feet. Henry led him to the trampoline lane closest to us and they waved at us before taking exploratory jumps.
“Will’s never been on a trampoline before,” Julie said. “Can you tell?”
“How’s that possible?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m such a helicopter mom. I’m so scared something will happen to him.”
I looked back at my nephew and was happy to see that he had let go of Henry’s hand and had already begun bouncing on his own.
“I guess I’m going to have to just let him be his own person, find his own way. Kind of like what you did with Henry.”
“Yeah,” I agreed mindlessly, watching Henry. Then her words sank in. I turned my attention back to her. “Um, what?”
