After You

by Sam Mariano

  “Nikki, please don’t do this. Not again,” he says, reaching a hand for me.

  Tears are already welling up in my eyes. “We’re only going to hurt each other. The longer this goes on, the more it’s going to hurt. I can’t play house with you anymore, Derek, because I can never fill that role. I just can’t. There’s not enough of me left.”

  His voice is hard, like if he’s adamant enough, he can argue me out of what I know about myself. “That is not true. I refuse to believe that.”

  Shrugging, I turn away before I embarrass myself. “Refuse all you want. The truth is the truth, no matter who refuses to believe it.”

  “Nikki, come on.”

  I know I need to get out of here. I’m still feeling strong, and I need to get the hell out of here before he weakens me. Instead of standing here and listening to him anymore, I head back toward Joanna to retrieve the beach bag. Most of the stuff in there is Cassidy’s, so I won’t take it with me, but I need my keys and my phone so I can call a car. I can’t Uber all the way home, but I can get a ride to a rental car place.

  That’s the plan, until Derek rips the beach bag out of my hand while I’m searching.

  “Derek,” I object, looking up at him.

  Without a word, he locks his hand around my wrist and drags me back toward the house. As he drags me, Mallory comes out with the juice boxes. She appears startled by his hand on my wrist.

  “Everything okay?” she asks warily.

  “You don’t fucking talk to us,” he tells her as he storms past.

  I sigh heavily as he drags me into the house, drags me through the kitchen and dining room, and finally he swings open the bathroom door and shoves me inside.

  “I am not fucking you,” I tell him. “You’re out of your damn mind if you think—”

  He pulls the door shut behind him, shutting us both inside and locking the door. “Listen to me. There is nothing to be afraid of. I am not trying to bowl past your defenses all at once. I am not asking you to fill any role you’re not ready to fill.”

  Cocking my head and planting a hand on my hip in disbelief, I ask, “Are you serious? You flirted with the idea of impregnating me.”

  “Okay, I’m not saying I don’t want to move faster, but we don’t have to. I am going at your pace here. I am settling for whatever you’re comfortable enough to give me, even if it’s crumbs, but I can’t be the only one fighting for us, Nikki. I don’t need a relationship, I don’t need the commitment if that spooks you. I’m trying so fucking hard to do this your way, Nikki, but your way is hard. Your way is specifically designed to keep a relationship from ever growing, and guess what? It’s effective.”

  “We’re moving too fast for me.”

  Leaning his head back against the wall with a deliberate thump, Derek looks like he’s trying hard to hold onto his shit. “Nikki, we aren’t even moving.”

  With an admittedly defensive shrug, I tell him, “Well, that’s all I have to give. I just tried to end things last night, I specifically told you I didn’t want to come here today, and you ignored me. I understand the gesture you wanted to make, but you can’t be floored that I’m saying the same shit today I said last night.”

  “And you can’t be floored that I said I’d fight for you, and that’s what I’m doing. I told you I wouldn’t quit on you this time, no matter how fucking hard you made it. Here’s me not quitting, Nikki.”

  “Well, it’s time to quit, Derek. I’m calling it. There’s no point continuing to fight, because we’re never going to win. You know how desperately I wanted to believe that Kayla getting pregnant didn’t have to be the end of us, but it was, Derek. That was the end, and every moment that we have held on since, we’ve just been refusing to accept it. I wish I’d been the one you knocked up in high school, I do. But because it was Kayla, because of who we all are, this relationship is not salvageable. It’s just not.” I shake my head. “I’m not 18 anymore. I can’t fight a losing battle with you, and I don’t want you to either. I don’t ever want you to end up like me, and this fight? It wears you out, and it grinds your heart until there’s nothing left.”

  “Nikki...”

  “I just…” I pause, trying to think of the right way to explain it. There’s no good way to say what I need to say to him. “I liked it better when I couldn’t feel anything. I used to love that you were the only person who could strip my guards and my control away from me, but I had hope it might end well back then, and I don’t anymore. I made myself vulnerable for you, I took a chance on love, and I got decimated. I can’t live through that again.”

  “I told you how sorry I am—”

  Tears burn behind my eyes again, welling up almost instantly. “It doesn’t matter if you’re sorry. It doesn’t erase the memories of those nights I legitimately felt like I would rather die than keep enduring that pain. Do you have any idea how deeply I came to understand what drove my mom to do what she did, Derek? I don’t even think she regrets dying. I think she probably felt the same way—better to end it all than feel all that shit. I don’t let anything defeat me, so I had to learn to live with it. I learned to build with my pain and loneliness the way you build with drywall and lumber. You build your houses, and I built myself a fortress of solitude, and you know what? I like it. I like my fortress. I like my safety. I like knowing that I will never let someone far enough into my life that their absence will cripple me, and everything you want from me requires me to give that up. I’ve given up enough for you, Derek. I’ve reached my limit. I won’t give up the safety net I’ve painstakingly stitched together. I won’t.”

  Stepping forward, cradling my face in his hands with a ferocity that borders on desperate, he says, “I swear to God, you’re safe with me this time. I’ll never let you feel that way again. I’ll do everything in my power to keep your heart safe, Nikki. I can be your safety net, if you’ll just let me.”

  I meet his gaze with sad certainty. “No, you can’t.”

  He should give up. This is the part where he should give up. His beautiful golden head should drop forward, or he should run a hand through his hair, maybe bang it against the wall again. Maybe my words and his defeat will make him angry or sad, but this is the part where any sane man would throw in the towel. I’m not giving him anything back, and I’m trying to break up with him even though we aren’t dating. I am telling him, beyond a shadow of a doubt, I will never give him what he wants. Maybe because I can’t, but even if it’s within my capabilities, I won’t. I refuse to risk my heart for him again.

  I wait for him to give up, my heart hanging by an invisible string. I don’t know what it’s waiting for. I’m blatantly pushing him away. Before it was circumstances, but now it’s me.

  “You’re the most frustrating person I have ever met,” he finally says, his hands dropping from the sides of my face.

  My gaze drops to the tile floor. “Yeah, I know.”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “There’s nothing to say,” I tell him.

  “Yes, there is,” he disagrees. “There’s so much else to say. I agree with you. You’re right. You’re not gonna let this work.” Scoffing lightly, to himself, he says, “It just doesn’t change anything. I don’t see how you don’t get that. I’m not giving up on you, Nikki. I’m not getting over you. I don’t want to. Maybe this is Karma, maybe I’m getting my just desserts here, but the tables have turned. When we were kids, you saw this life we could have even though I fucked it all up, you believed in that life, you believed in me. You were in love with the life you knew we could have together, and I couldn’t see it. I mean, I could see it, but I couldn’t see how we’d ever have it. I didn’t believe in us the way you did. And then you wrote that fucking book.” He laughs, leaning his head back against the door and shaking his head in disbelief. “And you painted me a picture. You were trying to show me what our life could’ve been, Nikki, but you showed me what our life can be. You made me fall in love with a life that isn’t ev
en ours, but I knew it could be. If you wanted it, I wanted it too, and there was nothing in the way anymore; I just couldn’t find you to tell you. And now I have you here in the flesh, and I have this life in my head, this life I am completely in love with… and you won’t let us have it, because you can’t believe in it.”

  If I didn’t already live every day with a broken heart, those words would do it. I hurt so much for both of us in this moment, for past versions of each of us as well as the current ones. I hurt for the girl he so aptly described, the one who believed wholeheartedly in a future with him, but a future he wouldn’t chase with her. I hurt for the boy he was back then, blinded to what could be, making all the wrong choices. I hurt deeply for the man standing in front of me, because I didn’t intend to make him fall in love with something he couldn’t have. I understand that pain too well to ever wish it on anyone else, especially him.

  And I hurt for me, because after pouring my heart and soul out in the books he is referring to, somehow I still find it within myself to tell him right now, “It’s only a book, Derek. It was a fantasy, nothing more.”

  “Well, it’s my fantasy.”

  “I’m sorry,” I tell him quietly. “I’m sure you’ll have it with someone. But not with me.” My voice breaks on that last word, and it’s more than I can take. Shoving him out of the way, I throw open the door and run back out of the house, run to the beach bag. I grab my things without a word to any of the adults, but before I leave, I run over to Cassidy. Thankfully, she was busy playing with her friends and she missed all of this.

  “Hey, can I get a hug?” I ask her.

  “Uh huh,” she tells me with all the innocence of a child, pushing up off the ground and throwing her arms around me. “You wanna play with us?”

  “I would love to, but I can’t. I have to get going.”

  “I thought you were spending the night,” she says.

  “That was the plan, but I had a work thing come up. I have to get back so I can take care of it.”

  Screwing up her little nose, she tells me, “You work too much.”

  She doesn’t mean anything by it, but her words make me tear up all over again. I don’t want her to see it, so I grab her and hug her one more time. “You’re a great kid, Cassidy. I’ve had so much fun hanging out with you.”

  “I have fun with you, too,” she tells me, bending down to pick a dandelion out of the ground. She holds it out to me proudly, smiling. “Look, I picked you a flower.”

  Gently taking the flimsy stem from her small fingers, I manage a smile. “Thank you, Cassidy. I love it.”

  It’s too hard not to cry, so I ruffle her hair one more time, then I head for the road. I fumble with my phone, trying to open my Uber app, but I can’t see past the tears.

  I decide to be kind to myself, to give myself a break and just let myself feel this pain. Just for a minute, I’ll let myself cry it out. I’m terrified Derek will come after me, but I think he finally got the message this time. I let him sneak past my walls once, but I’ve upped security since then.

  I’m not the girl I was when I loved him, and I can never be her again. I won’t.

  Chapter Thirty

  Release day is set, my book is edited, edited again, edited a third time, and proofread. I haven’t slept for more than two hours in… I can’t remember how long, but Dreamcatcher is on its way to publication.

  I had to call in Nadia to do the final proofread since Louise and I both already had eyes on it. It ended up working out, because I need someone else to handle all the promo for this book. I should do it myself, I’m much more familiar with the content, but writing anything even remotely romantic makes me feel nauseous right now, so it’s a no-go.

  Well, I suppose the nausea could be from the lack of sleep. I’ve put “sleep” on my to-do list, but I haven’t made it there yet.

  Nadia walks in from the kitchen with a steaming cup of coffee in her hand. She cocks a dark eyebrow at me and asks, “So, I know Louise told me not to ask about it, but can we pitch the broken dandelion in the vase on your counter?”

  “No,” I reply, looking back at my computer screen.

  “It’s starting to grow a gray mold, Nicole.”

  “Don’t care.”

  “Can we at least move it out to the front porch?” she requests.

  “It stays on the counter,” I inform her.

  “You’re going to breathe in mold spores and get sick,” she states.

  I shrug my shoulders. “Whatever will be, will be. If I’m taken out by a flower, at least you’ll have a funny story to tell at parties.”

  “It’s not even a flower,” she mutters, taking her seat. “It’s a weed.”

  “You see a weed. I see a flower.”

  “Yeah, but I’m pretty sure only one of us is seeing that broken, moldy thing clearly, and it’s not you.”

  I ignore her and continue my work. Evening melts into nighttime. Nadia’s work day ends and she reminds me to eat before she’ll leave for the night. To mollify her, I pour myself a bowl of dry cereal and munch on it while I work.

  It’s all I’ve eaten today. I should look into scheduling food delivery ahead of time so I remember to eat at least once a day. Henry used to do it for me, but hell, ordering food isn’t a special talent. If I scheduled it ahead of time, the hard part would be out of the way—pulling myself away from my work long enough to take care of my own needs.

  I Google it, and holy shit—there’s an app for that! I grab my phone to download it, but the sight of my phone triggers thoughts of the person I’ve been trying to keep my mind off since I left that damned cook-out.

  Derek.

  He has not sent me one single text since I left the party. Not one.

  I know I told him I didn’t want him to fight me for this time—and I meant it, because it is a losing battle—but it stings a little that he listened.

  I’ll get over it. I know it’s for the best. Shaking off the moment of melancholy, I go to the app store to find the app that will change my nutritional life. While it’s downloading, I set my phone aside, grab a pen and my notebook, and add, “Schedule meal deliveries for the week” to my to-do list.

  “I’m killing it,” I tell no one.

  Predictably, no one answers me. I am killing it though. A whole week without Derek interrupting me even once has resulted in an intensely productive stretch. I had downtime twice this week, and that was even with editing.

  Maybe I should pick up one more client. Now that Derek and Henry are both out of the picture, I don’t have a single soul to give even my limited free time to. I was doing some independent study before Derek rocked my world again, but I am not yet in a place where I can afford to have pockets of silence. Once I get my head right, then I can have tiny pockets of free time to fill, but until then, I need to be going going going until my head hits the pillow, and going going going as soon as the sun is up and I’m sipping that first cup of coffee.

  Whoever said running from your problems is a bad idea clearly hasn’t looked at my bank account recently, because working all the time is a great idea. Fuck the dissenters and the people who have full lives to live.

  After this book releases, I’m gonna buy myself a new roof.

  I should look into that, actually. I grab my notebook and add “How much does a new roof cost?” to the list. I probably have to pick out a color or something, too. I don’t fucking know.

  As I’m thinking about shingles for my new roof, I am startled out of my skin as someone pounds on my door. It’s not a knock—that is a closed fist, the meaty side of a hand beating aggressively against my front door.

  My eyes widen and I jump out of my chair, checking the clock on my wall. It’s nearly midnight on a Friday night. From the aggression I’m reading into the door-pounding, it feels like I’m going to greet a neighbor, angry about the noise levels coming from my house—only my house is silent, so it certainly isn’t that.

  Maybe it’s a murderer.

  Eh,
if I get murdered, at least my book is already on its way out into the world. I really need to talk to a lawyer about how to leave my royalties to someone else if I die. I’ll probably die young, either from forgetting to eat or stress. Maybe dandelion mold. Either way, someone should get the financial benefits of all my hard work. Maybe I’ll will everything to Bethany. Not Alex, just in case he fucks her over someday. Bethany can use my royalties to buy herself a little hovel in Belize where she’ll live until the prince of Belize—does Belize have a prince?—sweeps her off her feet.

  I’m so busy thinking about what Bethany is going to do with her inheritance, I almost forget to open the door for the murderer. If it really is a murderer, I’m going to ask him to hang on a minute so I can write up an informal will.

  I’m smiling faintly at my own thoughts as I open the door.

  The smile melts, because it’s not a murderer—it’s Derek.

  I think I would prefer the murderer.

  “Nope,” I say, shaking my head and going to shut the door in his face.

  His hand shoots out and lands solidly against the wood door, stopping me. He shakes his head wordlessly, shoves the door open, and invites himself inside.

  I back up, but I keep shaking my head. “You have to leave. I’m not doing this, Derek. We’re over. Done. We talked about this. You stopped texting me, I thought you—”

  His hand covers my mouth. “Shut up.”

  My eyes widen, then darken with fury. “Excuse the fuck out of me,” is what I try to say, but it only comes out a furious, muffled rumble against his stupid hand.

  God, why does his hand smell so good? He’s probably been working with sawdust and drywall all day; he should smell gross.

  He kicks the door shut behind him without missing a step, places a guiding hand on my shoulder, and walks me backward through my living room, down my hall, and into my bedroom. He never removes his hand from my mouth, so I can’t say much about it, but when he kicks my bedroom door shut, I object.