When Forever Ended

by Cara Dee

  …and Lissa does it every single day.

  The pride faded, and the internal chanting of a reminder saying even the smallest accomplishment was a victory for a depressed person couldn’t restore my good, albeit brief, mood.

  Every damn day, my wife made sure there was food on the table, that the kids had clothes, and that the house looked nice. Additionally, she took care of me.

  What did I do? I disciplined Brady and Aurora on the rare occasions it was necessary. I helped them with homework. My paycheck happened to be larger than Lissa's. It was nothing in comparison, and now I was going to ruin everything she continued to work for. For what purpose? So I could feel better?

  I slumped down on the couch and rubbed my hands over my face. The sound of a coin hitting the floorboards drew my attention, and I frowned at the golden circle that glinted in the light from the kitchen.

  It wasn’t a coin. My wedding band didn’t fit anymore.

  I picked up the ring and tucked it into my pocket so I wouldn’t lose it, and then I stared at my hands.

  You have to tell her everything. Regardless, you promised to be true.

  I swallowed hard and set a date for myself. Aurora would be home from camp in two weeks. Before then, I would tell Lissa all of it. Everything.

  My breathing quickened, so I dove for my meds.

  *

  "Will."

  I turned toward the hand, feeling it in my hair, with no desire whatsoever to wake up. My forehead came in contact with something solid—a knee.

  "When did you go to bed last night?" the voice belonged to Kelly.

  I let out a rumble of complaint and pulled up the sleeping bag, burrowing into it. Kelly could be quiet, though he could continue scratching my scalp.

  I was granted a minute where his ministrations seemed like the most normal thing.

  "If you answer a few questions, I might leave you alone," he told me.

  That wasn’t a very good deal for me. "Only might?" I grumbled. My eyelids were too heavy to pry open.

  He didn’t chuckle, which I kind of expected.

  "Hey." He gave my shoulder a squeeze. "Two questions, buddy. When did you go to bed last night, and when was the last time you ate?"

  God. It was too early for this. "I'm tired."

  "I could get a bucket of water—"

  "Jesus," I muttered. I rubbed tiredly at my face, noticing it was chilly. It was nice and warm under the four-season sleeping bag. "No need to resort to torture." I managed to crack one eye open and squint at him.

  He looked like he'd been working out. Or rather, working on the cabin. His T-shirt was dirty and damp, and there was a flush of exertion peeking up from under his scruff. His jeans were probably too filthy for the new mattress that still didn’t have any sheets.

  How long had he been here?

  "When did you go to bed?" he asked again, frowning.

  "Um." I peered out the window, having no clue. I wasn’t known for keeping track of time when I was in this state. "I'm not entirely sure, but I usually crash around eleven. Why?"

  His frown deepened. "It's four in the afternoon."

  "Okay." My meds tended to knock me out. That was nothing new. "When did you get here?"

  It was nice seeing him.

  "Around eight or nine? Took me a while to lug in the new fridge. You're helping me with the freezer later." He scratched his forehead. "So when was the last time you ate?"

  I tried to remember. After giving my face another sleepy scrub, I pulled myself up to a seated position, and I reached for my sweat pants by my pillow. "I'm not sure…" I forgot to eat after therapy yesterday, that much I knew. Taking my antidepressant was about the only thing I managed regularly. "I think I ate something for breakfast yesterday."

  I needed to take a leak, so I slid out of bed, feeling heavier than I was, and stepped into the sweats. A whiff of my T-shirt said I needed a shower, too.

  "I know I had dinner the night before." I ran a hand over my head and yawned. "I'll be right back."

  *

  Kelly was in the kitchen when I emerged from my shower in a clean pair of sweat pants and a hoodie. He glanced at me, then returned to making whatever he was making. A bunch of things went into a pot with tomato sauce.

  "You still don’t like onion, right?" He was studying a recipe.

  On top, it said "Matt's Goulash."

  "You remember that?"

  He snorted, the corner of his mouth slanting up. "When you're a kid with a crush, you sorta make it a thing—consciously or not—to remember what they like."

  There was so much wrong with that sentence, I didn’t know where to begin. He dumped chopped bell peppers into the pot, and I leaned back against the counter, wondering what he meant.

  "Kid with a crush?"

  He pointed a wooden spoon at the cupboards. "Make yourself useful. We have a table and more kitchen shit now."

  I opened a cupboard to find a stack of new plates and glasses. He must've brought a lot with him; the cabinets were filled with more than the bare minimum.

  Behind me was a new fridge. I felt bad, thinking about him hauling it across the stream by himself.

  "Yeah, crush. I told you that already," he went on. "That I hated leaving you alone and whatever?"

  My brows knitted together as I carried two plates and utensils to the round dinner table he'd set up right outside the kitchen area. It looked brand new but not like anything mass-produced. Either he'd made it himself, or he'd bought it from a local woodworker.

  "Sorry, my memory…" It was my enemy. What was he telling me, though? "Actually, I—" It was blurry at best, but a few images filtered through. I'd been too focused on his admitting he was gay to bother with something about…strange dreams? Having thoughts he didn’t understand. My forehead creased, and I looked over at Kelly. "You didn’t say anything about a crush, did you?"

  "It was kinda implied." He shrugged it off and stared at the food he was preparing. "Anyway. You cleaned this shack up nicely."

  I should say something about the previous topic. I just didn’t know what. I finished setting the table, moving somewhat on autopilot once more, and I tried to conjure any thoughts on the revelation of the aforementioned crush.

  What was it…a kick in the head? Mere irony? Happy news?

  He'd carried a torch he denied and-or didn’t understand, and it changed absolutely nothing.

  Perhaps the silenced teenager in me would breathe a sigh of relief tomorrow, or any other day, learning he wasn’t so revolting, after all.

  "I should warn you," I said hesitantly. "My mood swings would make our old PE teacher look stable, and I'm numb at the moment. I can go from apathetic to panicking in a heartbeat."

  I wasn’t sure why sharing that bit of honesty came fairly effortlessly with Kelly, yet I fought to pretend a lot more around my family, always doing my best to put up a front.

  He chuckled. "Man, I haven't thought of her in ages. She assisted Coach during tryouts and drove me fucking bonkers with the forty-yard sprints." He carried over the food, and I appreciated he glossed over the heavier subject. Making it less of a big deal made it easier for me. "Dig in." He filled my plate way too much.

  "Thanks, but this is a bit much." I picked at the food. "I don't really get hungry."

  "You gotta fucking eat, sunshine. Buck up."

  Of course, he was right, and I couldn’t keep doing this. I was a grown man. Knowing my limitations, I retrieved my phone to log in some reminders for everyday tasks that didn’t come easily anymore.

  Four… I grimaced. Three meals. No need to get too ambitious. Shower, brush teeth, take meds. I set reminders for all of it while Kelly wolfed down his meal.

  I plucked bits of a roll and dipped it into the goulash.

  "Where's Matthew?" I wondered.

  Kelly took a swallow of his milk. "He got a job at the ice cream shop by the marina, so my boy's a working man today." There was pride in his voice. It made me smile, if only a little, and I remembere
d that feeling. When Brady came home one day to tell us about his first job, I was ecstatic as a father. "He'll call when he's decided where he's spending the night. I'm guessing Big is more appealing than helping his old man paint."

  "Is that what we're doing today?" I looked around to see if there were other changes. I was horrible at noticing new things, and I'd missed plenty. There was a coffee table too, a new ladder to the loft, and a few boxes by the door.

  Kelly nodded. "I borrowed a pressure washer from the camp, so I got that taken care of while you were slumbering. If the weather's okay, we can paint the cabin tomorrow. In the meantime, we'll do the loft."

  Damn. "I haven't gotten around to cleaning up there yet."

  He smirked lazily and leaned back in his seat. "No, that would be weird without a ladder."

  Bastard.

  "Touché," I conceded. "Let me know if there's anything I can do outside. Some fresh air wouldn’t kill me, I suppose."

  "You got it." He reached for another roll and cleared his throat. "So the ice cream shop. I was thinking about it earlier—just wondering…" He was fumbling, which was unlike him. "It's right across the street from your parents. They still around?"

  I shook my head, swallowing against nausea as some food went down. "They moved closer to my brother when they retired. They're in Phoenix."

  I didn’t speak to either of them very often. My father was of the generation where depression was something you snapped out of, and my mother didn’t understand how I could be so down when I had so much to be thankful for. It was easier to gloss things over there, too.

  Chapter 10

  Kelly Oakley

  Matt requested for his room to be painted gray, so once I was finished with the first coat, I descended the ladder to get some coffee and check in on Will. The sun would be setting soon, but we'd gotten a lot done.

  I grinned into my mug, peering out the front-room window. Will was sweating his ass off, pushing the lawn mower along the slope by the stream. His mouth formed curses whenever he had to detour around a rock.

  It put me in a good mood to watch him like this. He could easily call it a day and throw himself on the bed; he'd done it before. Instead, he was trying.

  Wanting some music, I unpacked the cheap docking station I'd found and was about to hook up my phone to it when I received an expected text from Matt.

  Jessica and Brady invited me to the bonfire on the big island. Can I sleep there?

  So it was Jessica now, too. The boy was making friends.

  I responded, saying he could, and then I found a playlist of music that brought me back to my own summers on Chinook. There wasn’t much I could do upstairs until the paint was dry, so I stepped out onto the porch with a bottle of water for Will.

  "Will!" I called.

  He looked up and killed the engine, wiping his face on his way up to the cabin.

  I tossed him the water.

  "Thanks." He breathed heavily and chugged half the bottle, which I had to admit was goddamn hot. "How's it going upstairs?"

  "I think I'll have to do the rest tomorrow." It would be too late by the time I could do the second coat, and I couldn’t stain the floor until after the painting was done. "You regretting offering to mow the lawn?"

  He smiled and wiped his forehead again. "I regret saving the worst for last. I thought the freezer would be the heaviest."

  From the looks of it, he'd covered most of the property, and that left him with the difficult bit along the stream and trimming the grass around the cabin. Yeah, the worst part, no doubt.

  "I can do it if you make dinner," I said.

  A song by Twisted Sister came on, and Will smirked, making me wonder if it was the same memory that came to both of us. Ironically, it was related to food. There'd been a cook-off one summer, and I had stupidly left him in charge of the grill while I headbanged to glam metal and wowed the fellow campers with jokes.

  We'd lost that contest and ended up with two pieces of charcoal.

  "Does the ability to cook improve with age like magic?" he asked.

  I scratched my nose and shook my head, amused as fuck.

  "Then it's safest if I do the lawn," he finished.

  Probably.

  *

  Will hadn't touched many of the groceries we'd brought on Monday, which bothered me. I hoped his new schedule with alerts would fix that. In the meantime, I got to pack two homemade pizzas with shit that was about to expire.

  We ate at the table after we'd showered off the day, and Will helped me go through flyers and the Camassia Courier for garage sales. I'd ordered some stuff already, and he would sign off on a few deliveries next week, but I needed more furniture, especially for Matt.

  "There's one at least every day in the Valley during the summer." Will bit into a slice and slid the paper my way. He'd circled several ads. "If you don't mind the company, I can go with you when you have time off the island."

  "That would be great." I nodded and added my own list of sales I'd found. "The counselors don’t start bringing kids over until after lunch some days. We could meet up for breakfast."

  "Sounds good." Except, the second those words left him, I could tell something drained out of him. Having been there, to a degree, I guessed it was energy. The day was catching up to him. He lowered his gaze to his plate and appeared to be unable to eat another bite.

  At least he'd managed two slices.

  I leaned back, studying him. "Be honest, Will. What do you want right now?"

  He gave me a brief frown of confusion, only to look down again and clench his jaw. "What do you mean?"

  "Try again." I shook my head. "This is me. I'm not your wife that you feel you gotta please. What do you need right this second?"

  He sighed heavily, and when he turned his head to look toward the couch—or the windows—I saw his eyes were welling up.

  "Privacy," he said, clearing his throat. "For a second, I forgot I don't make plans anymore. It felt normal, deciding to meet up…" He trailed off, gazing at nothing. "Then I remembered I'm a shell of a man and cry at fucking nothing." Anger and embarrassment rolled off of him, and I decided to give him a minute as he stood up and left the table.

  I blew out a breath and ran a hand through my hair, wondering if I should follow. Fuck the macho bullshit about getting your shit together in private. We were more than that.

  "Here?" I smacked my hand on the big, fat tree and pulled out the knife from my pocket. "It has to be deep."

  "It's gonna take hours." Will helped me remove moss that was in the way, and I started carving. "Won't your mom be mad that you took the knife?"

  I shrugged, almost slipping. "I gotta concentrate, Will."

  We'd returned to that spot for a week to carve our initials and "Best Buds Forever" into the ancient ponderosa pine. We were ten years old and clueless about the future.

  "It's done!" Will turned to me with a huge grin, and we high-fived each other. "When my cousin did this with her best friend, they pinky swore. But they're girls. We should do something cooler, right?"

  "Yeah." I refolded the knife. "Alex bumps fists with his buds. Like this." I held out my fist, and Will met it with his. "There. We promise to be best friends forever."

  "Yeah, forever." He nodded. "It's my turn to be cowboy now."

  Fuck this. I pushed back my chair and opened a cabinet where I kept a bottle of bourbon. Along with two glasses, I made my way to the bedroom and gave the door a firm knock before I entered.

  Will was sitting on the edge of the bed, his face in his hands, and his shoulders were shaking. He didn’t say anything, though he knew I was here.

  I set the drinks on the floor and took a seat next to him. To hell with boundaries, I wrapped an arm around his shoulders and hugged him to me.

  "You've got this, Will." I pressed my lips to the side of his head and tightened the hug when he took ahold of my arm. "One little step at a time, yeah?"

  "I apologize, I can’t control—" He was gonna start explaining
himself—gut feeling—and I shut it down.

  "Hey. Fuck it." I began rubbing his back soothingly, staying close, fucking needing it for myself, too. "You don’t have to explain anything. I just want you to be at ease here. Like I told you. Whether you sleep or work, it's supposed to be a break."

  He shuddered and wiped at his cheeks, head hanging low. "I'm so fed up with feeling weak."

  "I know." Sadly, I also knew it would mean fuck-all if I said I didn’t see him as weak. It was a hellish pit to climb out of, an ascent he had to make on his own. "You'll make it, though."

  "How can you know?"

  I could paint a bullshit picture about how his children were going to help him fight. I could mention the kids he worked with, his wife, anyone—but it would be just that, bullshit. Depression didn’t work that way.

  Will was a man of science, to boot.

  "When was the last time you had your meds adjusted?" I stroked his hair. "If you've been on them long term already, maybe you need a higher dosage?"

  He sniffled and straightened a bit, rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. "My therapist mentioned that already. I suppose I should try. I've been on Prozac for years, and—" He coughed into his fist and took a calming breath. My hand fell, and he eased away to regroup. "When this last bout set in, we focused on reducing stress. I admit, I was working too much there for a while."

  I wasn’t surprised.

  "I wasn’t practicing what I preached at work," he went on quietly, staring at his hands that rested in his lap. Palms up, long fingers. No ring. "During one session, I guess I was venting about a student I work with—she suffers from depression as well—and I was frustrated with her parents for believing the medication would take care of everything. On multiple occasions, I've explained to the parents that added stress can render antidepressants useless. It blocks the neurogenesis—" He waved a hand. "Long story short, it was when my therapist and I agreed I needed to take a step back for that very reason. My own treatment wasn’t effective because I kept leading a high-pressure life at work."

  He kinda lost me at…neuro…something, but my job was done for the moment. Will took a new approach and spoke from a scientific view. He knew this. He also knew it was going to take time before…oh, he said something about serotonin levels, cells and nerves in the brain—new connections, whatever. It didn’t happen overnight.