Forgive & Regret

by Kaitlyn Cross

  They parted with halfhearted smiles, remnants of tension lingering in the air like the smell of burnt toast.

  “Why don’t you get some sleep,” he said. “We’ll show you off at the bar tomorrow. Jenny is dying to see you.”

  Stella kissed him on the cheek and dragged herself upstairs, dreading the return to her bedroom which hadn’t changed since the night her heart turned to stone. Without flipping on a light, she shut the door, dropped onto the bed and let her mind run free. She saw Roman’s suit crumpled on the floor of his motel room and she didn’t regret it one bit. God, how he worshipped her last night. And that’s exactly what is was: Worship. She could still feel his lips kissing her stomach as if she were made of glass, opening her up like a flower. Some good old fashioned mindless sex was just what she needed, but this was different. The way he tended to her needs last night made her feel welcome and invited, like she belonged. A wistful breath left her lips. She hadn’t felt like that in a long time.

  Chapter Six

  FOUR YEARS AGO

  Sawyer kissed her gently and pulled away, teasing her with his full lips he knew she loved. “Are you sure about this, beautiful?”

  She stared into the golden eyes hovering above her like celestial planets, the love burning brighter in them than ever before. “I’m sure,” she breathed against his lips, pulling him to her mouth.

  Their tongues touched, shooting an electric current through them both.

  Stella broke their kiss to find his eyes. “Are you?”

  He smiled and kissed her on the forehead, the setting sun painting the room orange. “You are the other half of my heart,” he whispered, stirring the butterflies already tickling her insides. “I’ve never been so sure about anything in my entire life.”

  She tucked a strand of his chocolate colored hair behind an ear, studying one eye and then the other. “Me too.”

  The bed dipped between her legs and her body tensed when he gently entered her. Pain exploded behind her eyelids in a white blast of light and, for a split second, she wanted to push him away, to make him stop. But somewhere in that pain hid a slice of pleasure that, as time went on, would grow into a monster she could not control.

  Sawyer stilled, giving her time to adjust to his soft invasion. Intertwining his fingers in hers, he lifted her hands above her head. “Look at me,” he whispered.

  Stella did as he ordered, her heart throbbing with desire. She hooked a leg around his waist and took him in as he pushed in a little deeper. She gasped with the pain flashing down below. He felt so much bigger than he ever had in her mouth. Sawyer went slowly at first – out of consideration for her or lack of experience on his part she did not know. Overcome with feeling, Stella pressed her mouth to his and kissed him hard to keep from screaming. Her tongue flicked against his, spurring Sawyer’s hips to move quicker, each thrust knocking the wind from her lungs. Her shallow breathing left her dizzy, the look on his face making her want more.

  Sawyer cradled her cheek in his right hand, his warm breath rushing over her face. “I love you, babe.”

  Stella inhaled just enough for a short reply, head swimming in Sawyer’s world. “I love you.”

  He watched her face twist beneath him, taking pleasure in her restive response. The bed squeaked. A muffled grunt pushed through his lips. Her heart pounded as he emptied himself into the condom with pulsating bursts. She chased her breath, the room shaking, the dawn of a new age taking root. She was a woman now and quietly pledged herself to him forever. She was his and he was hers, and the thought of it brightened her eyes. When his muscles finally relaxed, she smiled at him, ignoring the soreness between her legs.

  He brushed hair from her face. “Are you okay?” he panted.

  She nodded, body trembling.

  An easy smile showed off his rows of white teeth. “I can’t believe we just did that.”

  An impish grin bent one corner of her mouth. “We did.”

  Sawyer stroked her hair, a fond look softening his eyes. “So…does this mean we’re going steady now?”

  She giggled and slapped his arm. “Jerk.”

  He wet his lips, lost in her eyes. “You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen and I can’t stop staring.”

  “I love you, Sawyer Campbell.”

  “I love you Stella Talvert.”

  She wrapped her legs around his back and basked in his glow, caressing his smoothly shaven cheek with the back of her fingers. “I’m so happy right now.”

  “Me too.”

  “I can’t wait to live with you this fall.”

  Sawyer kissed her lightly on the lips. “It’s going to be so much fun. Cornell is great for both of us.”

  “We should get a cat.”

  “More like a dog.”

  She laughed. It was easy when she felt this good. They would graduate high school next month and, before they knew it, would be sharing an apartment just off campus this fall. From there, it would be four short and blurry years until their dream jobs and new lives together in some big city. “We can have movie night every night if we want.”

  Her animation brought a glimmer to his eyes. “Or pizza night.”

  They stared at each other, smiles playing on their lips. and spoke as one. “Or both!”

  Sawyer’s smile slipped a little as his eyes drifted out over his bedroom. “Our parents are going to absolutely shit,” he said, slipping out from between her legs. “But we have all summer to worry about that. In fact, I say we tell them on our way out of town. Just to be safe.”

  She watched him grab his underwear from the floor and pull them on, her heart sinking. Last night, unable to contain her secret plans with Sawyer, Stella broke down and told her mom about Sawyer during movie night. Sarah’s reaction, to put it mildly, hadn’t been what Stella was expecting, and she dreaded telling Sawyer. “We might have to worry about it now,” she said, shrinking beneath the sheets.

  He looked up, jeans in his hands. “What do you mean?”

  She was about to tell him when he noticed her cell phone flashing on the dresser. He picked it up and stared at the screen, stalling her confession.

  “Damn, your dad and Jase have been blowing up your phone.”

  Frowning, Stella caught it when he tossed it. She flipped through some screens, shaking her head. “They’ve left like ten messages.”

  Slowly, they looked up to meet each other’s mystified gazes, the gray powder of dusk sprinkling over them as the sun set behind a distant hill. Her heart beat faster in her chest. Something was wrong. If she’d known that was the last time Sawyer’s eyes wouldn’t haunt her, she never would’ve left his room.

  Chapter Seven

  PRESENT

  Stella’s eyelids flipped back, breath caught in her throat. She sat up and managed a thin gasp to appease her racing heart while her eyes adjusted to the daylight brightening the room. She hated that dream and wished she could go back in time and run. Run from those goddamn missed calls and texts. Her sleepy gaze climbed the walls of her old room. It was mostly how she left it before leaving for college. She’d stayed here since over the years, but added little to the shelf of track trophies or the pin-board with her favorite pictures of days gone by. The walls were still the same fuchsia blue her father hated and the bed as white as fallen snow. She ran a finger across the top of her nightstand and smiled. Hank still dusted in here and, for some reason, it nearly made her cry.

  Before the past could catch up to her again, she showered and dressed in something that would make her look better than everyone else without seeming pretentious. In a freestanding mirror in the corner of the room, she admired the thin gray sweater and black skinny jeans, turning a high heeled boot on its toe. God, she missed the Amex she put those boots on.

  Downstairs, she found a note pinned to the new refrigerator with a Dallas Cowboys magnet she’d never seen before.

  Hi honey,

  Hope you slept well. Let’s catch up at the bar this afternoon.

  Bre
akfast in the fridge.

  Love you, Dad

  Stella crumpled the note in her hand and searched for the garbage, eventually discovering it hidden in its own sliding drawer next to the dishwasher. She shook her head and rifled through the fridge, finding a cheesy egg casserole with a note from Jenny welcoming her back home. Stella shut the fridge, grabbed a chocolate chip cookie and slipped out the front door. Cottage Grove was pretty in the spring, but all Stella saw were dark reminders of the life she used to have. The withered rose bushes, due to start budding at any moment, plucked at her heartstrings. Sarah loved those bushes and wouldn’t let anyone else touch them.

  In the car, Stella turned up the stereo and focused on the road, determined not to let this place overwhelm her all at once. It wasn’t near as bad visiting over the holidays and breaks when she knew she’d be leaving again. But now the ghosts had her cornered.

  There was nowhere to run.

  Nowhere to hide.

  Nonetheless, Stella buried the gas pedal.

  *****

  The signs of age beginning to show on her mother’s tombstone left Stella shuddering in a cold wind. Before she knew it, a decade would have passed. And then another, until the memories started showing their own signs of decay, and pictures and videos were all that remained. Stella closed her eyes against the wind and inhaled a deep breath through her nose, trying to reel her mind in before it slipped the line. A nearby patch of lilac trees mingled with the two bouquets clutched in her hands, flirting with her senses. She knelt in the greening grass as dark clouds turned Sarah’s marker into a cold gray that matched the day.

  Dead leaves rustled past and Stella wished she was anywhere but here. She shouldn’t be here. Neither of them should. “Hi mom,” she whispered, setting a red bouquet of roses down in front of the grave. “I’m back home again…for now.” Thorns from the yellow bouquet dug into her palm as she tried putting thoughts into words better off left unsaid. “Daddy changed the kitchen.” She smiled a little. “You would hate it. It’s way too modern.” Silence settled around her like the morning dew, dampening her thoughts. After a long moment, Stella got to her feet and walked away, saving what she really wanted to say for another time. Just like last year.

  The wind tugged at her hair as she planted her heels into the rolling hillside dotted with former residents of Cottage Grove. Gripping the roses tighter in her hand, she passed her grandparents’ grave on Hank’s side of the family and wondered if Sarah’s parents still hated him for bringing Sarah to this one horse town. Probably. Stella’s eyes snagged on her seventh grade history teacher’s grave. His lecture on Abraham Lincoln’s assassination whisked through her mind like the leaves at her feet. On the other side of the only cemetery in town, she stopped in front of Debbie’s headstone, the wind urging her to keep moving. Sawyer’s mom was a good woman who deserved better, another casualty in the line of love. Kneeling, Stella set the yellow roses at the foot of her grave, shivering as the wind pulled a teardrop from her eye.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, tightening her denim coat around the collar. “I wish I could have been here.” Stella could hear Debbie laugh before telling Stella she had her own problems to worry about. “I should have been here.”

  Stella shut her eyes, pushing another teardrop out and seeing Debbie’s smile whenever Stella knocked on Sawyer’s front door on a sunlit Saturday afternoon. “I miss the way things were so much it hurts.”

  This time, Debbie didn’t laugh. Instead, the internal voice sobered before asking a single favor of Stella. Stella nodded with a sniffle, blurring the marker into a blob. “I will; I promise. He’s not alone.” A lone goose honked overhead and Stella looked up to see the sun peek out from a hole in the clouds. Warm rays of sunshine fell on her face as she fought back the tears. “I will always love him, but…” she trailed off, everything fading into the background but the beating of her own heart.

  Ba-boom.

  Ba-boom.

  Ba-boom.

  Her eyes rose to the sunbeams gliding across the grass behind the grave, hairs bristling on the back of her neck. Slowly, she turned to find Sawyer on his knees behind her, their eyes meeting for the first time in nearly four years. The world stopped spinning. The leaves stopped dancing, and her heart stopped beating. Soundlessly, he swept her up into his arms and hugged her like he was saying goodbye. Stella buried her face in his neck and breathed him in, wondering if this was really happening. She drew back and studied his face, running a lazy finger down his strong jaw line, tracing a path she hadn’t wandered in some time. In a rush, she kissed him on the lips, sending an electric pulse sizzling through her. Their heads tipped this way and that, his dark scruff scratching at her neck in the most delicious way. The wind picked up and circled their bodies with leaves as Sawyer’s lips awoke something inside Stella thought was long dead and buried. A relic from the past she would never find with anyone else. His warm kiss breathed life into her once again, a flame stirring a little in the corner. She broke their kiss for air and searched his face for authenticity, tasting him on her lips.

  His chest rose and fell beneath his leather jacket. “Hey beautiful.”

  “I’m sorry,” she breathed, heart racing.

  He stared at her for a few seconds. “For what? My mom, or for breaking my heart?”

  A knot of guilt tightened in the pit of her stomach as she studied his handsome face in the moving sunlight. His long hair and smoothly shaven cheeks were a thing of the past, just like their relationship. “Both.”

  After a moment of silence bursting with tension, Sawyer helped Stella to her feet, the wind dashing between. “You look good.”

  When he let her go, she steadied herself against the dizziness swirling in her head, taking every inch of him in from top to bottom. The gangly Sawyer she fell in love with back in high school had filled out into a man. She inhaled sharply inside, not sure which suited his muscular frame better: The oily jeans or the black leather coat. Together they worked in perfect symmetry, offering up a new side of him that flamed her insides. The long brown locks she loved to pull on when he buried his head in her lap were now short and messy, like he hadn’t spent a single minute getting it to look so damn good. The aviator sunglasses hanging from his white v-neck oozed coolness and she bet that two-day scruff felt wonderful between her thighs.

  “So do you,” she replied, saving his eyes for last.

  His gaze rose over her shoulder to his mother’s grave. “I still can’t believe it. I feel like I’m trapped in a nightmare.”

  Stella hugged him again, sending a slideshow of memories flickering through her mind: Riding the wavy slide at the fair, running out of gas by the old Colby barn, and family dinners where their parents would get so drunk they never knew Stella and Sawyer were rounding second in an upstairs closet. She squeezed him tighter. Touching him was like touching an electric crystal ball, prickling her body with slivers of the past.

  Sawyer pulled away like she’d just sent a flood of bad memories rushing through him. His golden eyes narrowed, blocking her view into them. He opened his mouth but nothing came out.

  “So where have you been?” Stella asked, beating him to the punch. “What do you do? How long are back for?”

  He smiled and looked out over a small pond with geese and ducks paddling about, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “I never thought I’d be back here again.”

  When those eyes turned back to her, Stella shuddered and checked her watch. “I should get going; I’m supposed to meet Jase at the bar for lunch.”

  Sawyer’s lips pulled down at the corners. “Sounds like a plan. I’ll drive.”

  She followed his nod and her eyes got round. “Oh my God!” she gasped, wandering to his truck like a June bug to light. “It’s beautiful!”

  “Thanks, told you I’d do it,” Sawyer said, tossing one last look back at Debbie’s grave. “Took a few years but it turned out pretty nice.”

  “I love it!” Her eyes took in the metallic blu
e changing color in the sunlight, and the large knobby tires raising it off the ground. When he took her to see Twilight at the drive-in, his International Harvester Scout had been such a flat brown you could barely notice the mud and rust. He told her he loved her for the first time in this truck, parked out at the lake beneath a blanket of stars, strawberry milkshakes on their lips.

  Now the rust was gone and the shiny paint reflected the crooked tombstones jutting from the earth around them. Sawyer opened the passenger door and helped Stella up into a sleek bucket seat, her eyes wide with surprise. It looked like it just rolled off the assembly line in nineteen seventy-two. She breathed in the new car smell while running her fingers across the leather seat, a small part of her mourning the memories scrubbed clean – no different than her father’s kitchen. One day, there would be no trace of the past.

  And maybe that was for the best.

  They rode in silence to the bar with Stella sneaking peeks at him when his eyes were on the road and Sawyer doing the same when she pretended to gaze at the undulating hillside outside the window. The big tires hummed in her ears. His cologne quickened her pulse. It was like going back in time, a snapshot of the way things used to be. Before he could ask the question that, sooner or later, she knew he would ask, Stella pointed the conversation in the opposite direction.

  “Did you send me flowers?”

  He turned to her with downturned lips. “Flowers?”

  “Pink carnations to my dad’s house?”

  He gave her a sideways look. “No.”

  “Oh,” she said, examining his face while twisting her fingers over the seatbelt.

  Sawyer snorted. “Did you mix-up your boyfriends again?”

  “Shut up.”

  His short hair and strong jaw pulled at her attention. If you would have told the old Stella that Sawyer would end up looking like this, she would’ve died on the spot. It was really unfair and life’s a cruel bitch.