by Anthology
My heart.
His heart.
Sam’s heart.
Rolling over, I swipe my cellphone from the nightstand beside my bed and hit the unlock button, my eyes wincing as they adjust to the bright light illuminating in the pitch-black room. I click open the web browser app and my fingers move of their own accord against the keyboard as they type out the words ‘Eisenmenger Syndrome.’ The need to know more than the few details Sam shared with me this afternoon has me sitting up and resting my back against my headboard.
My eyes scan the numerous links that pop up in the search results and I click the top one, scanning and devouring every word. I continue through the list, reading article after article, eventually coming across one titled ‘Eisenmenger Syndrome In Pregnancy.’ Just like the ones before it, I’m immersed in paragraphs full of medical terminology and jargon, my head spinning as it tries to comprehend and make sense of it all, but the one thing abundantly clear are the risks. Sam had glossed over the details, failing to share the risky complications that came along with his mother’s pregnancy, blatantly ignoring the fact that his birth and his mother’s survival, were miracles all in themselves.
Closing out of the pages, I switch over to the small blue and white social media app, and stoop to a new level, typing Sam’s name in the ‘Find Friends’ field. My heart skips a beat as the results begin to load, his image the third one on the list. A moment’s hesitation has me closing my eyes and breathing slowly to steady the erratic pulse pumping beneath my skin, and before I can convince myself otherwise, talk myself back from the ledge of curiosity, I click on his profile.
Fluttering and out-of-control, a wave of butterflies lands in the pit of my stomach, and my eyes linger on the photo taking over my entire screen. Beneath the facade of happiness, beneath the smile that has my own lips tugging up at the corners, I see a world of heartache, I see a life full of guilt and regret. I see a man who may not realize it, but who is in need of just as much saving and healing as I am.
I see you, too, Sam.
I see you, too...
“MORNING, ADDY.”
“Morning, Sam. I’ll be right with you, dear. I just have a few orders to fill first.”
“Take your time.” I lift my hand and wave to her as I sit down at the small round table situated at the front of the shop; the same table Cassi and I had shared a little over two weeks ago. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”
“Don’t I know it,” she says, chuckling over her shoulder, her hands busy at work.
Grinning as a huff of laughter floats from my mouth, I unfold the daily paper and begin to scan through the news that has been deemed worthy of making the front page. Not much to read about, really, but then again nothing too exciting seems to happen in this small town. Losing interest, I lift my head, resting my chin on the top of my hands and stare out of the window beside me.
Usually, sitting at the front of the shop isn’t my first choice, or at least, it hasn’t been in the past, but for the last two weeks, I have found myself unconsciously navigating to this same spot. The large glass window provides a clear view of the street, and I can’t help but constantly glance out of it, hoping to catch sight of Cassi walking down the sidewalk, or better yet, into the coffee shop. I’ve had to train myself to ignore the continuous chiming of the bell over the door, a distraction I never used to pay mind to. Now, after meeting and speaking with Cassi, I struggle to resist the pull my eyes have to the small ring. Like a moth drawn to a flame, every time the door opens, my gaze seeks out the bodies passing through it, curious if she is one of them.
That morning we had spent together, I hadn’t wanted to walk away from her, and I secretly hoped she would make another appearance at the cafe, but as the days have passed with absolutely no sign of her, I’ve managed to convince myself that the connection I thought I felt between us was one not reciprocated. Resuming my life as though she had never entered it, has been my new challenge. A challenge I have had no choice but to accept.
Going back to reading the newspaper, I wait patiently for Addy to deliver my coffee, and smile as a steaming mug is set down in front of me, the hazelnut smell wafting to my nose.
“Hazelnut, right?”
My head snaps up at the familiar voice, and as my eyes collide with the soft brown ones staring down at me—a glimmer in them I have never seen before—I nearly knock the scalding drink right into my lap.
“Cassi, what—” I clear my throat of its dryness, trying hard to string together a coherent sentence as my hands grab at napkins in order to clean the liquid that has sloshed out of my cup. “What are you doing here?”
She looks away briefly, that full bottom lip of hers wedged between her teeth, and then shyly points down at the empty seat opposite of me. “Is anyone sitting here?”
I shake my head and hold my hand out, offering it to her. “No. Please, have a seat.”
Tossing me a beautiful smile, one that reveals those perfect, sexy dimples highlighting her cheeks, she moves to sit. “Thank you.”
There is a pause of silence that floats between us, and it takes that same amount of time before my mind processes the fact that she is here, sitting in front of me. “I didn’t think I’d see you again.”
Licking her lips and dropping her gaze to her hands, she fiddles with the rings on her fingers, spinning them around and around. “I didn't either, but then I kept thinking about our last talk and how much I enjoyed it… enjoyed your company, and I was kind of hoping maybe you enjoyed it too.” She lifts her head sheepishly, a nervous look in her eyes.
“Yeah.” My chest falls on a huff of air, and the corner of my lips lift as I nod my head. “Yeah, I did.”
“Okay.” Cheeks aflame and eyes flicking over the interior of the cafe, she shifts uncomfortably in her seat. “Forgive me, I'm not used to this.” She waves her hand, still not looking at me. “Socializing isn't something that has really been on the top of my priority list.”
A dry laugh slips from my lips. “It’s okay. I can’t say it’s been on mine either.” We sit quietly for a few seconds, and I stare at her, waiting for her eyes to reconnect with mine, and when they do, the question burning the tip of my tongue leaves me before I can stop it. “Do you want to get out of here?”
“What?”
I nod toward the window. “It’s beautiful out, and I was thinking we could spend it outside, if you’d like. I actually had plans of going to Brown’s Orchard and picking a pumpkin.”
“Pumpkin picking.” She looks at me incredulously. “You want to go pumpkin picking?”
“Yeah. Is there something wrong with that?”
“No. It’s just—” She shakes her head, ridding the thought. “Never mind. I’d love to go.”
“Okay. Right. Let’s go then.”
“SO, WHAT DO you do, Sam?”
I look over at Cassi as we navigate through the patches of pumpkins littering the damp ground, careful not to trip over any unsuspecting vines crunching beneath my boots. “What do I do?”
“Yeah.” She stops, squatting to her knees to inspect a pumpkin resting at her feet, and glances up at me from her position, her hand perched over her eyes to block out the brightness of the sun. “For work. You do work, don’t you?”
Hands shoved in my pockets, my fingers curled into fists, I hesitate. My lips part, but nothing comes out. It’s not that I am ashamed of my answer, but sharing this bit of information—being so open—it’s not something I'm used to doing. “No. I haven’t, actually. Not since the transplant.”
“Oh...” Deciding the pumpkin she is looking at isn’t the one, she drops it back onto its side and then straightens herself, brushing the dirt from her hands as she does so. “That makes sense.”
We continue to plod through the narrow trails where people have trampled the dirt and soil before us, and the cool air nipping at our faces serves as a reminder that autumn is now in full swing. “It’s not that I can’t, and my job before certainly wasn’t demanding.
I just… I’m kind of figuring out what I want to do. I hadn’t given it much thought before. And... well, now I kind of have a different outlook on things, I guess. Life’s too short to be stuck in a career that you don’t absolutely love.”
“How do you—”
“Get by?” I finish her question before she has a chance, and she gives me a subtle nod of her head. “My mother had set-up a trust fund for me when I was younger, and when she passed, I was granted full access to the account. It’s not that I have had to use it. And even now, I don’t use much. Only what I need, really.”
There are a few seconds of silence before she speaks, the direction she takes the conversation catching me a bit off guard. “Adam… he had a policy in place that I had no idea existed.”
“Were you married?”
She shakes her head—that sadness returning to her eyes—and smiles tightly. “No, but that was Adam: always thinking ahead, always being prepared, even when I wasn’t. He grew up in foster care. Family was a foreign concept to him before he met me and became a part of mine.”
I’m not sure what to say. Speaking with Cassi is like walking on a balancing rope, one wrong step and you're falling from the high, frantically searching for new solid ground. Stopping and turning toward her, I dip my chin so I can look in her eyes, and my heart clenches uncomfortably as I catch the glaze of tears coating them. It’s an expression on her I am becoming accustomed to seeing, but one that never gets easier to look at.
The words I know I need to say become stuck in my throat, and I try like hell to force them out. “I’m sorry, Cassi.”
Her lower lip begins to quiver, and she clamps her mouth shut in what I assume is an attempt to stop whatever emotion is building up inside of her.
I’m so sorry for—”
“Please don’t.” She pinches her eyes closed, breathing heavily through her nose and blowing it out through pursed lips. “I don’t want to do this. Not here. Not right now while we’re supposed to be picking pumpkins.”
Licking my lips, I nod understandingly, and my fingers—still hidden within the warmth of my coat pockets—curl tighter as I fight against the overwhelming urge to reach out and pull her to me. My heart is pounding under my ribs, begging me to hold her, but she’s not mine to hold.
“Okay.” I force my gaze from her face, and look at the array of pumpkins scattering the ground at our feet. Spotting a nearly perfect one in the distance, I gesture over to it. “How about that one over there?
She smiles again, the tears in her eyes glimmering from the sunlight shining directly on her face. “Perfect.”
PUSHING THE SHIFTER into park, I let the engine idle as we sit out front of Cassi’s house. After spending the entire day at the orchard, picking pumpkins and then later walking the corn maze, we carefully loaded our findings into the backseat of my car and started the return trip home. Aside from our tiny hiccup while talking about Adam, our conversations have been light-hearted and have flowed almost effortlessly. I’ve even managed to bring a smile to her face a time or two, and I’m discovering how much I love seeing it play across her lips. Getting her to reveal those dimples on her cheeks is a bit of a challenge, one that I am determined to conquer, repeatedly.
Reaching over to unbuckle her seatbelt, Cassi shifts in her seat to face me, her cheeks still red from the cool October air. “Thank you for today. I had a lot of fun.”
“You’re welcome. Do you mind if I walk you to your door?”
Her gaze briefly bounces between me and the front door of her house, and she shakes her head. “No, of course not.”
I turn off the car and fling open the door, my feet moving quickly as I round the back of the car and over to the passenger side where Cassi sits. Attempting to be a gentleman, I pull at the handle and watch as she steps out, before retrieving her pumpkin for her from the backseat. The sky is dusky overhead, the setting sun painting the horizon in vibrant shades of orange and pink, and as we walk step for step toward Cassi’s small front porch, that familiar weight settles in the pit of my stomach. Here I am, yet again, not wanting to leave her.
I don't want to walk away.
Our feet come to a stop on the worn out welcome mat, and as Cassi takes her keys from her purse, unlocking her front door, I watch her shoulders visibly tense. Perhaps she is dreading this as much as I am?
Swiveling on her heels, she lifts her head and gifts me a gentle smile, collecting her pumpkin from my hands and setting it down beside her feet.
My brows knit, and my immediate thought floats from my mouth. “Are you not going to carve that?”
Her gaze jumps back to mine, and she chuckles. “God no. I think I’ll do it more justice by letting it sit there fully intact.”
I stare at her, my eyes wide and brows raised. “Seriously.”
“What?”
“You spend all afternoon, searching for the perfect pumpkin, only to leave it sitting beside your front door, uncarved. Now that, Cassi, is injustice.”
She shrugs, crossing her arms over her chest and giving me an ambivalent response. “Aren’t we a bit old to be carving pumpkins?”
“A bit old? Hell no, we aren’t.”
Pinching her lips tight, she drops her head forward, laughing and giving it a little shake before lifting it again. “So, would you like to stay and help me carve it?”
Her question nearly knocks me off balance, and the unsure, but hopeful look in her eyes steals my breath right from my lungs. There is a lapse of time spent in complete silence before my brain kick starts. “Yeah… yeah, I would.”
“Okay, then.” She moves to pick the pumpkin back up, but I beat her to it, hauling it into my arms, and as she pushes her door open, she waves me inside.
A nervous feeling swirls in my stomach as I step foot into her house, my eyes taking in the warm space. Dark, hard wood floors meet gray painted walls, and the bright, white loveseat and white shag rug in the center of the living room reinforce the fact there are no kids roaming about. A white-washed brick fireplace occupies the wall opposite the couch, and a large flat screen television hangs above it. The open floor plan leads the way to a galley style kitchen located just beyond her couch, featuring black granite countertops and stainless steel appliances.
“You can just set it on the counter.” She lifts her chin toward the center island and shrugs her coat from her shoulders, hanging it up on the coat rack located beside the door. “Are you hungry? I may have a frozen pepperoni pizza I can toss in the oven while we carve this thing.”
“That sounds good.” Setting the pumpkin down, I unzip my jacket and pull it off, walking back over to the rack and hanging it up with Cassi’s. I briefly glance down, adjusting the collar on my shirt and making sure no buttons have come undone, before rejoining her in the kitchen.
After retrieving the pizza from the freezer and pre-heating the oven, she begins to rifle through the cabinet drawers, holding up three different knives for my viewing. “Will any of these work?”
“Yep. Perfect.”
“Oh good, because they are the only three I own.” She grins at me, a sincere, full-of-life kind of grin, and I can’t help the laughter that bubbles from my chest.
“I’m beginning to wonder how you survive, Miss Porter.”
As soon as the words leave my mouth, I want to take them back. An air full of tension immediately sweeps in, and the smile on Cassi’s face slips as her eyes fill with that familiar emotion.
“One day at a time.”
Her lips pull tight as her response hits me like a fistful of daggers to the chest, and it takes a moment for us both to recover from their impact. It is within this moment that I realize just how much hurt this woman is still harboring. Grief is an emotion we all process differently; I know this. I have my own world of shit I’m working through, but her smile, the one that makes my heart beat faster and my pulse race, it’s too beautiful to not exist.
The beeping of the oven brings me out of my thoughts, and before I have a chance to
say anything, Cassi is turning around again, her back facing me as she unwraps the frozen pizza from its cellophane and places it on the metal rack. Grabbing out a plastic grocery bag, a flat baking sheet, a bowl, and a large container of salt, she crosses the distance between us and sits down on the stool next to me.
As she begins to carve the knife around the stem of the pumpkin, I look at her, allowing my gaze to roll over every inch of her flawless face, from her fair complexion and the sprinkling of freckles dusting her nose and cheeks, down to her full pink lips and the gentle curves of her jaw. Her attention is focused on the work her hands are performing, but the only thing I can focus on is her.
She’s absolutely stunning.
“Do I have something on my face that I don’t know about?”
A flush of embarrassment creeps onto my cheeks, and I quickly peel my gaze off of her, moving my attention to her hands that are now scooping the seeds from the inside of the pumpkin. I swallow down the thickness in my throat. “No. I just—” Shit. “I’m sorry.”
She doesn’t say anything, and I’m not sure what is more unnerving: her silence or the fact that she caught me blatantly staring.
“Do you mind washing the seeds clean for me? That way we can roast them as soon as the pizza is done.”
“Yeah, of course.” I practically jump from my seat, picking up the bowl from the counter and walking over to the double, stainless-steel sink. I’m nearly finished cleaning the pulp from the seeds when I hear Cassi hiss from behind me and the sharp sound of metal clattering against the counter.
“Son of a—”
I’m turning around before my brain registers that I am, and the sight of blood trickling down her finger has me immediately pulling a paper towel from the roll and hurrying over to her.
