The Space In Between

by Melyssa Winchester

  He lied to me for weeks, and when our parents marry—which there’s no doubt they will—we’re going to be related.

  He’ll be my brother.

  “You need to go.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Chris…”

  “No, Emery. I don’t care what your mom thinks, what my dad is stupidly going to agree to because he loves her, or what any of these jackoffs here think. I am in love with you and nothing is going to change it. It’s infinite.”

  Snap.

  The snap. It means it’s starting. I can physically feel the cracks and breaks in my heart with every word he says. It won’t be long now until there’s nothing left.

  “I…Chris…I,”

  “What baby? You what?”

  Two roads. One where I admit how I really feel and tell him that I love him too. That it’s forever, never ending and like he said, infinite. Then the road I know deep down I need to travel despite my absolute hatred of it. The one where I push him away and do the right thing for my mom.

  “I can’t do this with you anymore. Our parents, they’re in love and I want them to be happy. I want us to be a family. What we have, it’s not as big as you think. It’s not. We need to end this before we make things even worse than they already are.”

  “Stop it!”

  “No, Christian.” I cry, tears forming and freely falling in rapid succession, the control I’d somehow been able to maintain, as cracked and as broken as what’s left of my heart. “We’re done. I don’t know how much clearer I can say it. This,” I point between us. “Can never happen again. It’s over.”

  “No! I refuse to believe that. You love me too. I can see it in your eyes even now. Why else would you be crying? You want this…us—as much as I do and if you would just listen, hear me out, we could make this work. It doesn’t have to end.”

  “I’m sorry, Christian. What we had, it was amazing. The stuff that the most beautiful songs are made of, but it’s over. Every song, even the ones that are the hardest to write eventually hits a time when no one is listening anymore. This is ours.”

  Moving quickly, before my words have a chance to resonate or he finds a way to respond and make me stay, I grab my portfolio off the desk and move around him, swinging the door back and running out, not stopping until I’m slamming my shoulder into the front doors of the school and heading out toward the parking lot.

  Continuing to run around the side of the building, my stomach churning and my face soaked with no sign of drying, I see the hedges lining the area surrounding the entrance and immediately drop to my knees in front of them, jamming my fingers down my throat, desperate to end the twisted feeling taking me over and finding peace as my lunch makes its way up and out.

  Purging not only the food from my system, but Christian too.

  Chapter Thirty

  Nicholas

  I first met Emily Brooks when my family moved from Toronto to Port Hope over the summer that predated my senior year of high school. So struck was I by her blonde waves, cold as ice blue eyes and lopsided smile that I made her my girlfriend not long after.

  No relationship born in high school is easy. While you’re there trying to survive the classes and the social order, doing everything you can to fit in, you’re also trying to breathe life into this delicate relationship with someone. A relationship that transcends all of those other things you’re supposed to be thinking about until it’s all you can focus on.

  Somehow, we survived it and she became Emily Cayne two years later.

  I’ve never been academically inclined, so when all other avenues seemed to fall away, in order to support myself, my new wife and a baby we found out quite soon after our marriage was on the way, I’d started looking into Police College. If I couldn’t make a difference doing something academically, I was going to take it to the streets.

  I just didn’t realize at the time how much of myself I would lose while climbing the ranks, and how much time I would lose with the wife I had a hard time picturing my life without.

  It was high school all over again, but on a much grander scale. And for a long time, just like we did as teens, we survived it. I was able to work enough hours to pay for her schooling without a whole lot of student debt haunting us, put food on our table, and even hire help after she had Christian so when we couldn’t be there, someone always was.

  My life with Emily wasn’t the kind of thing people write about, but it was ours and no matter how nine to five or bland it seemed to anyone on the outside looking in, it was perfect for me.

  At least it was until we got the call saying that her sore throat, headaches, nausea, fatigue and dizzy spells weren’t viral or bacterial infections the way we assumed. That it was lung cancer, brought on by the years of smoking she just couldn’t seem to break herself of.

  Everything changed after that.

  I saw this vibrant woman slowly turn into a broken down shell of herself. The fight never entirely left her of course, but as each day, month and year went by, you could see the life slowly draining from her eyes until the very end when there wasn’t much left there at all.

  Christian was young when it all happened, but not so young that he couldn’t grasp what was taking place. He knew deep down, even before we sat down and talked about it that she was dying, and that there was nothing we could do that the doctors hadn’t already tried to save her.

  He was the one with her when she finally said her goodbye to the world, our marriage, and the life we created, and it’s haunted him just as much as it’s haunted me ever since.

  We both stopped living that day and until I moved back to Toronto and saw Rosie again, I was sure it was the way we were destined to remain.

  Christian had pulled away the same as I did, choosing instead to mourn my love away from everyone’s eyes. My belief at the time being that I was doing the right thing for him and because of that, he crawled up deep inside himself to where there were days that he wouldn’t even speak at all.

  The closeness of family that we had, how we were with each other even when I was working and he was hanging with his friends, leaving Emily home missing us both, it all vanished when she left and neither one of us fought very hard to get it back.

  Meeting Rose and talking with her innocently over coffee, it was never supposed to be anything more than catching up with someone who so long ago impacted my life. I was supposed to walk away from her that day and go back to my job—my livelihood—and do what needed to be done for the city and my son. Never giving her a second thought.

  It didn’t turn out that way.

  Rose touched a part of me I thought was long dead, and now, six months later, she’s worked her magic on me until the workhorse I was before seems to have vanished altogether.

  Living under the loss of Emily, I’m still doing it. I feel that woman with every fiber of my being every single day, regardless of where I am or who I’m with, but since that chance meeting in the coffee shop, it’s not nearly as debilitating.

  I finally reached a place in my life where even though I still felt the loss of my wife, upon waking I was able to get up, do what needed to be done and feel as though I was living again.

  Rose helped bring about that change, which made the proposal over dinner the most natural thing in the world. I knew that the way I was feeling on a day to day, I wanted to keep for as long as possible.

  Losing Emily made me stop believing in forever, but it didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy what was left of my life with a person that understood and accepted it by my side.

  Except now, events have transpired that make me question whether or not I’ll be able to fulfill that want and have her by my side at all.

  Christian and Emery being together and experiencing young love for the first time in their lives, it’s a beautiful thing to witness. It brings to light those long ago feelings I experienced at seventeen, when much like my son, I fell in love for the first time. The wonder, joy and love I see on his face every day
since she came into his life, it’s like looking in a mirror.

  I don’t imagine being together in this day and age, with everything you do or say under a microscope and being posted about online, being easy for them. It wasn’t easy for us and we didn’t have things like social media and the internet to contend with.

  The love though, that’s easy.

  All it takes is one look at my son to see how he loves that girl so completely. How willing he is to give himself over completely to her, being who and what she needs, while still remaining true to himself and what his mother and I instilled in him.

  Christian is in love with Emery, the same way that I was with Emily.

  I can’t be the one to take that away from him, even if in the end, it costs me the happiness I’ve found with Rose.

  You can’t help who you love. Your heart doesn’t wake up and go through a list of things that it needs to adhere to before feeling something for someone. It doesn’t understand societal norms or prerequisites like race, religion or hell, like with us, whether or not there are people close to them venturing down the same path.

  It only knows that it likes the way it feels when it’s with the one that beats to match it.

  Love doesn’t judge. Love isn’t forceful. Love just is.

  I tried making Rose see all of this over the weekend. Tried making her look at things from my perspective. Thinking that maybe, if I could get her to see past the way it might look to the outside world, what these two kids are going through right now could be rectified, but nothing I said seemed to get through.

  Emery ignoring her and putting up this wall between them, one that I know for a fact they’ve never had, hurts her. She is feeling the effects of it, but where she could at least try and understand her daughter’s point of view, or even mine, she has a wall built up that prevents her from doing it.

  Rose Carmichael is a good mother. She has done right by that girl every chance she gets, but I can’t help feeling that the Rose I’ve come to know, isn’t the same one that’s here now.

  As much as I love her and as much as I want this to work between us, I’m afraid that if something doesn’t give soon, I’m going to have to make a decision that in the end doesn’t just affect her and I, but also our children.

  If I have to choose between standing beside my son and fighting for his long term happiness or experiencing my own, the choice is clear. Christian will always come first.

  I spent too long pushing that boy away, believing he was better off not shouldering my pain on top of his own, effectively taking away the father he needed and replacing him with a guy that just did what he had to in order to survive.

  It’s way past time for that to change.

  Christian deserves to be happy and I’m determined to do whatever it takes to make it happen.

  Even if it costs me Rose in the process.

  Christian

  “Can’t you see that they’re suffering? Or have you really let your fear of everyone else’s judgment completely cloud your own?”

  “Don’t be absurd, Nick. Of course I can see how they’re reacting to this. I just believe it’s to be expected.”

  “None of this is expected, Rosie. It would be one thing if we were forcing them to accept the fact that we’re getting married and they were totally against it, but that’s not the issue here. What we’re forcing them to do is end something that has been nothing but beneficial for them, and for no good reason!”

  They’ve been going at it like this for well over an hour now and neither one of them is backing down. Looks like the honeymoon is over for these two and they’ve got no one to blame but themselves.

  Even if what they’re raising their voices and disagreeing about is my relationship with Emery.

  Or as of a couple weeks ago, my lack of one.

  They don’t know about that, though. I haven’t come out of my room long enough to fill them in, other than going to school, and honestly with the way they’re already at each other’s throats, I’m not exactly itching to tell them.

  This would probably be music to Rose’s ears anyway.

  In a sick, semi-perverse kind of way, I’m glad they’re fighting because as long as they’re going at each other, they can’t be knocking on my door and trying to do the same with me. It also helps because the louder they are, the more they block out the ache I’ve been dealing with since she walked away from me. For one second, I can think about something other than the tears streaming down her face as she said goodbye and put my energy into something else.

  Watching our parent’s crash and burn the same way we did.

  “Do you not recall the conversations we had about what you wanted for us as a family if our relationship every progressed to that point? Sitting in this very apartment and telling me that you wanted to one day adopt Emery? How honored you would be if she took your last name?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Then I’ve made my point. She can’t very well take your name and carry on with Christian, can she? How’s it going to look when Emery Cayne is caught kissing Christian Cayne? Surely you can see how that might cause some issues?”

  “Issues that until a month ago didn’t even exist because we weren’t aware the two of them were dating. And ones, now that we are aware, still don’t matter. The only two people that should care about how it looks are Emery and Christian. If being together is what makes them happy, then whether she’s a Carmichael or a Cayne, I’m going to support it. All that matters to me is their happiness. Why is this so hard for you to wrap your head around?”

  I had no idea that my dad had suggested taking Emery on as his own. He seems like the type of guy to want to do everything he can for her, especially with the way he’s been with me, but to want to adopt her, change her name and make her his legally, I had no clue.

  And despite the fact that I agree with Rose about how strange it might be having two Cayne’s together, it makes me love and respect the man even more.

  He really would have made Emery’s wish come true.

  We haven’t really had the chance to sit down alone together since the insanity over dinner weeks ago, mainly because I’m doing everything in my power to avoid everyone and everything, but I get the feeling that even though it might not be the most ideal situation, and he probably wishes it weren’t happening to him, he does understand that ultimately this is about love, not image.

  I couldn’t care less about the way the world will look at us. I don’t even care if it makes us lose the friends we do have because they think it’s gross. All I care about is having that beautiful girl that bowled me over the first day of school by my side and in my arms for as long as I’m allowed to have her.

  All that matters is Emery.

  I just wish I could make her see that, but of course, I had to go ahead and ruin it by not giving her time to process and now I’m left completely alone without her.

  “Rosie, twenty plus years ago this could have been us. You were the quiet girl who would rather be off on her own with her head stuck in a book then caught dead interacting with people, and I was the sports star on the fast track to whatever pro team I wanted. The same could be said about people and their judgments back then too.”

  “As I recall, your father wasn’t getting ready to marry my mother.”

  “No, but if I had acted on my curiosity about you, people would have judged the hell out of us anyway, and with the way you were back then, I don’t think you would have been as quick to write me off as you seem to be now with our children.”

  This seems to halt her. The first time in as many days of listening to the same regurgitated argument where Rose doesn’t have a comeback.

  Maybe there’s hope after all. Something tells me that if we can just get Rose to see that what’s going on here really isn’t the taboo it’s made out to be, then maybe I can take the fight to Emery and make her see it too.

  “None of this matters now anyway, Nick. Emery has made her decision. It’s the reason I
wanted to see you. I wanted to be the one to tell you before you caught wind of it some other way.”

  What decision?

  Did Emery tell her about our breakup or is this something else?

  “What do you mean Emery’s made her decision?”

  Leaning against my bedroom door, putting my ear as close to it as I can, praying to God that when Rose speaks again she does it as loud as before so I can hear, my breathing halts waiting for her to speak again.

  “She informed me this morning that for the rest of the school year, she’s going to be staying with my sister. She wanted to change schools, but I managed to talk her out of that because I don’t want her to jeopardize her year. With everything that’s happened and the trauma she’s been put through, she wants distance and after some intense debate, I’ve agreed to give it to her.”

  “You actually agreed to this?”

  “I didn’t exactly have much choice! She’ll be turning eighteen soon, and if I want to maintain a relationship with her under the circumstances, it means learning when to fight and when to step back. In this instance, I’ve chosen to step back. She needs this.”

  “That is the lamest excuse I’ve ever heard. Emery isn’t Christian. She is still seventeen, still a minor and completely dependent on you as her mother and guardian. Shipping her off to your sister because the situation isn’t exactly ideal isn’t the way to deal with this.”

  “Okay, well, since you wrote the book on parenting, why don’t you tell me what the right thing to do for my daughter is?”

  “Rosie, you know I’m not trying to tell you how to raise Emery. I would never do that. I just think that sending her away isn’t the right move, even if she thinks it’s the right thing for her.”

  “Then what is?”

  “Letting her live her life as she sees fit! From what I can see, she’s sitting at the top of her class academically, well on her way to being one hell of a photographer, and in a stable relationship with Christian. I don’t see any reason why she can’t continue to live her life this way if it’s not causing her problems.”