Fight for Me

by Corinne Michaels

  This is why I really shouldn’t be his friend.

  Because I will always want more.

  I feel so alone, and I need my best friend. “Ellie, there’s so much that I want to say … that I … can’t …”

  She places her hand on mine. “You don’t have to explain anything to me, Syd. I’m not stupid. I know that you love him and he loves you. It’s clear to anyone who has eyes, for that matter, but you’re leaving, and ... he’s bullheaded.”

  And I’m having a baby.

  I glance back over to him, but he’s turned so I can just make out his profile. He’s deep in conversation with Connor, and I wonder if it’s anything like this one.

  I turn back to Ellie who watches me with kindness. “I know, and one day, my heart will listen to everything my head is saying.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Declan

  My body is tight like a bow. The concert is great. After my tongue lashing from Connor about being a better man regarding Sydney, I pulled back and now I feel like I’m drowning.

  I’m standing on the other side of Connor and Ellie, working hard to focus on Emily Young’s voice and songs instead of how much prettier Sydney is.

  I fail at accomplishing this task.

  Instead of being lost in the lyrics of whatever horrible misfortune this country singer is telling, I watch Syd swaying gently to the music. Her blonde hair falls in waves down her back and reminds me of wheat in the wind, moving as though it can’t resist.

  I want to run my fingers through the silky strands and feel her body against mine, but that would be wrong on so many levels.

  Still, I move toward her, and then I hear my brother. “Don’t do it, Dec,” Connor says quietly as he holds Ellie protectively in front of him.

  My heart stops, and I stay in place. I can’t do it. He’s right. It would undo all the progress we made today.

  The lights go down and just a single spotlight stays on Emily. “I’d like to sing a song that you might know. I wrote it when I was head over heels in love with a man who wouldn’t make up his mind. Anyone know someone like that?” The crowd hoots and claps. “I thought you might. Anyway, I loved him, and I knew he loved me, but I couldn’t handle the pain of him rejecting me each time we got close.”

  Jesus.

  I want to flee, but my feet stay rooted.

  Emily laughs softly and then smiles. “Cooper and I got married about two years ago, in case you were wonderin’. So don’t give up on the right one, y’all. But don’t let him call you darlin’ if he ain’t going to stick around.”

  She starts to strum her guitar, and Sydney turns to me. The questions in her eyes as she moves to stand in front of me make me want to rip my heart from my chest because the ache is too great. Sydney doesn’t look at anyone else, and my resolve cracks. Every reason I’ve been clinging to fades away. “Do you want to dance?”

  She nods.

  I hear my brother make a noise and pretend I didn’t. She said yes, and I’m going to cling to that.

  Here might be the last time I ever get to hold her in my arms, and I’m going to take it.

  “I love this song.”

  I love you.

  “Why is that?” I ask.

  Her arms move to my chest, and I wonder if she can feel the pounding of my heart. My nerves are bowstrings, being pulled taut before the arrow is ready to fly. Everything inside of me is strained, but I keep it together.

  Sydney and I move, the world falling away as it always does when I am with her. Gone is the hurt of my past, the uncertainty of my present, and the regret of the future ahead. Right now, I have her.

  She’s here, in my arms, where she’s meant to be.

  I don’t care if the sky lights on fire because she’s all I see.

  “Listen to her.” Sydney’s voice is quiet and pensive. “Listen to her talk about him giving up and her asking him to stay.”

  And I do. I hear the words, and I swear that she’s singing to us.

  “Don’t tell me it’s too late,” Emily croons.

  “I won’t give up that easy.

  Don’t call me darlin’ and tell me that you’re leavin’.

  Don’t walk away.

  Stop pushing me when you know you want to hold on.

  It could be so easy for us, baby.

  I’ve been here, but you don’t see me.

  Don’t let go if you’re not ready for me to walk away.” The acoustic guitar takes over as her voice drifts off.

  “Syd,” I say her name as both a plea to let go and hold on.

  Her hands grip my shirt tighter. “Don’t. Don’t let go. Don’t push me away.”

  I see the tears in her eyes. I don’t want to push her away. I want to hold her close, kiss her senseless, and love her until she knows it in every fiber of her being that she’s everything I want.

  I see her. I feel her. I know her in my bones, but I won’t be able to be who she needs.

  No matter how much I wish it weren’t the case, I can’t give her the life she wants with a husband and babies. All I can offer her is a friendship that has an expiration date because once my six-months is up and she has moved, I know I won’t allow myself to see her again.

  The song ends, and the two of us stop moving, just watching the other.

  The spell that was surrounding us seems to break and awareness fills her gaze. Her fingers loosen and drop from where they had been clutching my shirt and she takes a step back.

  The loss of her is felt everywhere. My heart doesn’t seem to beat as strongly, the cold hits my chest, making it hard to breathe, and the emptiness from her loss leaves me weak.

  For those minutes I held her, the world made sense. And now ... I need to leave.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Sydney

  “Where did Declan go?” I ask Connor. He said he had to go to the bathroom, but it’s been twenty minutes, and I’m beginning to wonder if he decided to just leave.

  I grab the blanket and wrap it around myself, feeling the night chill. While I’ve felt this way since he let me go after the dance, I prefer to blame the weather.

  “I don’t know, probably to get his head on straight after whatever the hell just happened.”

  I look at him, trying to decipher the meaning of it. He sounds angry or maybe disappointed.

  “What has you upset?”

  “Him. I specifically told him to let you be unless he was going to give you what you deserve.”

  “And what do I deserve, Connor?” Now, I’m pissed. “You have no right.”

  “The hell I don’t.” He throws his hands up. “You think I don’t love you like a sister? Your friendship with Ellie and your relationship with Hadley is everything to us. My brother promised me that he wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize our lives here, and not a week after he shows up, you decide you’re fucking moving. I’m not dumb enough to think it’s a coincidence.”

  I take each of his statements and break them down. Connor is acting like a big brother, which is sweet, if not a bit late, and he doesn’t have all the information. Also, he needs to stop it. If Declan and I want to make a million mistakes, then that’s what we’ll do, he can’t prevent it.

  “I went to him when that song played. I went to him because I needed him. I know your heart is in the right place, and I love you for it, Duckie, but I love him. I always have. The two of us are grown-ups, and we need to figure out how to be around each other without being at one another’s throats.”

  Ellie places her hand on his arm and then shakes her head. “We just don’t want to see either of you hurt. It’s hard on him being back here and facing the things that have haunted him in his past.”

  Things like his family and me. I know all this.

  Connor pulls Ellie into his arms and then takes a drink.

  “Were you guys fighting before?” I ask, remembering them when they went to get a drink.

  “No, but we were talking ... forcefully.”

  Ellie releases a d
eep sigh. “Can you stop riding him so hard?”

  “I’m not riding him,” Connor says with exasperation in his voice. “I’m not going to lie to him. If he asks my opinion, I’m going to give it to him.”

  Declan isn’t one to run away from conflict, but I can’t imagine it’s easy for him to be chastised by his brother. I look out toward the field and see something moving in the direction of where my land is. I don’t know why, but I know it’s him.

  “I’m going to see if he’s okay.”

  Connor puts his hand on my shoulder to stop me. “Syd.”

  “I know him better than you do, Connor. It’ll be fine.”

  “I just ...”

  Ellie grips his wrist. “Let her go. It’s late, and we’re all tired.” Then she turns to me. “Will you call me tomorrow or if you need me?”

  “Of course.” I lean in and kiss her cheek and then Connor’s. “I love you both, but this is our battle to fight. If Declan and I can’t figure this out, then we have bigger problems than Duckie giving his opinion a little too freely.”

  With that, I head over to where I saw someone last. It’s dark, but the moon is bright and the stars above are so beautiful. I love the night sky. It’s filled with so much wonder and a vast unknown. I fixate on the star I want to make a wish on—like I’ve done so many other nights—and hope this time it’ll come true.

  Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, make my wish come true tonight. I hope that Declan and I can find a way through the future. I hope you can heal him enough to love our child and be the father I know he can be ... if he lets himself.

  As I move through the field, the sounds of the countryside fill my ears. There are crickets chirping, and in the distance, an owl hoots. As I move deeper, the creek that runs along our two property lines and the frogs that call the water home add themselves to the symphony.

  I love how nature is never silent. I never feel alone when I’m out here.

  The music that had been roaring in the background has faded to a muted hum. I don’t know where he went, it’s hundreds of acres between his farm and mine, and he could be anywhere, but I keep walking.

  I take a deep breath and focus, trying to feel more than think.

  After another fifteen minutes of letting my heart lead my steps, I see him.

  Declan’s back is to me, and his chin is down to his chest as though he’s praying. I make my way there, knowing this could backfire but also believing in my heart that being alone isn’t what he needs right now.

  He stiffens, and I continue forward.

  “You shouldn’t have followed me.” His voice is low, and he doesn’t turn.

  “You shouldn’t have left.”

  I hear the breath release through his nose as I come to a stop beside him.

  This place means something to all the brothers. It’s where their mother rests.

  “Did you make sure this place was taken care of for her?”

  I shake my head. While I made it a point to come out and check on the sights, my care was never needed. “No, I never had to. Your father took care of it after you all left.”

  We both fall silent. There were so many nights I met Declan out here as he dealt with his loss. So many times he wanted the solace of being close to the woman who loved him with her whole heart. She was why he fought for his brothers. The promises he made her as she died were what fueled him to take blow after blow from his father.

  As much as the abandonment I felt from my own father hurt, I couldn’t imagine what he endured.

  To face his father and know it would end in bruises and cruelness no one deserved broke my heart as a kid as much as it breaks my heart as an adult.

  I would do anything to go back in time and do something to save him. I kept his secrets after he begged me to. He was so sure they’d take him and his brothers away, separate them, and that would’ve been more than he could bear. I never knew if I did the right thing, but then, the idea of losing him was enough to make me want to stay quiet, and for what?

  It broke him, and it destroyed us.

  I failed him, and I lost us.

  Declan lifts his head to the sky and then finally speaks. “He loved her.”

  “He did.”

  His father, for all his faults, never let Elizabeth Arrowood’s final resting place crumble. Each time I came, thinking it might be overgrown, it wasn’t. The headstone is black with her name etched in white as though time stood still here. No matter how many years passed, this little patch of Arrowood land has been maintained. The grass was always cut, and the flowers were rotated based on the season.

  In the eight years of their absence, this was the only place he took care of.

  “Did you come out often to check?”

  “Yes. I knew that even with you gone, you’d want her cared for.”

  I close my eyes, remembering how he would drag the push mower from my home to this spot. It’s equal distance from both our farms, but he kept it at my barn so his father could never take it from him as a punishment.

  We’d walk out here, and it would take him hours to ensure that everything was just right.

  “She loved him too,” Declan says after a moment.

  She loved everyone. There wasn’t a soul that Elizabeth met that she didn’t find the goodness in. Her heart was ten times too big for her body and was the epitome of what people should strive to be like.

  However, nothing came close to the love she had for her boys. No matter what, they came first. She fought through whatever she needed to in order to keep them safe, and everyone admired her for it.

  When she fell sick, it was as though the angels wept.

  “She would’ve wanted you to be free, Declan.”

  “How?”

  There’s so much beneath that one word. Years of hatred, self-doubt, and sadness for the things he’s endured. If I didn’t know his pain as well as I know my own, it would be so easy to hate him for breaking my heart.

  I’ve tried over the years to blame him wholly for walking away from me. There was so much effort put into wishing to see only my own struggles, but I always saw that Declan was struggling too. He had to be. Regardless of what we said that day, I knew him, and in my soul, I knew that whatever he was doing, he believed was right.

  Not that it eased my broken heart, but it made it so that I could stifle the pain.

  Without pause, I reach for his hand.

  He laces our fingers together, palms kissing as though it were always meant to be this way. Two souls whose fathers destroyed them, search for comfort in one another. Here, between us, I find the peace I’ve been without for years.

  I could tell him what he wants to hear, but I won’t. Not because I don’t want to console him, I do, but because I know there is no consolation because the pain is there.

  “He’s gone, Declan. He’s gone, and you’re not. There’s no answer to your question because the only man who could tell you—can’t. And ...” I pause, trying to think of the right way to say it. “And there’s nothing he could say that would ever make it okay. What he did to you, Sean, Jacob, and Connor was horrific and wrong and unforgivable. But she wouldn’t want you to live like this.”

  He finally meets my gaze, and even though I can’t see his eyes through the darkness, I feel him in my core.

  This is why I should’ve stayed away. This deep feeling of being exposed and open to him is what scares me.

  Declan squeezes my hand and then leans his head down. Our foreheads touch, and I can do nothing but breathe.

  “Why, Syd? Why after all this time?”

  My hands lift, resting on his chest, needing the feel of his heartbeat to anchor me to this earth. His question leaves me feeling as though I’m floating.

  Only, I don’t know what he’s asking.

  “Why what?”

  “Why do you make me feel this way? Why does being near you ...” His hands grip my hips, pulling me closer to him. “Why does it make me f
eel so lost and so found at the same time?”

  Maybe it’s the darkness and the dance we shared.

  Maybe it’s my insane pregnancy hormones.

  Maybe it’s because I want him more than anything but am too selfish to give him the easy road.

  All I want is him. Us. This closeness and understanding.

  “Because we’re still searching for what we lost.” Declan sucks in a breath. “I’ve been lonely and lost for a long time. I’ve waited and hoped for you to come back because I’ve needed you. Now that you have, I feel it even more. You were my best friend. My person. My heart and the other part of my soul.” My lip quivers, and I hate myself for saying this, but it’s in my heart. I can’t hold back anymore. “But you won’t give me you back, will you?”

  His heavy breathing flows between us, and the silence is all the confirmation I need. “Not because I don’t want you or because you aren’t everything I’ve ever wanted. I can’t give myself back to you because you’re the sun, stars, and the air I breathe. You’re everything, and I can never be more than the shell I am now.”

  I bring my hands up to his chest, needing him to really hear me just this once. “That’s where you’re wrong,” I say, feeling less brave than my voice sounds. “You just are too afraid to fight for me.”

  His fingertips brush against my lips. “This is me fighting for you. Go, Sydney. Go before we make a mistake we can’t undo.”

  Tears fill my vision, making his face blur away. They fall, cascading down my cheeks, and the pain of his rejection shreds me. “We could never be a mistake.”

  Declan wipes the tears from my cheeks and then takes a step back. “You and I both know what our future is. I’ll go back to New York, and you’re moving closer to your sister. Go, Syd.”

  And then I do what I should’ve done when I saw him standing here ... I walk away. Because there’s nothing I can do to change his mind, there is no hope for anything between us, and my heart can’t possibly endure another shot by an Arrowood.

  Chapter Nineteen