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I couldn’t hold on, my legs gave out, my feet lost traction, and I slipped into the blinding light, into the shimmery, star-studded void where my soul took flight and our love felt everlasting, my moan a serenade to goodbye.
Reed followed with a final thrust, gripping me with a ferocity that felt powerful enough to keep us together. He buried his face against my neck, kissing the delicate skin as he unraveled, meeting me in that eternal place where time stopped and everything else evaporated into fog.
Tears flooded me.
I sobbed beneath him, spent and sucked dry. He gathered me in his arms and held me through the heartbreak, shushing my tears with kisses and gentle words.
It wasn’t enough.
It will have to be enough.
The following moments were a blur as we untangled and slipped back into our clothes, my loveless future dangling in the bleak chasm between us. There was nothing left to say.
It was time to go.
As I trudged over to his front door with a knot in my throat and my eyes bone-dry, he called out to me before I walked out of his life.
“Do you think you can someday?”
I hesitated, my hand loosely curled around the doorknob. Glancing over my shoulder, tear stains burned lines down my cheeks as I breathed out, “Can I what?”
Reed swallowed, the gesture causing his lips to tremble, his eyes to water. “Love again.”
I closed my eyes and imagined the future I’d always wanted: a man to love, a house that felt like a home, children laughing and playing at my feet while I cooked dinner. An idyllic, wholesome life I knew I deserved.
A life with a man who wasn’t Reed.
Lowering my head, I twisted the knob and yanked open the door.
I gave him my final words.
I offered him the only truth I could pull from the tangled threads of my heart.
“As much as a girl can love the next best thing.”
CHAPTER 33
Depression had carved a black-tar tunnel through my insides. Bleakness oozed. Misery prevailed. I’d only lived in this apartment with Tara for a few weeks, and now I was packing up still-cluttered boxes with everything I would need to start anew, hundreds of miles away.
But, I supposed the last few weeks between these drab white walls had still felt more substantial than it’d ever felt living in my childhood home. So, I was making progress.
Tara whizzed by me, eating a bowl of oatmeal, as I sat cross-legged in the middle of the living room. I could hardly lift my head to glance at her. Everything was difficult. Even tiny, inconsequential gestures. A smile, a wave, a look that sparkled instead of dulled.
She came to a stop, standing over me as she licked the back of the spoon. “Did you give your notice to the banquet hall?”
Nodding, I stuffed clothing into the shoddy cardboard, uncaring that my carefully folded items had already unraveled. “I gave Monique my two-weeks.”
“How did she take the news?”
“Monique has two emotions: overly enthusiastic and firecracker-mad. Thankfully, she was the former.”
Tara frowned. “She’s glad you’re leaving?”
“No, but I told her I was going to start up my own photography business in South Carolina. So she’s happy for me.” It wasn’t a lie, but it was a hopeful exaggeration. I’d be lucky if I left my bed for weeks, let alone prioritized new business ventures.
But…someday.
Someday I’d start living again.