Page 89 of Broken Pieces
She swears into the phone, “Wait like together they did?”
“Ugh, yeah. Talk about awkward.”
“Oh, this is getting juicy. I need to get to a bar and get a martini while you tell me all the gossip.”
The noise in the background suddenly stops and I hear soft music playing. “Tell me you did not just walk into a bar.”
She laughs into the phone. “Sure did baby sister. But it’s my job so I think my boss would look down upon me drinking a martini before I start my shift.”
“Well, there isn’t any drama anyway.”
“So how is Brooks?”
“He seems fine,” I lie into the phone. What else am I supposed to say?
A door shuts in the background as Tacoma starts talking. “Can you please stop lying to me? I know you too are fucking or dating or whatever. Laney told me.”
“Oh.”
“You better start spilling the details, Rae.”
It sounds like she is changing clothes, the rustle of fabric against the phone. “Are you changing for work? Maybe I should let you go.”
“No way. Not this time. Spill.”
I sigh into the phone knowing I have no way getting out of this one. And I tell her everything only leaving out the personal parts of our past. And as I go over the details of our relationship, my heart feels whole, like nothing is missing from it. Like maybe I can love Brooks the way he loves me.
“Wow, Rae. I never thought I would see the day that you opened your heart. I can’t believe you are in love with him.”
“What!” I shriek into the phone. “I am not in love with him.”
“Yeah okay, you keep telling yourself that. You spoke with such conviction about him. I almost feel jealous. He sounds like a totally different person than the one I knew. In fact, from what you told me I think that he loves you.”
I glance out toward the barn where I know Brooks is working out. “He does.”
“Wait, what? How do you know that?” she asks.
“He told me a week ago. We kind of fought over it actually. I told him I couldn’t love him. He said he would love me for as ever long as it took for me to be able to open my heart to him.”
“Please stop talking,” she groans into the phone. “My heart is jealous. Wow, Rae, you need to tell him you feel the same way.”
I see Brooks emerge from the barn at that very moment. Shirtless, of course, with a small towel draped over his shoulder. I feel like I am drooling as I stare at him. But he is gorgeous and sexy and mine.
Mine. The word resonates through my head. The need my body feels at that word. The way my heart expands.
Since the day our relationship went from hate to… I don’t even know what to call it, I always felt like we were a storm, raging against our own fates.
His eyes connect with mine and that’s when I know.
Love can be like the thunderous call of waves on a dark ocean at night. A siren’s song beckoning you in, to find what's hidden beneath the surface. And while the waves may be choppy and the path treacherous, once you break the surface and dive deep into the calm, deeper waters, only then do you find the peace in loving what you were looking so long for.
“I need to go.”
“What the hell, Rae?”
I stand up off the couch and start heading toward the calling of the storm. “I forgot I need to do something.”
“Umm okay,” Tacoma says confused into the phone. “Well good luck tomorrow. I know you will win!”