I watched my intuitive daughter walk away then I looked back to the grave and focused on the flowers and the large granite headstone with Olivia’s name carved into it. It was the first time I’d come and found it hard to talk. Usually I’d just start with something silly like the weather.
I’d come two months ago to tend to the roses and had wanted to talk about Brooke then, but it was hard. Now it was harder, harder because in two weeks, Brooke would leave and things would go back to how they’d been before she came.
“I met someone,” I began, and the words felt like a release on my soul. “She kind of reminds me of you, the girl-next-door type, and she actually happens to live next door.” I chuckled at that and paused for a moment. “I think you would approve, but…like you, she’ll only be in my life for a short time, shorter—months. It’s only been months, but she seriously packed a punch. It’s fine. Sometimes these things happen, right? You had to go, and so does she. Different reasons, different women, but somehow you both have to leave me.”
I hadn’t meant to say that, but it was what I felt.
This thing with Brooke was all my fault. I’d known all along we would end.
So…I shouldn’t have fallen for her.
* * *
Brooke
* * *
The tension between us was tight.
It was there all night. It started days ago when Ryan came back from the cemetery. I tried to ask him if he was okay, but he didn’t seem to want to talk about it.
It was weird: the tension was there, but then when we had sex it was like he just wanted to devour me.
I knew it was because of me leaving next week. And… because of this thing between us that grew more and more each day.
God, how can it be next week?
I couldn’t believe the time had come so quickly, so damn quickly.
My story on Sally was prepped and ready to be released in the January issue ofPeople. Everything I’d set out to do when I’d come to Wilmington was done.
The job was done.
It was done, but I wasn’t finished yet—how could I be when there was this black hole between Ryan and I? A hole that maybe only I could close.
Okay, it wasn’t a maybe…
I knew it was more of a reality. I could close that hole if I wanted to.
That day when I decided to push my feelings to the back of my mind, I kind of left them there.
I left them there because I didn’t want to freak out and do the wrong thing. I didn’t want to freak out and spoil this amazing relationship we had which I knew, day by damn day was turning into something more.
I felt it grow, and I tried to push it away. I pushed it away because I couldn’t get rid of my fears. Fears I’d had for so long.
So I guess that tension wasn’t just coming from him. It was me too.
Tonight we were at the playhouse. He took me to see,Romeo and Juliet. He held my hand the whole time as we watched the play.
The actors did a great job. Such a good job they sucked me in right from the start and held me there through the entire performance.
At the end scene, which for me was the most powerful scenes known to man, they continued to hold me in the moment.
I must have watched this play a hundred times but tonight was different. Tonight was different because it felt personal to me. Like I could have been a part of the story.
My heart ached for Juliet when she saw her beloved Romeo and realized he’d killed himself with the poison. It broke just a little more when she kissed him in an attempt to kill herself and it didn’t work.
She didn’t want to live without him. It was all so clear. I knew that. My English teacher had given a whole lesson on all the emotions that played out in this one scene.
