“Bess Williams, is that you? I was told this was your place and instructed to wait for you, make sure your hands touched the package.”
“That’s me,” I said with a sigh.
“Great, sign here,” he said, shoving a clipboard at me. Obviously, he was through waiting for me.
I stood in the driveway, holding the small box with trembling hands until he was gone. Then I opened my door and let Brooks do his business before sinking to the floor for the second time in one day.
Still wearing my jacket and Nikes, I stretched my legs out in front of me. With my dog’s head resting on my shin, I tore the brown paper wrapping off the box.
It was a blue box. A Tiffany’s box. I only knew this from watching movies; I’d never been to Tiffany’s in my life. Had never even dreamed of going.
My heartbeat picked up its already frenetic pace as I tugged at the narrow white satin ribbon, allowing it to fall to the floor like I had done with the airplane ticket months before. And like my heart had done when Lane walked out.
When I removed the lid, my breath halted.
I set my hand on my dog’s head, and he looked up at me with what looked like compassion. A letter fluttered out of the box and into my lap. I picked it up, my eyes almost too blurry to read it.
My beautiful Bess—
I’m sorry for my horrible behavior when I left your place so abruptly last month. I’m most sorry for hurting you and not staying to take care of you.
There are no explanations or excuses. Just know that it wasn’t about you. There are pieces of me you don’t know, and I hope you never do. They are buried deep where they belong, but recently some stressors made them move to the forefront of my mind. The nightmares are not new. I thought they were contained; they had been for some time.
Inevermeant to hurt you, either physically or emotionally. Your feelings and your body and its safety are of equal importance to me. I’ve come to cherish both more than I care to admit.
You also need to know that I’ve maintained my distance over the last month for your sake. Obviously I wasn’t in a good place, and I had no intention of drawing you further into any of that. It’s age-old business that needs to stay where it was—in the past.
But the more time passes without you in my life, the greater the void I feel. Like an idiot, I thought maybe time would make it easier, but there is nothing more that I want than to see you again.
This is a little gift from me to you, but no expectations are laid on your receipt of it. Whether you agree to see me or not, I want you to have this.
Please call me if you want. I can make arrangements to come see you or for you to see me.
Bess, know this—my heart was on autopilot until I met you, and you made it beat steady and strong again.
~Lane
P.S. The various shapes are for us—you and I are different, but together we work. The yellow is for the bright lemons, their zest only rivaled by your essence.
My eyes stung, my pants leg soaking from where my tears had dripped on it, and my body was hot and cold at the same time. I was sweating, but a fine layer of chilled goose bumps had formed along my arms. Sensing my tension, Brooks whined and stood up, pacing back and forth next to me.
My fingers shook as I took the gift out of the box. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. A heart pendant hung from a white gold chain. I didn’t think it was silver. Not from Tiffany’s.
It was a big heart, framed in white gold and filled with diamonds. Not just little chips of diamonds butdiamonds. They were all shapes and sizes, clustered together in a random pattern that only made sense as a whole. Mixed in every few stones was a yellow one. I assumed these were some type of special stone or colored diamond, I didn’t know. But their yellow brilliance sparkled and shone brighter than the clear ones.
The piece took my breath away; I was afraid to pull it out of the box. Tentatively I slid my finger into the box and stroked the piece without removing it, massaging it to life like the letter was doing to my heart.
Then I shut the box, set it on the counter, and went to take a bath.
My emotions were whipping back and forth like a yo-yo, something that was never good for me. When I was in high school and my feelings overwhelmed me, I found alcohol. When the boys took advantage of my body, I found pot and other light mood enhancers. When I got to college and didn’t know who I was, I demanded the harder stuff.
Right now my emotions were in overdrive. My body was still reeling from the effects of AJ’s harsh, cold touch and the warm, gentle stroke of Lane’s tongue. At the same time, my mind spun because I had not one single clue what my life should or could be. The cumulative effect of all this upheaval in my life was very, very bad—bad times one million for me—and I needed to calm myself, not run away or slip into old habits like using drugs or alcohol or men to dull my pain.
I didn’t know how to do this, how to cope with stress. I only knew day-to-day boring, and that was all I could handle.
