“I thought about you all day, too. Spending the night with you, having dinner, it seems like forever ago, and at the same time, like you never left.” Her fingertips skimmed down my chest.
“Come here.” I grabbed her hand, pulling her toward the couch. When she sat down, I crouched in front of her and took one of her hands in mine.
“I always thought about you. You were always right there, like a dull pang of something missing. I tried to move on, too, but it was always hollow. So many times, I wanted to reach out to you, but I’d hurt you enough. Coming after you seemed selfish after you didn’t respond. Or…maybe I was just a chicken shit and couldn’t face you.”
“What hurt me the most, even more than losing you,” her voice cracked before she sucked in a breath, “was that I knew how much you were suffering alone. Sometimes, I’d think if I’d pushed more, not let you retreat so far into yourself—”
“It wouldn’t have worked.” I shook my head. “I needed to work it out on my own. Want to hear a crazy confession?” I quirked a brow.
“The food may get cold, but yes.” She smiled. “You can confess anything you want to me.”
“Steve dragged me to this grief counseling group at the hospital she was in when she died. He said he needed to go, and he was worried about me. Then made sure to point out how Mom would want us both to go, so what choice did I have?” I huffed out a laugh. “They said if you have unresolved issues with a loved one that you didn’t get to deal with before they passed, write them a letter. I only went once, but I think Steve kept going for a few weeks.”
Thea stayed silent, her hand massaging my neck and encouraging me to keep going. Why had I been so full of self-loathing years ago that I couldn’t let her love me like this? It soothed me to finally let it all out in front of her. She’d tried back then, but I’d snap at her and close off until I told her I needed to be alone, permanently. I shut my eyes, willing away the roll of shame mixed with guilt that felt a lot like nausea.
“Before I left to come out here, he gave me a huge notebook. He said he started writing to Mom, and it helped. Maybe if I did it too, maybe I’d start to come around. I took it and said sure, never really intending to do anything with it. One night, I drank alone in my apartment and just started scribbling. A whole bunch of shit came out. I stuffed it into my nightstand drawer like I was shoving it into a mailbox to heaven or something.” I shrugged, darting my eyes around the living room.
No one knew about that notebook, and I never planned on saying a word about it to anyone. A grown man writing to his dead mother at night wasn’t a great conversation starter.
“It was weird, but it did sort of make me feel better.”
“I’m glad. I’m sure you had a lot to say,” she said, her eyes glossy and sad.
“The more I drank, the crazier the letters became. Then one night, I stopped writing to her, and started writing to you.”
She flinched back a moment as her eyes thinned to slits.
“You wrote to me?”
I nodded. “I wrote I’m sorry in about a thousand different ways. I even asked you to wait for me, because I could never do that in real life. That notebook was the altered reality my screwed up mind could handle at the time.”
“You could have.” She rolled her eyes. “I ended up doing it anyway.”
“I didn’t deserve that. Hell, I don’t deserve it now. I still don’t think it’s right to try to get you back.” I drifted my hands up and down her thigh. “But, I need you. I always did.”
She rose from the sofa and climbed on my lap, sliding her hand across my jaw.
“I need you, too. You just scare me a little.”
“I scare you?”
“It happens when you love someone too much. And I always loved you too much.”
I cupped the back of her neck as I exhaled in a little relief at hearing the words.
“Sometimes,” she whispered, looping her arms around my neck, “I pictured what would have happened if your mom hadn’t passed away. I thought of us living together, having breakfast in the mornings, you sneaking in those old movie posters you’d plastered your apartment walls with when you thought I wasn’t looking.” A watery smile curved her lips. “Waiting up for you when you worked nights. It would have been amazing.”
I moved her around on my lap until she straddled me on the floor and dropped my head into her chest. She had no idea how amazing it would have been.
But I had hopes that it still could be.
“At the risk of sounding like a total asshole, I think I needed to come here. It wasn’t possible to grieve where I saw my mother everywhere. As lonely as I was without you, it felt like I belonged here. But, I like to think that maybe,” I threaded my fingers through her hair, “the fact that you ended up here means I’m where I’m supposed to be. That my mother is helping us find our way back to each other.”
“If Linda could, I’m sure she would,” she cradled my face, running her thumbs back and forth on my cheeks. “Not that she would recognize her bearded, tatted-up son.”
“Don’t pretend you don’t love it.” I grabbed her hips and yanked her closer.
She laughed for a minute before her smile faded.
