I love you.
“I love you,” I whisper, heightened emotion and incredible feeling sweeping my voice.
Connor pauses, suspended in the air above me. My hips roll, trying to get more of him, until he pushes all the way inside me, stills, and lowers his face to mine. His lips drink my soul and devour my heart. He is a thief, and he has absconded with all of me.
He doesn’t stop again. He doesn’t stop until I beg him to, until my legs go limp and I can’t take another crescendo.
When we come down, when he’s carried me to his bed and we’ve wrapped our limbs around each other, he kisses me softly. “Will you stay tomorrow?”
I kiss him back with all the strength I can manage. It’s not much. He has drained me. Between Connor and the other events of the night, I’m depleted.
“If you let me, I’ll stay forever,” I murmur, as I fade off into sleep.
30
Brynn
I wake first.Connor sleeps soundly, his bottom lip drawn away from his top. His snores are soft, his breath a steady rhythm.
Everything about last night tumbles to the forefront of my mind. How could so much awful and so much amazing fit into one six-hour time period?
Carefully I extract myself from the forearm Connor has laid across my torso and creep out of the room, going straight for the kitchen. I need coffee like nobody’s business.
When the coffee is brewed, I step outside. The sky is already bright, not because we slept in late, but because it’s the peak of summer, and the sun rises at an hour that feels closer to nighttime. I sit down on a chair and close my eyes, listening to the chattering birds. Feel the heat creep over my skin. Smell the bitter scent of strong, black coffee.
I thought I’d be getting ready to leave for Phoenix by now. This afternoon I was supposed to be in the air. I still need to cancel my flight.
What will happen to Eric?
He should be held responsible for what he did. I know that, but I don’t want him to lose more of his life. I can’t say for certain, but I think he had a psychotic break. A disconnect from reality brought on by profound grief. I looked him up after the accident, combing through his social media profiles. He was a normal guy before everything happened. Upper-middle class. Doting father. He probably worked too much, didn’t see his wife slipping away. The disconnection in her didn’t raise a flag in him.
I want him to get what he needs to be better, and that is not a jail cell. How can I make that happen? Setting down my coffee on the floor beside the chair, I go inside to grab my phone.
I find three texts from my mother. Two voicemails. One notification from the yoga person I follow on YouTube.
Settling back down in the chair, I pick up my coffee, fold my legs underneath me, and click on the notification. I need some good before I tell my parents what happened last night. It’s a new video. I press the little arrow on the screen, and see the yoga instructor, Ember.
“Hey, guys.” She smiles and waves from a cross-legged position on a lawn. She looks tired, but her eyes sparkle. “It has been a while since I posted a new flow, and this”—she reaches for something off-screen—“is why. Meet Jonas.” She angles an infant toward the screen. Her husband comes into the frame and settles down behind her. His chin resting on her shoulder, he wraps his arms around hers so that he cradles the baby too.
My lips purse and I try not to cry, but it’s useless. The tears sting. I blink a few times and let them roll. Ember has in her eyes what Amy Prince did not when I saw her that day. Utter devotion. Joy. No fear, or emptiness. Her husband is attentive. It’s obvious even in these few, precious moments she’s sharing with her followers. As Ember talks to the camera, he presses his nose against the space behind her ear and closes his eyes briefly. He is a man in love with his wife, his baby, hislife.
Maybe we all are responsible for what happened to Amy. Her husband, for being closest to her, and not seeing her desperation. Me, for not reaching out that day in the bookstore. Her parents? Her friends? Whomever else, for seeing her but not recognizing her illness. Postpartum depression is treatable. When someone is sick like Amy was, they can’t always help themselves. It’s the responsibility of everyone around them to help them, and we all fucking failed her. We all failed her baby. Eric Prince most of all.
I hit pause on the video. It freezes on a moment so beautiful I almost want to take a screenshot. Ember, still sitting on the ground, baby Jonas extended. Her husband crouched beside her, taking the baby. The beautiful part? They are beaming at one another.
It rips me in half.
I was dragged into something that day. Amy Prince and her baby crossed my path. I still don’t know why. The spiral it sent me down hasn’t finished yet. I’m still on it, but I think I’m near the end. I pray that I am.
Before I can step off, before I can figure out a way to help other women like Amy Prince, I need to see Eric.
Connor walks out. He is shirtless, the shorts he pulled on after waking hang low on his hips. He is glorious in the morning light. All male. All mine.
“Do you still love me in the morning?” I shield my eyes with a hand and look up at him.
He grabs my hand and pulls me up. Brushing my hair back from my face, he nuzzles his rough cheek against mine. “I will love you on a plane and on a train, on a boat and in a moat. I will love you anywhere and everywhere between here and there.”
I squeeze his shoulders, running my hands down his arms. My brain searches for a good response, but I come up empty. “I can’t think of a rhyme forthere. How about… I love you in the light of day, in every single way?”
