Tomorrow morning Darby will leave me. I don’t know if it’s temporary or permanent—to my heart it doesn’t matter. Every minute without her feels like a lifetime. I can’t let her leave without the memory of my touch … my hands on her … my lips on her … my heart next to hers. But I have no choice. I will never survive without this woman … my friend … my wife … my life.
Chapter Fifty-One
Tamsen waits for me by the door as I sling my bags over my shoulder. The moment I look at Trick asleep on the couch, a river of tears breaches the bank. My friend has me in her arms in a heartbeat, her jacket absorbing my sobs. She hands me a wad of tissue and leads me out the door.
“Goodbye, beautiful,” he whispers.
We both still. Tamsen grabs my hand, giving it a tight squeeze. The reassurance and strength I need to not look back.
We wait a few seconds. Nothing. And then we continue out the door, the sharp click of it shutting in the background.
When we get to Tamsen’s car parked on the street, she grabs my bags and puts them in the trunk. As I open the passenger door, my heart stops, strangled by the grip on my arm.
Trick stands before me in a pair of jeans and nothing else, eyes red like they’re bleeding with pain. Grabbing my head, he fists my hair and kisses me painfully hard—desperate, demanding, eternal. “I know you can’t forget, so if you’re going to remember something, remember this. You fucking own Every. Single. Piece. Of. Me.” His voice breaks, our mouths a breath away. “I love you. I live for you. I fucking breathe for you. That’s what you need to remember … only that.”
Ugly, harrowing sobs rip through my throat as my heart feels like it’s rupturing in my chest. Turning, he walks to the door of the building without looking back.
*
It took everything I had to walk away, and even then I left so much behind. Trick’s not just my husband; somewhere along the way he became a part of me and I became part of him. I know he’ll always have that part. I can never get it back. There’s just two questions I need to figure out: Can I live without it? And do I want to?
There is no one to blame for any of this. It’s like two cars crashing because they both merge to the center lane at the same time. It’s coincidence, an unfortunate circumstance—bad timing. But even when there’s no one to blame, there are still casualties.
“Hey, Nana. It’s me.”
She opens the door and without a single word or explanation of the past few days. She knows to hold out her arms to me. I fall apart in my safety net, and eventually, after many long emotional minutes, I tell her everything.
She hands me some water and a cool washcloth for my puffy eyes.
“What would you do?” I sniffle.
She sits in her chair, folding her hands in her lap. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not Darby Roth and Trick is not my husband. This is your experience in life, my dear. Every woman has a place inside where she holds her truth. I think of it as our essence. It’s where we recognize our greatest love, our greatest hope, and our greatest fear. It’s where you’ll find your answer. You’re right. Forgiveness is not enough. But it’s a package deal. You can’t forget about Trick’s past any more than he can erase it. When you look at him, can you love all of him? Can you look past his scars?” She leans forward. “It’s not a test. This isn’t a measure of your love for him. It’s just a choice: left or right, chocolate or vanilla, ocean or mountain. But it has to be your choice.”
*
After leaving Nana’s to go back to the home that she refused to sell, I start counting—seconds to minutes, minutes to hours, hours to days. Eventually the days morph into weeks. I go back to working at the hospital on a temporary as-needed basis. Thanksgiving comes with little celebration, nothing more than dinner at a nice restaurant with Nana and a holiday greeting text from both Tamsen and Grady. Tamsen at least tells me she and Trick are in California with Grady for the holiday. Then I get the text I’m not expecting.
Trick: BFF – I miss my wife. Could you tell her Happy Thanksgiving for me? And that I love her.
I cry, missing him so much … but I’m still crumbling.
Every day I try to gauge my thoughts, putting them on a mental scale. On one side is Trick and on the other is his past. Nana’s right. They are a package deal, because it’s still so impossible to think about one and not the other. I keep hoping one day I’ll wake up and just know, maybe the universe will give me a sign.