After Forever (22 page)

“There’s no way to say this without it sounding horrible, so I’m just gonna say it. While you were in the shower, before I went in, I had this thought, this…image. I feel like wanting you, needing this whatever-it-is with you, this odd relationship, the sex, the companionship, everything, but especially the sex, I feel like it’s a demon inside me, a hungry demon. And every time I’m with you, I think a part of me hopes that I’ll have given the demon what it needs. And then, today, I wondered if I was trying to exhaust the demon, sate him, so he wouldn’t…wouldn’t need you anymore.” He held onto me, talking into my hair, and I felt the exhalation of his breath on my scalp with every word. “I don’t want to need this anymore. Not that you’re not worth wanting or needing, because you are. But because…who I was with Ever was…a better person. And I want to hold on to him, onto
that
person. That Cade. Not this weak, selfish Cade. You deserve so much fucking better than what I have left, which is what you’re getting. You deserve better than sex that’s…steeped in guilt, and confusion.”
 

He shifted so I had to look at him, and I sensed the crux of this whole long admission coming.

“You deserve better, Eden,” he repeated. “You deserve love, and I—I can’t give that to you.”

I had no response. I lowered my head to his shoulder and held on to him, onto whatever shred of comfort I could get.
 

If I deserved better than whatever Cade had left, and if what I was getting from Cade was several orders of magnitude better than what I’d ever known, then…what would love be like? I couldn’t fathom it, and I couldn’t even begin to wonder where I could possibly find it.
 

But I wanted it.

final wisdom

Caden

Ever,

My love, my darling. My everything.
 

Every day, every single day for nearly a year and half now, I’ve sat in this chair at your bedside and talked to you, read the latest letter. Just sat with you. Sketched. Watched TV beside you.
 
Over 500 consecutive days. I haven’t missed one.
 

That has to mean I still love you, right? It has to mean something.
 

But I don’t know how to do it anymore. I just don’t. I want to give up. I’m the most pathetic, shitty, horrible person who’s ever lived for saying that, for writing it and thinking it and reading it to you, whether you actually hear anything in that coma or not. But fucking hell, Ever, it’s true. It’s true. I can’t do this anymore.
 

The worst part? I don’t know HOW to give up. Coming to see you, writing letters to you, it’s part of me. It’s just as automatic as breathing, as eating. Actually, I forget to eat sometimes. If I stopped visiting, would I forget you? Would one day lead to two, and that into a week, a month, a year? Would I just…act like you don’t exist anymore?
 

I wouldn’t be able to forget. You are my soul, and even if I never visited you again, I’d still never be able to forget you.
 

I’ve forgotten the sound of your voice, though. I’ve forgotten the way you feel when I hold you. I haven’t forgotten the way you smell. That’s the weirdest thing. I can’t remember the way you’d look at me, and I can’t remember how you felt or how you tasted. I have memories of us, but they’re vague and fading every day. But the way you smell, that vanilla sugar lotion. I can close my eyes and smell that, clear as day. That smell, it’s in me, on me, unforgettable. I was in class the other day, and some girl sitting near me had that lotion on. I couldn’t mistake that smell anywhere. I turned around and she had a tube of it, and she was rubbing it on her hands. Right behind me. And I nearly fucking lost it. I had to leave class. I was nauseous. Sick. The smell hit me, and I could see you. Eyes open, awake; I could see you on our bed, in the morning sunlight, naked and just out of the shower, spreading that lotion on your arms and legs. I cried in the bathroom. I sat in a toilet stall and cried.
 

No matter what, I love you. I’ll never stop loving you. I don’t know if you’ll love me when you wake up. If you’ll be able to. But even if you don’t, I’ll love you. Forever, and after forever. Even if I don’t deserve your love back.
 

Your loving husband,

Cade

I carefully folded the letter and put it in with the rest. I had filled one shoe box, and was well on my way to maxing out a second. I put the box in its place inside the drawer next to the nightstand by her bed. And then, as I did more and more often, I simply sat in silence until I could take it no more. It wasn’t truly silence, of course. There were machines beeping, the respirator sighing. Pages over the PA in the hallways, voices passing, shoes squeaking. But I was silent. I didn’t know what to say out loud anymore. I could write things to her, but I couldn’t form words.
 

I stared at her, hands curled into fists on my knee, watching the respirator pump and make her breathe. Sometimes, as I stared at her, I’d feel a sense of desperation wash over me. Usually I’d leave then, and try to ignore the feeling until it passed. I’d go home and sketch until the darkness in my skull abated, or I’d text Eden. Some days we’d just hang out, watch movies, have dinner, pretending we were some sick, twisted parody of a normal couple. Sometimes we’d end up fucking, sometimes not.
 

Today, however, when the desperation struck me with meteoric force, I sat and bore it. I let it rip through me. I let it burn in my gut and churn in my brain. I began to rock in the chair, back and forth. And then I took her cold, frail hand and lifted it, bent over it, pressed my lips to the blue-veined back and hyperventilated until I went dizzy.
 

I hadn’t spoken a word out loud to her that I hadn’t written beforehand in four months. The knowledge was a viper in my soul, injecting venom into my bloodstream.
 

“
Ever
…” It was a hiss, a breathless gasp, barely intelligible as language. “I need you, Ever. I need you to—to live. Or die. I can’t
do
this anymore, Ever. Live. Come back to me. Or…let me go.”

People said time heals all wounds. But what if…what if this wound couldn’t heal, was always being ripped open and kept raw and ragged and bleeding? No matter how much time passed, the wound left by Ever’s coma would never heal. As long as she lay trapped between life and death, I’d never heal.
 

I was trapped, as much as she was. I felt like my entire life was this room, the bed, Ever’s unchanging form under the blankets, classes I had no interest in anymore, and Eden. The guilt of Eden, the illicit, stolen comfort of every moment spent with her. It was all a cycle.
 

I was broken and exhausted.
 

“I’m gonna go away for a while, Ev,” I whispered. “I’m gonna go visit Gramps. I’ll be back soon.”

I left her, drove to my condo, and began packing. While I was stuffing clothes into my duffel bag, the same black bag I’d taken to Interlochen Arts Academy, I heard a knock on my door, jerked it open to let Eden in.
 

“Hey,” I said, and went back to packing.
 

“Where are you going?” she asked.

I answered without looking at her. “Visit Gramps.”

“For how long?”
 

“I dunno. Couple of days. Not long.” I turned around to glance at her, and wished I hadn’t.
 

She was wearing nothing but yoga shorts and a sports bra, both royal blue, and she was covered in a sheen of sweat. She had her hair pulled back in a tight braid, accentuating her cheekbones and the curve of her neck.

“You’re leaving
now
?”

I nodded. “Yeah.” She looked…upset. “Look, I know this is sudden, but I just…I have to get away. I can’t take it. And I have to see Gramps. I have this feeling that if I don’t go see him now, I might not have another chance.”

She just nodded. I waited for her to say something, to explain what was eating her, but she didn’t.

“What, Eden?”

“I just feel like, why now? What about Ever?”

I jerked the zipper of the duffel closed. “What about her? It’s not like she’ll miss me.” The words dripped vitriolic bitterness.
 

Eden gasped. “Cade! You don’t really believe—”

“I DON’T KNOW WHAT I BELIEVE!” I yelled. “Will she miss me? Won’t she? No one knows! I can’t stay here anymore, Eden. I just can’t. I’m gonna be certifiably committable if I don’t deal with the fucked-up mess that is my life. I have to face the reality that Ever may never wake up and I may just be alone for the rest of my life. I can’t keep doing this with you, Eden. It’s tearing me apart.”

Eden closed her eyes, turned away. “I know. I get it.”

“But?”

She whirled. “But I don’t
have
anywhere to go to get away from this!”

“You think I
want
to be visiting a dying grandfather? He’s the closest thing to a parent I’ve had since Mom died, and now he’s—I feel like he’s gonna die, too, and I have to see him. I have to.”

Her shoulders sagged. “Fuck, Cade. I’m sorry. That was unfair of me.”

I sighed, a ragged, defeated exhalation. I stepped toward her, put my arms around her shoulders. She leaned into me, resting her head on my chest, her palms over her face. She radiated heat, smelled not unpleasantly of sweat. Her skin under my hands was damp and hot.
 

Touching her was never a good idea.
 

She tilted her head up, and her eyes met mine. “Goodbye, then.”

“It’ll only be a couple of days.”

“I know.”

Why did my heart clench when I thought of leaving? Why did this feel more like a true goodbye than it was supposed to be? I stared down into her eyes, not letting go of her. “I’ll be back. I swear I’ll be back.”

“Who are you trying to convince?” she whispered.

“Both of us.”

“Am I allowed to say that I’ll miss you?” Her hands slid up my chest and snaked around my neck. “’Cause I will.”

“Me, too.” I chickened out, and forced myself to say it. “I’ll miss you, too.”

“You will?” She sounded skeptical.

“Yeah, of course I will.” My hands were idly tracing the bottom edge of the strap of her sports bra. “I may be fucked up about you and me, but you’re important to me. So of course I’ll miss you.”

“It’s just a couple of days, right? You should just go.”

“Yeah, I should.”

But neither of us moved. An invisible weight hung between us. Something indefinable yet sharp.
 

“Why does this feel like more than ‘see you in a few days’?” Eden asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. But you’re right, it does. I was just thinking that same thing.”

Eden’s green gaze wavered, searching me. I watched her expression shift through several emotions I couldn’t decipher entirely. Pain? Guilt? Need? All the emotions that seemed to define us, Eden and me, as an entity. I knew what she was going to do as she did it, and I didn’t stop it. Her hands threaded through my hair, cupped the back of my head, and her lips met mine. For the second time, we kissed with a slow and passionate tenderness that did not belong to us. It was stolen, and we knew it.
 

Eden broke the kiss first. She pulled away, stared at me from inches apart, and then peeled my shirt off. Her lips touched my breastbone, delicate touches down my sternum, across my pectorals. Her hands held my back, smoothed and carved and caressed. Kisses over my ribs. Back up to my shoulder. I breathed, and focused on the sensation of her lips on my skin. But not for long. I hooked two fingers under the racer back of her bra and rolled it up to her shoulder blades, followed the twisted line to where the bra cupped her breasts, and rolled it up. Her tits fell free with a luxurious bounce. She paused in her kissing of my torso long enough to let me tug the bra off her arms and over her head, and then resumed planting soft kisses across my shoulder and to my neck. She unzipped my pants, pushed her fingers through the gap of the zipper, and touched my erection through my boxers, then freed the button and shoved my jeans down. She made equally short work of my boxers, and then took my cock in her hand as I worked her skintight workout shorts off.

She pulled away then, and moved backward toward my bed. I followed, and she sank down to her back. I hovered over her, and we slid onto the mattress together. My body was over hers, and my mouth was seeking hers. Her legs came up around my knees, and I slid into her. She gasped against my teeth, and then we were moving together. It was slow, long and languorous, no anger, no desperation, only soft sighs and her hands on my ass, pulling me against her, and a never-ending kiss.
 

She moaned, and the kiss broke, and now I felt her eyes on mine, and I had to meet her gaze. I didn’t look away as I began to stroke into her with ever-increasing speed, and she met me thrust for thrust, her hands clutching my shoulders, her heels locked around my hips.
 

My mouth fell open and my lungs burned and my eyes felt hot and my chest was expanding, my heart exploding in my ribcage, and I felt her, truly felt her, the essence of Eden, saw her soul fill her eyes with fire and with tears, and I knew my own gaze was the same.

“Cade?” She gasped my name, a jagged plea.

“God, Eden. God…”

I felt her come, felt her body clench and spasm in the grip of climax, felt myself unleashing within her. She clutched me with bruising strength, nails digging into my back, legs pinioning mine. Our hips ground together, and I felt her sobbing against my neck, and I was making broken groans of my own, and my eyes were wet.
 

Her mouth found mine, frantic. We kissed, clasped together, as if for the first time.

Neither of us spoke for a very long time.

Finally, I rolled off her, but she refused to let go, rolling with me. “Cade? What was that? What—what
was
that?”