Forgotten Yesterday (15 page)

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Authors: Renee Ericson

BOOK: Forgotten Yesterday
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“I should have stayed,” he whispers. “I should have…everything’s a fucking mess. What a...
fuck
!”

I cry harder.

There’s nothing to say in return. We made our decisions years ago.

Goodbye will be here soon, so until then, I cling to Brent—sadistically savoring what could have been.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sixteen

 

 

An unfamiliar tone echoes faintly in my ear, getting louder as it pulls me out of sleep. Morning light casts upon the white wall in front of me. The weight of Brent’s arm, resting across my waist, lifts slightly as he stirs awake.

“That’s your phone,” I tell him, the evening still thick in my voice.

Brent grunts and then releases me from his embrace, rolling backwards. My back tenses from the sudden chill that replaces his absent warmth.

Expecting him to come back to bed for a few minutes more, I’m surprised when I feel his weight leave the mattress completely. I roll over. His back is to me and he’s pushing his legs into his pants. Sitting up, I pull the comforter to cover my stomach and watch him search the room.

“Are you looking for something?” I ask, more alert than I should be given the hour.

“Yeah.” He rubs his hand over his chest, turning side-to-side. “Do you know where I left my sweater?”

Tossing the blanket aside, I pad my feet onto the cold hardwood to the end of the bed. I crouch down and just underneath the bed frame lays his sweater. Scooping it up, I rise and place it into his waiting hand.

“Thanks,” he says, taking it. Brent pulls it on and then rakes his hand through his disheveled, in a sexy way, hair. 

“Can I get you anything to drink or eat?” I question, walking to the refrigerator. 

“No, that’s okay. I’ll just get something at the hotel.”

I nod, crossing my arms around myself. Brent shoves his hands into his pants pockets, rocking back and forth, heel to toe.

“I’m going to use your bathroom.”

“Sure. Go right ahead.”

He rubs his temple and then enters into the bathroom, closing the door.

There’s a heavy silence hanging in the air. We seem to be at an impasse, waiting for the other to say something. There’s nothing easy about what comes next and we know it.
I know it
. We were at a similar place once before.

Endings are permanently and eternally difficult. In fact, there’s a saying that they always come “badly.” Ours certainly did.

 

~Past~

 

Brent entered my dorm room while Mara was at a class. He knew I’d be here. I hardly went anywhere, lately.

Closing my book, I pulled my knees to my chest, waiting for him to say something.
He wanted to say something.

He took a seat on Mara’s bed, across from me, and dropped his hands into his lap.

“I’ve been thinking we might need a change.”

Oh god!

“Like what?” I hesitantly asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve been trying to give you your space.” He looked at me dead on. “You need it sometimes. I get that. But it’s killing me and I can’t do it anymore. I can’t sit in here with you like this and not knowing what the hell is going on.”

I rubbed my eyes. “I know.”

“What do you want to do?”

This was a question to which I had no answer. Everything used to make so much sense, but now nothing made any sense. I wasn’t sure if we made sense. A mess of a dream kept telling me...I wasn’t sure what it was telling me.

“I…I don’t know.” My voice shook.
I really didn’t know.

“What don’t you know? About us?” he questioned quietly, like the words were enemies.

I gulped. My breathing was coming out so shaky I couldn’t speak. He was putting out the idea of us ending for good, like he knew the thoughts that were running circles in my head.
Oh god.

My lack of words wasn’t enough or that was all the answer he needed, because he got up and stormed to the door. He grabbed the handle and I choked on every inhalation that tried to make its way into my lungs.

Panicked.

Unprepared.

Lost.

What was happening?

Brent slammed his hand against the door and then charged towards me, coming to a halt inches from where I sat.

“You won’t even let me touch you anymore,” he said, exasperated. I blinked at him through the wetness. “Why?”

“What? That’s not true.”

“It is. Maybe you don’t realize it, but it is. And you never try to touch me. Hell, it’s like I don’t even exist to you, anymore. You tell me that you’ve been having nightmares but not what they’re about.” He ran his hand through his hair. “You don’t talk to me about anything. It’s like you’ve already made up your mind and I’m just waiting around. So tell me something!”

“Brent.” I couldn’t stop trembling. “Please. You don’t understand.”

“You’re damn right I don’t,” he growled. “How could I? You fucking don’t tell me anything. And you’re not the only one hurting, you know. My life has pretty much gone to shit, too. You, the baby, my parents, school. I have nothing left.”

Guilt held me to the bed. I knew the fact that his parents were getting a divorce was hard on him. They told him through an email only a week after we lost the baby. The timing couldn’t have been worse. Not to mention school was really out of hand, as well. His grades were slipping, drastically. He mentioned academic probation just last week. And here I was making things worse.

I couldn’t
feel
anything, anymore. Everything felt like it was for nothing.

Like I was nothing.

“Brent, I’m not trying to make it harder. Honest.”

“I know, but I’m giving you space and it’s doing nothing.” He tongues the inside of his cheek. “Do you want to just give up? Is that it? Is that what you don’t want to tell me? That you don’t love me anymore?”

“Are you kidding me?” I choked. “Are you fucking kidding me? I love you so much and my heart is literally breaking. It’s shattered into a million pieces and I can’t put them back together. I just feel like it’s all over. Like I don’t know what’s left anymore. I can’t…”

“You think I haven’t lost something, too? That I didn’t lose the baby? That it doesn’t affect me?” His eyes became glassy. “And now I’m losing you too. You’re leaving me.
You are
. You just don’t realize it because you’re taking your time doing it.”

“Oh you think that’s it?” I sputtered. “You think I’m leaving you? You don’t know what this is like. To be haunted every single night by what our life is supposed to be like right now. Every night I go to sleep and I get to see it all. The way you look at me carrying our baby. And every night I get to feel my body
bleed
only to see the look on your face.”

“How?” he insisted. “How do I look at you?”

“Not the way you did before. Not at all.”

“It’s just a dream,” he groaned. “It’s not real. I don’t blame you for the baby.”

 “I tell myself that everyday, but every night it’s still there.” I opened and closed my hands to relieve some of the tension.

“It’s not real.”

Part of me heard every word he said, but he was competing with my stubborn subconscious that was nightly telling me otherwise. I thought I was the reason everything between us went wrong. I was the problem.

Without thinking I wailed, “You fucking don’t get it. It may be a dream but some things are still real.”

“Like what?”

“You! You put a part of yourself inside me. I had you in me. I felt it.
I. Felt. It.
And I lost it.
I. Lost. It
. A piece of you died in me. It was you and me, and it died.”

“So you’re blaming me?” He nodded his head, tightening his mouth. “It’s my fault.”

“No. No, Brent. It’s not. It’s not your fault at all. It’s mine. I couldn’t hold us.”

“We talked about this. It’s no one’s fault. The doctor even said so. You were there. You heard him. It’s
no one’s
fault.” He sighed, letting his shoulders fall. “It happens. It just wasn’t meant to be is all.”

I stared into my lap, registering acutely his last words.

“That’s what scares me the most,” I said just above a whisper.

“What?” Brent stepped closer, almost touching my feet as they hung at the edge of the bed. “What did you say?”

He heard me. Those evil words that crossed my lips landed on his ears.

“Tell me,” he urged. “What?”

“What if it’s a sign?” Putting it all out there I added, “What if we lost the baby because we aren’t meant to be?”

He fumed. His breathing heaved heavily into the empty space.

“You’re serious?” he asked dangerously quiet. “Aren’t you?”

“I don’t know what I am.”

“Wow. Ruby, this…is…something.” His tear-filled green eyes pierced into my equally tearful brown ones. “Really something.” He began to step backwards, pinning me with a wicked glare. “When you figure out what you want, you let me know.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but there was no sound. I felt sick, like I was going to throw up.

“Forget it,” he added. “I don’t want to know.”

Brent didn’t say another word. He spun on his heel, whipped open the door and charged down the hall. There was a soft click as the door fell shut, separating us from one another.

 

~Present~

 

Nothing was the same from then on, nor could it be. I was lost and so was he. We apologized to one another, but it didn’t matter. The hurt was done and all that was left were two people with very little to scrape together. We tried to work it out, but in the end decided that a little break was for the best.

We needed to breathe and neither one of us could supply enough oxygen for the other.

Soon after, Brent left for an open try-out process in California to see if soccer would be the answer. It was. For me…well, I searched for answers in all the wrong places.
I was such a mess
.

“Hey,” Brent calls my attention from the closet area.

“Oh, hey,” I say, dropping my hands.

Silence.

“Let me get your coat.”

I grab his jacket from its hanger and give it to him as he waits for me, leaning on the doorframe. 

Taking it in his hand, he holds my attention. I’m at a loss for words, unsure what is the right thing to say. Last night was much heavier than I think either one of us intended.

“I can call a cab for you,” I say, playing with the end of my shirt. “Or you can catch one about three blocks down the street. There are usually a ton this time of day.” 

“I can find one.”

Brent shrugs into his jacket and fixes the collar. Stepping forward, he encloses me within his embrace. I join my hands together behind his back and squeeze him tight as his nose gently nudges the space behind my ear. He inhales deeply and I tighten my lids, braving through this farewell. I can break down later, without him here.

“I’m going to call you,” he murmurs. “When I get back to L.A. Is that okay?”

“Sure,” I respond, my voice breaking. “I’d like that.”

Loosening his hold, he kisses me just above my hairline and then steps back completely.

Brent’s lips pucker, twisting to the side.

He makes his way to exit and I follow to let him out. Resting his hand on the doorknob, Brent lets out a heavy sigh, closing his lids.

“Brent?”

“Tell me you’re okay, at least,” he insists, turning to face me.

“I can’t. I’m not going to lie to you.” I force a smile. “But I will be. How about you? How are you doing?”

“I don’t know.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I think I’m worse now than I was before.”

“How so?” I take a step forward, closing in on him.

“I’m not saying this to piss you off or to hurt you, but you really know how to fuck with my head.”

“I’m not trying to.”

“I know you aren’t,” he groans. “But you still are.”

“I’m sorry.”
I don’t know how to make this better. How does anything make this better?
“I’m sorry for a lot of things.”

My hand rises to meet the ruby gem resting just above my heart. Brent’s eyes land on the same space, as my fingertips rub the stone underneath the cotton. He reaches out, placing his palm over my hand, and then bends his knees so we’re at eye level.

“Did you mean what you said last night?” he questions.

“Which part?”

“About not wanting me to leave?”

“Yes,” I admit, dropping my gaze to the buttons on his coat. “I did.”

He runs a hand through his hair. “I would have waited for you, you know.”

“Brent,” I breathe. “I know, but I couldn’t let you do that. I was such a mess and felt like I was just making things worse for you. Everything was falling apart and you needed something good. I just wanted you to be happy and thought that—”

“You thought wrong. All I needed was you.”

“But I couldn’t be there for you. I couldn’t be anywhere for anyone. Even myself.”

Brent hangs his head, pondering at the ground for five audibly counted breaths.

“Then I just have one question.” Lifting my chin, he asks, “Where are you now?”

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