Landslide (49 page)

Yeah, shit like that never works in real life so I’m
terribly
surprised when I hear Erica’s worried voice asking me what’s wrong.

“It should’ve been me!” I holler into the pillow.

“What? I can’t understand you.”

 
I can hear her moving closer so she can hear me better, but I lift my tear-stained face and make sure she has no trouble making out my words by shouting, “It should’ve been me, Erica! ME! It should’ve been me!” I feel myself reach for it and I know it is a petulant thing to do, but all bets are off it seems and before I can control myself, I wrap my hand around the stem of a wine glass that we’d used to drink milk from when we ate the s’mores. It’s thrown and shatters against the mantel as I sob the words one last time. “It should’ve been
me
.”

“Why would you say that?!” She’s on her knees in front of me so fast, I have to blink to believe it, “I mean I get it, I felt the same way for a while, and it seemed like it took forever for me to finally be free of the hurt, the guilt, and everything else his dying left us with, but it’s been more than seven years, Cole…I thought you’d moved on and had gotten over Holden before
I
even did!”

I cover my face with my hands and try to calm down, wholly absorbing the jeering and entirely maniacal laughter coming from the lunatic within me that’s caused by his comprehension of Erica thinking I’m inflicted with an unyielding case of survivor’s guilt. Then it suddenly occurs to me that I’m sitting here crying my eyes out, like I’m some kind of damsel with a penis in distress in need of my hero to save me.

Well fuck that.
 

I push to my feet to lean against the mantel and stare into the fire for a moment before taking a deep breath and closing my eyes to snarl, “I
am
over Holden, Erica.” I shift to see that she’s also stood up and is
right
here…right next to me; her proximity and the moment all but daring me to say it out loud. My semi-admission confused her and she’s no doubt about to ask for clarification on what prompted my sudden break from manliness anyway, and I do consider making up some bullshit story, but I’m tired of taking the high road that’s been edged with nothing but deprivation, and I’m tired of backing down in deference to a ghost who didn’t deserve her in the first place, so looking at her parted lips instead of her rapidly blinking eyes, I whisper, “But I’ll
never
be over you.”

“Wha—what are you saying?”

“What do you think I’m saying?”

“That you’re…you’re in l—you’re not saying you’re falling in love with me, are you?” The terrified look on her face and her trembling body has me internally gnashing my teeth.

“No. I’m saying I’ve
been
in love with you.” As soon as the words are free, I feel lighter than I ever have, the embittered phoenix inside me shaking its wings out, ready to take flight and soar free. And with one look into the mystic blue of her shimmering eyes, I release him from the shackles and let him loose. “
Always
.”

She continues to stand before me with unrelenting tears streaming down her face. It’s the only acceptable part of her response to my admission thus far.

“Is that it? Is crying your only response? Because this isn’t one of those times when someone lays bare their heart to another person but then tells them it’s okay to not say anything in return. Because that’s bullshit and you need to say something. Now.”

“Always?” It comes out in a small, broken whisper.

“Yes, always!” God, I just want to strangle her! I need to
know
, goddamnit!! “For as far back as I can remember, Erica…I have b—I have been
hopelessly
in love with you! Now what do you have to say to that?!”

“I…don’t…” I squeeze my eyes shut and turn my head away. Like either action will enable me to not be utterly gutted hearing from her own lips how her feelings aren’t reciprocal of mine. “I don’t understand. Always is a long freaking time and you never said anything, Cole! If you’ve been in love with me, then why didn’t you
say
something?”

Her question, while logical and very deserving of an answer, is like a slap in the face and I realize that while I’ve had quite a lot of time to think things over and accept my feelings, she’s been legitimately clueless and completely in the dark because
I
hid them all away from her.

I rub my face with one hand and wipe the wetness from it, the whole time knowing it won’t stay dry. “Because I didn’t know.”

“Then
how
do you know now?”

Suddenly, she sounds angry like I was, and I don’t understand why. I also don’t understand what the fuck she’s asking me. “What?”

“I want you to tell me how you know you’re in love with me…or better yet, explain
why
you are.”

I’ve never been fond of demands being made upon me in any way, but this one of hers almost makes my blood boil. “I can’t explain something like that, Erica! I can’t tell you why because there’s no reason that can explain why
or
how I love you the way I do. I just do. Everything in me feels it. It lives deep inside me and has sharp claws, and it shreds my insides to ribbons so that I feel like I’m drowning in my own blood whenever I’m not with you. It’s something so much stronger than I am that no matter what either of us does, it won’t stop. Not even when you do something that makes me want to throttle you myself, it won’t stop.

“I do know why it’s called falling in love though, because once you wake up and realize you’re flailing in mid-air, it’s too late and there’s nothing you or anyone else can do to keep you from inevitably hitting the ground. And here’s a newsflash for you, it fucking hurts when there’s no one there to catch you, and believe me, I have had
no
peace since I realized I fell and was already broken in pieces on the concrete.”

In a tiny whisper, she asks, “How long has that been? Do you know when you woke up?”

I have to force myself to meet her eyes, although, she has to settle for a regretful nod.

Her voice thick with a back-flow of building tears and the beginnings of anguished understanding being written in her eyes, she pushes for more, “Will you tell me when?”

Furiously blinking back my own waterfall, I struggle to keep my eyes on hers. “You need,” I have to stop and clear my throat, “You need to understand it took me a while.” She nods and continues to give me the strength to continue in her unflinching gaze. “It, um…I started realizing the night,” I pause for breath when she starts blinking like me and her face contorts with rueful pain, guessing the answer for herself, “I started waking up the night you put Holden to rest.”

Her hand covers her mouth to silence a sob and then slides up to cover her eyes. She brings it back down over her mouth again and looks around herself like she might be lost or about to throw up. I glance around for a bucket or something I can give her like an idiot when suddenly, she’s hitting me.

“You knew! That whole time! You knew and you didn’t tell me?! Why, Cole?! Why are you just telling me now?!”

Taking her by the arms, I give her one, firm shake to make her stop hitting me so she can listen. “I couldn’t!”

“Why not?!”

“Why do you think, Erica?!” My hands drop from her arms to scour my face as I turn around.

“I don’t
know
, Cole! That’s why I’m asking!”

I spin back to face her and find her eyes again. “
Holden
.”

“Holden was dead!”

“I’m aware of that, sweetheart. Believe me. He was dead, but he wasn’t gone. Not for you.”

“I was
grieving
.”

“You think I don’t know that?! I was
there
, Erica! You needed to do it, and I knew that! That’s the whole fucking reason for why I didn’t say anything! But, it was killing me to watch you and not
do
anything to help you through it. Not that the route I went was a piece of cake…I just didn’t know what else to do for you.”

“So out of some idyllic sense of loyalty to a dead man, you decided to let me
use
you? Because that’s how it felt, Cole, and I have
never
gotten over the guilt of being a burden on you!”

It’s another slap in the face; this one though…this one doesn’t just sting and burn. It scorches.
 

“That’s what you thought? That you were a burden?”

She’s crying again and having as much trouble as I was making eye contact. “I heard you. The night before I left…? I heard you yelling and screaming at Holden about the betrayal of the burden he left you with. Me. I was the burden.”

My eyes searching in the fire for the past, I cover my mouth when the enraged echo of myself from that night reaches my ears. “Oh, sweetheart…that wasn’t about you. Not directly. You weren’t the burden he left me with. I hated him. I—”

“You don’t mean that.”

“No, not anymore, but, I did. I just…I didn’t know how much until that day. There are things I never told you because I thought telling you would only push you away from me.
That
was the burden I was talking about.” Looking into her pained eyes, my heart starts beating a mile a minute in knowing that the words about to come out of my mouth will quite possibly break her worse than she’s ever been. My eyes fall to the floor between us, and I settle for dragging in a shaky breath, knowing that even with a full oxygen tank, I still wouldn’t be able to breathe enough to get through this without hyperventilating. “I need to tell you some things about Holden, sugar.”

“Will telling me those things tonight change anything that’s happened up until now?”

“No.” It’s the unvarnished truth. It won’t change the past. It
will
affect everything about the future though.

“Then it can wait.”

“But, you need to know…Hold—”

“Tonight isn’t about Holden. It’s about you and me.”

“It’s about him too, though. I was waiting to tell you until we’d both said goodbye to him, but…you never did. He’s still at the center of everything. He matters in the now.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because, Erica! You’re still grieving him!”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are, sugar. And, among other things, that leaves me competing with a ghost who wasn’t who you think he was.”

“No. You’re wrong. And you’re not competing with anyone.” I try swallowing my sigh, but she won’t let it go. “Cole, I’m not grieving Holden anymore. Seeing some of his things and those pictures made me a little sad, of course, because a life was cut short. I’d feel for anyone, even a stranger under the circumstances of how Holden’s life was taken from him. I will weep for that because it was tragic. Time won’t make that any less true. It will always be tragic.”

“He was the epic love of your life, Erica. He always will be.”

“He wasn’t. I loved him, yes, or…I thought I did. But…he was just a moment in time. And I knew it.”

“What do you mean, you knew it? Knew what?”

“That even if he hadn’t died, Holden wouldn’t last. I didn’t know it before he was gone, but…I did afterwards.”

“How?”

“Because I felt it. That desperate gnawing inside you…? I felt some of it. In
me
. I just didn’t know what it was
.
I couldn’t identify it because before you, I hadn’t ever experienced it and you never said a
word
. But I felt it. And do you remember the last night we were together before I went home from our road trip?”

“You know I do.”

“What did I do, Cole?”

It’s one of those moments in a serious conversation where you’re basically fucked no matter what you say or do, as if you’re staring straight into the headlights of an oncoming Mac truck and don’t know which way is your best bet out of its path because it’s bearing down on you so fast, you know that regardless of what side you jump to you’ll never make it clear before it squashes you like a gnat. And like with those headlights, I just stare at her, not knowing if I should answer, simply
because
I know what the answer is.

“Answer me. What did I do? Or rather, what did I say I
wanted
to do?”

“You um…” I have to stop and swallow the painful lump in my throat, “You said you wanted to be there for me like I was for you. You wanted to make me feel good for once.”

“That’s right. And I did it by giving you a
blow job
, Cole. Which, as you well know, I had never done before, but what you don’t know is that Holden had asked me I don’t even know how many times and I never did it because just the
thought
of going down on my beloved boyfriend scared the absolute shit out of me. But that night, with you…I was elated in a way I never knew I could be, simply because it was
you
. And the night of his funeral? Holden never did that to me. And I didn’t want him to. Because I wasn’t comfortable in my own skin with him the way I’ve
always
been with you. But with you…I have
never
been made to feel that way before or since.”

On a sigh, I cast my eyes to the ceiling and shake my head. On my own, I pretty much figured out everything she’s saying. I just don’t know how to make her see that none of that has negated Holden’s grip on her. “Erica, just because you and I are attracted to one another, exceedingly even, and we additionally seem to have an affinity for being great at oral sex with each other, doesn’t mean that you’re over Holden. You chose him tonight. I think you always will.”

“What in the actual hell are you talking about? I didn’t
choose
Holden tonight.”

“Yeah, you did. You had so many opportunities to just, pay attention to me, in any little way, even before that goddamned box smashed my foot. Again.”

“Whe—what opportunities? What are you talking about? Seriously.”

“What have we been doing the last couple weeks?”

“Well, evidently we’re not dating, and according to you, we
were
just messing around.”

“I’m in
love
with you, so you really think I’ve just been messing around? Because I haven’t been!”

“Then why did you say you were?!”

“Because that’s what
you
said last night and I wanted to see how you’d react if I threw it back at you. You didn’t bat a fucking eyelash. In fact, you concurred and
apologized
. Then I had to ask you to make s’mores with me because if I hadn’t, you would’ve stayed put in the kitchen.”