Release (34 page)

I close my eyes and all I see is the image I know
Brooklyn saw when she opened that book. I can’t remember the last time I looked
at it, but it’s as clear as day in my head.

That day, right now, seems
like only yesterday.

Looking at Brooklyn, I
search her expression, her eyes. I can’t figure out if she meant that or not.
“Are you asking me or telling me?”

“It wasn’t really meant to
come out like that, but both, I suppose. I don’t know. It’s just that you
haven’t really mentioned her and you’ve kind of hidden her. That ... maybe
suggests something.”

“Suggests what?”

She blinks twice, her gaze
breaking away briefly. “I think it’s only right that I know if you do, Dane. If
you do, then ...”

“Then what?”

“Then, you shouldn’t be with
me.”

I nod, and I mean every word
that I’m about to say. “You’re right, I shouldn’t be with you.”

“What?” she mumbles through
lips that barely move.

“I agree with you; I
shouldn’t be with you. I can’t make you secure no matter what I do. I’ve given
you everything I possibly can. I’ve got nothing more to give.”

Between the hurt look on
Brooklyn’s face right now and the scent of her shampoo coming from her loose
flowing hair, almost every part of me wants to hold her. That’s not happening.

Since L.A. she’s had a
different kind of calm about her, like she’s been in a different place
emotionally. I thought we were done with all this shit.

“This is different. I’m only
asking because you’ve been hiding something. This isn’t linked to anything
else.”

“But it is. We’ve been here
so many times, the only thing different now is that you
think
you have
evidence of something. You’ve been expecting things to go wrong, something to
get in the way, so naturally you see that picture and you think the worst. You
weren’t even open to the possibility of anything else. You still harbor the
same feelings and uncertainties, and there’s only one way for me to stop having
that effect on you. We can’t do this anymore, Brooklyn.”

She has no idea what she’s
done; she’s reminded me of exactly why I shouldn’t even
want
to be with
her.

This has to be it now.

Dane’s like a robot right now, programmed to feel no
emotions. He’s only inches away from me, but with the way he’s looking at me
there may as well be a stone wall between us.

The worst thing is, I
witnessed the moment that wall came up – the second after I told him he still
loves Nadine.

I never meant to say it that
way; I wanted to
ask
if he did.

I flinch slightly with
surprise when he suddenly stands. He starts to walk away, without a single
word.

“Dane, I want to talk about
this.” I get up and follow him to the balcony. I just want to understand.

“There’s nothing more to
say.” He unlocks the door and walks out. Everything about him is distant,
unwavering; his movement, his tone, his presence.

I’ve lost him. 

Silently, I stand at the
door. The sun is setting and the early evening chill prickles my bare arms with
goose bumps. I hug myself to gain some warmth. Dane’s by the railing, gazing
straight ahead to the park across the street. It’s as though I’m not here.

How do you keep someone if
you’ve already become non-existent to them?

Walking out on to the
balcony, I stand behind him. “Talk to me, please.” I’m hoping that it’s only to
my own ears I sound so pathetic.

You see, I’m torn right now.
Part of me wants to cry, part of me wants to beg him to keep me, and part of me
wants to accept his choice, hold my head high, and walk out the front door
feeling nothing. I can’t do any of those things. I love him too much to let him
go. I refuse to cry or beg. All I can do is wait for him to talk to me.

Moments later, he turns to
me. I see nothing but restraint. It’s in the tension of his posture, the edge
of anger about his face, and the distance in his gaze as it locks with mine. He
cups my cheeks. His stare softens a fraction along with his hold, but
everything else about him remains ridged.

“You make me feel everything
to the extreme, Brooklyn, the good and the bad. I can just about tolerate the
bad, even if it does drive me crazy, but I can’t take you doing this to
yourself. And I can’t take the degree of your doubt. In ways you will never
understand, for me, you are heaven and hell at the same time. If you could be
happy and secure with me it would be worth it,
you
would be worth it, but
you can’t be. It’s time we both recognized that. We stop this now.”

He is so fucking serious, he
means every word, and I can’t find the words to change his mind.

How do I keep him?

He pulls my face to his
chest with my cheek pressed directly over his heartbeat. It’s strong, slightly
accelerated. I can feel the resistance in his hold, like that first night I
spent with him. There’s some kind of internal struggle.

I feel desperate. “Don’t do
this, Dane,” I say against his chest, fighting the urge to breathe him in,
seeking the comfort his scent provides me with.

For a second his hold
tightens. The signature squeeze I love so much, but it’s not entirely the same.
It’s too final. Then he lets go altogether. He’s still close, but he isn’t
holding me.

“I want you to go,
Brooklyn,” he says with too much certainty.

I raise my gaze up to his,
and he looks away. “Dane?”

He closes his eyes, closes
me out. “I never wanted this in the first place, Brooklyn.”

“Bollocks! I don’t believe
that.” Finally, I find my voice, a voice with strength and purpose and not a
feeble flipping mumble. I’m not letting him go. I won’t beg, no way will I beg,
but I’m not letting him go, either.

Dane’s eyebrows twitch in
surprise, no doubt from my tone. His gaze connects with mine.

“You might not have been
actively seeking a relationship, but you wanted me. I might not have been more
than a potential shag when you first approached me, but we both know that soon
changed – you
told
me that yourself. Don’t waste your time trying to make
me think you don’t want me, because it won’t work. Clearly you have issues – no
one stays away from relationships without cause – but name me one person who
doesn’t have issues. We’re all a bit fucked up.” I soften my tone, because this
doesn’t need to be aggressive or mean. That’s not how we are.

I take a deep breath. “I
don’t doubt you. I know that sounds like crap, but I don’t. When I have had
doubts, they were more about
me
– I didn’t know how to be enough for
you. I didn’t know how to keep you. I don’t expect you to understand it, I
don’t entirely understand it.”

Having someone fucking with
your head for two years and making you feel worthless goes quite some way to
making you question whether you’re good enough. It isn’t easy letting that go,
even when you can logically acknowledge it as wrong.

“It’s like having this tiny
fraction of my brain, a place where his poison still exists, that just
sabotages my thoughts and feelings when they’re good. I got scared the moment I
realized I was falling for you, and my fears got worse the deeper it got.
Loving you made me feel powerless, because it meant you could hurt me, and I
didn’t feel capable of taking anymore hurt,
especially
not from you –
that’s what I’ve been so afraid of, and the same little portion of my head
reminded me constantly that I’m not good enough. I thought that if you felt the
same for me as I did you, we’d be equal and I’d be safe. None of that mattered
to me anymore after that night you came to L.A., I let it go.

“Then I found an ex who
mattered to you hidden in a book. I shouldn’t have accused you of loving Nadine
the way I did, and I’m sorry for that, but I needed to understand, I still do.
Maybe I’m not completely unafraid if it affected me enough to have me
questioning her place with you now, after all this time, which means I still
have work to do. I don’t doubt you loving me, though, Dane. I want you to
believe that if nothing else.”

He turns away from me and
braces his hands on the railing. I move to stand beside him, leaving no more
than an inch between us, and grip the metal rail as well.

“If loving me makes you
powerless then I’m just as powerless for loving you back, Brooklyn. We’re both
taking a chance here; I can and do hurt, too.”

Some silent moments pass.

“Nadine wasn’t hidden.” He
turns to face me. I turn to face him. “That was her book. It was the only thing
I wanted to keep. We read it together.”

“Why would you keep her book
just because you read it together? That’s quite sentimental.”

“Because she died.”

“She’s …?” I whisper. The
entire surface of my skin becomes a mass of goose bumps and deep into my core
I’m cold. I shoot up on my toes and wrap my arms around his neck, holding him
as tight as I can. “I’m so sorry.” The words rush out. They’re not only for
him, but for my way off assumption. I’ve never meant an apology more than I do
right now.

Dane returns my hold, his
arms firm around my waist. For a long time we stay just so, in silence. Our
body heat suppresses the cold, though I’m aware of the light chill against my
back. Still, I remain. We remain.

“I’m sorry, Dane. I’m sorry
you lost Nadine that way, and I’m sorry for getting it so wrong.”

“Brooklyn, baby, in the
blink of an eye so many things can change.” His voice is barely audible.
“Seeing someone you never knew existed and very quickly loving them more than
you ever thought possible. Getting in a car that ends up upside down on the
freeway and leaving behind your two children. Deciding to stay fishing instead
of going home to do what you originally planned to do. Making a decision that
means a simple activity you’ve carried out countless times before results in
that decision becoming a life or death one.”

“Nadine?” I whisper in
reference to the last statement. “What happened to her?” I ask, and instantly
wonder if it’s even appropriate.

 “She was out
rollerblading with her friends. She fell and hit her head. I was out of town.
We spoke after and she told me about it. She just had a bump and some scrapes.
I was pissed at her because she didn’t wear her helmet. The next day, Elizabeth
called me to come home. Nadine had a stroke and slipped into a coma. She had
bleeding on her brain. By the time her mom found her it was too late.”

I close my eyes against the
sting of tears. We fall back into silence, still tightly bound.

When I tore my Achilles it
was the most excruciating pain I’ve ever experienced in my life. The type you
can’t possibly describe, there are no words that fit. It’s brutal,
debilitating, hell. I still feel like I haven’t done the experience justice. I
find it amazing that, even though I was in agony, in a tiny portion of my brain
I was able to acknowledge that I was fucked. Not because I’d have to withdraw
from
All about the Dance
, but because I thought my dance career would be
over forever. The pain told me I couldn’t possibly ever work my body, my foot,
in all the ways I was used to, would need to.

I remember specifically
thinking,
if
I can’t dance again I want to be dead
. Being a
dancer was my dream, nothing else would’ve sufficed.

When you think you are going
to die, you want to live more than anything else.

You want to live at any
cost.

When I thought I was going
to die, I wanted to live more than I’d ever wanted anything else in my entire
twenty-seven years before that. Nothing else, not even the career that felt
like my lifeline at one point, mattered as much as living did. I can’t begin to
imagine the hurt the people who loved me would’ve experienced if I hadn’t
survived; it was bad enough witnessing the pain they went through just knowing
how close they came to losing me. I saw it in their eyes and felt it every time
they hugged me.

It’s so easy to take things
for granted, because the truth is we don’t really know what it’s like to be
without something until we experience it. Being appreciative, grateful, is easy
to fail at and let slip by unnoticed. Even during my worst moments this past
year, I’ve been grateful for my life every day.

I was given the chance to
live. Nadine, Ray, and Dane’s parents weren’t.

And he’s had to live through
the pain of losing them all.

Tonight, my heart has broken
for him.

When Dane and I came in from the balcony last night,
all traces of daylight had gone. We laid on the bed together, entwined and
fully clothed. We didn’t really speak. We were surrounded by a thoughtful
silence. I was the first to fall asleep.

As I started to drift,
Dane’s whispered words were, “What did he do to you?”

I wasn’t sure if I was meant
to hear that, but sleep consumed me almost in the same moment.

The first thing we did when
we woke up this morning was shower together, in the same thoughtful silence. It
wasn’t uncomfortable, it was just clear that there are things waiting to be
said. When I met Dane’s gaze through the steaming spray, I knew then that he
was waiting for my answer. I was meant to hear his whispered words.

Now I stand in front of the
full-length bathroom mirror, fresh from the shower, looking into my green eyes.
My body is moisturized. My face is moisturized and makeup free. My hair is
shiny and hangs loose down my back. Every single part of my physical self is
exposed.

I’m naked.

Dane has seen me naked
almost every day since we got together, and I’ve allowed him to handle my body
in any way he’s desired, feeling comfortable and physically safe.

On a deeper level, I’ve
stayed mostly covered up. I’ve given Dane my whole physical self, but only
partially my inner self. Not only for fear of vulnerability and hurt. 

Shame
is the reason I’ve restricted how much I’ve given of
myself to Dane.

It’s a feeling I haven’t
been able to let go of this past year.

I don’t, and never did, need
to worry about Dane judging me badly. I don’t need to be ashamed, not with him.

Movement appears in my
peripheral. “You okay?” Dane asks, entering.

He stops behind me, his head
showing over mine. He’s in gray tracksuit bottoms and nothing more.

I could close my eyes and
know exactly what Dane looks like standing behind me; muscular back, chest and
arms, tight, defined abs, the exact point where his dreadlocks end, little,
random scars he’s acquired over the years – I actually have a favorite scar;
the one on the inside of his right wrist – and every single tattoo that covers
his faultless body, making something I consider perfect even better. I know the
significance of all his tats. Some of them make more sense after last night.