Relinquishing Liberty (16 page)

“Shayne, will you spend the night with me?”

He rolled over looking at me as though he were studying every inch of my face to see if I was being serious. I sat there patiently waiting, and it felt like an eternity before I finally got a response out of him. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the response I had hoped for. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea, Liberty. I told you we could take things slow, and I meant it. I don’t want you to feel pressured into doing anything and then later regret it.”

I looked down in defeat. “I know, it’s just…I’m not ready to let you go yet.”

He placed a finger beneath my chin and brought my gaze up to his, but I continued before he could say anything. “I keep feeling like I’m going to wake up any minute now and this is all going to be a dream. Sometimes I feel like this is too good to be true. Being with you is so easy, Shayne; it just feels right…but that also scares me. We’ve only known each other for a short amount of time, but I’m afraid I’m going to get too attached and then you’ll leave me as soon as you realize that I’m nothing special.”

“Nothing special? Liberty, I never want to hear those words come out of your mouth again. I swear to God, if I do I will take you over my knee so fast…” Shayne practically had smoke coming out of his ears. I giggled and that seemed to piss him off even more.

“Okay, okay, that has officially been erased from my vocabulary.”

“If you really want me to stay, I will. But no funny business, missy!”

“Who? Little ‘ole me?” I said it in my horrible version of a southern accent. Yeah, it was pretty bad, but at least it finally got a laugh out him. He started tickling me, and I squealed as I jumped off the couch and ran down the hall towards my bedroom.

I left Shayne in my room while I headed to the bathroom to get ready for bed. I quickly brushed my teeth, wiped off my makeup and changed into the tank top and girly boxer shorts I recently picked up from Victoria’s Secret. The bedroom door was closed so I leaned my ear against the door, but couldn’t hear any movement. I slowly pried the door open to find him already in my bed and under the covers. He sat up a little as I approached the bed, pulling the blanket back for me, and I could see his beautifully sculpted bare chest. My knees buckled as I climbed onto the opposite side of the bed, leaving as much space as possible between us.

“I won’t bite, Liberty.” He reached his arm across the pillow, inviting me to move in closer.

I pressed myself up against his side, and he wrapped his arm around me, pulling me further into him and closing the gap between us. It was the first time I had felt his bare flesh against me. My heart was racing, and I was feeling extremely anxious. I wasn’t sure what the protocol was for times like this.
Where do I put my hands? Should I face him? Should I face away from him? What if I kick him in my sleep? Oh God, what if I fart in my sleep!?

Shayne picked up on my anxiety and leisurely began to rub up and down my arm. “You don’t need to be nervous, sweetheart. Just…think of it as sleeping next to a dog.”

“But I’ve never had a dog!” My voice rose an octave higher than intended.

Shayne rolled over, attempting to mute his laughter into my neck. I could feel his body vibrate against my skin and his warm breath cascaded over me, calming my nerves almost immediately. “All right, well, then think of it as sleeping next to your hot, sexy, loving boyfriend who would do anything just to see that beautiful smile light up your face. Does that work for ya?”

He smiled and winked at me before rolling onto his back.
Yup, I’d say that works for me.

I pressed my face against his chest and glanced over at the tattoo directly over his heart. Before I knew it, I was lightly tracing the features of the young woman’s face. Shayne stilled my hand briefly before raising my fingers to his lips, taking his time to softly kiss each one individually. He interlaced his fingers with mine and brought them back down to his chest.

“She’s very beautiful. She must be pretty important to have her permanently placed on your body.”

He looked down at the woman’s face and smiled. “You don’t see the resemblance?”

I took a closer look, studying her eyes, nose, cheekbones…mouth. Her smile was so familiar. That same smile has been embedded in my brain since the day we crashed into each other’s lives. If I blocked out the rest of the woman’s features, I would’ve sworn it was Shayne smiling back at me.

“It’s your mother, “ I said with certainty.

“Yep. That’s my mom…Rebecca. My dad and I got the same tattoos on what would’ve been her forty-fifth birthday. “

“Would’ve been? What happened to her?”

“She was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was four. Passed away a little over two years later.”

Shayne still hadn’t taken his eyes off of his tattoo. His face was contorted in a way that caused my heart to ache and made me want to bottle up all of his pain and toss it as far away as possible. He lost his mother at such a tender age, and yet I could see how much he was still hurting. I wondered if he had been able to hold onto any memories of her. I was thankful I at least shared 16 years with my brother; 16 years I would forever cherish.

My chest began to tighten the more I thought about AJ. This is why I avoided confronting all of the emotions I had bottled up for so long. It was a side of me I never wanted anyone to see; an ugly side. I was still so angry with my brother for leaving me, and honestly I don’t know if that anger would ever subside.

I rolled over facing away from Shayne, not wanting to burden him with my own problems. My body began shaking uncontrollably and the pillow quickly became soaked with tears I didn’t realize were pouring down my face until now. This is the part I hated the most: the physical embodiment of my emotions slowly, torturously ripping through me.

That day I found AJ, I wanted to die right there along with him. I felt like he stabbed me straight through the heart, leaving behind a gaping hole as a reminder of what he had done. But this was so much worse. It was easier to just block everything out and not feel anything. At least that way I was in control. But now…now that knife my brother left embedded in my heart was twisting and turning, threatening to finish the job and slice my heart in two. I hated him for doing this to me. Hated him so fucking much. God, I just wanted to shout to the heavens how much I hated him!

“I HATE HIM!” I cried out

“Jesus, Liberty, you scared the shit out of me!” He carefully rolled me over to face him. “What’s wrong? Who do you hate?”

I choked back a sob. My throat ached and refused to allow any words to come out.

“C’mon, sweetheart, talk to me.” He took me in his arms, brushing away the wet tangles of hair that were pressed against my cheeks.

“I’m so s-sorry. I didn’t m-mean to lose it like that.”

“Shhh it’s okay, Liberty. You don’t need to apologize. You’ve lost someone too, haven’t you?”

Was it that obvious?

“Yeah. My brother.” I sniffled as Shayne reached across the nightstand for a tissue to wipe away the tears that were still pouring down my face.

“Do you mind if I ask what happened? I know it sucks, but sometimes it helps to talk about it.”

No, I didn’t want to talk about it. That was the last fucking thing I wanted to do. But just like with Brett and Maddie, I knew I would have to let it out eventually. I couldn’t avoid it forever. I was sick and tired of carrying this pain and having to deal with it alone. I was thankful Brett was there to fill the void my brother left, but maybe Shayne would be the one to finally break through and help me begin to heal. Make my heart whole again.

I took a few deep calming breaths in through my nose and out through my mouth. My ex-therapist told me to try that any time I felt too overwhelmed. Surprisingly it did help.
Well I’ll be damned…that fucking quack finally gave me some good advice.

“Shayne, let me just start by saying I am so sorry for your loss. I can imagine it must have been difficult growing up without a mother, but I need you to understand that your situation is a little different from mine. Your mother didn’t have a choice over whether she lived or died. My brother did.”

He nodded his head in understanding, but I wasn’t expecting to discover just how well he understood. His face grew very serious as he took my hand in his, delicately rubbing his thumb across the back of my hand.

“My best friend and I made a pact our senior year of high school that after we graduated we would work for my dad. Like me, Wade had no prospects of going to college, and he’d spent enough time on my dad’s boat that he pretty much knew the ropes forwards and backwards. You can imagine how shocked and pissed I was when I found out he enlisted in the Marines the day after graduation. Never said one fucking word to me beforehand. I gave him so much shit for pussying out and choosing a fucking desert halfway around the world over staying here and watching gorgeous sunsets over the ocean every night on the boat. Straight out of boot camp he was stationed in Khost, Afghanistan, and he just returned home from his tour about six months ago. I guess shit wasn’t much better over here because three months later he stuck a pistol in his mouth and blew his brains out.”

My eyes widened, and I gasped, feeling like the wind had been knocked out of me. Shayne on the other hand sat there calm and collected with his lips pressed tight in a thin, straight line. I wasn’t expecting him to start bawling like a little girl, but I assumed he had to at least feel something…anything. For Christ’s sake, his best friend killed himself! But there was nothing there; his eyes were barren, void of any emotion.

My eyes burned from the fresh tears that began welling up, but I was so beyond exhausted from my own break down that I didn’t have an ounce of energy left to expel.

“How can you be so calm talking about it? Aren’t you even upset? Jesus, Shayne, he was your best friend!”

“Of course I was upset. I was fucking heartbroken, Liberty. We had been best friends since we were three. You think that’s something that I take lightly? After I found out, I spent a whole week drinking myself into oblivion. I didn’t even make it to his funeral. Some fucking friend I am, huh?” He shook his head in disgust.

“Well, I actually ended up running out of the church during my brother’s funeral.”

“Yeah, but at least you made it that far. It didn’t hit me until I sobered up that it wasn’t so much that I was upset, I was just really fucking pissed. He took the coward’s way out. No one even knew that anything was wrong when he came home; he hid it so well. He was such a fun loving guy, always laughing and joking around. It sucks because I constantly wonder if I had seen the warning signs maybe I could’ve talked him out of it.”

I sat there listening to Shayne take the words straight out of my mouth. It was refreshing for someone to understand exactly what I was going through and not place any judgment on me.

I leaned over and pressed a firm kiss on Shayne’s chest. “Thank you, Shayne.”

“For what?” He looked down at me with a confused expression.

“For being here. For opening up to me. For understanding what I’m going through.” I pressed another kiss on his chest, this time lingering a little longer. “For being you.”

“I’ll always be here for you, Liberty. I know it still hurts; the pain never really goes away. You just have to find your own way of coping with it, and eventually it hurts a little less every day.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

Shayne pulled me in closer, trailing his fingers up and down my spine. “Trust me, it’s not. Take my dad for example: after all this time he still attends a bereavement group once a week. He’s still not completely over it, but that’s his way of coping. “

“How have you coped with it? Other than getting drunk for a week after Wade died.”

“Well after my mom died, I was a pretty reckless kid. Always had a fucking chip on my shoulder and was constantly getting into trouble. By the time I was ten, I’m pretty sure every cop in town knew me.” He laughed heartily. I smiled, trying to imagine Shayne as a child and watching the boy with those beautiful emerald green eyes grow up. Sure he made some mistakes when he was younger, but I’m sure his mother would be proud of the man he has become.

“But as I got older, I guess I used sex as a means to cope. It was only a temporary fix though.” He looked down, staring at his hand intently and picking at his cuticles. It was a nervous tick I was beginning to notice. I knew he wasn’t pleased with the reputation he had set up for himself, but that was in the past, and I was in no place to hold that against him.

“So that explains why you were such a man-whore.” I gave him a wicked grin.

He laughed. “Yeah, I guess so. Lame excuse, but it’s true.”

I rolled over to look at the clock, and it was rapidly approaching two in the morning. After having spent the last two hours reminiscing about the loss of our loved ones, I was feeling much more optimistic and hopeful about everything. That was a first for me. For so long, I felt like I had to be the sole carrier of my pain, but Shayne helped alleviate some of the burden.

“Shayne, we should probably try to get some sleep. I didn’t realize how late it was.”

He let out a deep sigh. “Yeah, you’re right. I got to get up pretty early.”

I rolled over to turn off the lamp, and Shayne reached over to pull me towards him, my back to his chest. Our bodies melded together perfectly; it was like I was made for him…
just him
. He placed a soft kiss against my shoulder before he whispered in my ear.

“Sweet dreams, Liberty.”

“Goodnight, Shayne.” I took his hand in mine to press one last kiss against his rough skin before I placed it back around my waist.

My eyes drifted closed and I felt his slow, steady breaths brush past my ear. He had already fallen asleep, and I was on the verge of succumbing to my own deep slumber. What I heard next caused an eruption of butterflies to take flight inside me, lifting me high off the ground. The words swept over me, consuming me, drawing me even closer to him. Had I heard him correctly?
Could I be dreaming?
There’s no way he would’ve uttered those three breathtaking words to me so soon. But I couldn’t fight the feelings that washed over me when it finally sunk in. I knew I must be crazy for falling so hard and so fast for him, but there was no denying it. My heart began to swell at the realization…that I had already fallen completely head over heels in love with him.