The Fading Trilogy: Fading, Freeing, Falling: Includes 2 BONUS short stories: Hoping and Finding Forever (143 page)

After spending a good chunk of the day taking my lingering aggravation out at the gym, I’m finally able to settle my nerves and calm down. I have no doubt that the charges will be dropped, so I’ll give it a few days before calling to make sure there isn’t anything pending against me.

I’ve been trying to keep my mind occupied with anything other than Candace and what happened this morning, so when I’m completely burnt out from watching TV, I head upstairs to get ready for bed.

It’s after one in the morning when I hear a knock on my door after brushing my teeth. When I make my way back down, I peek out the windows to see who could be here this late, but there’s no car in the drive as the rain pours down. I unlock the door, and I swear to God, the whole world stops moving when I open it to see Candace. In an instant, she begins crying and falls into my arms. She’s soaking wet from the rain, and I know she had to have walked here.

For this moment, I lose my breath in her as I feel the warmth I thought I would never feel again. A warmth that only she can give me. She clings to me as she cries, and I break for her, not knowing what to say because I’m afraid if I speak, she’ll leave. She’s here, and all I want to do is make sure that she stays.

God, just stay.

Reaching down, I slip my arm behind her knees and scoop her into my arms as I carry her inside. She keeps her head tucked into me, and I’ve missed this so much. Even with her hurting, for whatever reason, I miss it. The touch, the feel of her skin, the smell of her hair. I have it all wrapped up in my arms, and it’s where I want to keep it.

I sit us down on the couch with her still in my lap, and I keep my arms tightly banded around her because I just can’t let her go. I listen to her sobs as they begin to soften into whimpers, feeling the soft quakes of her body as she takes in tiny gasps of air.

“Baby, what happened?” I finally ask, and when she lifts her head and stares into my eyes, I fall for her all over again. It’s in my heart, the heavy weighted emotion that’s nothing but the love I have for this beautiful girl. Needing to touch her, I reach up and run my fingers down the soft skin of her cheek.

“Jack died tonight.”

What did she just say?

Suddenly my heavy heart takes on a pounding as questions brew inside. What the hell happened after I saw him this morning? Fuck! Did I do it? Did I kick him too hard in the head? I could have easily killed him. Panic shoots through me, cold like ice, but the sudden rush of fear is diminished when she says, “Kimber called and told me he died in a car crash earlier today. Drunk driving accident or something.”

A hard breath thuds out of my chest. Relief. Maybe I’m sick, but there’s not a single piece of me that feels bad about this. But her? She’s so upset, and I have to wonder where her head is at with this.

She’s so close in my arms, tears still streaking down her face, and when I rest my forehead against hers, greedy to take every touch I can, she begins to ramble, an emotional mess.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know where to go. I’m so confused. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Slow down, babe.”

“Should I be happy? Or relieved?” she asks as she pulls her head back and looks at me, pleading for answers I don’t have.

“Well, what do you feel right now?”

“Sad. And hurt,” she admits honestly before dropping her head and adding, “I don’t know why. It’s like all I can think about is Jack when he was good. Or when I thought he was. But I know he wasn’t. I know I should hate him. But, if I’m sad, does that mean I don’t hate him?”

Lifting her chin to look at me, I say, “I think you’re just in shock. I think you need a little time to sort this out in your head.” She rests her head back on my shoulder, and I feel her body lightly shivering under my arms. “Let me go get you a towel. You’re freezing.”

She slips off of my lap as I grab a couple of large towels from the guest bathroom, and when I return, I wrap one of them around her shoulders and then pull her back into my arms.

“You need anything to drink?”

She sits up, and I lose her touch as she clutches the towel around her, shaking her head no. I reach to her again and slowly pull her back against me. I’m selfish, but I don’t care. I’ve missed her so much. No matter how hard I try to give up on her, I just can’t. I bury it and keep myself busy enough to where I don’t think about her. But she’s always there, lying beneath, deep inside of me where I’m starting to believe she will always be. It’s like she’s the other half of me. The half that would make life miserable if I didn’t have it, so I’ve always kept it. It’s not even a choice.

“Talk to me,” I urge.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t even realize I was here until I was in front of your door.”

“I’m glad you’re here,” I tell her before I move to hold her face in my hands, trying to keep myself together when I let her know, “I’ve missed you so much.”

My words hurt coming out of me, a confession that shouldn’t be because she should just know, but I tell her anyway. The thought of her walking away from me now that I have her here in my home, in my hands, and so fuckin’ deep in my heart makes it hard to breathe right now. But she gives me hope, a hope I thought was forever lost, when I look into her eyes that are rimmed red with tears and she touches me. She gives me her soft hand as she places it on my face and runs it down my jaw, and then she crumbles. With her eyes shut, she chokes on the sobs that break through.

“Baby, don’t cry.”

Leaning in, I kiss her forehead, simply resting my lips against her. I need every second of this as I feel her coming back to me, until she pulls away, shaking her head, and then the knife strikes when she whispers, “I can’t.”

“Babe.”

“I can’t. It hurts so bad, I just can’t.”

“I swear to you,” I beg because that’s all I have at this point. “I will never hurt you again.”

“But you swore you wouldn’t hurt me before and you did.”

Lowering my head to look her in the eyes straight on, I affirm, “I love you. God, I love you so much,” as I move in, holding her face in my hands, and gently graze my lips across hers, tasting the sweetest thing I’ve ever had.

“I’m moving,” she breathes against my lips, and her words echo in my head. A painful reality that I knew would come, but to have it here when I finally have her, is something I don’t want to face.

I shift back to look at her, not wanting to accept her words, when she says, “I got a job. I’m moving to New York in two weeks.”

Dropping my head, I feel the panic in me. The finality of this has never been more tangible than it is right now, and it’s a sharp blade in my heart. A slow bleed that bears the agony of an unrelenting suffering.

“You can’t kiss me,” she says as a new slew of tears starts. “If you do . . . I’ll never want to leave you.”

“Then I’ll come with you.”

“Ryan . . . I just can’t. I’m too scared you’ll hurt me again. I just need to be on my own. I’ve been working so hard to pull myself out of the hell I’ve been living in.”

“I know you have. I ask Jase about you all the time. He’s told me how well you’re doing. I just wish I could be around to see it, babe,” I choke out around the knot in my throat that I can no longer fight as I drop my head and cry. Cry for what we once had. We were so good and happy. Completely in love and bound together in a way I never thought two people could be. But we were, and I don’t think something like that comes around too often.

“All I ever wanted was for you to be okay, to be happy,” I tell her.

“I’m okay.”

She lets me hold on to her, so I do. Scared to let go of her because I know what it means when I finally do, and it’s a pain I’m not ready to feel. So I let time pass as I keep her tucked into me, her head nestled in the curve of my neck, the feel of her damp hair against my skin, the smell of her soft scent that filters into my lungs . . . my senses consumed with her, and then comes sound as she finally speaks.

“Do you think you could drive me home?”

“Yeah,” I whisper, wondering how you say goodbye to someone like her. But I find happiness in one thing, and that is, after all we have been through and all the time that has passed, she ran to me for the comfort that she needed.

I let my tears fall as I drive her home, and with each glance over, I see her own stained face. My gut is in knots, and with my eyes on the road ahead, I ask, as desperate as a man could, because I have nothing else, “Tell me how to fight for you.”

“Please,” is her only response, spoken softly, pleading for me not to push any more.

When I pull up to her house, I turn to her and ask, “Can I walk you in?”

“Ryan.”

Nodding my head, I get it. I see the pain in her eyes, but when she turns to grab the handle, I give her my last attempt to let her know, “I’ll never love anyone the way that I love you.”

She looks back at me, tears streaming, and she nods. Without words I hear what she’s telling me, and I hate that she’s denying us something we both know is great. She feels my words too, and having the knowledge that she feels the same way about loving me makes this all the worse. With the click of the handle, she steps out as I hear her crying begin to crack though, and the sound is excruciating.

And that’s it.

She’s gone.

“How is it that you’re so good with Bennett?” Traci asks me as I lay him down on the floor on his blanket.

“Because for the past five years my cousins have been pushing out babies,” I tell her.

Max returned to work this past week, and he wanted me to stop by and check on Traci. He told me she was freaking out about being alone with the baby, so I decided to bring my camera along to take some photos of Bennett for her.

“Can you turn off the light? I just need the natural light right now.”

“Yeah, sure,” she says as she flips the lights off.

The sun is shining today, making it perfect for these pictures. Bennett is asleep as I adjust him before bringing the camera to my eye and taking a few shots then moving him into a different pose.

“Thanks for doing this.”

“No problem. I wasn’t doing anything today, so I’m glad I have the distraction,” I tell her because I feel like I just went back in time a few months, and I’m feeling the loss of Candace all over again.

“Max is worried about you,” she says, and when I look up at her, I say, “Is that so?”

Tilting her head at me, she adds, “Yeah, that’s so.”

“Tell him I’m fine. Life is full of shit. It’s nothing that I’m not used to.”

“That’s a depressing outlook.”

Sitting back on my heels, I scan through the photos I just took as I say, “Not everybody gets what they want, Traci.”

“There’s probably someone else out there that you’re gonna want more; you just haven’t met her yet.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

“Ryan,” Traci says to get my attention as she sits on the floor next to Bennett and me. “We’ve all lost someone we loved only to find that it wasn’t as deep of a love as we had thought when we finally find
the one
.”

“Is Max
the one
?”

She looks at her son and smiles when she says, “Yeah.”

“And there’s never been a question or hesitation about it?”

Turning back to me, she tells me, “No.”

“And what about the others you thought you loved? Any hesitation there?”

When she nods her head yes, I add, “That’s the difference here. Never was there a question or hesitation. And she wasn’t just someone I loved.”

She doesn’t respond as I lie down next to Bennett with my camera to get some close-ups of his facial features. Traci and I have gotten to know each other better since the baby came along, and I started spending more time over here at their house. At first, I was just trying to keep myself busy, but in the process, I’ve connected with Traci, and Max and I have become closer as well. I have a good bond with Jase, and even Mark, but it’s hard to be around them at times because it only reminds me of how it used to be. But having this with two people that don’t have that connection with Candace gives me a reprieve.

I head up to the bar to give Max the prints of the photos I took of his son a few days ago, and when I walk in, I see Jase sitting at the bar, talking to Mel.