The Space Between Us (29 page)

   “Not tonight, Asher.  I just got here
and it’s the first time I’ve been home in a really long time.  I miss my dad and I think I just want to go to sleep.  Can we meet tomorrow sometime?  Maybe get some coffee?”

   He hesitated and I could see that he wanted to argue with me.  “You’ll be fine here by yourself?  Are you sure you don’t want me to take you to a hotel or something?”

   I laughed a little pathetic laugh.  “I just came from a hotel.  I just want to go to bed, really.”

   He nodded, finally accepting my decision.

   “So, can we meet tomorrow afternoon then?”  I asked, trying to get him to leave so I might finish my breakdown, or my laundry – whichever.

   “Sure, how does three sound?  There’s a little coffee shop downtown called Java Jive.”

   “Perfect.  I’ll see you there.”

   He hesitated
again.  “Are you really going to meet me or are you just trying to get rid of me?”  He kind of smiled, like he’s partly joking asking the question, but can tell it’s laced with the fear of the truth.

   “I’ll be there.”

   “Ok.  I’ll see you then.”  He turned and left, walked right out of my father’s house and left me wondering why I’d agreed to meet him, why I’d even come back to this house.  But I shook my head at myself.  I knew why.  Part of me still wanted to see him, still wanted to feel the rush of my blood thrumming through my veins at the sight of him.  Part of me still loved him.

  
Now I just had to figure out how to keep that part of me silent.

Chapter Eight

Asher

   It was finall
y here.  The day I hoped for.  The day Charlie and I would get to say everything we’d never gotten to.  I imagined this conversation a million times before. Sometimes, in my mind, after I would tell her everything, she would nod and understand why I made all the decisions I did.  She would be open.  She would listen.  She would forgive.  In other scenarios she would cry and tell me all the ways I destroyed her and then she would disappear again.  Sometimes she would joke around with me, telling me that I’m taking it all too seriously and that she moved on years ago and I should too.  Sometimes she would just walk up to me and slap me across the face and then walk away.  All would be valid responses.  I would take any of them.  I would take whatever she gave me.  I deserved whatever came my way.  All I hoped for is that by telling her everything that happened, telling her how much I regret what occurred between us, would ease some of the pressure in my chest that I’ve dealt with for years.  It’s a selfish endeavor, I know, but my expectations could be much higher.  I could be asking the world of Charlie, expecting her to come back to me, to let me prove to her that there was nothing I wouldn’t do for her.  But no, my need was simple – just to explain.  And then to take whatever reaction she had and deal with it.

  
Finally, Charlie walked into the coffee shop.  I sat in a far corner so she didn’t see me right away.  I should have stood and greeted her.  I should have waved her over.  But I just couldn’t.  As selfishness was the theme of the day, I took a minute to drink her in, to commit her to memory as this could very well be the last time I would get to wash my eyes over her in earnest. 

  
She still seemed so small to me.  In reality, she was small.  She never grew after she turned thirteen, at least not in height.  Her hips became fuller in her teen years, as did her breasts and ass, but her head never really got much higher than my shoulders.  Her smallness was no surprise to me, but it did trigger the possessive feelings I always had over her.  She needed to be protected, shielded, and treasured.  I’d done a fantastic job of fucking all of that up.  If I didn’t know her, if she were a stranger walking into the coffee shop that day I might take a look at her and think she was attractive, that she looked confident and determined.  But I knew better.

   She was rail thin and although she’d always been small, she’d never been this frail.  I understood she was dealing with the death of her father, but something told me that this
wasn’t due to her recent loss.  Her eyes were empty and her skin was ashen.  She didn’t look healthy.  She didn’t look happy.  She looked like she needed help or someone to offer her a burger.  Beyond all that, she was still beautiful.  She was still my Charlie.  Her eyes met mine and I gave her a weak smile, not sure if she’d picked up on the fact that I’d been watching her.  She walked over to the table and I stood, wanting to take her and pull her against me, but lamely standing still and waving instead.  I motioned with my hand for her to sit in the vacant chair across from me.

   “Thanks for meeting me,” I said, trying to soun
d serious, trying to convey the fact that I knew this wasn’t a social call.  She tilted her head at me and smiled.  I felt a little bit of my stiffness ease with the upturn of her lips.

   “Honestly, I’m glad to be getting out of my dad’s house.  It’s harder being there than I anticipated.”  I nodded, not wanting to bring up that I’d been there many times in her absence.  “I guess I just wish he’d told me what was going on.  It’s like he was preparing to die.  He nearly cleaned out the entire house, only leaving things that he thought I might want.  There’s not one piece of junk mail, not one old newspaper, not even anything in the refrigerator to clean out.”  She shook her head to herself and grew quiet.

   “He didn’t want you to have to deal with everything,” I said quietly.  I wasn’t sure if this was where she wanted our conversation to start, but we might as well discuss it while we were here.  She brought it up, after all.

   “Why?”

   “He said that he knew what it was like to watch someone die and then have to deal with their life after they passed.  He didn’t want that for you.  He didn’t want you to clean out his refrigerator.  He didn’t want you to see him that way; sick, weak, dying.”  A waitress walked up to our table and interrupted.  It wasn’t her fault, but it was hard not to glare at her.  Charlie and I both ordered coffee and the waitress left again.

   “Did
he suffer for long?” She looked down into her coffee mug as she asked the question, swirling a spoon around, mixing the creamer into her coffee that blended in thirty or so swirls ago.  I wanted to reach over and calm her, place my hand over hers and comfort her.

   “The chemo was hard on him.  For about six months he went through treatments and was never given good news.  Eventually the doctors came to the conclusion that he wasn’t responding and had a conversation with him about quality of life.”  Her hands came up and covered her eyes and I chastised myself for revealing too much.
  Charles wanted to spare his daughter from the hurt, to prevent her from seeing him in pain, and here I was giving away the information he wanted to take to the grave.  Before I could think enough to stop myself I reached over and took her hand away from her face and held it; I gripped her fingers gently in my palm.

  
“He lived about six months after he went off chemo and the first two months I think he tried to live a little bit more.  He went to visit you,” I nodded towards her, trying to engage her, to make sure she wasn’t just emotionally crushed.  “He went to see a few places he’d always wanted to.  Eventually, though, he came back here and got very serious about making plans.

   “You were always his main concern, in everything.  We had countless conversation
s about how to best provide for you, how we could take what he had and make the most of it, how he could spare you the most amount of pain and hassle.  That’s all he ever wanted, Charlie, to take away your pain.”

   She pulled away from me at tha
t and I thought maybe I went too far.

   “Is that why he never told me that you two were close?”

   I shrugged and then smiled because, typically, that was her move.  “I’m not sure.  We never spoke about you, really.  I was there a few times while you two had phone conversations, but we never talked about you.  Not until he was trying to prepare for his death.”

   She scoffed.  “For thirteen years you hung around my dad and the two of you
never
talked about me, or about
us
?”  She didn’t believe me and I didn’t blame her.

   “I think the first time I showed up at his house, looking for you, looking for answers
, was the only time.”  Her eyes were big and round with surprise.

   “You came looking for me?”  I had become numb to the term
‘broken heart’.  My heart wasn’t broken.  The word broken implied that it could be fixed or repaired.  My heart wasn’t fixable, my heart shriveled up like a flower in the fall when the summer sun had beaten it to death, when the heat evaporated the life from it.  My heart cracked and shattered and crumbled until it wasn’t even recognizable anymore and then I tried to piece it back together by searching for her, but every day I gave a shard of it away to keep breathing.  There was no fixing my heart, but I’ll be damned if it didn’t break a little more to hear her question whether or not I looked for her.

   “Of course I came looking for you.  I loved you.”  It tore me up to use the past tense, but she didn’t want to hear me telling her I loved her now, that would just make this even more awkward.
  I saw something flash over her face as she took in my words and it looked a lot like anger.  She was mad at me.  Hearing me tell her that I loved her and made her angry.

   “What did he say to you about me then?”

   I swallowed hard.  This was it, the moment I longed to have with her – to apologize.

  
“He told me that you lost the baby.  And that you left.”  She sniffled again and I wished to God she’d look at me.  I didn’t want to apologize to the top of her head.  Honestly, I didn’t want to apologize to her in a coffee shop.  To my amazement she did look up at me, tears gleaming in her eyes.

   “Can we go someplace more private?” 

   I exhaled loudly.

   “Definitely.  Where should we go?  To your dad’s house?”

   She shook her head.  “No, can we go to the park?  The one we always used to go to?”

   Something gripped my lungs, squ
eezed the breath right out of me.  She wanted to go to back to
our
park?  The place that held most of the sacred memories I had of her and I together?

   “Are you sure?”

   She nodded and a tear slid down her cheek.

   “Of course.  Come on, let’s get out of here.”  I threw some money down on the table and walked her out of the shop, my hand naturally going to the small of her back.  Once I realized I’d placed it there
, I knew I should pull it away.  But I’m a selfish bastard today so I left it there.

Chapter Nine

Charlie

   I stopped my car down the street from the park entrance.  I haven’t been here in years.  Even if I had come back here often to visit my father, I know I would have avoided this place.  It’s almost worse than my bedroom.  This is the place where we came to be alone, where we shared secrets, plans, words.  This was hallowed earth.

   I took a deep breath and got out of my car to see Asher walking towards me
from his.  His car was sleek, a two-seater, nothing a man with kids would drive.  I kind of resented that car.  He didn’t have a ring on his finger; I noticed while we were having coffee.  No wife.  No kids.  He had the life he wanted, I supposed.  I tried not to let my thoughts run away with my feelings.  I tried not to be resentful of what he became since it had nothing to do with me.  It was, in fact, the complete opposite.  He became what he was due to the absence of me.

   We silently fell in to step with one another, walking along the path of the park that wound around the perime
ter.  Neither one of us spoke.  We just kept walking.  Eventually we came to the gazebo and I closed my eyes for just an instant to push back the memory of a young girl and a young boy standing in that gazebo sharing a kiss, breaking boundaries, giving in to something that had been building between them.  I opened my eyes to see Asher, grown and even more handsome, staring back at me from inside, the pond his background. 

   I walked towards him, without even thinking about it, and we stood next to each other against the railing, like we had a thousand times before.  Only now, his arms weren’t around me and I wasn’t lost in his scent.  I was, however, ridiculously aware of the space between us. 
Just inches separated us, and if I leaned my head over, it would rest against his arm.  I had done that in the past, in this very spot.  This was getting a little surreal, even for me.

   “I’m so sorr
y, Charlie.”  He spoke suddenly and it caught me off guard.  His tone was serious and I looked over at him, only to see so much sadness in his eyes.  Instinctually I moved towards him, closing the distance between us and placed a hand on his forearm that rested against the railing.  “I wish I could take back everything I said to you that day.  I wish I could just go back and start over, you know?”  He looked to me and I couldn’t help but nod.  I kind of wished he could have a do-over too.  I wished everything was different.

   “I was supposed to be the one person you could count on, the one person who was supposed to stand next to you through everything, and I managed to fuck up the very first time we were faced with anything of importance.
”  He sniffled and rubbed his hands together, his head bent down, trying to compose himself.  “I was a stupid nineteen-year-old boy.  The very last thing I ever expected you to tell me was that you were pregnant, Charlie.  And when I heard those words: pregnant, baby, adoption.  Fuck, I shut down.  I wish to God I hadn’t.  I wish everything was different.  But it’s not.  What happened, happened.  All I can say is that I’m sorry.”  He looked up at me and I was stunned by how much grief I saw reflected back at me.

   “It’s ok,” I said.  Those were words I never thought I’d say to him.  I never thought it would
be ok
.  Ever.  “We were both young and inexperienced.  It was a less than ideal situation and we handled it the way young people ought to, with fear and panic.”

   “Please don’t make excuses for me, Charlie.  I should have been there for you.  I should have swallowed my fear and stayed by your side.  I should have been there when you lost the baby.”  His words were lost in quiet sobs and I tried hard to hold my own back, but there was something so entirely
damaged about him in this moment.  He was vulnerable and cracked, and for a moment I saw my best friend and wanted to comfort him.  I pulled him into me and he came, willingly.  I wrapped my arms around his neck and his arms came around my waist and we stood there, comforting each other for a while.  

  
Every once in a while he mumbled an “I’m sorry,” and I hushed him and responded with a soft, “It’s ok.”  Eventually he pulled away from me, wiping his eyes and taking deep breaths.

   “Wow,” he said through his hands that were covering his face.  “I feel like that was a long time coming.”

   I didn’t know what to say.  I honestly felt like I could forgive the nineteen-year-old who had made a mistake in a moment of high stress.  He didn’t react to a pregnancy any differently than many boys his age would have.  Was it shitty?  Yes.  Could I forgive him, years later, for it?  I knew I could.  I could let that one piece of heaviness off of my chest.  But I knew I needed to give my own apology.

   “Asher, there’s something I n
eed to tell you.”  My eyes were on the pond, but I knew he turned to me, his cheeks still wet from tears, eyes red from crying.  “I haven’t told anyone this, so you’ll have to forgive me if it’s difficult.”  I looked down and my hands clasped together, holding me up against the railing.  “When I was losing the pregnancy,” my voice shuddered.  I shook my head, trying to shake off all the guilt and shame I felt for so long.  I raised my head and looked Asher right in his beautiful gray eyes.  “When I was having the miscarriage,” I began again, “in the hospital, they gave me an ultrasound.  They were trying to figure out what was wrong.”  I took in a deep breath, readying myself to say the words I avoided for so long.  “I could see them, Asher, both of them.”  His eyebrows scrunched in confusion, not understanding me.  “I was pregnant with two babies.  Twins.  I lost them both.”  My last words were lost in my cries, unable to hold them back as I had hoped, but also I was muffled by Asher pulling me into him.  He held me, comforted me.  And in that moment I allowed myself to feel it.  I allowed myself to get lost in the feeling of his arms wrapped around me.

  
This was all I ever wished for.  All I ever wanted was for Asher to be there for me, to share the pain with me.  Now that he knew and he was here, I was equally upset by reliving the loss of my children as I was by the feeling of his arms encasing me.  He put a piece of my soul back together and he didn’t even know it.  There was no way for him to realize what this moment meant to me.  I let myself feel all of it, wanted to ache from all the emotions running through me, wanted to be exhausted, for once, from feeling instead of hiding.

   I hugged him harder and let myself cry into his chest.  It was his turn to comfort me, running his hand through my hair,
whispering apologies into my ear.  I heard him and I felt him.  With my eyes closed it was almost as if we were young again – two kids, in the throes of a passionate and all-consuming love.  I wanted to go back to that time when we were young and in love and nothing could hold us down, before life’s tragedies took our sunshine, took our innocent love and made it dark and twisted.

   “I’m so sorry,” he whispered into my hair.  That’s all it took to remind me.  He was sorry because he wasn’t there.  And the one reason he wasn’t there was because I shut him out.  I shut him out because I found him with another girl wrapped around him.  I could forgive him for his response to the pregnancy, but I could not forgive him for burying himself in someone else.

   I stepped back, pushing my hair back behind my ears, trying to put a few feet between him and me.  I needed some distance; his arms felt too good and I didn’t fully trust myself.

   “I think it’s good that we had this conversation,” I said
coolly.  I made sure I turned from him, wiping my eyes.  “I think closure is something I’ve been lacking from our whole situation.  So, thanks for making me meet with you and allowing me to get this off of my chest.”

   “Closure?”  He asked.  I could hear the strain in his voice.

   “Yes.  Closure.  I think it’s important to have a little closure in order to move on.  Lord knows I could use a little moving on in my life.”  I laughed a little, trying to make it seem like I wasn’t being shredded on the inside.

   “Hey,” he said as he gently gripped my arm and turned me towards him.  I shied away from his hand but turned to face him.  He dropped his hand and I saw the hurt on his face that came when I pulled away.  “Are you going to run away again?  Hide from all of us?”

   “Hide from who, exactly?  I’ve got no one to hide from.” I swiped my empty hands through the air, motioning to the emptiness around me, emphasizing my point, that I was all alone.

   “From Reeve.  From me.”

   “Reeve has moved on, Asher.  She’s got a family now, a husband and children.  Her life is full and complete without me interfering.”

   “I don’t think you’re giving her enough credit here.  She cares about you.  She worries about you.  She wants to be your friend.”  He paused, his eyes searching mine.  It took all my strength not to look away from him.  I held his gaze, not allowing myself to shrink away.
  “And what about me?  You’re going to run away and hide from me too?”

   “We’re not friends, Asher.”

   “We could be.”

   “No.  We couldn’t.”

   “Charlie, don’t push me away.  We were friends for so long before.  Best friends.”

  
Before
.  I couldn’t go back to before.  Before what?  Before I lost my two babies?  Before he cheated on me?  Before my father died?  There was no going back.  There would only be moving forward.

   “I can’t go back, Asher.  I can’t pretend like nothing ever happened.  It’s not possible for me.  I appreciate your apology, and I hope you can appreciate and accept mine.  Our history is too painful to allow us to have anything between us in the future.  I think it’s best if we just move on.  Separately.”
  I started to walk towards the entrance of the park where my car was parked, but I knew he was following me.

   “Wait a damn minute.  Why do you get to decide everything?  What if I’m not ok with this?”

   “It’s not up to you, Asher.  I can’t be around you.”

   “Why?”
  He nearly yelled.  “I’ve already apologized and I meant it too.  I meant every word.  I just want to be a part of your life again.  We don’t have to be anything but people who don’t hate each other.  Charlie, please.”

   To hear the pain in his voice felt like tiny knives we
re taking stabs at my heart – a sharp pain, a slow burn.  Everything about being around him was painful, except when he was holding me.  That seemed to heal more than anything.  In that moment I wished I could let go of everything and just live in his arms.  I shook my head at the thought.  He didn’t want me like that; he wanted my friendship.  And I couldn’t give him that.  I couldn’t give him anything.

   “I hope you have a good life, Asher.”  My quiet words sliced as they left my mouth. I turned from him, once again, and walked to my car.  This time he didn’t follow me.

   I drove to my father’s house, angry that I had to go back to perhaps the only other place on the planet that held more memories of my friendship with Asher.  Every room of the house had a piece of him in it, a memory of who we use to be together.  With the renewed and fresh memory of his arms around me, I wasn’t sure it was the smartest place for me to be.  I knew, though, that I had to take care of my father’s house.  I owed it to him, and to myself, to face the process of moving on, of letting go.

   I decided, however, to let today end and start fresh the next day.  There was only so much emotional turmoil I could handle.  When I entered the house I went straight to the bathroom, intending on taking the hottest shower I could stand, hoping the water would ease some of my tension.
  I stripped off my clothes and turned on the shower.  When I saw myself in the mirror, I stared intently at the script emblazoned on my ribcage. 
Asher
.  My eyes fell to the necklace that was around my neck.  A simple silver chain with the ring he gave me nestled between my breasts.  Since the day I put it on, I never took it off.  Every once in a while I thought about it.  I question whether or not it was healthy to have this physical reminder of him hanging on me.  In the end, every time, regardless of how harmful I thought my actions to be, I wasn’t giving them up.  The tattoo, the ring, they both brought me a sense of peace.

   The shower helped alleviate some of the anxiety from the conversation with Asher and I found it surprisingly easy to slip into my old bed and fall into a restful sleep.

  
When I woke the next morning it was past noon.  I rubbed my face with my hands and tried to remember the last time I slept for more than four or five hours at a time.  I still felt a little groggy, but it was a good feeling, a feeling like my body was finally relaxing.  I felt loose. 

  
As if the universe knew exactly how I was feeling and how to ruin it, I heard the doorbell ring again.  My instincts told me it wasn’t Asher, not after the fight we had yesterday.  I couldn’t imagine he was in a hurry to talk to me.  I pulled on my bathrobe and walked to the front door and opened it, not really caring that my hair was most likely doing its best impression of Medusa. 

  
A man stood on my porch holding a very large and beautiful arrangement of roses.

   “Charlie McBride?”

   “That’s me,” I said, a little baffled at the beautiful sight.

   “These are for y
ou.  Have a nice day.”  He handed the flowers off to me and I carried them into the kitchen, kicking the door closed.