“I mean … if she wants to see you more often, then I think she’s old enough to make that decision. It’s not like she needs a babysitter anymore. I don’t have to worry as much about …” Her forehead tenses.
I feel a chill in the room from her words—specifically the words she stops short of saying. Then I glance up to one of the bookshelves and see a silver framed photo of a little boy with a big cookie in his hand and chocolate smeared on his exuberant grin. Blue eyes like mine that will never shine for me again. Full lips like hers that will never offer me fish kisses.
The big hugs.
The shrill of excitement in his voice.
The tickle in my tummy from his contagious giggles.
The perfect fit of his tiny hand in mine.
“You know,” I say as if the wind just got knocked out of me, “I can meet Lucy’s boyfriend another time.” Standing on heavy legs, I turn to leave.
“I think it’s time for you too.”
I glance over my shoulder as Tatum stands, making a quick glance at the photo before letting her attention refocus on me.
“Time for me?” I don’t know what she means because my mind has opened that door again, and now my chest hurts which makes it hard to breathe.
“Time to forgive yourself,” she says just above a whisper.
Her suggestion doesn’t sit well with me. I don’t have to forgive myself. I have no regrets—at least not for the things I said. I did what she wanted me to do.
“Do you? Do you forgive me?” I ask. I’ve never asked for her forgiveness, but now I’m curious.
In a blink, her jaw tightens and emotion floods her eyes, turning them red and watery. The rest of her body follows … going rigid. Her cheeks bloom in shades of pink, but not like the blush she used to get when I made her fall in love with me. No. This is anger and pain.
This is what it looks like when the love has died and been replaced with a toxic pain that will linger forever like a slow poisoning of one’s soul.
I did that to her … but she asked me to do it.
“Tell Lucy I’ll meet him next time,” I murmur on my way to the front door.
“You never asked,” Tatum says, her words cracking on their way out of her mouth.
I keep my back to her to avoid looking into her eyes and seeing the hollow place where the love used to reside. “Never asked what?”
“You never asked me to forgive you. Never … not once have you uttered the words.”
“Because it’s not for me. It’s for you.” I shut the door behind me and bolt to my truck before I lose my shit in front of her or even worse … in front of Lucy.
THEN
We got that celebratory drink.
I discovered that Tatum drank wine to fit in, but her alcoholic beverage of choice was wine coolers. She discovered that my favorite beer was root beer. Specifically A&W, but I could do an off-brand in a pinch.
I drove her slightly inebriated self to her apartment later that night. In return, I got a kiss. The next day, my dad followed me to her place to drop off her car. That night, she was waiting by my truck again when I clocked out.
Another kiss.
I wanted all the kisses.
All the dates.
I wasn’t sure what it was like to have an actual girlfriend since I’d never had one, but I felt certain it involved a different set of rules or standards. The one-night-stand part was easy. There seemed to be this unspoken look that happened before clothes were discarded and condoms were pulled from purses or wallets. If you both mutually needed sex, there was nothing wrong with scratching an itch and moving on.
Tatum evoked new feelings. Sure, I wanted to have sex with her, but then what? So while I worked out the “then what” question in my mind, I spent weeks ending our dates by midnight and finding every excuse in the book to not go up to her apartment or invite her into my house—well, my parents’ basement. It wasn’t that I needed to wait until marriage to have sex with her, but I wanted her to know it meant something, and I felt the best way to show her that was to wait for sex.
Said no twenty-two-year-old man ever!
“My roommates are gone this weekend,” she casually said as we talked on the phone late on a Thursday night.
“Yeah? Where are they going?”
“Does it matter?” She laughed.
“Just making conversation,” I said, staring at my bedroom ceiling as I twisted the phone cord around my finger. I had the only corded phone in the house.
“I know, Emmett. You’re a great conversationalist.”
“Sounds like sarcasm?”
She laughed. “I’m not trying to be sarcastic. I’m just …”