The young man, who looks like he’s college age or maybe younger, offers me a friendly smile in return. “Understood,” he says with a nod and returns to lining up stacks of carts with the one I’ve just brought back up front.
Even now, as I take each deliberate step through the glass double doors that slide open automatically as I approach and feel the cool breeze of early spring against my heated face, I try to rid myself of the memories that flash before my eyes.
The bar. The drinks. The feel of a chilled glass of white wine mixed with the scent of whiskey from the man next to me. The court cases and late nights spent getting lost in bed with a man I knew I shouldn’t be with. The flirtation, rules being broken.
My heels click as I remember losing my law license, as every dreadful moment returns with the stain of blood. So much blood. Acts of passion that couldn’t be taken back. The pain that’s already present mingles with so much more.
Wrapping my arms around myself, I attempt to protect my body from the wind but it’s useless. The weather isn’t what batters me.
The remembrance of his lips on mine and the searing heat of his light touch, force a gasp from me. It’s a short one full of longing, knowing those moments are now nothing more than lost ghosts of the person I was. Of the people we were before it all went to hell.
All of the memories are a cocktail that infuses into my conscious thoughts as I listen to my keys clink while I unlock the door to my sedan with a low beep that fills the practically vacant lot. From the time I entered the grocery store to now, a mere fifteen minutes at that, the sun has decided to set, casting a shade of red across the dark tree line of thick forest beyond the store parking lot and stealing the light that was here only a moment ago.
The leather seat groans and the door shuts with a loud thud. All I can do is sit here, my purse now on the console. My keys in my right hand, resting against my lap with the metal digging into my palm since I’m gripping them so tight. My breathing comes in faster and faster although I’m doing everything in my power to stay calm. He’ll be here soon.
When I hear the click of the back door opening, the one behind my seat, I close my eyes. He didn’t make me wait long.
He enters the car accompanied by a chill from the evening wind and the car rocks gently until he’s seated behind me and the door is shut. His scent fills my lungs first and as it does, I remember that I’ve been told that smell is the sense that holds the most memory. Maybe I read it somewhere, but I’ve never known something to be truer than that fact is now.
When I open my eyes, his chilling gaze is on mine in the rearview mirror and my treacherous heart chokes me in an attempt to escape. It hovers at the base of my throat, pounding viciously in protest.
I did always love him. There wasn’t a moment that I didn’t love him.
He knows that. He has to know that I still love him; we just simply couldn’t be together. We decided. We decided together.
“You said you’d let me go,” I whisper, speaking over my strangled breaths.
My gaze never leaves his, even as tears prick my eyes. Not until he answers me.
“I changed my mind.”
“You don’t get to do that, Cody,” I say and my cadence is much more melancholy than I’d hoped it would come out.
Life is unfair. It’s uncertain and torturous. It takes and gives without remorse. I’m grateful for what I have with Christopher, but damn does it hurt to see Cody as he is. Left wanting and alone. He doesn’t deserve that, but I can’t give him what he deserves. Not when I love someone else the way I do.
If I can’t give him my whole heart, he deserves to have someone else’s.
I can easily give Christopher everything; it feels as if it’s always been his to have. That is life and that is love. I accept it now, the simplicity yet the sheer magnitude of it. Because I only have one life and one love. What choice do I have, other than to give in to it?
“You haven’t called,” I say, daring to peek around my shoulder and look him in the eye. “I thought you might, but you haven’t called once.”
His jaw clenches once as he swallows thickly. “I didn’t know what to say … I still don’t. All I know is that I wanted to see you.”
Shock runs through my body at the sound of the passenger door opening and Christopher climbing in. My body’s paralyzed for a moment, although my heart races recklessly. Against the stillness of everything else, the vulnerable organ rages to be heard.