My jaw clenches to keep the harsh truth from spilling out. I don’t feel it. Maybe in another life—if Goldi didn’t exist, then the comfortable warmth Marissa provides would be enough. But it’s hard to appreciate warmth when you’ve been consumed by fire.
I grab her hand off my chest. “I care about you. But you deserve someone who’s able to give you everything. That man’s not me.”
“That man’s not you.” She repeats my words, her eyes shuttering. “Is this about that girl?”
My heart pounds. Fuck. “What girl?”
“That Leah girl you ditched me for this weekend.”
“Alina.” My response is automatic. I cringe, knowing I just made things worse.
She laughs, backing up a step. “Unbelievable. I tried to look past it when you left for hours and then didn’t want to touch me. I forgave you when you came home at one in the morning with a look on your face you’ve never given me.”
It’s a struggle not to show the guilt on my face. She really knows how to paint the picture of an asshole.
“Did you fuck her?”
“Excuse me?”
“Did. You. Fuck. Her?”
“No.” But I wanted to.
“I don’t believe you.” She crosses her arms over her chest.
“I may be an asshole, but I’m not a cheat... and this isn’t about her. It’s about me not being able to give you what you want.”
She explodes. “All I want is you!”
I blow out a breath. “I’m trying not to hurt you.”
“Well, you’re doing a shit job.”
“What would you have me do, Marissa? Continue to play house with you? Let you uproot your life and move in with me when I know damn well I won’t ever love you?” The words barrel out of me.
She freezes in place. Shit. I didn’t mean to say that last part out loud. Her eyes become glossy and she stiffens her shoulders. “Get out.”
I sigh. “You’ll see this is what’s best in the long run, Marissa.”
“Get. Out!” she screams. She takes off her shoe and throws it, narrowly missing me as it crashes against the door. Jesus.
I want to convince her this is what’s best for both of us, but it’s clear she doesn’t want to hear any more of my words. So I leave. I hope in time she realizes this is what needed to happen. I’m not sad over the end of our relationship. All I can feel is relief.
I head straight to my therapy appointment with Doc, pulling him in for a hug he doesn’t return. Stingy fucker. “Damn, Doc. It’s good to see you.” I pull back, smirking at him before making myself comfortable on his couch.
“Chase. How are you?”
“Good, real good.” I lean forward and rest my elbows on my knees.
“You seem to be in good spirits.”
I can’t help the smile that overtakes my face. “You’ll never guess who works at the job site I’m on.”
He raises a heavy brow.
“Goldi.”
“Hmm. And how is that?”
“It’s… amazing. And frustrating. And torturous.” I pause, looking up. “Are you married, Doc?”
He nods.
“Do you love your wife?”
“Very much.”
“Can you imagine being around her and knowing she hates you? What it would feel like to not be able to touch her… to kiss her?”
He’s silent.
“I know you won’t actually answer that. It’s a rhetorical question, I guess. But fuck me, Doc. I forgot what it felt like, you know? I can’t fucking breathe with how bad I want to touch her. Make her smile.” I shake my head. “But, I know it won’t happen. We’re kind of, sort of… friends now, I guess?” I think about this weird limbo I’ve been in with her. “I don’t know if you can really call it that. There are some things she’s going through and I just—I see the same haunted look in her eyes I’ve spent my life trying to hide. I want to be there for her. I ache to take all her hurt away.”
“Does she allow you to be there the way you want?”
“Sometimes.” I shrug.
He writes on his notepad.
“I broke up with Marissa.”
His pen pauses as he looks at me from over his glasses. “Oh?”
“Yeah.” I run my hand over my head. “We should never have been anything more than friends. She wanted so much from me, and I didn’t want to give it to her. I never even told her I was adopted. How could I make a life with her?”
“You never spoke of your past with Marissa?” Doc sounds surprised.
“Fuck no. Marissa isn’t the type of person I’d want to share stories with. That’s why she was great. She never pushed. It was purely physical, and that’s how I liked it.” I frown. “At least at first.”
“Hmm… let’s change course for a moment. Is being back in Sugarlake bringing up any feelings for your sister?”
Ice races through my veins and my mouth clamps shut. Lily is still hard for me to verbalize. The cuts from her abandonment run deep. It’s hard. I miss her, and I’m extremely fucking pissed at her. Maybe one day I’ll be able to talk about her, but today is not that day.
“I don’t want to talk about that.”
“Then I hope you’ll consider writing about it.”
Journal Entry #327
Being back home makes sleep harder to come by. Lily surges forward in my dreams, choking me with her memory. But I’ve accepted the reality there’s nothing I could have done to save her from herself. People are in charge of their own happiness. It’s unfair to put that responsibility on others.
But it doesn’t stop the nightmares.
Some days I wake up in a cold sweat not knowing where I am, thinking I’m back in that last foster home before we were adopted. That pudgy motherfucker who thought he could sneak into her room and nobody would notice. But I noticed. It replays in my subconscious whenever I’m asleep. Except the dreams are different than how I remember reality. They twist and get muddled until I’m not sure what was real and what wasn’t.
She was still young. We
