Not my finest moment.
On tour, women surrounded us. I couldn’t take a step sideways without some groupie throwing herself at me.
It just felt skeevy.
They didn’t want me.
They wanted the guy who employed me.
I was confident enough in myself that if I wanted my dick wet, I could manage it on my own.
It’s just that no one tempted me to the point I felt the need to put in the effort.
Or more, maybe my heart is now so scarred, it’s numb from all emotion, including lust.
I’d be lying if I said that was true.
I still jerk my dick often enough to know I’m not numb to desire.
I see her on the back of my eyelids, pressed up against the elevator wall. I can almost feel her—if I concentrate hard enough—squeezing my cock so tight it jerks with want.
Dragging a hand roughly down my face, I inhale heavily.
Sowing my wild oats.
Fuck it. She’s right.
My mother thinks I should be out fucking around, and she’s fucking right.
Grabbing my phone, I download some app the guys were raving about on the tour bus. Some whacked-out technology that collates matches in your area to message in the hope you’ll score a quick and easy fuck.
I set up a basic profile, taking a lackluster selfie to include.
I scan through potential matches, nothing stirring even the slightest temptation.
I don’t know what I’m looking for.
I know what I’m not looking for.
I don’t need to admit that I swipe left on women who don’t look enough like Henley.
I swipe left on women who look too much like her.
I’m narrowing my options down to a convenient zero percent of the population. Self-sabotaging like a rock star.
And then her face is there.
Her long dark hair.
Her perfectly imperfect scatter of freckles.
Her sad eyes.
On this ridiculous app.
In my area.
Fuck.
I turn the screen away, certain I’m seeing shit that isn’t there.
Turning it back, I pinch my nose.
Henley it reads.
The likelihood I won’t message you is high. That includes replying. It’s nothing personal.
I smile.
So quirky.
So Henley.
I know I should swipe left.
I know the right thing to do is to let sleeping dogs lie.
We’ve lived that life.
We’ve failed.
More than once.
We’ve both been served more pain than we deserve.
And at the hand of one another, no less.
But as my thumb meets my screen, I swipe right without hesitation.
The ball is now firmly in her court.
Sitting.
Waiting.
She can ignore it.
Or she can reach out.
I close the app, panicked that I’ll let myself fall into the arms of another woman. In self-preservation. To prove to myself that I don’t need Henley to reach out.
I feel sick with regret.
Not because I don’t want her.
Not because I don’t want to see her.
But because I want it too much.
I miss her in a way that causes a pain in my chest I can’t ease.
I love her.
But more than any of that, I miss my best friend.
I miss sitting with her on our rock, staring at the flow of the river while we hid ourselves away from the ugly in her life.
I miss being the most important person in her life.
I miss being the only person in this world who could make her smile.
Who does that for her now? Who takes the sadness in her eyes and erases it with deep conversation and the love she’s been so deprived of in life?
I hate that she doesn’t need me in the same obsessive way I do her.
I hate myself for wanting her to feel lonely enough that the thought of rejecting my olive branch suffocates her.
I hate that I’m asshole enough to know I want her hurting so she lets me in to take away her pain. Even if it’s just for a night.
My phone sounds with a notification, and I pick it up, sucking in a quick, sharp breath.
Henley: You shouldn’t have swiped on me.
28
HENLEY
Brooks: Same could be said for you.
Touché.
Two years of healing.
Of forgetting.
All erased the moment he extended an invitation at contact.
I’m pathetic.
Henley: I shouldn’t have messaged you.
Brooks: Yet here we are.
Henley: Here we are.
Brooks: You’re in NYC.
Henley: I’m here for a mixology course.
Brooks: Have to admit, I never imagined you’d step foot on home soil.
Henley: It’s still a part of the world. It’s still somewhere I need to explore.
I’m being purposely distant. I want to talk to him. But I also hate myself for wanting that.
Brooks: If you don’t want to talk to me, Henley. Just say so.
Henley: I don’t want to talk to you.
My heart beats in my chest vigorously.
Henley: But I can’t stop myself from needing to.
Brooks: I can’t tell you I’m not thankful for that. Do you hate me?
I stare at his message, my eyes stinging.
How do I answer that?
I stall, unsure what truth to unveil.
Brooks: It’s okay if you do. I hate you a little bit too.
My heart stutters at his words.
Henley: I’ve come to realize that the power behind love can morph into hate when it all goes wrong. I love you, and I hate you. But I hate myself more than I could ever hate you. I often wonder if I could love myself as deeply as I love you. Maybe I could hate you enough to want to forget you.
Brooks: Or maybe if you loved yourself as deeply as you do me, maybe, just maybe, you’d let yourself take a chance on letting me love you back.
I stare at his words. They all but pulsate on my screen, forcing me to feel them in the tips of my toes to the very top of my head. Coursing through my veins.
Maybe you’d let yourself take a chance on letting me love you back.
I want to scream at him. I have let him love me back. I don’t doubt for a single second that he loves me as deeply as I do him. I just wish he’d understand that sometimes it just isn’t enough. Sometimes living in the throes of love is more painful than losing it.
Henley: Most days, I wish I never met you. But those days, I feel the most pain
