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Stella.
My little star, my sun.
It’s been so fucking dark without her.
I’m still not sure what happened, not really, but I can make an educated guess. I told her I stopped drinking and didn’t. Then I blacked out, completely forgetting the night before as I stealthily drank the entire night until I couldn’t remember a thing.
It took nearly six months and a turn for the worse before the guys sat me down and told me I needed to slow down. I’ve been better, I think, since I last saw Stella, managing the drinking and the urges on my own.
But all that did was make it easier for me to remember how much I missed her, how much I lost.
I ache every fucking time it rains, remembering our first kiss or the last time I held her as mine.
“Thank you,” I whisper, unsure of what to say to her. Her small hand reaches up, brushing my hair that’s much too long and disheveled behind my ear, her skin touching mine and sending heat and comfort through me.
“Whenever you need me, Riggins, I’m there.”
My mind races through responses, ranging from shithead versions of a rage-filled me about her leaving when I needed her to asking her to never leave my side again, but I know this doesn’t change a thing. This is just Stella being Stella, coming when I need her most.
“Can we talk?” I ask without thinking. She opens her mouth, doubt written on her face, but I keep speaking, verbal vomit that won’t stop.
This feels like a chance I shouldn’t have been given, and I’m grasping it as hard as I can. Maybe this was a gift from my dad, one last moment to try and make things right. He always loved Stella.
“Please. Coffee. Lunch. Anything. I just…” I take a deep breath, letting my eyes close for a moment to find my footing even though all I want to do is look at her, to commit her face to memory in case this is it for us, for me.
I wouldn’t blame her if it was. I don’t hold her, leaving against her, even though I’ve spent every day for a year trying to put the pieces together to figure out the tipping point.
It always ends in my not putting her first, with my lies, my deceit, and my addiction.
I just hope I didn’t push her all the way away. That I?—
“Yeah,” she says, cutting off my thoughts, her eyes going soft. “Yeah. We should talk.” It feels fucked to smile this big in front of the spot where my father was just lowered into the ground, but here I am all the same. Her lips tip up, too, like she finds my smile funny. “Cafe Pine at noon,” she whispers.
“I’ll be there,” I tell her. Then, I lift her hand and press my lips to it the way I did years and years ago in the clearing where we fell in love. Moments later, I’m pulled away by a grieving family, and she waves at me, stepping away and mouthing tomorrow at me.
For the first time in what feels like forever, the sun shines on me, its rays actually warming me to my bones.
My sun is back.
The grocery store in Ashford isn’t huge, but it always had a pretty decent flower section. I remember the months when Stella moved in with me, stopping here on my way home from a day practicing with the guys or out at a studio any time she didn’t come, and bringing her flowers home. Usually sunflowers, her favorite, but sometimes I’d grab her fluffy pink peonies or a mix of wildflowers if they had them.
It’s the day after the funeral and I’m checking out with a bouquet of sunflowers before I meet Stella at the coffee shop.
It’s time.
It’s time to finally talk, clear things up, and win my girl back. I’ve spent the last two years battling on and off to get sober, succeeding, and failing, but I’m going on three months now, and the world seems… clearer. I get it now, why she left. I was a drunk, and I’d gotten so bad that I was willing to push her to the side in order to keep up the habit. I was willing to throw it all away for just one more drink.
But eventually, I got past the anger of her leaving, with Reed talking to me and letting me see things from his perspective. He tried to get me to go rehab or join AA, but I don’t need that shit. I’m fine, especially with the wake-up call that’s been my dad’s passing.
And now I’m about to get my girl back.
My bright, shining little star. Fuck, just five minutes in her presence warmed me to my bones, a heat I hadn’t felt in years.
It’s as I’m checking out, a pack of gum, a soda, and the flowers the only things in my basket, that I feel an unwelcome cold presence behind me, a foreboding of sorts.
“If it isn’t Riggins Greene,” a familiar, sickly sweet voice I would be more than happy to never hear again in my life coos. That’s the only way you can call the way Rhonda Hart speaks—a coo filled with hatred and anger and pure venom.
“Hey, Mrs. Hart,” I mumble, grabbing my things and turning to leave.
