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All Jagger or Grey knew was that I’d yelled at Deacon at the LaRues’ Fourth of July party, and that he’d left not long after I had.
They didn’t know how he’d come over to take care of Keith. They didn’t know the beautiful way we’d come together that night, or how we’d fallen apart not long after. I didn’t know how to tell them. I didn’t know how to tell anyone when I couldn’t even figure out how it had all crumbled beneath my feet.
I had envisioned Stranger as Deacon, but had been positive that they were two separate people. So much so, that it was still so difficult to let myself believe that they were one and the same, even though all the evidence had been thrown in my face that night.
Grey gripped my hand in hers; her eyes darted up behind me to where I could feel Jagger’s presence. “We’re going to take Keith home with us so you can have today to yourself to do whatever you need to. Sleep, run errands . . .” She drifted off, then hesitantly said, “Go see Dea—”
“Don’t,” I pled. “Please don’t.”
Irrational, betraying heart.
She paused for a second, then dipped her head in a nod. “Okay. Call us when you’re ready for Keith to come back, or just come pick him up.”
I stood with her, and wrapped Keith up in my arms as we all walked toward my front door. I whispered my love for him, then let him follow Grey and Aly out the door, purposefully avoiding Jagger’s eyes.
“Why won?
??t you tell us what happened?” he finally asked when he realized I wasn’t going to look at him.
“Because there’s nothing to tell.”
“Charlie . . .” He sighed. “Charlie, we’re worried about you. I’m worried about you.”
“Why?” My eyes flashed to his. “You got what you wanted.”
I turned and walked toward my room without giving Jagger a chance to respond, leaving him standing at my door, knowing he would eventually leave.
I HATE THIS place, I thought to myself two hours later.
I would never understand why Grey and Jagger loved going there. Keith, I knew, was too young to fully understand what that place meant, and I wondered if he would still love going there as the years went on.
But even though Keith wasn’t with me, and despite the way seeing them made me feel, I’d brought fresh flowers for Ben because I knew my son would have demanded them.
After I replaced the flowers that Keith and I had brought during our last trip to the cemetery, I sat down in front of Ben’s headstone, and just stared at it as if I were staring Ben down himself.
Minutes came and went before I broke the silence in the one-sided stare-down.
“I never figured out why Grey always told me to come talk to you. She thought it would help, I thought it sounded like reopening old wounds. Wounds I didn’t want to feel or see or face. But I think I might understand now. Maybe, I don’t know . . .” I trailed off, and let my eyes wander around the other graves.
“Or maybe I just know now why it sounded like absolute torture to try before. Because before, I was still waiting for you to come back and love me when you never would. Before, I was upset with you and mad at you, but still hopelessly in love with you. Before . . . before, I was too blind to see that you never deserved me or the way I loved you.
“I messed up, Ben. Dea—he and I were probably doomed from the start. We don’t . . . we don’t fit, his life and mine.” My voice wavered for the first time, and I tried to swallow back the emotions that threatened to come pouring out. “But even if we could have worked, I wouldn’t let us. I kept waiting for him to mess up. I kept waiting for him to turn back into the guy I’d grown up with—because the guy I grew up with? That guy would do exactly what you did to me.”
I clenched my teeth against my trembling jaw, and gritted out, “I have let you ruin so many things in my life. I let you ruin my heart, and let you continue to long after you were gone. I let you ruin any possible relationship I could’ve had, because all I wanted was you. I let you ruin the best thing that has ever happened to me, or our son, because of what you did to me. I’ve let you ruin me because I loved you, and you never deserved any of it.”
Slowly, I stood from my spot and brushed off my pants as I blinked back tears and cleared my throat. “You’re missed. You are so missed. Keith looks just like you, and it breaks my heart and fills it all at the same time to look at him and see you. Thank you for him, Ben. A million times, thank you. I will cherish those nights with you for so many reasons, but I hate that I’ve wasted my life loving someone who never loved me.”
I took a few steps back, then paused. “For so many years I’ve wondered how you could give me everything, only to rip it away just days later when I was so sure you wanted it too. I’m done wondering now. Wondering ruined the short time I had with him. I won’t let it ruin anything in my life ever again.”
Chapter Twenty
Deacon
July 31, 2016
I’D SLEEPWALKED THROUGH the past month.
I couldn’t remember when I’d worked or when I’d driven. When I’d actually slept in my bed or eaten, or when I’d lain down exactly where I was at that moment. I couldn’t remember anything other than Charlie.
