“Drop it, Nat.”
“Everett, you need to move on. She is gone, and I’m here. I never left you. Why can’t you see that?”
My body reaches its boiling point, and I slam my hand into the black tile of my shower. “I said fucking drop it!”
It’s the same conversation over and over. I’ve heard this all before, from Nat, from Gage. Everyone wants me to forget her and move on. But I can’t. Don’t they know I would if I could? But she has all of me. I can’t find myself without her. I fucking need her to breathe. I hate the life I’m living, but what am I supposed to do?
“Natasha.” That's all I can say. That's all I need to say.
“Fine. I’ll be back in a few months. And we will continue to pretend like there is nothing between us except sex.” With that, she slams the door. She will never see that I’m not pretending. All she and I have together is sex. I’m not capable of anything more. Not anymore.
Eleven hours later I open the familiar frosted glass door of Mill’s Coffee House. The bell rings over my head. Images of her behind the bar flash through my mind.
Of her smiling at me with those bright eyes and constellation of freckles.
I can still see her so clearly. But now everything is dull.
Even Ski isn’t the same after her departure from our lives. We are broken men.
“Everett, I thought you weren’t going to come this year.”
“I missed my flight last night. Emergency came in that I couldn’t leave. Had to reschedule to this morning, and well, it’s a long trip.”
“I was just about to close up. Have a seat.”
So I do. At the same table I sat in eight years ago, doing homework with Gage, when my only care in the world was making Leo happy. I used to have an abundance of worries. Worries of college, football, my parents. Then she shined her light on me, changed me, and my whole world became Leora Laney. If she was happy, so was I. She was all I ever needed. She was my dream, now she haunts my nightmares.
Ski comes over and sets down two Leos. The perfectly frothed cream topped with cinnamon reminds me of her. Every fucking thing reminds me of her. A Leo is the only way I can taste her anymore.
“Still nothing, Ev.”
“How could she not even contact you? I don’t know what the fuck happened between the two of us, but you?”
“I don’t take offense. Leora has her reasons, and I trust her. When she is ready, she will let me know. She has always known where to find me. But Everett, I think it’s time you stop coming. I can’t stand to see you this way. I love ya, boy, but you need to move on. Let her go.”
I cup my hands around the warm mug and shake my head. “Fuck. Not you too. I told her I would never let her go, Ski.”
“She doesn’t want to be found, son.”
“I don’t give a shit!” I slam my fist down on the table.
I feel my chest burn with my rage. I don’t mean to take it out on Ski, but I am so fucking livid that she left me. She should have known she could trust me, come to me with anything.
She didn’t fight for us. She bolted.
Ski just lays his hand over mine. Nothing but understanding is reflected in his eyes.
“I hear ya. I want to find her too. But it seems that she doesn’t want to be found. She’s protecting something. Her heart, her mind. I don’t know.”
The old man shakes his head then sips his own coffee.
I stay and chat for a while, and like every year before, he lets me stay in his back office.
I’m five miles from the home I grew up in, but it’s not home. Home is with Leo. Home is between her perfect, thick thighs. Home is wherever Leo took my heart and ran to.
The next morning, I catch my early flight back to Boston. I’m scheduled to work the next sixteen hours starting tonight at seven, and I’m fucking exhausted. But that’s how I have managed to live these last eight years.
I work myself to utter oblivion, and then it’s easier to sleep. Easier to keep my brain distracted.
