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Is this what a panic attack feels like? Because I have just learned how I have royally fucked up my life based on one moment in time. I lost years with Becca because I was too chicken-shit to just confront her. Instead, I made assumptions, as if I was the one and only person who was in the relationship. Not once did I consider I misheard, that I was in the wrong. I threw away the one good thing I had in my life at that time, and that decision has followed me ever since.
While I sit there, letting all of what Becs just told me process through my mind, I feel her soft hands touch my shoulders, and she begins moving them up and down my back. She’s using this light touch that instantly soothes me.
“Shane, take calming breaths in and out. Try to focus on your breath, feeling the air move into your lungs and out. You can do it.”
I listen to her instructions, and soon I feel the tension in my shoulders dissipate. We sit there for a while, me grasping this truth I had no idea was fact and, I assume, she’s wrapping her head around the fact that I took something out of context and completely changed the trajectory of our lives. We both lived with our own versions of reality dominating our thoughts, and now I have to face what she just laid out in front of me.
“I’m such a fucking asshole, Becs. How could I have done that? My love for you was so strong that the moment I overheard your conversation, I saw no other way to solve it. It never dawned on me there could be another explanation. I simply took what I heard and ran with it. And in my path, I took down everything we had dreamed for our future together.”
Her movements on my back are slow until she finally puts her arms around my center, her chest against my back, and she rests her left cheek between my shoulder blades.
Soon I feel her head move and she kisses me where her cheek was and says, “I can’t lie and say I’m not upset at how wrong you were. And the ripple effect of that one moment led to so much sadness. You missed out on so much, and I still have so many questions. I think it would be best if we take this discussion downstairs. I don’t think we need to continue this with empty stomachs. And I can assure you, I need a cup of coffee. Let’s get up, begin our day, and let everything out—but with a stack of my favorite pancakes. I pre-make them and freeze them for mornings when we are rushing out. How does that sound?”
I nod but I’m still having a hard time accepting how much I fucked this up. She moves and soon she’s crouched in front of me, moving her head so her eyes look directly into mine. Ashamed, angry, disappointed—all are the feelings coursing through my mind right now. Finally, my eyes find hers and it’s hard not to see the sadness in her eyes. No matter how you turn this, I was not the only person heartbroken that day.
She probably harbored so much anger when I left, while I thought I was doing what was best for her. But she’s still wanting to talk this out. I don’t know what else we could discuss aside from possibly having her yell at me for being so fucking dumb with my actions. I would deserve every loud word aimed at me. As she keeps looking at me, she softens, lifts my chin up, and kisses me.
“Come on, Shane. We need to do this. We have to find a way to lay it all out in front of us and navigate ourselves through what was ruined. Life’s too short to keep walking away. We have to face everything now. No more running away.”
She grabs my hand and pulls me to stand. I kiss her, my hands grabbing her face. I wish I could go back in time and change it all. I hope she can feel my sorrow because that’s what my heart feels at this moment.
I thought it was broken that day on her porch, but this is truly what heartbreak feels like. I did this. My actions, my miscommunication, are what led to us not walking this life together for the last twenty-five years.
She pulls away first, still looking right at me.
“Shane, please, don’t shut down. We are still in this together. It will hurt, but let’s take this next step and fight for what we left behind years ago.”
I nod, finding the strength to really look at her. My beautiful Becs. The universe brought us together again, and I can’t go on without giving this one hundred percent of my effort.
“Let me go to the restroom, and I’ll meet you downstairs,” I tell her.
She stands there looking at me for an extra beat to make sure I am not pulling away. Whatever she sees, she must trust I am here to stay, and she nods back and makes her way out the door and down the stairs.
I head to the restroom and splash water on my face. The cold snaps me out of whatever trance I was in. What’s in the past is exactly that—in the past. So I will need to get through this conversation and see where that leaves us. We’ve made it too far in reuniting for me to walk away now. I didn’t fully grasp how much I needed Becs back in my life until she was back here, by my side once again.
Once I freshen up, I put my basketball shorts and a shirt on, making my way down the hall, toward the stairs. I take the first step on the stairs and look to my right. The wall that leads down next to the stairs is covered in framed photographs.
I’ve been in Becca’s house a good number of times at this point, and I have never taken the time to look at her photos. Granted, I was nearly pulling all her clothes off each time I found myself walking up them, so there is that. I smile at that thought.
I look at the photos at the top of the stairs, seeing two little kids that I recall seeing the first day Becca and I reconnected. They seem to be at a birthday party, Becca and Hudson standing behind them, big smiles across their faces. The kids don’t look like teens but must be around ten or eleven years old here.
Moving down the stairs slowly, one step at a time, I see more photos of Becca with the twins at some of the popular spots around New York and even some in Saddle Ridge. It isn’t until I get to the middle of the steps, that I find there are older pictures.
The twins are much younger, Hudson and Becca standing with them. But then another girl stands there, older than the twins and I stop in my tracks. The girl looks a lot like Becca. She’s got that dark hair, like my Becs, but what stops me isn’t the resemblance to Becca.
It’s the eyes. The eyes I have only ever seen on one other person—me.
I keep staring at that picture, confused about what is staring back at me. I’m about to yell down to Becca to clarify what I’m looking at when the front door begins to open, and a woman walks in. I stand there, looking at it unfold in front of me. The woman has a small luggage, the size of a carry-on, rolling by her side, while her face is down, trying to put her phone away in her cross-over bag. She still hasn’t looked up and then says something that immediately makes the hairs on my arms stand at attention.
“Mom, are you home?”
Right then she brings her head up, coming to a halt as she looks right at me. And right at that moment, I’m staring back at eyes that are identical to mine.
ChapterTwenty-Four
REBECCA
June 1998
