“Auburn, please give me a chance.”
“I can’t do this anymore, Reed. I'm sorry.” She choked on the words.
“What? No. We just…let me say some things first. There’s so much I want to say.” I pulled away, my mind raging that it was too late. I’d missed her. I'd lost her. Fuck. I backed into the bookcase and it slid across the shiny hardwood with a groan.
Her eyes darted up and caught mine, then assessed the shelf behind me.
“It’s for you.” I stepped out of the way so she could see it in full. Her eyes trailed up and down, then caught mine, before her head dropped and she sobbed. With palms to her face, she shook her head, hair curtaining around her, hiding her beautiful but sad soul from me.
I rushed to her, sliding my palms along her cheekbones and holding her gaze to my own. “I'm sorry.” My world shattered as those watery, chocolate eyes peered back at me.
“I’m sorry too,” she murmured as she pulled away. Before I knew what she was doing she'd grabbed her coat and was rushing out the door.
“Auburn!” I followed, rushed back in to shove on my shoes, then scrambled through the front door and sprinted down the steps. Her form was hardly visible in the blowing snow and wind that pummeled through the buildings of main street.
“Auburn!” I yelled, willing her to stop.
She did.
I wish now she wouldn’t have.
“I'm leaving, Reed,” she cried across the dancing, dashing snowflakes that fell in the hollow space that now existed between us. I yearned for her. I wanted to stretch, to touch, to run, to leave.
Instead I stood, dumb. “No.” Was the only word running through my head.
“I’m sorry. I'm sorry for all of it. I never should have gotten involved with you, I knew it was wrong, I knew it. But something in me screamed that it couldn't be wrong because it felt so right!” she shrieked as tears frosted on her cheeks, others running in torrents to escape into the scarf at her throat.
“Auburn, no.” I shook my head, my brain refusing to put together more than those two words. My eyes glazed as the mesmerizing snow seemed to transport me to a place where Auburn would never, ever utter those two words. I'm leaving. “I’ll do it! I’m doing it! I just needed to do it on my time!” I finally found my voice and yelled.
“What about my time?” She breathed, tears finally slowing.
I watched her, waited, processing. I turned my head and glanced down the main street of our tiny town, the town we’d walked parades in since we were kids, albeit different decades. Snowflakes fell peacefully, swirling in the softly-lit lamplight of colorful historic homes as my world tilted and shuddered to a halt before my eyes.
“You’re right,” I finally replied. This was the right thing. This was the better thing. This was for her. So why did it hurt so fucking much?
She licked her lips, waiting a moment longer, before shoving her hands in her pockets and hunching over, walked the few blocks to her car. I watched her lonely form get further and further away as she left me here, without her.
The silence of the winter night suddenly felt oppressive. I wanted to scream, punch something, run for her. God, how I wanted to run for her. Instead I stood, imprinting this moment on my soul because I'd found myself with her, and then I'd lost her, and I deserved to feel every broken moment of it.
twenty-six
Three months passed in her absence. It took her leaving to get my life together. I filed for divorce from Mel, and because we didn't have children, the lawyer anticipated it being final before this coming summer. I felt better than ever, minus the missing dark-haired girl in my life, but I had plans to rectify that. Everything finally seemed to be falling into place.
And then I went to one appointment that changed my life forever. Again.
It wasn't the first one, I'd been to too many to count over the course of the last year. The five short weeks of painful memories I'd blocked out from this past summer rushed my brain and had defeat settling deep in my bones.
I was diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma on my twenty-eighth birthday.
Skin cancer.
Two days after I found out, I left Mel. A week later the mutated cells born from a small freckle on my shoulder were removed by a skilled surgeon. “Just to be sure,” my oncologist had reassured, he'd sent me to radiation three days a week for five weeks.
The treatments had zapped me physically and psychologically, but I'd had Auburn. Those moments of laughter and love had helped me forget. Had helped me push on and live. Finding her had saved me when nothing else could. I chose not to tell her, chose not to tell my parents or Mel, I didn't want sympathy, I certainty didn't want tears, I just wanted to treat it and forget it. The success rate for basal cell carcinoma is high if caught early, he'd said. We'd assumed we had, we'd thought we had. He'd reassured we had. And so I kept my secret and I lived.