Hell on Heels (24 page)

No sleep and a week of crying would do that to a person.

It took me awhile, but eventually I found a pair of clean socks and stuffed my feet into a pair of tan Ugg boots, the kind with the buttons on the side.

They were warm and comfortable.

I needed to be comfortable today.

It was spring, but it was also Canada. So, I grabbed my windbreaker from my closet and put it on. My purse was hanging on the back of a chair around the breakfast bar, and I slung it over my shoulder and checked the time on my microwave.

6:30 in the morning.

I was ahead of schedule.

Walking to the front door, I slid the deadbolt and grabbed the keys from the tray.

The door seemed heavier than normal, or maybe I was just weaker from sleep deprivation. Regardless, I turned the handle and pulled.

“Oh, uhh,” he tripped over his words.

I looked down to see him placing an arrangement of lilies on my doorstep.

“Dean?”

He lifted his head.

“I thought you’d still be sleeping.” He picked the flowers back up and stood. “I just wanted to drop these off, because, well…” His voice dropped off.

“Yeah,” I whispered. “Thanks.”

His eyes narrowed and he tipped my chin up to look at him. “Charlie…” His voice was full of concern.

“I know.” I closed my eyes.

I knew what he saw. I’d seen it too. I looked bad.

I was grieving and it showed.

“I’m sorry.” His thumb moved along my jawline and my lip trembled.

“Yeah,” I whispered again, but this time, a tear fell down my cheek.

He wrapped his arms around my shoulders and pulled me into a hug, the bouquet in his hands draping down my back.

It was too much. The comfort was too much. I was only keeping it together in the way sad people do if you don’t touch them. As soon as you touched them, they lost resolve.

I lost resolve.

I was distraught in his arms.

Sobbing into his thermal.

I clung to him and he held me.

“Where are you going so early?” he asked, as I buried my head in his neck.

Trying to take a few deep breaths, I failed. So I tried again until I could speak.

“M-y-y p…parents,” I stuttered.

He let me go with one arm, and used the other to take the keys from my hands and lock the door.

“I’ll drive you,” he said, transferring the flowers to his other hand.

My face lifted from his shoulder and I shook my head. “You d-d-on’t ha-a-ve to do that.”

“You can’t drive like this.” He tucked me into his side and started to move us to the elevator. “Alycia is at a sleepover,” he answered before I could ask, so I just nodded.

We rode the elevator in silence as I did the best I could to compose myself to little success, eventually stepping out into the lobby.

Something hit me.

“Wait.” I paused. “How did you get in?”

Construction had been completed on the building in early March. He technically didn’t work here anymore.

Dean smiled. “Dave was here when I got here.”

“Oh.” I nodded.

Dave and his wife liked to work on the gardens out front went the weather was nice.

We passed them on our way out to the street. I gave a half-hearted wave before Dean excused us. I leaned into him as we passed my SUV on the street and he stopped in front of a silver pickup truck. I thought it was a Toyota maybe, but I wasn’t sure.

He opened the door and made sure I was comfortable, reaching across me to buckle my seatbelt.

“Can you hold these?” he asked, and lifted the lilies up into my line of vision.

Reaching for them, I stuck my nose in the yellow and smelled.

They smelled good.

I placed them on my lap and waited for Dean to get behind the wheel.

“Do you need coffee?” He shifted into drive and pulled out onto the road.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

He drove us through the Tim Horton’s drive thru. I got a double-double, and he got black.

“Thanks for taking me.”

It seemed like I should say more than that, but I didn’t.

“Sure.” He smiled over at me, one hand on the wheel and the other on his coffee. “Same place?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

We drove in silence most of the way, my head somewhere else, and it seemed his was too. It wasn’t until we drove along the beach that it occurred to me at all. I’d grown up here, but really, so had he. I suspected it wasn’t easy for him to come back, but especially not today.

He had to know my parents wouldn’t be happy to see him.

He had known that, but he offered to take me anyway.

Dean the boy had made a lot of mistakes, but Dean the man seemed like he was making up for them.

We all had a past though, didn’t we? I knew I did.

The truck wound along the shore and he spoke. “I forgot how beautiful it was down here.”

I wasn’t sure if he was speaking to me, or if perhaps he was just thinking out loud, but I decided to answer him anyways. “It’s my favourite place on Earth.”

“Me too.” He reached across the bench of his truck and squeezed my thigh.

I gave him a half smile in return as he pulled into my parents’ driveway.

He parked, but when he turned the engine off, I reached across and grabbed his bicep. “You don’t have to come in, Dean.”

“I owe them enough to at least walk their daughter to their door.” He smiled. “I haven’t done a lot for you, Charlie, but that I can do.”

“Okay.”

I let go of his arm, and he rounded the front before helping me down with the flowers.

“What the hell is he doing here?” My dad slammed the porch door against the wall, with my mother on his heels.

“Jon, stop it,” she warned.

Dad growled, and I stepped in front of Dean as we approached the staircase. They knew he’d come back into my life eight months ago, but hearing it and seeing it were two very different things.

“Daddy, please.” My voice was a plea. “I was too sad, so Dean offered to drive me.”

He stayed put and didn’t say another word, and I mouthed the words,
Thank you
.

My mother kept one of her hands on my dad, but leaned forward to kiss my cheek. “There’s my girl.” She smiled. It was a sad smile, but still a smile, and turned her head to the man beside me. “Hello, Dean.”

“Morning, Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” Dean politely acknowledged them.

He seemed uncomfortable, and I didn’t blame him.

“Mary, dear,” she corrected him.

He smiled. “Well, I better go,” he said, and turned to me. “If you need a ride home, I can come get you,” he offered, but Dad shut him down.

“I can drive my own daughter home,” he barked, and my mom scolded him.

I winced, looking at Dean’s reaction.

This was hurting him, to be here.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

He shrugged and shook his head. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.”

I watched him start to move, but I didn’t want him to leave this way.

Not like this.

“Do you want to see him before you go?” I asked.

Dean turned around and shifted on his feet, uncertain. “Are you sure?”

“There was a time when you loved him too,” I said. As I held my hand out to him, he took it.

“Your father and I will be in the house when you’re ready, sweetheart,” Mom said, ushering my dad inside. “You two take your time.”

“It was nice to see you, Mary.” Dean looked to my dad. “Jon.”

My dad just nodded, but mom smiled. “You too, honey.”

We waited until the front door closed behind them.

We walked hand-in-hand around the porch and down onto the beach.

The weather had gotten warmer, but the water was still cold and the breeze gave a chill.

“Do you visit him often?” Dean asked.

I nodded. “Whenever I come home.”

He was quiet for a minute or two before speaking again. “It was hard leaving your family when I left. They were good to me. I loved them.”

“I know.” I squeezed his hand. “They know that too.”

He sighed.

Dean’s soul was wrecked with guilt, much in the way my father's was.

Such heavy burdens on the shoulders of great men.

“I told them about Alycia,” I said, and he smiled.

He loved his daughter.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

We walked in silence the rest of the way down the beach.

The waves lapped against the shore, their steady sound soothing my wounded heart.

We turned down the path, eventually appearing at the willow tree.

Letting go of Dean’s hand, I wandered to the base and knelt in the grass. “I brought someone to see you today,” I whispered.

I felt Dean come up behind me, his hand on my shoulder.

“Be nice to him, okay?” I kissed the flowers in my hands and placed them on the grass. “I love you, Henry.”

“I love you too, Charlie bear.”

Standing, I stepped backwards and watched as Dean approached the spot where I’d just been.

He seemed so unsure.

“Do I just talk?” He looked over his shoulder at me, and I nodded.

“Yeah.” I smiled. “Or you can say nothing.”

“I want to say something,” he said, facing away from me again.

Moving backwards a few paces, I gave them some space.

“Hey, Henry,” he spoke quietly, pressing the palm of his right hand against the willow tree. “It’s Dean.”

I wasn’t sure I was meant to hear him, but the wind carried sound and I listened.

“I don’t know if you remember me, and if you do, I’m not sure you like me much now, but that’s okay. I wouldn’t like me much anymore if I were you either.”

Grief squeezed her talons around my heart.

“Thanks for being there for her when I wasn’t.” He paused. “I know you must miss her… I sure did.” I watched as the back of his hand wiped tears from his face. “You’d be proud of her. You should know she has all the best parts of you.”

My throat started to burn.

“It’s been a long time since we talked, just you and me.” His shoulders shook a little. “I’m sorry I haven’t come to say goodbye.”

I hiccupped.

“I should have been here for her that day. I’ll never forgive myself for that.”

My chest broke open, some of the pressure escaping.

“I just wanted to say I’ve missed you too, Henry.”

A sob tore through him, and my knees threatened to buckle.

“I know you’re looking after our girl from up there, but just in case you were wondering, I’m keeping that promise I made you.” He choked. “Ten years too late, but I’m here now.”

I gripped the back of the bench as I watched him fall apart.

“She will… she will feel loved… H-Henry…” He cried, “I promise.”

Tears blurred my vision as I stumbled towards him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders.

We sunk into the grass and held each other as we cried.

I lost a brother.

He lost a friend.

We both had lost each other.

He unwound himself from me, cupping my wet face in his hands. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there, Charlie.”

I placed my hands on his face in the same fashion he’d done to me, resting my forehead on his. “I forgive you, Dean.”

He leaned forward, pressing our lips together.

I tasted his tears and he tasted mine as we kissed.

Our lips held so many memories, so much heartache.

He needed me in a way that broke his own heart.

He loved me in a way that put it back together again.

He taught me that you didn’t need to be whole to forgive.

You just needed to be brave.

He trusted me to forgive him, and in my own time, I’d found the courage to do just that.

We lay in the grass under Henry’s tree for hours.

Old memories found their way back into the cherished parts of my heart.

Forgiveness was a powerful thing.

And on that day, under that tree, lying next to my first love, I forgave myself too.

May

“W
hat are you working on?”

I looked up from my notebook. “Just a letter.”

His beautiful face pinched together in a frown.

He stood from the wooden Adirondack chair next to mine and kneeled down in front of me.

“It feels like you’ve been distant.” He put both his hands on my thighs.

I had been.

Today was Henry’s birthday.

Putting my pen down on my notebook, I ran a hand through his brilliant blond hair. “I’m sorry.”

He ran one hand up my thigh and settled it on my hip. “You never have to apologize to me, Charleston.”

I heard the waves crash along the shoreline and I smiled.

That was this man, so perfect.

We’d driven to Oregon for the weekend. Beau had rented us a small cottage on Cannon Beach.

“I just wish you’d talk to me.” He sighed. “Let me in.

I’d spent a decade keeping people, mostly men, at arm’s length, keeping genuine connection at bay. To be capable of that, you learned how to shut people out, you learned how not to ask for help.

“Do you want to feel me?” I asked, leaning forward to brush my lips over his.

It was a beautiful day in May. The sun was shining and you could feel the first bit of heat behind its rays.

“Always.” Beau kissed my lips.