Never Let Me Go (33 page)

Chapter Twenty Two

“She’s down for the count,” I said, walking down the stairs. Hayden was sitting on the floor, his knees pulled up. “How are you holding up, Hayden?”

His head jerked up, his eyes narrowing a bit—more from exhaustion than anything else—as he sighed. “You wanna know the truth, or do you want me to sugarcoat it?”

I sauntered over to him, crossing my legs in front of me and plopping down on the floor beside him. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and rested my chin on his arm. “The truth would be nice. There’s no point in sugarcoating it when I know how bad things really are.”

“I don’t know, Michele. I never thought I would be
sad
when Samantha left. She broke my heart and my daughter’s, so why should I be sad? But I can’t…I can’t shake this feeling of inconsolable…
grief
.” He leaned forward and propped his head up on his knees. “She was my first love. She was my wife. She’s the mother of my child. How the Hell can she just walk away like this?” He closed his eyes. “Do you know she didn’t even say goodbye to her? She didn’t even say goodbye to her own child.”

I rolled my eyes. I knew that Sam was a little crazy, and maybe even a bit selfish by the fact that she was leaving her child behind. But I didn’t know that she was also heartless. How could she have left Skylar without telling her goodbye? I wasn’t leaving for another two weeks at least, and I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving that adorable girl behind.

“I don’t know how she could do that to Skylar. I don’t know how she could do that to you,” I whispered, my emotions taking over.

“I don’t know either. God!” he exclaimed, turning to glance over at me. “I’m sorry. You probably don’t want to be here right now, listening to me bitching about my ex.”

I grinned, reaching for his chin and holding it in place as I leaned forward and gave him a kiss on the lips. I climbed over his lap and sat between his legs, letting mine stretch out across his. He wrapped his arms around my waist. “Firstly, I’m not vain enough to think that this is about me. And secondly, I’ve been bitching about my ex all damn summer. In fact, I was just with him before you called.” I paused, my heart stopping as it came to a stunning realization. “I need to get back soon, though.”

Hayden pulled away from me, his lower lip being pulled in between his teeth as he proceeded to gnaw on it. He glared at me, his jaw working as he took deep breaths in and out.

“If you can’t stay, why’d you even come?” he asked, the bite in his tone sharper than I’d anticipated.

“You needed me,” I said with a shrug. “Skylar needed me.”

He let his hands drop to his sides and shook his head. “Get off of me. I need to get up.” He was shaking then with fury. “I don’t know why you bothered, Michele! I don’t know why
I
bothered! I knew, I
knew
that you were going to choose Brody! What did you even come over here for?! God, I don’t even know what the fuck to say to you right now!”

His outburst stunned me, I had to admit, because while I’d seen him angry before, I’d never seen him angry at me.

“Brody was my first love.” I couldn’t hide the emotions that were brewing beneath the surface, not even if I tried. “He was my first love and I’ll always love him. I’m so sorry, Hayden. I’m sorry that I even put you through this.”

“Okay. Now get off of me.”

I nodded, but I tried not to let his reaction bother me. I knew what was going to happen from here on out, and I could only hope that Hayden would forgive me for what I was about to do to him. I could only hope that he would see that it was the best decision for all of us, and that it was what I had to do.

My heart had made its choice, and I needed to get back to Brody so that I could tell him. I had to get back to Brody as soon as possible, so that all of this, all of the fighting and distraction and uncertainty could be done once and for all.

I got to my feet, dusting my jeans off on the butt and tugging my hoodie down. I fingered my hair and sighed, tucking my cell phone into the front pocket of my hoodie.

“I have to go, Hayden,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

I could feel the tears springing to my eyes already, because I knew that all of this was about to come to a staggering halt the minute that I walked out of that door. I knew that everything that we’d had would finally be over, and I could continue my life with the man that my heart had chosen—if he could find it in his heart to forgive me.

“Whatever,” Hayden said. His tone was angry, but I could tell it was only that way so that he could mask the hurt behind it.

He turned around so that his back was to me, and once I knew that he’d completely shut me out, I turned around and walked right out of the door.

I knew that I had to act fast, that I needed to do what needed to be done before either one of them could start to hate me too much. With that knowledge, I didn’t waste any time getting back into the car and driving back to the beach house.

…

I jogged up the stairs, so excited, nervous, and sad all at once. What I was about to do was going to be the end of one era, and the beginning of a new one. It was going to make one man hate me, and the other…well, I didn’t really know yet. But I had to do it. I had to make the choice once and for all, and sooner rather than later before anyone else got hurt.

I was at Brody’s door, knocking loudly and as quickly as I could. “Brody!” I yelled. “BRODY! Brody, open up!”

I knew that Nic and Colin were likely sleeping, because by then, it was nearly the middle of the night. But I didn’t care. I would make as much noise and racket as I needed to until Brody heard me. Tears were spilling from my eyes, the dams having burst within my heart and within my mind.

“BRODY!”

I heard a click of the door being unlocked, and then I watched through bleary eyes as the doorknob turned. When the door swung open, Brody stood before me, his hair dripping wet and wearing different clothes than when I’d left. It looked like he’d just gotten out of the shower and had barely gotten dressed before I showed up.

“Mich? Wha…?”

I didn’t let him get a single sentence out before I stood on my tiptoes and launched myself at him, my arms wrapping around his neck and my legs encircling his slim waist as he stumbled backward into the room. I crashed my lips to his, and for the first time, I felt like I could barely breathe, like being near him and having his lips against mine was sucking all the air, all the life out of me.

He fell onto the bed, and I was straddling his hips, my hands running down his back and back up as he responded with the same fervor as I met him with.

Our kiss was frantic and rushed. Whereas before we’d broken up, it felt like we never needed to rush anything and like we had our entire lives to be together, to hold each other, and to kiss like there was nothing better to do, this time was completely different.

I couldn’t get enough of him. Every time that my lips brushed against his, I was committing the feel of him to my memory. When my hand grazed the back of his neck, I snapped a picture with my mind of the way that he squeezed his eyes just a little bit tighter and he shivered at my touch. When he held his thumb at the nape of my neck and played with the curls at the back of my head, I tried to remember that
this
was what it felt like when two people loved each other.

I didn’t waste any time, and I didn’t waste any moment of that one with Brody. I didn’t want to forget it, didn’t want to forget him, because even though my mind was convincing me that this was where I needed to be, my heart had already made up its mind.

This wasn’t me giving him my answer. This wasn’t me giving myself to Brody. This was goodbye…this was me choosing Hayden.

When we pulled away from each other, I closed my eyes as he guided my face toward his chest. I knew that this was the end for us. There was a feeling of finality that’d hit me all of a sudden, and I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing out of my eyes and down my cheeks.

“Don’t cry, Mich. It’s okay.” His words were soothing, but there was something in his voice that showed me that he knew this was over just as well as I did.

I sighed, clutching on to his shirt with one hand and wrapping my arm around his back. I didn’t want to let him go yet but I knew that I had to. “I love you, Brody,” I whispered, my voice incredibly small. “I hadn’t noticed until right this second how much I’d missed you. We were
so
good together, weren’t we?”

He nodded, and leaned forward so that our foreheads rested against each other. “Yeah, we were. And unfortunately, I didn’t exactly realize that until a few seconds ago when you started kissing me like you were trying to commit every piece of me to your memory.” He choked on a breath and I could feel him struggle to suppress a sob. “I didn’t think we would
ever
have a last kiss.”

I rested my head against his chest, knowing that this was the last time that I was going to feel him wrapped around me. I had forgotten how good we felt together, and how good we were together. I didn’t want to forget, so I held onto him as tightly as I could and for as long as I could.

We were silent for a long time, and he started rubbing his hand in large circles on my back. I laced my arm around his neck and kissed his jaw lightly. I buried my face against his neck, my nose pressed up against the pulse, and I inhaled deeply, trying to keep his scent in my memory.

I was immediately reminded of a quote that I’d read back in my junior year of high school by Laura Weiss: “I don’t know how you say goodbye to whom and what you love. I don’t know a painless way to do it; don’t know the words to capture a heart so full and a longing so intense.”

The quote was accurate at that moment, when I was
willingly
walking away from the only person I’d ever wanted—when I was
choosing
to leave behind the love that I was convinced I would always need. If someone had asked me two years ago if I’d ever walk away from Brody, I would tell them that I would stay with him forever, and then I’d wrap myself around him and never let him go until he begged me to. But yet…yet there I was,
choosing
to tell him goodbye for the first and last time.

“Do you regret anything?” Brody asked quietly, his hand reaching into my hair.

I shook my head, because I didn’t. “Brody, I don’t regret anything with you. We were so amazing together. Maybe in another life, we would have been perfect, but there are too many things that we both want that we can’t give each other, and there’s too much history that can’t be taken back.” I paused. “I don’t even regret taking the time out from what I have with Hayden to try again with you. I know now that it was something that I had to do so that I’d know exactly where my heart lies. I know now that things are over between us, but I wouldn’t trade what we’ve had or the few dates that we’ve been on, because I feel like I gave our relationship the ending that it had always deserved. I know you’ve been holding on to what we had for a long time, but I need someone who’s going to hold on to me and never let me go.” I looked up into his eyes and I could see the pain there. “God, Brody, I’m sorry. I should go.”

I stood up, trying to get out of his lap, Brody sat up with me, and I bent down, giving him a kiss on the forehead with my eyes closed. I had to leave before I did something that I would regret.

I walked away from him, headed toward the door. I placed my hand on the doorknob and closed my eyes, turning it slowly. Then I heard his voice.

“Do you love him, Michele?” God damn if that wasn’t the voice of a man with a broken heart.

“Yes. I do.”

I wrenched the door open and walked out, padding down the stairs and into the foyer. I snatched up Rory’s pair of keys from off the peg on the wall and bolted out the door and into the pouring rain. When had it even started raining?

It seemed oddly fitting that it was raining right when I’d broken the first boy that I ever loved into a million pieces.

“FUCK YOU!” I tilted my head up toward the sky as I yelled at the rain, cursing the weather for matching whatever it was that Brody was feeling.

With that, I hopped
back
into the truck and drove as fast as I could.

Within twenty minutes, I was pulling back into the driveway of Hayden’s house. Trotting up the front porch steps, I tried not to let the fact that I was drenched bother me. I trudged through the rain, my hair dripping with water as I knocked on the door. I knocked as hard as I could, waiting for someone to come and answer the door. I knew that it was only Hayden and Skylar at home that night, and I hoped to God that he would answer the door soon so that I didn’t wake Skylar up. It’d taken long enough for me to get her to sleep after her meltdown.

I peeked through the window and saw that a light had just been turned on. I breathed a sigh of relief and closed my eyes as the door was pulled open. My hand dropped to my sides and I looked up to find a shirtless Hayden gaping down at me.

“Michele? What…? What are you doing here?” he asked, his eyebrows furrowing.

I was breathless, looking at him without a shirt, his sculpted abs sending shivers down my spine despite the fact I was out in the rain. I stood there, my hands hanging limply beside me.