New Forever (19 page)

Mom and Dad,

Hi, it’s Max. I know it’s been awhile, but I wanted to reach out to you. My girlfriend would like to meet you and discuss matters that I’m sure will be difficult for all of us. Be polite and considerate of her feelings—that is all I ask.

I’ll contact you again when we’re ready to visit you.

Max

It’s short and blunt and painfully impersonal. I can’t help the sharp pain in my chest for all three of them. That’s not an email you send to your parents after five years of no contact. I can only hope his parents respond more warmly.

Max,

It is good to hear from you, Son. I hope you are well.

If the matters your girlfriend wishes to discuss are the reasons why you left home and haven’t contacted us once in the past five years, your mother and I are eager to hear them. You were a child when you left home, and I hope you have matured enough that you can put the past to rest. Your mom and I love you very much, but just as before, we will not encourage nonsense.

Love,

Dad

My hands begin to tremble as I reread their words. Is the nonsense he speaks of Hannah’s death? After five years, can they still not accept that they ruined so many lives? Their son left because they wouldn’t speak to him or let him grieve for their wrongdoing. A family – my family – was destroyed when a young girl took her life. Is this the nonsense he speaks of?

I close my hands in tight fists, wanting to throttle them. Maybe meeting them won’t be helpful. Maybe it’ll drive Max back into the stupor he’s finally climbed out of. Maybe it’ll just anger me and leave me with open wounds that have already been scarred over. Selfishly, I want to chance it. I need to confront them and let them know what they did to me and my parents.

I close his laptop, remembering to mark the email from his parents as unread and climb back into bed with Josie, who is drooling on Max’s pillow. Unable to read, I lie down next to her and let my brain reel in every direction it wants.

Uncertainty pulls at me and I try to brush it aside. The email can’t change anything, because I won’t let it. Max and I are strong enough that we can pull through this together. Our relationships has stood through several tests and neither one of us has completely given up on the other.

Yes, Max broke up with me, but when I came back and refused to let us die, he came back too. We’ll have to do the same thing again. There’ll be hurt after we meet them. Max will pull away from me again. But I have to believe that our love will be able to sustain it. Because if I don’t do this, if I allow fear to keep me from speaking to Max’s parents, I’ll always wonder what if?

I no longer knew Hannah when she died. Max’s Dad must have known some part of her to have captured her heart. I want to know her so I can feel her next to me once again. One last time. And, damn it, I want to know why he lied to her. Why he seduced her, made her believe he’d change his whole life for her, when he never felt anything more than lust for her—a sixteen year old girl.

Hannah deserves to know. He shattered her already broken mind, and she deserves to know why. That is the only respite either one of us will get.

I can’t take back the hurtful things I said to her. I can’t turn back the clock and spend more time getting to know her. I can’t talk to her.

I can never apologize for any of it or tell her how much I love her. But I can try to find a reason beyond myself for her breaking point.

Because I need relief as well. No matter what her last words to me in her letter were, I’ve always blamed myself, and a very large part of me needs to know I wasn’t fully to blame.

I told Max that the blame game would lead him to an early grave, but I failed to mention I still blame myself. I was her twin sister. I should have seen her inner struggle when no one else did. I should have been able to reach her when no one else could.

Instead, I acted as if she was this strange little island all her own. At times I wasn’t just embarrassed by her strangeness, but I hated her for it. I wished she’d be gone.

Then, one day she fulfilled my wish and she was gone. Forever.

My plan sounded a lot easier in my head than it actually was. After visiting five different marinas in Nassau and Paradise Island, speaking to several Captains and discussing a menu with a local fisherman who was recommended to me by almost everyone I spoke to for his cooking skills, I was ready to crash on the bed until dinner time.

Only Hayley wasn’t. You’d think Josie would have worn her out but sometimes Hayley is like a bottomless pit of movement. So, after grabbing a quick shower and dropping Josie back off with her parents, I take her hand and together we walk the aquariums, only stopping to take pictures and a drink. Apparently, she also needed alcohol, which will hopefully sedate her a bit. She’s been like a ball of electric nerves since I got back to our room, and I wonder whether spending the day with Josie has filled her with ideas of starting our own family as it has me.

First we’ll have to get over the hurdle that is my parents. They’ve been in the back of my mind since she brought them up weeks ago and this morning I finally took the leap and emailed them. I haven’t checked to see if they’ve responded because I don’t want thoughts of them following us to dinner or to my surprise. I don’t need them tainting any other part of my life.

But after that hurdle, because there will be an after, we can start to plan our future. I wonder what she’d think if she knew that was where my thoughts were headed. Toward marriage and babies.

After ordering her a Jack and Coke and a beer for myself at an outdoor bar, we walk toward the beach where a live reggae band is playing. The ocean breeze hits us before we make it to the beach and while night is quickly approaching, the smell of sun tan lotion still mingles in the air with the fresh scent of the salty waters.

When we reach the sand, she faces me and I pull her to me and place my hand on the small of her back, swaying us slowly to the rhythm of the music while the light breeze from the sea tickles her hair. Looking down at her face, I realize that never has she looked more beautiful to me than under the early evening sky. I shamelessly stare at her face, making her lips twitch into a small, seductive smile. She encircles her hand around my neck and pulls me closer to her.

“Beautiful,” she whispers into my neck while her fingers play with my hair, making my body hum with her touch. “You’re so beautiful.”

I tilt my head back so I can once again look at her and it feels as if my heart has quit beating altogether. “Funny, I was thinking the same thing about you.”

She runs her hands over my shoulders and arms and my muscles twitch when her fingers graze over my skin. I watch as her lips quiver with her own desire so I pull her closer to me, uniting our bodies as much as publicly acceptable as we dance under the stars. My hands itch to touch the skin beneath the thin fabric of her sundress. I appease myself by running my hands over her back and letting it rest on the small of her back where my thumbs run circles.

Hayley rests her head on my shoulder and the gesture is so intimate, it takes my breath away. I feel as if I’m floating as I guide us from song to song, kissing the top of her head and her ear randomly.

When the alarm on my watch alerts me that it is time to move on with tonight’s plans, I move away from a breathless Hayley with great effort.

“Let’s go have dinner,” I tell her and she opens her eyes in confusion. She blinks her eyes at me several times as if she were waking from a dream—not even realizing she is my dream. Her dream has yet to begin.

“Now? Can’t we stay here a little while longer?”

I kiss her again and promise her that what I have planned is far greater than dancing on the beach. At least I hope it is.

“A surprise?” she asks, excitement shining behind her eyes. She’s so genuine in her emotions. I love watching them cross her face as she experiences each one.

With her hand in mine, I lead us to Atlantis’ marina, passing several gift shops that Hayley didn’t know existed. She tries to sneak into a couple, but we have a schedule to keep to so I urge her on with the promise that we’ll visit the stores the following day.

As we pass the last restaurant in the marina shops and step on to the docks that boast several large yachts, Hayley’s interest is piqued. I can feel the excitement vibrating off her skin so I put my arm around her shoulder and soak her in, glad that whatever had her fidgeting earlier has subsided long enough for her to fully enjoy tonight.

A small gasp escapes her lips when I stop in front of
Enigma,
a one-hundred-forty-seven foot custom built super yacht. After she removes her wedges, I help her on deck where we are greeted by two of the crew and the Captain. Speechless, she holds my hand firmly in hers as the Captain leads us past the stern that already has our candlelit table set up in the main salon, which is fitted with a large leather couch and silk curtains. The salon is connected to the dining area that consists of a marble top table that easily seats ten guests. As we walk past the dining room, we are met with a professional looking galley with restaurant-grade equipment.

Hayley giggles into my back as we go down two flights of stairs to the master cabin, that sits just below the bow of the boat and stretches from port to starboard. The cabin is adorned with white silk walls. But it is not the walls nor the wood floors that interest me, but the king size bed and spa-like bathroom.

After the Captain leaves, Hayley jumps on the bed with a loud squeal, running her fingers over the expansive bed. Her eyes sparkle back at me and I feel my grin widen while my chest lightens with her excitement.

“How long is this ours?” she asks with her eyes closed.

“Forever.”

She opens one eye to look at me and I wink back at her.

“Shut up, Max!” She grabs a pillow from behind her and tosses it at my face. With the pillow in my hand, I jump on her and smother her with half my body weight.

“For the night. There’s no glass bottom.” I laugh when she covers her face and moans. I kiss her cheek and let out a throaty laugh when she begins to mumble under her breath. “And the captain is gonna stay in the bay.”

“Great, so I won’t ruin the night and you won’t have to take care of me.” She smirks.

“Taking care of you is an honor I hope I’ll have for the rest of my life.”

Her smile grows while a slight blush overtakes her cheeks.

“How’d you get to be so sweet?”

Before I can answer, she pulls me down to her and kisses me, igniting the passion that lives just below the surface. I hear the engines roar to life as the Captain begins our small journey, but the only roaring that interests me is the one pumping through my veins.

Hayley holds onto me while I love every inch of her and show her how much she means to me. I savor her, letting the seconds merge together until all the tiny fragments of time have lost their meaning and all that is left is us. Us, together. The only thing in this hectic world that makes any sense.

***

We take our champagne to the bow of the boat and sip it in the hot tub. Hayley leans against me and together we watch the sunset until the last of the red and yellow hues disappear into the horizon. Hayley sighs happily as I pull her closer to me.

“I love your surprises so much, Max,” Hayley tells me and I smile into her hair. “But sometimes I wonder if it’s a façade you can hide behind.”

I feel myself stiffen and try to relax my suddenly tense muscles. Just when everything felt like it was suddenly righting itself, reality had a way of reminding me that misfortune was mere moments away.

“What do you mean?” I play the fool, hoping she’ll join me.

My life is a façade, but I’ve never been one to hide behind a bright smile. Instead, I hide behind Hayley and allow her laughter to speak for me. Her unrestrained laughter, so full of joy, makes me forget what I work so hard to pretend never happened. But every day my eyes open and I take my first breath, is just a reminder of the heart that quit beating. So maybe, yeah, I do try to go to extremes to make sure that the heart that has been entrusted to me beats strong and hard for me.