Room 212 (24 page)

“Laura, I won’t beg you and the reason I won’t beg you is because I know that you love me, and deep down you know this a stupid attempt to keep yourself from getting hurt. I had to live without you too, Laura. I had to live without you too and the fact that it was my fault. But we were kids, baby, just stupid kids. And this…us, was a lot to handle when we were kids. It doesn’t happen to everyone. We were lucky we found each other. You love me, Laura, and I love you so much, baby.” His voice cracked and my eyes started to betray me.

He turned my chin to face him. “Your face still gives you away, Laura. You cry every single time I make love to you. I feel that too, only for you…always you, Laura. I wasn’t smart enough to fight for you then, but I am now. Please baby, forgive me. Let me finally love you. Let me be with you always, every day, making you smile, making you happy. I won’t hurt you, because you’re right, I am selfish. Being away from you is like cutting out my heart. I would only hurt myself. I had to survive you, Laura. Don’t make me do it again.”

I pushed him away from my door and drove away.

I spent the next three weeks avoiding Seth. As time passed, I grew more certain I had done the right thing. As least, that’s what I told myself. Linda told me he was flying to Texas every weekend, so I did most of my checking in with her then. He attempted to talk to me a few times by phone, but I asked him to leave me alone and let it be. I wasn’t giving up my life for him and as much as he thought it could work, I knew it was next to impossible. I didn’t want to be the nag who missed him too much, that begged him to stay home from long jobs out on the road.

I didn’t want to leave the life I knew, that I felt safe in, to go back and be at his beck and call. I knew I would lose my mind. I felt so stupid for losing what time I had with him by cutting it off so quickly, but he was already professing his love and it couldn’t have lasted much longer anyway, right? These are all things I told myself. These things all made sense. I was a total idiot.

I was in the lobby finishing the books with Linda when I saw his truck pull up. I couldn’t stop my legs from moving toward him.

It was raining when I walked out of the lobby and ran right into him and what looked like his new girlfriend walking up the stairs.

“Ah, come on!” I was fuming as he glared at me. “And who’s this?”

“I’m Jessica.” She was a short brunette with a cute little body and big blue eyes. She looked uncomfortable as she made her way toward the stairs.

“Well hi, Jessica. I’m Lau—”

“No one’s interested,” he barked, following behind her on the stairwell.

“Fine!” I walked past him, shielding myself from the rain with my coat. God he was good at hating me. I hated myself. He was already sleeping with other women? Asshole! I had no one to blame but myself.

I could be the one about to taste him, to feel his lips on me, to moan his name. Who the hell was she to have that right? He was mine, he belonged with me. He told me so. We were made for each other. Who the hell was she to him? Nothing, she was nothing, a conquest, a warm body. I watched them walk into the room and broke a fingernail gripping my dash. No, No, No, No, he couldn’t touch her. He belonged with me. I started listing the ways he had hurt me as I started my truck.

He had made sure I fell in love with him after he told me he loved someone else, who he dumped me for, and why? Why, because she too was brainwashed into thinking and planning everything out like he was? She was his perfect little Barbie. She had goals and plans for her life, she was the right pedigree. He loved me, he should have chosen me. Now he was with a bimbo in my motel? Oh hell no. I pulled the keys from my truck and quickly hit the stairs. I pounded on the door.

POUND, POUND, POUND. “I’m good enough for you now, Seth. I’m rich, I’m a millionaire! I have a huge house and nice things!” I continued to pound on the door and saw one of his crew peeking out the window. “I’m perfect for you now, Seth! When you had the choice to make, you made the wrong one! This isn’t my fault it’s yours!” POUND, POUND, POUND. “You cursed me, you said I would never love anyone else, you said you hated me! That you could never touch me! But I’m good enough for you now, right? I have it all, my life is up to your standards and now I am so irresistible, right!” POUND, POUND, POUND “Open the fucking door, Seth!”

He opened the door shirtless, leaving one hand on the jamb and the other held the open door, his beautiful bicep accentuated by his stance. He gave me a bored stare, but I knew better.

“I love you. Of course I love you! I have always loved you. You own my heart! I have never loved anyone else. I have begged God, pleaded with him, and it won’t go away. You were right about everything in the truck that day. I was so scared, so fucking scared, and I am still scared. I can’t live without you, I love you too much, and when you love someone too much, something or someone takes it away. But I can’t go on like this! I can’t pretend that I don’t want you and you,” I gave his company behind him the evil eye, “get the fuck out.”

She quickly grabbed her purse and ran from the room, fully clothed. I let out a breath of relief as I continued. “I loved you then and I love you now. I don’t know who the bigger idiot is here, Seth, me for trusting you again or you for letting me go the first time.” I stood in front of him under the awning, but was quickly becoming soaked with each breath I took. I couldn’t read his expression.

“I’m sorry. I had no right to do that. You better go after your snack before she gets away.”

“Let her go.” I watched his lips twitch with a small sign of amusement, but his eyes were fixed on mine, listening to every word.

“I’m sorry, Seth, and I forgive you even though you did the worst damage to us. And I am sorry about Paul, too. I didn’t love him, I loved us. I remember us. We were beautiful and Paul… That was a huge mistake. But I was mad, so mad…and sad. And then you told me you hated me, and that I disgusted you.” I let a sob escape me and threw up my hands. “Fuck it, you know what? I have lost my damn mind here. I will be at home.”

I turned on my heel, exhilarated. I stepped out from under the awning and let the rain soak me fully. I laughed out loud as I walked away, feeling fourteen years of pent up anger and sadness fall away from me. I had finally told him I loved him and well… every single other thing that popped into my head. I let out a giddy giggle at my stupidity as I descended the stairs. People were popping their heads out of their rooms to look for the jackass who had just professed their love at the top of their lungs. I was the fool, and it felt great. Not thinking a single thing about the man I had just left in the motel room, I was more worried about congratulating myself when I started my truck. When the passenger door opened I jumped back. A heavy silence filled the air as I watched him dripping in my passenger seat, shirtless, staring at the floor.

“Paul is dead. He died of an overdose a year after you left.”

“Oh, God Seth, I am so sorry—”

“We looked for you, Laura.” I quickly raised my head to see he was watching me. “I went to your apartment a few days after I told you I hated you. I knew it wasn’t your fault. Paul was in love with you. He told me so. He said he couldn’t help himself,” he laughed bitterly. “You were the one thing we had in common before he died. He was hanging by a thread. He had already been using so heavily and when his band fell apart, it was the end of him. It wasn’t your fault or anything, he was just self-destructive, had always been. He seemed to think you would be the cure. He never really forgave me for dating Rebecca, but hated me even more for you. We never really got along after you left, but I loved him. We grew up together, he was my brother. I pretended to be there for him when we looked for you, but I was doing it for me. We looked for you every single day for months. I know you left Texas because of me, Laura.”

“No, no, it’s a good thing. It’s not your fault, Seth. I don’t blame you for anything.”

“It’s not okay! I lost you, you aren’t the only one. I lost you. I was there the night you damn near OD’d on K. I was there, Laura.” He paused noticing the shock on my face. “Dave blamed me and told me to stay away. I felt horrible and I was furious with you. I tried to tell you at the park but you brushed me off. I never wanted her, never, not after you. You were just so unpredictable and not what I was used to. I really don’t have a good reason, and never did, and by the time I figured it out I was too late. I married a woman I didn’t love. I carried through with my fucking stupid plan because you left me no choice! I chose you but you left. You left and you didn’t look back.

“Callie was clueless. Gary said you never picked up your last check. I was smart enough to stay away from Dave after that. I never knew where to look for your parents and when I finally found them, your mother, Jesus, she’s even scarier than you when she’s pissed. She hadn’t heard from you in months and she wasn’t happy with me. Imagine my surprise to find out that you were the trust fund baby.”

I let out a nervous laugh at the thought of my mother confronting Seth. Even if I was a brat, I was her brat, and she was tough as nails when she defended what was hers.

I sat in the car, freezing, rocking back and forth, eyes closed. I wasn’t mad at Dave, I wasn’t mad at anyone. I was numb. He had gone through the same undeniable pain while we were apart. He had lived his life without love, like I had, because he was without me, because I left.

It finally dawned on me why he told me I broke my own heart. He wasn’t going to let me go. I let go of him. I ran away. If I had waited just a little longer everything might have changed. I didn’t see how we could have put back the pieces after Paul. But I had to forgive him for Rebecca, too. Maybe he knew that, maybe… It didn’t matter, I realized. It all didn’t matter because we couldn’t go back. He chose me. He chose me.

“What a fucking mess.”

“That was then, Laura.”

I drove to my house and neither of us said a word. I turned the heater on to beat the chill running through me, but it wouldn’t leave. We walked inside the house and I lit a fire while Seth walked Tetris. I started a scalding bath in my sunken garden tub and undressed. He walked in to find me sobbing in the tub.

“Who are those tears for, Laura?” he said coldly.

“Don’t punish me, Seth. Please don’t punish me anymore. Did you sleep with her?”

“No, you made sure of it, and no I haven’t slept with anyone. That was my first attempt to have dinner with her. I was changing shirts.” He undressed himself and climbed behind me in the bathtub. I laid back into his chest, but still he didn’t touch me.

“I love you, Seth.”

He didn’t move, he did nothing, he was stiff as a board behind me and I turned to look at him. His jaw was firm and his eyes were still angry.

I turned my body and kneeled in front of him in the tub.

“I love you.” His eyes began to glaze over as he stared behind me. I kissed his Adam’s apple and brought my face to his, nose to nose. “I love you. I love you. I love you, Seth.”

I saw his face crumble. “I’m sorry, I left. I’m sorry I hurt us both. I was a stupid kid and you were a selfish, stubborn ass. We could never have been then what we can be now, you know that.”

“Laura,” he croaked out my name and I kissed his lips gently.

“This has to be it,” he whispered. “I can’t take anymore. I never thought I would see you again. I have never loved anyone else and never will, but this has to be it.”

“This is it, I promise.”

“Baby…your mine, always.” He grabbed my hips and pulled me down onto him. He was throbbing inside me. I took in all the air I could as he stretched me. I shuddered with pleasure and wrapped my arms around his neck.

“Always.” Our lips met as he lifted me out of the tub and laid me on the oversized bathroom rug. He roamed my body with his kiss and took me away from the past, the pain, and into a future where only our new life existed.

“Right there, baby. Now hold onto me and don’t let go.”

“I am going to kill you.”

“Laura, it’s not that serious.”

“I hate heights. I HATE THEM! I have never been skiing so you have me blindfolded on a lift!”