Breathe You In (22 page)

“No. It’s too late. Your lie, it went on for
too long.” He swept past me and pulled the door open. “Please don’t ever try
and find me again. Once was enough.” He released the handle and let the door slam
behind him.

I stared at the swaying Do Not Disturb
sign.

It was then my legs gave up. I dropped to
the bed, anger and despair bursting molten hot tears from my eyes and
ransacking my chest in heaving sobs.

This was never meant to happen. I’d been
wrong to find him in the first place, and wrong to go and see him. But I’d been
dating Ruben, I’d fallen for him. He got me, made me feel better. How could he
think that I didn’t love him for him? He’d become my entire world. Thank
goodness he had Matt’s heart, thank goodness I’d made the decision that Melanie
had thought so wrong, because if I hadn’t, Ruben wouldn’t be on this earth for
me to love.

I buried my face in the cover, uncaring of
the wet mess I was making. Banging my legs in frustration I then thumped a
pillow.

Once again it struck me how quickly life
could change. Only an hour ago I was making plans to move in with a man I’d
fallen in love with, a man I wanted to hitch my wagon to and ride off into the
sunset with, and now…now I was alone, again.

I sucked in a breath, sat and pushed my
hair from my face, anger suddenly my overwhelming emotion.

How dare he? How dare he just presume that
I thought of him as Matt? After everything we’d done? Our relationship had been
intense, growing in passion both emotionally and physically. Did he really
think I could fake that, or, and this was a worse thought, did he think I had
twisted ideas that I was giving Matt a blowjob, fucking Matt somehow when I was
with him?

Really? Did he think I was
that
loopy?

I stood, wiped my nose on the back of my
hand and reached for my purse. I pulled my wedding ring from the side pocket
and held it to the light by the mirror.

I’d taken it off because new Katie had
arrived. New Katie was moving forward, falling in love, making new friends. Planning
a future that held endless possibilities. It had been scary to shake my grief,
I realized that now. Grief had been a heavy blanket I’d worn like a shield, it
could keep people out.

But I’d let Ruben in, welcomed him with
open arms. Let him see my wounds and scars. Not as visible as his, but still as
deep.

“Don’t ever try and find me again,” I said
to the ring. “How can the man I love be alive and me not be with him?” I shook
my head at this novel concept, this whole new, imaginative way to have my world
torn in two, my heart broken.

Through the center of the ring I saw the
mirror. I could just make out two handprints—mine, my sweaty palms had
left a smudge. I could hear our gasps and moans, the power of my orgasm, hell,
my pussy still felt inflamed.

Suddenly it was like the walls were
looming down on me, oppressive and suffocating.

I had to get out of there.

I tucked the ring into my purse, kicked off
my stilettoes and rammed my feet into flats.

Slipping into the corridor, I turned right
toward reception. I thought I’d made it without seeing any wedding guests
—
goodness only knew what a mess I looked
—
but then Andy and Melanie came around the corner. He was supporting
her. She walked with her head on his shoulder and her eyes closed.

“Shit, Katie, are you all right?” Andy
asked me again, taking in my odd shoe choice with my dress and my wild hair and
makeup.

“No, Andy, I’m not.” I kept on walking. I
wasn’t in a chatty mood.

“Where are you going?” he asked. “Katie?”

“To see Matt,” I shouted as I marched
through the foyer and out into the cool night.

A taxi sat in the hotel car park, and I
climbed in the backseat and agitatedly buckled up.

“Where to, love,” the driver asked, switching
the radio down.

“Hill Rise
Crem
,
please.”

He turned and studied me over the rim of
his glasses. “You’re pulling my leg, right?”

“Do I look like I’m in a joking mood?” I
shooed my hand at the road. “Step on it.”

“Okay, but I think they’re all tucked up
for the night.” He started the engine then pulled away. “The party here is much
livelier by the sounds of it.”

I
tutted
and set
my stare out of the window.

The orange glow of streetlamps flickered
past; on even though there was still some light in the sky, it wasn’t
completely dark yet.

As we drew to a stop at the entrance of
Hill Rise, the sky was slashed with violent orange and reds on the western
horizon. The spiked treetops and the chimney of the crematorium were silhouetted
against the fiery backdrop like cardboard cutouts

“You want me to wait, love. It’ll be pitch
dark up there soon.”

I handed him a twenty. “No, but will you
come back in an hour?”

“Can’t guarantee it will be on the dot,
but I’ll swing back at some point before the end of my shift at eleven, and if
you’re here I’ll take you home.”

“Thanks.”

I climbed out onto the pebbled path. The
taxi pulled away, its wheels rudely loud in the silent cemetery. When the
lights had gone from view, I started my slow walk to Matt’s grave.

I wasn’t completely sure why I was here.
It was more not knowing where else to be than heading to the cemetery for a
reason. I didn’t belong anywhere anymore. And not with anyone. That flailing
feeling was back. Falling without a parachute. Someone had taken the safety net
from under my tightrope and I was crashing down.

Stomping up the hill, the earth hard and
solid beneath my feet, I reached the large new angel with her spread wings. I
paused. On the stone beneath her a flickering candle was still burning. Someone
had been to that grave recently. I wondered if it were a child’s.

I turned and saw the small set of headstones
I was heading for. A
coolish
breeze touched my cheeks,
pulling more straggling locks of hair from my once neat style.

As if hair was of any concern to me.

I was a woman who had nothing left. Not
even the emotional tools to rebuild from here. I was empty. I’d run out of
everything.

“No,” I said, making a fist. “Be strong,
Katie.”

But could I? I’d been as strong as I could
be. I’d smiled, I’d eaten, I’d balanced. What if I really was all used up? What
if my energy just didn’t equal my will to carry on?

I reached Matt’s grave.

An owl hooted in a nearby tree.

“Matt,” I whispered. I knew he wasn’t
really there, but still, I liked his name on my tongue. “Matt, I’ve messed up.”
As I’d spoken, tears sprung forth again. In a gush this time, not even individual
drips, just streams and rivers pouring down my face.

I dropped to my knees, fell forward,
forehead on the ground above his buried urn. I’d run out of strength. It was
official.

My body was tired, exhausted, but more
than that my emotions were wrung out. Battered and bruised, I didn’t have the energy
to sift through the pain. It was just one big, nasty lump of agony, black and
sticky and cancerous. It made me bleed inside. It blurred my vision and ate
away at any tiny fragment of hope I had left.

I was hopeless.

I became aware of a gentle pressure on my
right shoulder.

“Shit!” I sprang forward, grabbed Matt’s
headstone and turned. Fight or flight kicked in. I should never have come here
at night.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Ruben held up his hands, as if in surrender.

I stared at him, thankful it wasn’t a weirdo
or a ghost but wanting to slap him for the freaky fright. “Sneaking up on
someone at night in a cemetery,” I panted through my lingering sobs. “That’s a
damn sure way to scare someone.” I stayed crouched over, wondering if my heart
would survive the scare.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, dropping his
hands to his sides and shaking his head.

“What are you doing here?” My legs were
watery. I fought to stay upright. “How did you know where I was?”

“I went back, to talk to you and saw Andy
staggering along with a very drunk Melanie.” He stared at me, and through the
dim light and I could tell he was frowning. “He said you’d gone to see Matt. I
guessed that meant here. Melanie opened her eyes long enough to tell me the
name of the cemetery.”

“But? It’s…” I motioned my arm around the
sea of stones. “Huge.”

“I saw your silhouette, when you stopped
by the angel over there.”

I stared at the tall, dark statue, her
wingtips pointing Heavenward, her head bowed in prayer.

“But I thought you never wanted to see me
again. Why would you follow me?” I couldn’t understand what he was doing here,
after what he’d said back at the hotel.

“Katie.” He touched his forehead, rubbed
his temple. “I’ve got to figure this out. It’s kind of a shock, you know.” He
paused.

I didn’t fill the silence.

“Just tell me what the bloody hell was
going through your mind,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“When you thought it was okay to get
involved with the man who had your dead husband’s heart beating in his chest.”
He pressed his hand over his sternum. “And air in his lungs.”

I moved behind Matt’s stone, gripped the
top of it and looked warily at Ruben. He didn’t seem mad anymore, just
confused. But still, I knew he could hurt me, not physically, but with words.
Any type of shield was welcome. I had no defenses left.

“I didn’t think anything.”

“Of course you did.”

“No, not once I got to know you. It was
just you.”

“Okay.” He nodded slowly. “And at what
point was that? The once-you-got-to-know-me bit?”

I glanced in the direction of the owl as
another hoot rang out. “I suppose it was when we went to the Champagne bar.”

He tugged on his bottom lip with his
finger. “That’s good.”

“It is?”

“Yes.” He paused. “So in the park, when we
first met…?”

I shrugged, stiffly.

“Katie?”

“I’d spoken to the transplant coordinator,
she said that the recipient may chose to get in touch with me to express
gratitude at some point, but it was no guarantee and they wouldn’t give me any
information about you other than your gender and age and that the initial
operation had gone well.” I paused, swallowed. “I thought about writing to you,
she said I could do that, but it wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to see you. So
at the park, yes, I was curious. I was there to catch a glimpse of the
recipient. I’ll admit that.”

He shook his head. “The
recipient
? Is that how you see me?”

“Back then, yes, I didn’t know you. But
that was all I wanted to do, see you, from a distance. By then I had your name
and knew you worked at the museum, no other details.” I brushed the dusty grit off
the top of Matt’s stone, sweeping it left and right down its arced shape. It
was so quiet I could hear the grains rubbing on the marble. “I didn’t plan on
talking to you. I just…” It all seemed so long ago now. The intensity of my
time with Ruben had faded it into the past.

“Go on.”

“It’s hard to explain,” I said.

“Try, Katie, for God’s sake try, will
you.” There was anguish in his tone.

I looked up at him. He was slumped,
apparently as tired and beaten as me.

“I just needed to know what you looked
like,” I said. “I couldn’t sleep. When I did I dreamt of Matt. I just felt that
being able to picture where his heart was would help. It was a thought that
grew bigger and bigger until it couldn’t be ignored, couldn’t be contained. It
had given me some focus when I was stumbling around blindly.”

“So you had someone find me. How the hell
did you manage that?”

“Does it matter?”

He was quiet, then, “I suppose not.” He
shrugged. “You did, and that’s the point.”

“Yes, but honestly, I just needed to know
where the heart was that had loved me so much.”

Ruben touched his chest and rubbed his
palm up to his throat.

“And then that damn Blitz room and the
crazy peacock threw us together, and it was you who asked me to the café, it
was you who asked me out, remember. I didn’t pursue you at all. You gave me
your number.”

“Of course I remember, I was there.”

I stepped around the gravestone, gathered
my last tiny vestige of strength and stood tall. “I’ll admit I was fascinated at
the thought of Matt’s heart inside you, a tiny bit of him that was still
living. It’s a strange concept. But that didn’t make you him, Ruben. You’re
you, a speed junkie, Formula One nut, and all round funny but sensitive bloke.”
I paused. “I never once was with you and pretended I was with Matt. Not once.”