Forgetting August (Lost & Found) (18 page)

I wondered, as I took a seat in what used to be my favorite spot—an oversized chair that basically swallowed me whole—if August enjoyed this room now as much as we used to. Before work had become his life, and I’d still had pieces of him to myself, this had been the center of the house for the two of us. Board games, movie nights, and many nights of drinking and debauchery had occurred right here. Where the bedroom had once felt like the beating heart, this room had been our own little slice of heaven right in the middle of our home. With grand views of the Pacific that rivaled those from the master bedroom, you could watch the sun set over the water while listening to the crashing waves below.

But even a view like that could feel like prison when you weren’t allowed to leave.

“Was she upset?” I finally asked, deciding to jump off the tightrope I’d been walking, between wanting to know and not wanting to know what he’d had planned for the evening.

“What—” he began to ask as he looked up at me. My eyebrow cocked in amusement, and a small smirk played across his lips.

“No. Not too much,” he admitted. “I told you it wasn’t a big deal.”

Looking around, I tried to imagine him here with someone else. In the place that used to be ours. We had planned to raise our children here, and now he would possibly raise his own. Without me.

“This is stupid,” I blurted out. “I shouldn’t have come. You were going on a date, and I ruined that for you. This isn’t how this is supposed to go.” My words were coming out like shrapnel, firing quicker than I could comprehend them as I stood, ready to sprint for the door.

“When did it all go wrong between us? Will you explain it to me?” he asked suddenly, stopping me instantly. I turned to see him, still in his same position on the couch, holding the half-empty cup of coffee I’d made for him, as he looked up at me with wide, vulnerable eyes.

“Why?”

“You know why,” he answered. “I hate mysteries.”

“Okay,” I answered, taking my seat once again, as the adrenaline from my attempt to flee steadied. I took the warm mug in my hands for support and brought it to my lips, savoring the smell, before I spoke.

“There really isn’t a specific day…or moment. Like most couples, it happened gradually. Only ours wasn’t normal—by any means.”

“Why do you think that? I mean, why do you think I changed so much?” he asked, genuinely concerned.

“You found something else you loved much more—money.”

“Can it really be that simple? Did I ever seem the type?” He set down his coffee mug and leaned back into the sofa as I tried to study his expression. I couldn’t tell if he was upset, confused—or maybe a little sad.

“No—at least not before. When we first met, you were willing to move into my shack of an apartment to be with me. But we decided to rent a house, and even though it was bigger than anything either of us had ever lived in, it was still in San Francisco…which meant we paid double for the ability to live in what was called a house, but it was literally a shoebox, with nice flower boxes and a balcony.”

“So why did we move? How did I go from being content in a shoe box to needing all this?” he asked, motioning around the room with his hands.

“You moved up in the world, and with money came more. I think at first it was the desire to give me everything I never had, and maybe in some warped way, it continued that way—I don’t know. But after time, it became more about who we were to others than what we were to one another.”

“It just makes no sense to me,” he said softly.

“Me either, but things happen.”

“Then why I do feel so strongly for you still?” he asked, his mouth clamping closed as if he’d suddenly realized what he’d said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

Silence settled between us and even though I knew I should leave, I didn’t. I couldn’t move a muscle from that chair, and once more…I didn’t want to.

“Do you like jewelry?” he asked suddenly, out of the blue.

“What?”

He chuckled to himself, tiny lines appearing around his hazel green eyes. “Sorry, it’s random, I know. But just go with it. If you were in one of those small boutiques—like around The Haight, and happened to wander in, what would you buy? A necklace…a scarf, maybe a—“

“A coffee mug,” I answered immediately.

“Like an I-Love-SF mug?” he laughed.

“Yes! I don’t know, maybe. Don’t laugh. It’s your ridiculous question. I collect them. Whenever I’m someplace special, I always try to find a coffee mug I can use—to remind me of that specific day or place.”

He looked at me, somewhat taken aback…maybe slightly bewildered, until a large grin broke out across his face. “A magnet. Okay.”

“What about you? What would you buy?” I asked, throwing his odd question back at him.

“Hmm, nothing probably. I’d rather take photos. Much more meaningful than anything I could buy. Cheaper, too,” he said with a wink.

Like the man needed to worry about his pockets.

“You’ve really gotten back into photography, haven’t you?” I commented, setting my now empty cup on the coffee table between us.

“Well, it’s all new—now. But yes, I’m really enjoying it. It started out as just something I could do to fill in the hours of the day and now when I wake up, it’s the first thing I want to do. In fact, can I show you something?”

I looked around with slight hesitation, and finally nodded. Standing, I followed his lead down the first floor hallway. My heart sprung into a gallop as we neared the farthest corner, and his hand settled on the door handle of his old office. I hadn’t been in that space in years, blaming its four walls for the division between us. So many fights had been started here.

So many battles had been lost as I gave in to his power, unwilling to stand up for myself. Unwilling to let go and walk away.

August had always had a power over me, a certain hold, and it had never been more evident than when he stood behind that mighty desk, like a king surveying his kingdom.

My hands clasped together as sweat dotted my forehead. I would not turn away.

Fear had ruled my life for far too long. It was time to face my demons.

Taking the first step in behind him, it was hard not to notice the obvious changes he’d made. The few windows had been boarded up, covered in dark black cloth, and what once had filled a proud businessman’s office had been pushed aside to make room for photography equipment and makeshift tables.

Even a dark cloth and various chemicals covered the priceless desk August had once loved so dearly.

All of it forgotten.

Replaced.

“You’ve turned it into a dark room,” I stated in awe, looking around at everything he’d assembled in such a short time.

“Well, I’ve started to,” he replied. “It’s taking some time, but I’ve managed to print a few test rolls. Would you like to see?”

“Yes,” I gave a small smile, not even bothering to hide my delight. The fear I’d felt for this room was evaporating with every second that passed, like a calming balm, soothing away the haunting memories as August directed me to the other side of the room to show me what he’d captured.

Each photo was better than the last, and I recognized several scenes from our escapade around San Francisco. Several were of strangers, hugging loved ones, caring for their children—moments in time captured forever. Others were more obscure—a random angle of a building or the way a tree’s shadow met the pavement.

There were even a few of me.

He tried to hide them but I saw my own expression staring back at me.

If I only knew what I’d been trying to say.

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I
hadn’t meant to take her in here.

The words had just flown out of my mouth and here we were, standing in my sacred space, as she fingered through dozen of black and white prints I’d exposed over the last week.

If I’d known she was going to be in here, I would have cleaned.

Organized.

Planned.

Hell, I would have at least removed the photos of her. The ones I found myself staring at when the days got long, and the nights became so lonely I couldn’t stand the silence any longer. I knew darkrooms were a thing of the past—now that digital had taken over the world—but there was something cathartic about standing in almost complete darkness, working on a craft, bridging it slowly to life, rather than sitting hunched over a computer screen.

Each photo brought a little bit of life back into me. It wasn’t my life, perhaps, but it was something. And I watched it all appear like magic in those processing trays. Like tiny glimpses of hope—that maybe one day, I’d have a life worth photographing.

My eyes turned to the small bulletin board I’d put up on the wall for display, and settled in on the single photo I’d pinned up there. Two smiling faces in the grass, looking up at the camera with nothing but hope and happiness in the future.

Maybe someday, I could turn the camera around again and find someone worth capturing.

“Why do you have that?” Everly’s voice asked in the darkness, as I watched the silhouette of her hand stretch toward the bulletin board. In the dull red lights, I saw her finger the photo, her eyes shadowed and her expression hooded as she pulled it from its place on the wall.

“Because you’re smiling,” I answered honestly. I had a feeling too many lies had been told within the walls of this large house. I wasn’t about to add to them.

Not now, hopefully not ever.

“Why is it so important to you?” she asked. I took a step forward to glance over her shoulder. I watched her tense slightly as she felt my approaching presence but she didn’t move.

“Why is it so important for you to hide it from me?” I fired back.

“Maybe I’ve wasted enough smiles on you.”

“Fair enough. But it’s still something I aspire to see,” I answered softy, taking the photo from her fingers and repinning it to the board.

“I thought you got rid of all those photos,” she spoke up, turning around, brushing the sleeve of my shirt as she did. “The ones of us, I mean,” she clarified.

“I did—or at least I thought I had, but I found that one lying on the bedroom floor. Seems it managed to find its way out of the box I threw it in. That—or a very sneaky, super nosy ex-therapist of mine placed it there.”

“Ex?” she questioned, but hardly seemed surprised.

“He’s refusing to charge me anymore—keeps meeting me at restaurants and showing up at my door for beers. So yeah, ex-therapist, I guess.” I shrugged as I watched her continue to roam around the room. The faint red glow washed away most color, and the usually vibrant copper tone of her hair had transformed into something darker.

In here, there were no in-betweens. No middle tones. Just reds and blacks. I wasn’t processing so I could flip the overheads on and bathe us in white light, but here, in this space, I loved the contrast—the separation from normalcy.

Seeing her here, though, made me suddenly aware of just how erotic a darkroom could be. Every curve of her body was accentuated, enhanced by the lack of color and the stark red glare. Her lips appeared heavy, as if they were begging to be touched and caressed along with the rest of her body.

I needed to get out of the room.

“Will you show me how it works?” she asked, looking up from the main table I’d assembled in the middle, where the processing trays and enlarging equipment were set up.

“Really?” I asked, an equal mixture of dread and excitement running through my veins.

“Yeah, I mean—I don’t really want to go home yet, and we don’t have anything else to do.”

“Sure,” I answered quickly, hardly delaying the decision I’d just told myself to flee.

I truly hated myself. That or I really was the asshole she thought me to be.

Because damn if I didn’t think of bending her over every hard surface and reacquainting myself with every inch of that luscious body I seemed to have forgotten.

“—her name?” Everly’s voice yanked me back to reality. Catching the end of a question I’d barely heard, I blinked a few times, trying to clear salacious thoughts from my mind.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“What’s her name?” she repeated. “Your date?”

“Oh, um—” my mind searched— “Magnolia,” I finally answered, busying myself as I gathered the proper equipment to develop. She watched me intently from the other side of the table.

“Interesting name,” was all she said.

A small smirk tugged at my lips. “Her mom used to be a florist over in Half Moon Bay. She grew up on the coast so she’s really looking forward to seeing the house.”

“I’m sure her childhood home wasn’t quite like this,” she commented, running her fingers along the cool plastic table as her eyes met mine.

“No, but not all of us can be related to a founding member of SunGlobal.”

Her eyes went wide. “I thought you said her mom was a florist! Not an heiress to a billion-dollar company!”

“I did—and I said she ‘used to be’. I didn’t say what her dad did,” I laughed.

She launched a pencil at my head and I managed to duck at just the right time. “Well, you better clean up before she comes. Don’t want the place to look like a dump for the princess.”

Was that jealousy I detected?

Don’t jump to conclusions. That will get you in trouble, August.

“I’ll do my best. So, ready to get dirty?” I asked, watching her eyes fly up to mine.

“What?”

“Hands—are you ready to get your hands dirty?” I clarified, clearly missing a key word in my sentence.

“Yes—lead the way,” she instructed.

“Okay, first we need to clean the negative, and load it into the carrier.” I handed her a cotton ball I’d just soaked with a little rubbing alcohol and the negative.

“I just rub it on there?” she asked hesitantly.

“Yep.”

She did so tentatively at first and then, seeing that nothing bad was happening, completed the job back and front. Without thinking, I grabbed her hand and started moving it back and forth to dry the negative. Her hand froze as her eyes focused on mine and I quickly stepped away.

“Sorry—just shake it a bit until it dries. Good,” I said, watching her movements. “That should be good.”

“Now we put it…?” she questioned, looking around, until she found me pulling out the carrier—a large black frame with handles.

“Slide it in this way.” I pointed as she carefully put the negative down.

“But won’t it be upside down?”

“No, it will be great,” I promised with a warm smile.

And it was. As soon as it was loaded and focused, I had her look down at the photo.

“Wow—is this from the backyard?” she asked.

“Yeah—I hiked down a ways today and got some really great shots. I printed several earlier. This was my next in the set.”

Since I’d already done so many like it, and played around with f-stops and aperture, I already knew approximately how long to expose the photo, so I skipped test strips and decided to just go ahead with the entire photo.

“I don’t see anything,” she said softly, as if the sound of her voice would disrupt the process entirely.

“Ahh—this is where the magic happens,” I explained, handing her the tongs for the first tray. “Place our photo in here.”

She looked down the line of trays. “That’s a lot of steps.”

“Just trust me.”

Her eyes met mine and she hesitated. “Okay.”

She slowly dropped the white paper in the agitator solution. “Move it back and forth,” I said, resisting the urge to touch her again.

“There it is!” she exclaimed, as the scene came back to life underneath the liquid.

“Now, the next tray,” I instructed, standing so close to her I could feel the heat from her body meshing with mine. She was so entangled with what she was doing I don’t think she even noticed just how close we were standing to each other.

She went through the process, placing the photo in one tray after the other, with me closely beside her until it was set.

“Now we use this,” I said, grabbing the squeegee from the table. She took it from my hand, brushing the outer curve of my palm as she retrieved it. Every accidental touch or fleeting graze from her body felt as if an atom bomb were igniting in mine. My heart raced, my stomach tightened and I fought for every ounce of control not to return the favor.

She’s not mine.

She’s chosen someone else.

Move on.

But no matter how much I reminded myself of those simple facts, I knew that as many times as I’d kissed Magnolia goodnight on our dates, as I’d pushed her against the door of her luxury apartment her father had bought her, I’d never once felt an ounce of what I felt from just a brush of Everly’s hand.

“It’s beautiful,” she said softly, holding up the finishing photo.

“Yes,” I answered, my eyes never wavering from the real beauty in the room. Even without a speck of makeup on, she lit up a room. Fiery red hair, milky white skin, and those captivating blue eyes that seemed to sink directly into my soul.

I would give everything I had and more for a single moment with her. A single second when she looked at me with those eyes and I felt loved.

“Where do we put it now?” she asked, separating me from my distant thoughts.

“Here,” I answered, pointing to the area across the office where I’d strung some wire and clothespins. I heard her giggle slightly as she pinned the photo up and stepped back.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“I just remembered a time when I came in here and you had a million suits all lined up right here in this very spot—trying them all on for a gala. And now you have clothespins and fishing wire strung up in their place.”

I stared at her, trying to gauge her mood.

“Hmm—I’m pretty sure a bunch of suits would be pretty dirty in here now.”

She choked out a laugh, covering her perfect smile from me. But it was a smile nonetheless.

I’d done that.

Made her happy—for once.

Even for a second.

After cleaning up in the darkroom, I found her back in the living room, looking out at the dark water as tiny flecks of light caught on the waves that washed ashore. She didn’t say anything when I entered the room, just stood there, quietly observing…waiting.

“We had a fight,” she finally said, after I’d made my way across the large room to stand next to her. I resisted the temptation to look over, to soak in her expression. Somehow, I gained her trust in that moment, and I knew it was a heavy burden to bear.

“He doesn’t like me visiting you. He thinks it’s bad for our relationship.”

“He might be right,” I answered, finally turning to meet her hesitant gaze.

“Do you ever think of me—when I’m not around?” she asked softly, her eyes rounding in doubt.

Stepping in closer, so she could feel the breath of my words as they fell from my mouth, I whispered, “Every second, Everly. Every damn second.”

A small gasp escaped her lips as she pushed away from me.

“I should go,” she said. “Being here—it’s not a good idea.”

She was already retreating, her emotions…her physical reactions all crumbling, breaking apart until she was rushing toward the door.

“I’m so sorry for bothering you, August—for ruining your night. It won’t happen again.”

“Everly—damn it. Wait.”

I grabbed her hand, halting her progress. She looked down at our joined hands, her eyes wide with shock.

“Stop running,” I urged.

“I’m not running. I’m going home, where I belong. I want to go home.”

I shook my head, a disheartening chuckle escaping my throat. “Go home then. But don’t tell me a part of you doesn’t want to stay. Don’t tell me that deep down, a part of you wishes you were still here every morning making coffee in that kitchen and helping me develop film in the office. For a split second tonight, you saw it, didn’t you? What life could be like between us?”

Her eyes darkened and suddenly, she twisted her hand from mine.

“No,” she answered. “There is only one man I see in my future. And his name isn’t August Kincaid.”

And then she was gone.

And I was alone once again.

Slamming the door closed, I stomped into the living room and paced, attempting to clear my head.

Why? Why did I do this to myself?

Nothing would ever change.

She was not mine.

Picking up the phone, I did the only thing possible to ease the pain in my heart and the anger I felt toward my own stupidity.

“Hello?” Magnolia answered after the second ring.

“Hey, it’s August,” I replied, trying to act as casual as possible.

“Didn’t expect to hear from you again tonight.”

“Hey—I’m sorry to cancel. A friend had an emergency. It’s all taken care of. I was wondering how many dates I could possibly fit into one evening if we started…now?” I asked, my voice lowering with each word.

Silence followed before I heard, “be here in twenty minutes.” And then the line went dead.

Everly had left her empty mug on the coffee table, I turned and headed for the front door.

She’d made her intentions clear.

It was time I made mine.