Hell on Heels (25 page)

My jaw.

My collarbone.

The inside of my left wrist, and the bare knee exposed by my sundress.

“Really?” I cupped his cheek with one of my hands and he leaned into my affection. “Be sure, Beau,” I whispered. “Because the entirety of my mind, it could suffocate you.”

“I’m sure, Charleston.”

I took my notepad, rested it on the wide arm of the chair, and motioned towards the beach. “Let’s take a walk then?”

He stood and held out his hand. “Shall we?”

I smiled.

He knew I loved that.

Taking his hand, I let him lead us onto the beach, feeling our toes in the sand.

I watched him as we walked.

He was so beautiful.

Today, he was wearing white shorts with a buttoned down pink dress shirt rolled up at the sleeves and a pair of black Ray-Bans.

“It’s Henry’s birthday today,” I told him, feeling the sun on my face. “He would have been thirty-four today.”

Beau squeezed my hand. “I bet you miss him.”

“I do.” I smiled as we passed children making castles in the wet sand.

Our hands swung in that natural way that people in sync with each other did.

I liked that, too.

“He sounded like a wonderful person.” Beau’s smooth voice took over the air.

“It’s my birthday, Charlie bear. You have to play with me.”

“I’ll get my dress dirty, Henry,” I whined.

He laughed. “You’re such girl, Charlie bear.”

“He was the best,” I whispered, as we bumped shoulders.

It felt nice to talk about Henry this way.

We had so many happy moments that became overshadowed with our loss.

Sometimes we were so consumed with missing him we forgot to remember how he was.

I didn’t want to forget how Henry was, not ever.

“This is the first of his birthday’s I’ve spent away from home,” I confessed. “I don’t mean to be distant. I suppose I’ve just found myself in my head often as of late.”

Beau stopped and pulled me by the hand gently into his front. “I didn’t realize, Charleston.” His face was etched with concern. “I’m sorry to have taken you away from your family this weekend, of all weekends.”

I shook my head and pressed my palms against his chest. “Please don’t be sorry.” I smiled. “I need to find new ways to be happy.”

Beau swept my hair from my shoulder as the wind blew.

“And Henry.” I paused. “He would have loved it here. It was somewhere he always wanted to go, but never got the chance to.”

“Then I’m glad you could be here to experience it for him.” Beau pressed his lips to my forehead.

Wrapping my arms around his middle, I leaned into his kiss.

He was always so accepting of me, of my flaws.

He was a saint, through and through.

“Would you like to make a new tradition for Henry’s birthday?” he asked against my hair.

He was so warm.

Sometimes he even reminded me of Henry.

“I’d like that,” I whispered.

He twirled me in a circle like he often did, and then we continued walking down the beach.

“Did you have something in mind?”

I looked at the waves breaking and nodded. “Actually, that’s what I was working on.” I looked up at him. “On the porch, when you asked.”

“Oh?” He smiled.

I was letting him in and he didn’t take it for granted.

“I was writing him a letter,” I said. “I was thinking maybe I could put it the ocean the way they do in all the movies.”

“That’s a wonderful idea,” he praised me. “I’ll find you a bottle when we get back.”

He draped our joined hands over my front, so that his arm was now also around my shoulders.

“Would you like to go back and work on it?”

I nodded. “Very much so.”

We took our time walking back up the beach to the cottage, where Beau doted on me for the afternoon as I poured over the short note I would write for Henry.

I was proud.

“All done?” He kissed my shoulder.

I nodded. “I think so.”

Setting the letter down on the small desk, I turned in his arms and kissed him.

It was slow, but full in the way that made you wish you could explode.

I worked the buttons on his dress shirt, and he lifted my dress over my head.

This was easy too.

Everything with him was.

He caressed me.

He worshipped me.

His touch was soft as I felt him on my skin.

We moved together like two souls in flight.

The breeze of the ocean on our sweat silken skin was a tease.

The heat of our bodies in the sheets built pressure enough to move mountains.

Everything about him was flawless.

His bones.

His heart.

His words.

I was a goddess in the arms of Beau Callaway.

He treasured me as we burned the evening light away.

“You’re beautiful.” Beau kissed my bare shoulder, as I lay face-down in our sheets.

Turning my head, I rested my cheek on the back of my hand and smiled. “So are you.”

“Will you read me your letter?” he asked.

My heart seized and he saw it in my eyes.

“I didn’t mean to intrude, Charleston. I’m sorry,” he apologized quickly.

I sat up, taking the sheets with me, and kissed his cheek.

“I think it might be nice to share it with someone,” I told him.

Wrapping the sheet around my body, I walked to the desk, grabbed the letter I’d written earlier today, and sat back down on the edge of the bed.

Ten years. My god, has it really been that long?

Some days, it feels like only yesterday since you’ve been gone.

I miss you.

I know you know that, but I will never tire of reminding you.

There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t wish you were here with me.

I think about you often.

I wonder what you would have been like now. Would you be married? Would you have children? You’d have been such a wonderful father.

I pray you’ve found peace. I know I am trying too.

It’s hard.

Some days, it’s harder than I could have ever imagined, but you never wanted me to be afraid of life. I see that now.

I want to live a life I would be proud of, that you would be proud of.

You are still the best friend I’ve ever had, and I am the luckiest girl to have been blessed with twenty years on Earth with such an amazing big brother.

I love you.

Happy Birthday, Henry.

Yours Always,

Charlie bear.

When I finished reading it aloud, tears rolled down my cheeks and Beau kissed them away.

“Thank you for sharing that with me,” he whispered. “It was beautiful.”

I nodded.

“Are you ready?”

Standing up, I rolled the letter and pushed it inside the old bottle Beau had found.

“Yeah.”

We dressed and walked hand-in-hand to the water’s edge, where only the moonlight lit the waves.

Beau sealed the bottle with a cork and passed it back to me.

“Thank you for being here,” I said, and he kissed my forehead.

He gave me some space. Not a lot, but a few feet for me to be alone.

“Happy Birthday, Henry,” I whispered into the night air.

Then, with everything I could muster, I threw the bottle into the ocean.

It felt healing, the wounds in me closing a little.

I waited to see if I would catch a glimpse of it’s reflection, but it was gone.

“I’m proud of you.” Beau wrapped his arms around me from behind and rested his chin on the top of my head.

We watched for a while as the water ebbed and flowed, until finally turning back towards the cottage.

Hand-in-hand, I marvelled at how much a little really did go a long way.

I’d let him in a little, and in turn, he rewarded me with this.

Life really was a funny thing.

Beau stopped, bending over at the waist, and picked up a stick.

“What are you doing?” I laughed as he let go of my hand.

He knelt down in the wet sand and began dragging the stick through it, and after a minute, he stood, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and pulling me into his side.

Looking down at the sand, I started to cry.

For there, lit only by the moonlight in Beau’s handwriting, was…

Happy Birthday, Henry.

“Now he’s been to Cannon Beach too.”

I
think there comes a time in your life when you’re simply collecting lessons.

Not necessarily that you set out with the intent to, but simply somewhere or sometime when optimism and hope sit down at the table with reality and acceptance. We need these times, just as frequently as we need an array of amazing experiences, because what makes the good, great? Knowing the value of them, and that comes from seeing the bad, and occasionally, the ugly too.

Now mind you, not all lessons feel like a magnitude of suffering.

Some are simple moments when you stand up, put on your adult shoes, do what you have to, and move on with your life.

In the last eleven months, I think I learned what it meant to be in the business of collecting lessons. Before that, I only recognized the shit-end of life’s lessons stick. I’d become blind to the ways in which we could learn, or try to learn, from our mistakes. Instead, I ploughed through my mistakes like a bulldozer on a high school track. I just went around and around for a decade, pushing the same lessons to the side as I waded through my years on borrowed time.

I think in a way I was blind.

That’s easy to do, you know, get lost in the pattern and continue around the merry-go-round.

I used to think it was the unknown that held such a possibility for damage. I was so frightened by the unknown that I never saw how truly brutal routine was.

Have you ever ridden a carousel for an entire day? If you did, I bet you’d feel sick.

Too much of anything would make you sick.

My loss. My grief. My addiction.

Those were my carousels, and they made me sick, but I’m getting better.

I’m trying.

“Charleston?”

Drawing my gaze from the window, I smiled at Doctor Colby, where she sat in her chair.

“I’m sorry.” I moved across the room and sat down across from her. “I didn’t hear what you said.”

“I was saying we only have a few minutes left and there’s something I’d like to discuss with you, if that’s all right?”

I nodded, folding my hands in my lap. “Sure.”

She took her glasses off the bridge of her nose and hooked them into the top of her notepad.

“You’ve been seeing me for some time now.”

I thought about it. “Yes, almost ten years now, I think.”

She leaned forward, twirling her pen in her right hand like she sometimes did.

“In all those years, I’ve never seen you grow as much as you have in this past year,” she praised me, and I took it warmly.

Doctor Colby knew me better than most.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“The work isn’t done.” She leaned over the table and held out her hand. I took it. “I’m not sure the work on ourselves every really ends.”

I nodded. “I know.”

I knew keeping one’s head above water, especially with a personality like mine, would be somewhat of a continuous battle.

“What I wanted to talk to you about is that I’m not sure you need me to do that anymore.”

My lips parted. “What?” I whispered.

“You’ve gotten so strong, Charleston, and I am so proud of you for that, but I think there’s one crutch you’ve been holding onto these past few months.” She sighed. “Me.”

Panic bubbled in my throat a little. “I need our sessions.” I shook my head.

Doctor Colby squeezed my hand.

“That’s the thing, Charleston.” She smiled. “I don’t think you’ve needed them for awhile now. When you come, we discuss things, but you’ve already worked them out in your head without me.”

I thought about it, and in a way, perhaps she was right. I sought validation from her now more than anything else.

“I think that maybe it’s time, if you feel comfortable, to go without our sessions for a few months and see how that feels. Would you be open to trying that?”