I Hear...Love (A Different Road #2) (8 page)

As he tells the story, I tune out and stare at the horizon again. That bubbling feeling in the center of my chest starts to build. I start to breathe a little heavier as it all starts to come back. The noise, the screams, even the smell, they’re all so real. I close my eyes and listen to the waves crash into the rocks.

Please stop. Not here. Not now. The tightness in my chest builds as it spreads. My stomach starts to roll and bile starts creeping up my throat.

“Kate, are you alright?” Cooper asks, touching my arm.

I look at him, as tears start to fill my eyes.

I can’t control it.

“My parents died in the car accident,” I say in a calm, small voice.

Word vomit. Word vomit. Stop it Kate. Just stop talking.

“Oh God, Kate, I’m so sorry,” he quickly says.

“It’s also the reason that River is blind,” I continue, then quickly clamp my mouth shut.

It just won’t stop!

Have you ever visualized your word vomit? I can see each and every word as it comes flying out of my mouth. I wish they weren’t an inanimate object, and I could pluck them out of thin air and shove them back in my mouth before they reach Cooper’s ears. Why couldn’t I just leave it at a simple ‘it was from a car accident’? For years, I refused to talk about it with counselors, now it all flies out of my mouth. Slowly I look into Cooper’s eyes, begging not to see it, please, please don’t be there . . . but there it is. My heart sinks as I see sadness, compassion, sympathy, and the worst look of all . . . pity, form on his face.

“The accident was my fault,” I say, then start to walk back to the beach house.

If I can’t stop myself from talking, then I need to go home and lock myself in the pool house.

“Kate,” he calls, gently wrapping his fingers around my arm to get me to stop.

I stop and close my eyes, but don’t turn around. I can’t bear to see that look on his face again. His hand loosely stays on my arm as he walks in front of me. He stops and puts his other hand on my other arm. I open my eyes and try to look anywhere other than his eyes.

“I’m going to give you a hug right now. Is that alright?” he asks, moving closer to me.

Before I can nod an approval or disapproval, he pulls me into his body and wraps his warm arms around me. My left arm has a mind of its own and snakes around his back. I place my right hand on his chest where my fingers find a button and I start to play with it, then I release the breath I didn’t know I was holding. God, it feels so good to be in his arms. I close my eyes and sigh.

This right here reminds me of the way my dad used to smell in the morning when he’d lift me up and hold me in his arms before he went to work. He always smelled clean shaven with a hint of cologne.

Finally, the tension in my shoulders releases as I relax in his arms.

“Sadie just about had a heart attack when I made her stay home. How about we go get her and take her for a walk? I know she’d like to see you,” he says.

I lift my head from his chest, open my eyes, and pray I no longer see pity. He smiles at me with warm eyes, wraps his arm around my shoulder, then he starts to walk toward his house.

“I’d like that,” I tell him, walking with him.

We walk the steps up to his back deck, where I see Sadie sitting sloppily on one hip with her nose pressed up against the glass inside the house, looking sad. The second she sees us, she stands up, her tail starts swishing back and forth a mile a minute, and she literally vibrates with excitement.

Cooper opens the back door, Sadie slowly walks straight to me, then immediately sits down in front of me. She lifts her head, her eyes find mine, her tongue hangs out of her mouth, then she raises a paw and sets it on my thigh. Cooper hands me her leash. I leash her, then we head down to the water’s edge for a moonlight walk on the beach.

It’s amazing how Sadie can read Kate. She knew by instinct that Kate needed closeness and calm right now. I wanted Kate to leash her because I know how Sadie likes to wander, but tonight, she doesn’t. She walks slowly in step, glued to Kate’s side on the beach. She trusts Kate to lead her and never takes her eyes off her as they walk. I wish I had Sadie’s keen sense, and I could read Kate like she can. Sadie passes each and every piece of driftwood never giving it a second thought, as she stays next to Kate’s side. She even ignores her people friends who call out their greeting.

As the sun sets, we stop at the water’s edge and look at the pink and orange hues streaking across the sky, and the bottoms of the wispy clouds. Sadie sits at Kate’s side and rests her nose inside Kate’s hand. Kate gently runs her hand over her fur and with each stroke, I see her face soften as the crowded thoughts leave her memories. Kate glances at me, and like the churning sea in front of us, her eyes hide a multitude of thoughts in their depths. I put my arm around her and she rests her head on my shoulder.

When only the very tip of the sun is left on the horizon, she lifts her head with a sigh and says, “I should really get home.”

I take her hand, Sadie removes her nose from her hand, then stands. We walk to her house, but she stops at the steps, then looks up at them.

I can feel her troubled thoughts radiating through her hand into mine.

“I’m not ready to be alone just yet,” she says.

“I’ll stay as long as you need me to,” I tell her.

She turns around and takes a seat on the second step. Sadie sits on the ground in front of her and lays her chin on her knee, then watches her intently with her eyes.

I take a seat on the step next to her, take her hand in mine then set it on my lap.

“Do you want to just sit here quietly while I hold your hand, or do you want to talk about something?” I ask, then look at her.

“Just sit here quietly,” she replies, looking out into the dark ocean. We sit for a few minutes, then she covers her ears. “No, talk. I need you to talk to me, please,” she says in a panic.

Sadie senses her panic, lifts her head off her knee, looks at her, then me, then back to Kate.

“Do you want to know what I miss the most about Michigan?” I ask, looking at her. “The changing of the seasons. There’s nothing better than taking a long drive in Michigan to the Upper Peninsula in the fall. You need to time it just right after the leaves have changed colors to bright reds, oranges, and yellows, but before they fall off the trees and the temperature gets too cold. It’s like driving through a vivid, beautiful picture as the multitude of colors pass by. But, after the leaves have fallen off the trees, there’s nothing like the crumbling sound of dry leaves as they crunch under your feet when you walk down the street. As kids, my sister and I used to rake them all up into a big, huge pile in our front yard, then we’d jump off the porch into the center of it. It’s hard to find that here in California. There’s nothing like the smell of a good pile of leaves. Oh, and cider mills. I still remember as a kid, taking a school field trip to the local cider mill and getting a fresh, hot out of the oven donut, and drinking fresh apple cider out of a white Styrofoam cup.”

I pause and look at Kate. She’s removed her hands from her ears and placed them in her lap as she listens closely to every word I’m saying. Sadie noses her hand onto her head as she rests her chin on her knee, sensing Kate’s stress level has dropped.

“And don’t get me started about winter. Have you ever looked up into the sky as the first big, huge, fat snowflakes of the season start to fall?” I ask.

“No,” she whispers, shaking her head.

“The sky turns this beautiful pale blue color that you only see in the winter. The snowflakes start to fall and they seem endless in a never ending sky. If you look up and twirl around in a circle, you’d get dizzy just looking at them. We’d even open our mouths and try to catch them. Then when there was just enough snow on the ground, we’d make snow angels in the grass. On a school snow day or the weekend, if it snowed a lot, we’d make a snowman. We’d search for the perfect sticks to use as its hands, we’d wrap a scarf around its neck, we’d take charcoal briquettes from the garage to use as his eyes and smile, and our mom would give us a carrot to use as his nose. We’d stay outside for hours until our fingers and toes were numb, and we had snot-sickles stuck to our upper lips. We probably have ten pictures of us over the years with all of our snowmen creations. Then we’d come inside to a warm, crackling fire and my mom would give us hot chocolate with extra marshmallows. Late in winter or early spring when the temperatures would start to go up, I always got a kick out of how the snowman looked deformed as he melted. Did you play in the snow like that when you were little?” I ask.

“I’ve never touched a single snowflake in my life,” she replies.

“What? Are you kidding?” I ask surprised, looking at her.

“Nope, I’ve only seen it in movies and on television,” she says.

“Well, we’ll have to see if I can fix that,” I tell her.

I look into her eyes as they sparkle in the moonlight, then I look at her lips and God, they’re so perfect. Her eyes stay glued to mine, and I move ever so slowly toward her lips.

“Kate, we have work in the morning,” a stern voice from the top of the stairs says, startling her.

She quickly backs away from me, turns her body around, looks up the stairs, sighs loudly, then stands.

“Thank you for the walk,” she says, in a hushed voice.

“Kate,” River calls again.

She looks up the stairs at River again, then takes her wrist in her hand and rubs her thumb over her semicolon tattoo. I take her hands and she looks up at me. I gently run my thumb over her tattoo and she closes her eyes. I take a step toward her, pull her close, and place my face next to hers.

“It does matter. I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” I whisper in her ear, placing my hand on her cheek.

It stuck with me all day that she said her story didn’t matter. I need her to know that it does matter. She matters.

“Kate,” River calls, annoyed.

“I’m coming,” she says, then slowly pulls her hands from mine.

She leans down, pets Sadie on the head then gives her a kiss. She walks three steps up, then stops and looks back at me. I raise my hand in a small wave and smile at her. She lifts her hand and returns the wave, but not the smile.