The Reason I Stay (35 page)

A
side from the pounding in my head, and the stinging in my eyes when I wake up on my first morning after
him,
I feel absolutely nothing. My stiff fingers tell me that the air is chilly, and the pressure in my stomach tells me that I should eat something, but I don’t feel cold or hunger. Not even the hollowness in my chest is enough to bring about the pain and sadness I should be feeling. I’m simply numb and empty.

I look around my bedroom, which bears not a single trace of him. The walls that have been my safe haven for twenty-two years feel like a prison, cold and solitary. It’s as if all the life and joy that once existed in this place left the moment he did. It feels like the life and joy that once existed in me left the moment he did.

I want to cry, but all tears seem to have dried from my eyes. Not a cell in my body wants to get up from this bed. I know I should say that I’m Lexington Blake, and as such, I can take whatever life throws my way and turn into something positive. I should dust off and get on with my life like I’ve done after every tragedy I’ve had to face. After all, walling is for weaklings, and I’m not one of those. However, according to Jill Valentine, a vase can break only so many times before the superglue stops working. I’m pretty sure this was that final break for me.

I reach to the side table, grab my phone and type a message to Jen.

Me: Feeling like crap. Can u take my shift?

I press send, content with the vagueness in the message. This is essentially true, and since I have Mrs. Crane, who by now must have noticed that
his
truck didn’t spend the night in my driveway, I’ll let her do the job of sharing the merry news with the townsfolk. I never imagined I’d be thankful for my nosey neighbor.

A couple of seconds later, my phone beeps.

Jen: Sure. Is it true?

Oh, Mrs. Crane . . .

Without replying, I put my phone on mute and place it back on my nightstand. In order to avoid the temptation of hugging his pillow, I settle on my side, my back turned to the left side of the bed—
his
side—and drift back to sleep.

Cash’s cries wake me. I don’t know how long I’ve been sleeping, but it must be a long time because the poor dog sounds desperate and the light coming through my shutters is dim. Feeling like the worst dog owner in the world, I remove Snow from my chest, and stand on wobbly legs.

The cold air bites at my skin as I take a look at my phone. It’s almost five p.m. and I have twenty-three texts and eleven missed calls. Too tired to even roll my eyes, I just reach behind me for the blue blanket over my bed, and pull it around me without another glance at the device. Another dog cry reaches my ears, prompting me to walk to the living room.

I open the front door to let poor guy out. Tired beyond measure, I rest against the doorframe and watch him do his three-legged run toward the first patch of grass he sees. My gaze drifts to the street and the pulled back curtains at Mrs. Crane’s. I close my eyes, and lower my head in frustration. After a deep breath, I open my eyes again, and my weak legs almost give out.

Lying over the welcome mat at my feet is a single red rose resting over a folded sheet of paper. My breath hitches, and I clutch the blanket tighter around me as my hands tremble. I stare at it until Cash makes his way back inside and then, in a haze of movement and thoughts, I have the flower and note in my hands, the front door is closed, and I’m standing on my back porch, looking out at the ocean.

I bring the rose to my nose and inhale deeply. As I breathe in the delicious perfume, the first cracks in my numb shell start to form. With all the memories connecting roses to
him,
it’s virtually impossible to smell them without also smelling
him
. I close my eyes and
he
’s here.
He
’s everywhere, and my eyes sting with tears I no longer believed I could produce. And still, I can’t find the strength to lower my arm. I can’t find the strength to stop remembering
him
.

My unsteady legs finally give out, and I fall back on the porch swing behind me. I look at the note in my hand and I know I shouldn’t read it, but I do, and my heart pounds faster in my chest at every word.

I read those three little lines over and over.

Each time, it breaks through my numbness a little more until I finally realize that he did as I asked—he’s actually gone.

I no longer feel nothing.

I feel everything.

I feel anger for what he did. I feel pain for what happened. I feel the loneliness that will follow me. I feel the misery of a future without him. I feel hatred for the hate I can’t feel for him, and for the love I think I’ll never stop feeling.

The stinging in my eyes becomes too much, and I finally cry. I cry for the past and the future, and everything that I lost. I cry for so long that the sun sets, and I fall asleep.

When my eyes finally open again, my head rests over Tanie’s legs, and her round face looks down at me with love and grief. In silence, I look at her and know I don’t have to say anything. If she’s here, she knows, and even if she didn’t, she knows me.

Still, something inside me feels the need to say the words. “We broke up. He left.”

Her mossy eyes become rimmed with tears as she nods. “I know. Want to talk?”

I’m so weak with sadness and lack of food I barely manage to shake my head. Luckily, she sees it.

“Okay. Wanna eat?”

Once again, I shake my head.

She smiles a sad smile. “Too bad—you’ve got no say in that. I brought pizza and ice cream, and enough Nicholas Sparks movies to last us all weekend, and since Anna will be taking your shift tomorrow, you’re partaking in everything.”

Tanie stays with me the entire weekend. Despite her efforts to make me talk about
him
, I don’t. I can’t, so we don’t talk much at all.

We cuddle together on the couch, stuff ourselves with junk food, and watch the movies. I cry a lot, but I guess that’s the point of watching Nicholas Sparks movies when you’re depressed. You get to pin the blame on the film.

In between movies, Tanie changes my sheets and towels, cleans everything that might remind me of
him,
and deals with my phone as I lie on the couch and cry some more.

And somehow it all helps.

B
ehind my still closed eyes, I see Lexie’s face. Her heart-shaped lips spread in a smile as she rubs the sleep from her eyes, and she giggles. I fill with joy, and though my mind tells me not to, my arm moves to the right to touch her. All I find, however, is a cold, empty pillow, and a surge of reality I don’t want to face.

Flashes of my last hours in Jolene, and of the days and nights I drove, feeling too numb and broken to even cry or scream, pass through my head. They mix with happier memories that are now equally painful, and with the most absolute sense of guilt I’ve ever experienced in my life. I wonder if this will be my life from now on, remembering and grieving, and feeling trapped in my own skin in a life I no longer want.

I open my eyes and raise my body to a seated position, trying to escape the panic and hollowness inside, but I only find dread.

Instead of seeing the light colored walls and mismatched trinkets that fill my and Lexie’s bedroom with life and memories, I see the charcoal and teal walls of the apartment bedroom I own but don’t call home. I look at the carefully-crafted decoration, with vintage concert posters, rough wood furniture and collectable items that belong to the pages of a design magazine but hold no significance to me whatsoever. It makes the hole in my chest ache as the finality of being here dawns on me.