The Space In Between Read online

  “But that’s where you’re wrong, Nick. It is causing problems. She’s barely left her room since this all came out. She barely speaks and when she does, it’s monosyllables with an overbite. She spends more time crying than she does smiling, and there’s a vacancy in her eyes in the rare times you can get her to look at you. She’s lost, and with each day this goes on, dying inside a little more.”

  “Because her mother has done nothing but tell her she needs to end one of the best things in her life!” he yells, the tone of his voice so harsh that I know it’s only a matter of time before he snaps completely. “She’s broken inside because she wants to do the right thing by you!”

  “So this is all my fault? Are you really going to stand there on your high horse of self-righteousness and blame me for everything?”

  “Yeah,” I hear him sigh. “I guess I am, because if you just take a step back and see this from my perspective, really see what I’m seeing, you might be able to spare not only yourself the heartache of having your daughter pull away, but also spare her the same.”

  This is not good. It won’t be long if they keep going the way they have been, before my dad steps in it and Rose stomps out of the apartment and his life for good. A move that despite making my life that much easier in the short term, I can’t have happen in the long term. Not when I know how he really feels about her.

  I can’t let him do this. They need to know the truth before this goes any further than it already has.

  Opening the door as slowly as I can to prevent any sign that may give away I was eavesdropping and making quick work of the hall, I sneak a peek into the living room where they’re both standing on opposite sides of the room. Taking a deep breath, reading myself for the battle about to ensue, I step in and when he meets my eyes, I lay the truth on him.

  “It’s over, Dad. Emery made her choice and as much as it hurts, we have to respect it.”

  “Chris, what are you talking about?”

  “She broke up with me, Dad. We’re done.” Letting my admission sink in, I turn to Rose, and despite the fact that I truly believe she’s the best thing that ever happened to my dad since we lost my mom, I find myself unable to summon up even the smallest amount of respect for her as my next words come tumbling out.

  “Congrats, Rose. You win.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  March 2015

  Emery

  I can’t believe I’m doing this.

  If there’s one thing that’s been constant in my life, it’s been that it’s my mom and me against the world.

  Boyfriends, job changes, issues at school, whatever you wanna wrap it up in a pretty red bow and call it, we’ve always been able to get through it together.

  With it being that way, I never once thought about what it would be like when it wasn’t anymore. Not one thought about what the change would feel like or how deep the loss would cut.

  That’s what happens when you’re naïve or when, like me, you go through life with your blinders on.

  I’m actually kind of envious of the paranoid people, ya know? They’re always on guard, just waiting for whatever is going to jump out around the corner at them. You can’t take them off guard very easily because they’re always on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  I wish I could have been that way, but since I can’t and this is the shitty hand I’ve been dealt, I’ve got to deal with it differently.

  You’re probably wondering why I’m doing this. Why I felt that after everything came out, this was the way to deal with it. You probably even hate me a little for giving up so easily, but that’s only because you’re not living my life. You’re not living this. If you were, my choices, even if they were still different from your own, wouldn’t seem so crazy.

  It wasn’t easy making this decision. I mean if it was, it wouldn’t have taken me two weeks to actually decide.

  I struggled with it. Spent night after night crying over it, but in the end, I knew it was the way it had to be.

  I can’t stay with my mom. Not knowing what I do now about the way things are, or at least the way they will be in a few months.

  If I thought for a second that hearing Christian’s dad and my mom were getting married was insane, it was even more of a shock learning that they weren’t even planning on having a long engagement. That they planned on marrying at the beginning of the summer.

  You getting it now? My mom plans on marrying my now ex-boyfriend’s father pretty much the second I have my diploma in my hands.

  Knowing that, living with it every day afterward, became too much. It was all I could focus on, well, when I wasn’t focusing on how much I missed him. You know. He who shall remain nameless for fear of bringing on another endless river of tears.

  It even got so bad that when I brought up the idea of moving in with Aunt Janice, I almost threw away my entire senior year too. If living with my mom was going to be torture because she would be bringing Nick around every chance she got, it was going to be even worse going to school every day and running into Christian. So for about a week after I told my mom what I wanted to do, I also planned to change schools.

  Thankfully, or not, depending on how you look at it, this wasn’t something my mom felt right giving in on. So after a whole lot of back and forth between us, I agreed to stay at Greenville and finish out my senior year, but only if she stopped fighting me and agreed to let me stay with her sister.

  It was an easy compromise to make, because the way I saw it at the time, I was escaping the worst of it. Christian, even though we shared a couple of the same classes our second semester, could be avoided. Nick, with the way I built him up in my mind long before I actually met him, and the way I know he feels about my mom and the two of them being together at the house, couldn’t be.

  All of it was there staring me in the face every time I came home and walked past my kitchen, remembering the soft sound of his voice and the smile he wore when he met me for the first time, and again when I walked in my room, since about a week after the dinner from hell, he’d tried talking to me before leaving me to handle it alone.

  Christian may have been my dream guy, but Nicholas had been my actual dream. The one thing I wanted more than anything.

  Even more than falling in love.

  *****

  Growling and throwing my book across the bed as the earlier knock repeats itself against my door, I stomp over and unlock it before making a beeline for the safety of my desk chair, where I can affectively turn my back on whoever the hell it is that wants to take the risk entering with the mood I’ve been in lately.

  “Is it okay if I come in?”

  “I don’t have anything to say to you.”

  “You know, I figured that would be your response, but I have a few things I would like to say to you. If you’ll let me, of course.”

  “Do whatever you want.”

  Hearing his feet moving across my carpet, sensing him before he reaches the edge of my desk and leans against it, I spin myself around and push the chair back as far as it will go.

  I’ll let him talk, but it doesn’t mean I’ve gotta make it easy.

  “If you’re here to tell me that my mom is right and what’s going on with Chris and me needs to end, spare me.”

  “The thought never entered my mind. As a matter of fact, out of all of the things I could say to you right now, that’s not even on the list.”

  Oh please. He’s engaged to my mom. Of course they’re on the same page.

  “Somehow I doubt that.”

  “I know this might come as a shock, Emery, but not every thought I have has to mirror your mom’s.”

  “Oh yeah? Well, tell me, Nicholas,” I snap angrily. “What are your thoughts on all of this?”

  “I think that this is not nearly as big a deal as everyone seems to be making it out to be.”

  He has no clue what he’s talking about, obviously. He’s only making things worse saying stuff like this when I know it’s not true. My mom is
right. Christian and I dating, and the way it’s going to look, is wrong. He’s just trying to get on my good side saying different.

  “Bullshit.”

  “I’ve been around a long time, Emery. I’ve seen and been a part of some pretty dark, heinous things. It comes with the job description. I’ve seen what something that’s truly wrong looks like, both from a law perspective and from a human standpoint. My son dating the girl that will one day be my step-daughter definitely isn’t one of them.”

  Damn. For a split second there, I almost forgot he was a cop. Maybe every word out of his mouth isn’t total bullshit after all. I’ve got no doubt he’s seen some pretty messed up stuff doing what he does every day.

  “Then what is it, Nick? Because all I can see right now is how right my mom is.”

  “You mind telling me why you think she’s right?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “Not to me it isn’t.”

  “My mom’s made it pretty clear, so I know you’re talking crap.”

  “Your mother and her reasons for being so against the two of you are her own. You are not her and just because you’re her daughter doesn’t mean that you have to go along with everything she believes. You have your own mind too.”

  “You’re not the one that has to live with it, are you?”

  “In a few months I will be.”

  Any reminder of the fact that by this time in July they’ll be happily married, makes me sick. I don’t want or need him bringing it up. I’m thinking about it enough on my own as it is.

  “You’ve been seeing her awhile and as evidenced at dinner the other night, she’s clued you in on the only thing in the world I wanted more than both of us being healthy. So you know that I wanted a guy in my mom’s life that really loved her. One that not only loved her, but would have loved and accepted me too.”

  “You wanted a father.”

  “Exactly. So how do you think that’s going to work if I’m dating your son? Don’t you think that would be a bit strange, you know, both of us calling you Dad?”

  “I can see how it might to someone not directly involved with our family, Emery, but as for how it would feel for me personally? It wouldn’t be strange at all.”

  “Yeah, right.” I scoff as he holds his hand in the air.

  “Let me explain.”

  “This I gotta hear.”

  “Imagine for a second that you and Christian aren’t in the situation you are now because your mother and I never reconnected. The relationship the two of you formed on that first day of school, eventually spanning years. It stands to reason if that happens that eventually you would be calling me dad anyway. You would be doing that because you would be married to my son. So you see,” he continues, making his point loud and clear. “My method of thinking isn’t wrong.”

  “Neither is my mom’s.”

  “No, you’re right. It’s not wrong for her to believe that the best thing for everyone involved is for the two of you to split up. But the same could be said about you and Christian. The best thing for both of you would be if we went our separate ways, and deep down, I don’t think you want that to happen.”

  He’s right. I don’t, because unlike the rest of the world, I’m not selfish. I can see past the desire and want I have to be with Christian, to the very real need I have to see my mom get her happily ever after.

  “I don’t.”

  I can tell it’s not intentional, but there’s something about hearing that I don’t want him to split up with my mom that earns me a smile. The same smile I saw the night of the disaster dinner, and one that with the way I react to it, proves that I did the right thing walking away from Christian.

  A breakup that with the way he’s standing here and talking to me now, he knows nothing about.

  The truth is, I want his smile in my life. I want my dream to come true. Even if it costs me what could possibly be the one great love of my life.

  “I didn’t come up here to argue or try and sway you one way or the other. I just thought that before you make any decisions about steps to take, that you really give every avenue due attention. Because, Emery, I’ve looked at this from every possible angle and my response is still the same.”

  “Your response being?”

  “I want you to do what’s best for you. To choose what will make you the happiest, because at the end of the day, I don’t have to live with the result of your choices. You do. And you don’t want to go through life always having that what if following you around. I also think I know what will give you that.”

  “You barely know me at all.”

  “You’re right. I don’t know you, but I do know my son. And if the way he’s been since the move is any indication, I’m positive the road that would make you the happiest is the one that leads back to him.”

  “Are you saying that you want me and Christian to be together?”

  “Yes, Emery, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”

  *****

  “So it’s true.”

  Spinning around, the clothes neatly folded in my hands falling to the floor, I swallow hard and move back as he steps forward. “What’s true?”

  “You’re leaving.”

  If Janice and my mom are the only two people in the world besides me that knew about my leaving, how the hell did he find out? Better yet, what does he think he’s going to accomplish coming here and confronting me about it? Well, besides the obvious tug of my heart that’s taking place seeing the pain in his eyes. The one that makes me want to cross the distance between us, wrap my arms around him and never let go.

  A near debilitating need inside of me that if I want to see this through the way I planned, I can’t give into.

  “I have to.”

  “Since when? Who told you that you had to leave?”

  “How do you even know about this? There’s a reason why you’re only finding out about it now. It’s because I didn’t want you to know, Christian.”

  “That’s pretty obvious, and I know why.”

  “I really don’t think you do.”

  “Oh, so you didn’t deliberately keep it from me because you knew I would try and stop you?”

  As plausible as that reasoning is, it’s not right. The reason I didn’t tell him is because I need to sort out how I feel, find a way to come to terms with what I have to lose in order to accept what I want to have, and I can’t do that if we’re around each other.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Why don’t I believe you?”

  When we were dating, the response to this question would be ‘because you know me too well’, but now even thinking those words hurts too much.

  “I don’t know, Christian. I’m telling you the truth.”

  “Then why not tell me?”

  “Because this,” I admit, pointing between us. “Is still too raw. Being around you hurts. I don’t want it to, but it does. All I see when we’re together is you knowing about our parents dating and keeping it from me. Knowing about the proposal and not saying a word, and what come July, we’re going to be to each other.”

  “We’re going to be the same thing in July that we are now, Emery. Two people that despite the situation we’re in, love each other.”

  “I wish it were that simple.”

  “Is this your mom speaking right now or you?”

  “My mom has nothing to do with this. I’m the one doing this. She’s as upset about me leaving as you are.”

  Shaking his head, he steps forward and again, I move back, and paying more attention his lips and not on what’s behind me, fall back onto the bed.

  Great. Now I can officially list embarrassment to the list of crap I’m feeling having him this close.

  “Don’t do this, Em.” He begs softly as he falls to the floor in front of me. “I know you think distance will help, but it won’t. Time won’t either. Trust me, I’ve tried. It’s been weeks and no matter how hard I try, I can’t get you out of my head. You’re always there. I can�
��t escape you. I’ve tried giving your mom what she wants by ignoring you and keeping my distance, but it doesn’t work. It doesn’t get better.”

  He doesn’t get it, and even though it wasn’t part of my plan today to have to sit here and explain it, I can’t leave until he does.

  Christian can hate it and even hate me, but he has to understand that I need this. It’s what’s best for all of us.

  “It has to be this way. I can’t stay here. It hurts too much.”

  “You don’t think it hurts me just as much? That it’s easy for me, waking up every day without the best thing that ever happened to me?”

  “I never said that.”

  “No,” he concedes. “But you sure are acting like you’re the only one affected.”

  Something about the way he says it, assuming things when he has no idea how I really feel about any of this, sets me off.

  Catching him off guard, I shove my body forward and push into him, not stopping until I’ve gotten what I’m after and he’s fallen over completely.

  “You need to go.”

  “Please, Em!” he cries out, picking himself back up off the floor. “If you love me at all, stay. Fight with me. Fight for us. Don’t give up so easily.”

  Seeing the pain etched across his face and determined not to let it break me, I look away, turning to the clothes strewn on the floor that I need to pick up and pack and counting each piece. Focusing on anything that will erase the pain I see. The agony so strong I can feel its energy as it moves straight through him and into me.

  I’m hurting enough already. I can’t take anymore.

  No matter how badly I want to cross the room to him right now and wipe away the tears I can see building in his eyes and take away every ounce of pain that my walking away and now leaving is giving him, I can’t do it.

  I can’t take his pain on top of my own. I’m not strong enough to handle it.

  Moving toward the door, careful not to lift my head or shift at all in his direction, I grab the knob and swing it back, holding on to it for support before swinging my hand forward, motioning to the hallway as I finally lift my eyes to his.