Older

by Jennifer Hartmann

Father didn’t love me; Mom didn’t love me enough. I guess that was why I loved too much. I had a lot of loveless holes to fill.

“Life’s fleeting blips. The ones that seem insignificant at the time, but later on, they mean everything.

“Sounds like your heart already knows what it wants. Go with the blips.” “I wish it were that simple.” “It is. People always overcomplicate shit.” “That’s because life is complicated,” I countered, peeking up at him through water-dotted lashes.

“Is it, though?” He held my gaze. “Life is living. If you’re not living exactly the way you want to live, then what’s the fucking point?”

I thought about my sad life that lacked the vibrancy and purpose Reed was so well-versed in. Everything was hollow. Everything except for my heart. And having an abundant heart in a hollow ...

Do you like tragic things? Are you drawn to the ghosts in my eyes? Stupid, fruitless thoughts. If he ever sat down with my ghosts and had a heart-to-heart, he’d be running for the hills.

“Relationships are overrated. Love is nothing but a building block for collapse. A stepping stone for tripping and stumbling into a black hole you can’t climb out of it.”

“You’re too young to be so jaded.” “Am I?” Our gazes tangled and snared. “I wish that were true. But being jaded doesn’t come with age; it comes with hardship. And hardship can blow through like a stormfront, destroying everything in a blink. Five years old, fifteen, fifty. Doesn’t matter. Once you’re caught in the funnel, you never stop spinning out.”

When Reed spoke, his voice was rough. “You don’t know me well enough to like me.” “Yeah.” I stared at him, held his gaze. “Maybe that’s why I do.”

Two strangers on a lakefront, destined for nothing. No good story ever started that way.

People always said that in the harsh light of day, the rose-colored glasses fell off and you saw things for what they really were. I’d experienced my fair share; a few random hookups to dull the stab of loneliness and heartache. It had felt so warm and fulfilling at the time, heady in the moment. But then the sun would rise, casting new light on the guy sprawled out naked beside me, drooling into a starchy pillow. Nose too big. Hair too short. Skin too sallow. Whatever connection had bloomed within the shadows, burnt away to ashes come sunrise. Warmth chilled, and fulfilling moments never stretched long enough for me to fully embrace them. Temporary.

Reed didn’t realize it, but as I took his hand and he tugged me up from the ugly brown carpeting of Jay Jennings’ bedroom floor, he took my whole life in his. I felt it. I was certain of it.

“Is this why you came back?” Our mouths hovered a millimeter apart, his warm breath coasting over my lipstick stain in shaky bursts. “For a kiss?” Lifting his hand, he grazed the back of his knuckles up my jaw to my cheekbone. “I was curious.” “I was waiting.”

“Confidence is like a muscle,” I told him. “It needs consistent exercise. The more you practice, the stronger it becomes. It’s not about eliminating self-doubt entirely—it’s about pushing through it.”

“Progress is a journey, not a destination.”

Everyone gets a moment. A moment that tested us, defined us, shaped us. One that showed us who we really were. The real us, down to the marrow. Not that superficial bullshit we flaunted to meaningless passersby who filtered in and out of our lives like transient ghosts. Every goddamn one of us got a moment.

I swallowed down a bone-dry boulder in my throat. “Lots of things are in the past. Doesn’t mean they don’t matter.”

I wanted to mold her pain into perseverance; into something worthy and commendable. I wanted to turn her into someone who could save herself.

“Lost things don’t have to stay lost forever. They can be found.”

And when you lose something in the wake of betrayal, it’s like trying to catch smoke with your bare hands. No matter how hard you try, it slips through the cracks, leaving you with nothing but a bitter aftertaste,” she said. “And that tastes an awful lot like regret.”

I learned my lesson the hard way.” She glanced at me. “Which I think is the only way we ever truly learn a lesson, right? It has to hurt.”

“And then when I’d survived, I had to figure out how to live through that fear and pain going forward. And that’s the key—living through it, not in it. You recognize it, you channel it, you don’t try to smother it. There is no weakness in fear. You just can’t let it dictate your next move.”

He told me there was a fire inside me and that all I needed was a spark. Reed was my spark.

Not all collisions left you rising from the ashes. Some just left you shattered, buried in the wreckage of your own mistakes.

“I needed a moment with you,” he said, every word braided with torment. “Just for a minute.” My body trembled, caught between knowing I should remain in my seat but wanting to leap across the console into his arms. “You have me.”

It was a wicked lie. He’d never truly have me. These little moments were all we were allowed.

“You didn’t have to do that.” “I know.” “You risked too much.” “You’re worth it.” Shifting in his seat, he inched forward, his grip on my hand tensing. “No one’s ever stood up for you like that before, have they? No one’s ever fought. And that’s bullshit. You deserve to have someone in your corner, fighting like hell for you. For your honor, your worth. I want to be that person.” He stared at me with an intensity that etched lines across his entire face. “I’ll be that guy…even if that’s all I’ll ever be.”

“You have so much power.” His words breathed fire on my skin. “I wanted to give you all of it. I wanted to watch it take you over, consume you.”

“But, goddammit, I gave you too much.” He opened his mouth wider, a hot, wet trail coursing up the length of my throat until his lips were a millimeter away from mine. “I gave you power over me.”

I knew that when I left his arms tonight, I would never get them back. These arms would never swoop me backward on an altar as we shared a forever kiss. They would never hold me in the middle of the night when I awoke from a nightmare. They would never cushion our newborn baby as he gazed down at a pink or blue swaddle with love in his eyes. I wanted all of those things. But I wanted them with the wrong man.

Our mouths touched, a graze, a gavel slamming down on our fate. Either path we chose felt like death, but this death was sweeter.

“I needed to be close to you. Watch you sleep, watch you breathing.” “Living,” I exhaled. “That’s right.” “Life is living.” My voice quaked as I echoed his words to me from that first night at the lake. “If you’re not living exactly the way you want to live, then what’s the point?”

“Reed.” My eyes pooled with unwanted tears as I inhaled a ragged breath. “Tell me this changes things.” I had to know. I had to know there was hope for us. This wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment mistake, a weak blip, or a lapse in judgment. There was something here. Something powerful. A life worth living.

Reed stood just outside the tent, watching me from afar, looking plagued and haunted. He couldn’t shutter the curtains, couldn’t drop the blinds over his eyes. I saw it all. Felt it. We didn’t smile, didn’t blink. We just stared at each other. Me on one side of the waterline, and him on the other.

“Older doesn’t translate to wiser, and age doesn’t guarantee answers.” He cradled my cheek in his palm as I nuzzled into his touch. “With age, comes certainty. You grow to know exactly what you want. But that doesn’t always mean it’s wise or right, and then that certainty becomes a curse.”

“When you’re a parent, you’re consciously aware that these days are ahead, destined to find you. You try to prepare, and you think you’ll be ready, but it’s not possible. These moments always seem so damn far away at the time, and then—bam. No more piggyback rides, no more swimming lessons, no more birthday cake painting the walls. It’s like I blinked and you were older.”

I hope you find someone who complements you in every way, who gives you strength and courage, who fights for you tooth and nail, no matter the consequences, and who loves every single piece of you. Even the sad pieces. Even the ugly pieces you try to keep buried.”

But, I think that when someone you care about betrays you, nothing can glue those broken bits back together,”

My Wonderwall. But the wall between us was anything but wonderful. And I feared we were all one loose brick away from that wall crashing down and putting us six feet under.

There were the kinds of messes that took a dishrag to clean up, and some that required a mop and a bucket. Some messes spilled over and compromised other areas, which turned a minor inconvenience into prickling aggravation. And then there were grade-A, next-level catastrophes that left you sifting through the wreckage, contemplating every misstep, every wrong turn, that led you there. We weren’t any of those things. We were just plain fucked.

I’d been doing my damned hardest not to let emotion stifle reason, and to allow this to be exactly what it was: a forbidden affair that would live in the shadows and never see the light of day. I’d never take her out to dinner, hold her hand in public, or put a ring on her finger. I had laid my intentions out, loud and clear, and Halley claimed to be content with the terms. But I knew that even the best-laid plans were often butchered and left splattered across a murder-scene floor.

She was responsive, so eager for me to take control and have my way with her. She’d let me do anything. Even break her heart.

“I like when you touch me like that.” I idled on my knees beside her, the sweat cooling on my skin. “Like what?” “Like I’m yours.” My heart shrank. She was mine. She would always be mine. But not everything we were given was meant to be kept.

It didn’t mean anything. Knowing how she liked her coffee, her favorite songs, her deepest fears and dreams, the way her breath hitched on my name whenever my tongue was between her legs, and her assortment of smiles dependent on her mood, only meant that I was observant.

“Regardless of what this can or can’t be, please don’t diminish what it is.” My eyes opened and narrowed. “What exactly do you think this is?” Her delicate palms slid up the length of my torso and landed on my chest. “Something beautiful.” More fantasies. More pretty lies to help her sleep at night. “Beautiful things don’t last,” I said, trying to remain stiff and sharp-edged but tenderizing against her touch. I wanted to reach for the lie, too; weave it and mold it into something honest, something worth keeping, but I was too aware of everything it wasn’t. “I know. But they can still be beautiful while they’re here.”

She was always breaching me, always digging her way back inside. A stubborn sliver.

I knew nothing in the world could erase the stains of our sins. More importantly, nothing could ever wash away the haunting residue of what we would become.

“Honestly, I’ve made it through worse things,” I assured her. “Yeah.” Her soulful eyes gave me a full sweep. “Something tells me maybe you have.”

“You have no idea how hard it is to be in the same room as you and not touch you, hold your hand, tell everyone you’re mine.” Yes. This was what I needed, wanted, craved. These words, this passion emanating off of him in volatile waves.

“Every moment with you fucking hurts.” His voice was pure grit, words cracking and breaking. “Every moment without you…hurts so much more.”