Older

by Jennifer Hartmann

“Life is living. If you’re not living exactly the way you want to live, then what’s the fucking point?”

Everything was hollow. Everything except for my heart. And having an abundant heart in a hollow world was an affliction I was helpless to overcome.

Do you like tragic things? Are you drawn to the ghosts in my eyes? Stupid, fruitless thoughts.

“So, you hate peanut butter, house parties, and love. What do you like?” “I like you.”

“You look like you went to a dark place,” Reed noted off my delayed response. I didn’t go there. I lived there.

Saving lives was no small feat; I didn’t even know how to save my own. “I’m

“He said something my father used to say…a-and I panicked. He called me a lamb. It was like a thread snapping. A trigger. And it’s stupid and embarrassing, and all I want to do is be normal, but I can’t escape this helpless, awful feeling.” Her words bled together, a jumble of torment. “Everywhere I go, I see him lurking in the shadows. Every time my mind wanders, I hear his voice, feel his leather belt on my skin. I’m always scared. I’m always running. But I’m running in circles, and it’s exhausting, and it’s endless, and I just want to be free.”

When something breaks you, you pick up the pieces and put yourself back together. Maybe it’s with stitches and glue sticks, but it’s enough to keep going. Nobody needs to stay broken.”

It would have been so easy to slip beneath the surface and float away, to retreat from the confines of my hell and find a softer place to rest my head.

Love alone wasn’t always enough to keep us safe. Sometimes, it was our ultimate undoing.

“My father broke me,” I said, my voice fraying on the words. “He shattered my spirit, my strength, my whole damn heart. I don’t even know who I am anymore. All I know is who I want to be…and it’s not this girl. It’s not this shadow, this terrified little lamb constantly looking over her shoulder for the big bad wolf to attack. To take another bite out of me. I refuse to live my life in fear, and I never again want to be saved

she was more than Tara’s friend. More than eighteen. More than a predicament, a casualty of life. A blip. She was defiance. A force. A kaleidoscope in motion. I saw things I shouldn’t see when I looked at her. Something beyond physical.

“You can’t think about the what-ifs,” I told her, veering back to her original statement, our steps in perfect rhythm. “That’s the shit that will end up killing you. It’ll override everything you’ve learned, all your logic, training, and basic instincts. Fear is a disease. It’s paralyzing. The only antidote is believing in your resilience. Every challenge is a chance to prove your strength.”

“It’s okay to break sometimes,” he said. “You’re allowed to be vulnerable, scared. You don’t have to fight it.”

I was a matchstick. Small, brittle, and unassuming. But I was only one strike away from igniting. And if I wasn’t careful…I’d burn us all to the ground.

“I would have taken you back to my apartment,” I said darkly, teeth gritted, my fist still tangled in her hair. “And we wouldn’t have made it to the bedroom before I knew what your pussy tasted like.”

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.”

“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?”

“You’re supposed to know. You’re supposed to have the answers.” “Why?” “Because you’re older.”

Still, the guilt lingered. Guilt in the form of betrayal; something I’d just given my daughter a lecture on. Guilt in the form of weakness. Guilt in the form of her best friend. 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.

I fucked her like I always did, with anger and frustration fusing with twisted lust, rejecting the tendrils of affection that tried to seep inside. Halley whimpered below me as I tugged her up

My heart shrank. She was mine. She would always be mine. But not everything we were given was meant to be kept.

“Looking back, I wonder where exactly I fucked up, you know?” I wondered aloud. “Maybe it was buying you that damn CD. The little moments. Definitely the training sessions.” Jaw clenched, I glanced down at the floor tiles. “Feels like every step took me in the wrong direction and we ended up here. In this goddamn purgatory.”

“Beautiful things don’t last,”

“I know. But they can still be beautiful while they’re here.”

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

But he was in my bones, in my blood, and there was nothing I could say or do to carve him out of all of my essential pieces. I would die with him a part of me.

“You deserve to have someone in your corner, fighting like hell for you. For your honor, your worth. I want to be that person. I’ll be that guy…even if that’s all I’ll ever be.”

We weren’t done. Our story wasn’t over, and yet “The End” was stamped in black ink across the pages. I knew it was for the best, but the best didn’t always feel better. We would forever be a half-written song.

“You never needed saving, Halley. You were never lost.” “I was,” I cried. “I was lost when you found me, and I’ll be lost when you leave me.”

Nothing lived forever. Even love. And still, we allowed it to bloom. We breathed life into it, while simultaneously whispering our last goodbye. Some goodbyes just came far too soon.

love him.” Her eyes flared twice their size. “You what?” She needed to know this was real. This wasn’t a fling or a charade. This was love. Nodding through my heartbreak, I swiped at my cheeks. “I do. I love him.”

But daddy, i love him

But promises were like petals in the wind. Easily scattered. Hard to hold. I couldn’t keep them both. A tear trickled down my cheek as I swallowed the ashes of my sins. What the hell did I just do? I exhaled. Closed my eyes. “What I had to.”

him, closer, melting the icy gap between us. “Love is weak. Love is selfish. It’s not this fairy-tale illusion of candy hearts and paper flowers. It’s messy and painful. But it’s always worth it.”

“So, yes…I love you. I love you fiercely, wholly, selfishly and unselfishly, more than I ever fucking should. I love everything about you, from your smile, to your perfect heart, to the way your hair always slips from your ponytail when you’re running or sparring and hides those eyes I’ve been enamored with since the moment I first saw you. I love how you take every picture like it’s the only one you’ll ever take, how you love like it’s simply a way of life, and how you cook from your soul because it makes everyone around you so goddamn happy. I love the strength you pulled from nothing, from bare bones and rock bottom, and how you choose to dance through life with grace and courage, finding music in every soundless shadow, when anyone else would have laid down and died.”

“Go, Halley,” he whispered against my mouth. “Go with Scotty. Go because I love you. Go because it’ll kill me if you don’t do everything in your power to live a life you won’t regret.”

“Maybe one day I’ll find love with another man the way I found it with you. I’ll try to take pictures that aren’t all black and white. I’ll swim in the ocean, all while wishing you were on the same side of the waterline with me. I’ll try, Reed,” I rasped out. “I promise I’ll try.” He inhaled a ragged sigh. “Good.”

“I don’t need to talk to anyone, Tara. I’m not a victim. I’m not defective.”

“He did it for me. He was protecting me, just like he said he always would. In his mind, you hating him was better than you hating me, and part of me will never forgive him for that.”

And I refuse to be an enabling bystander again, wearing rose-colored glasses, justifying something that’s wrong, just because he’s a family member.” She swallowed. “Just because I love him.”

know that forgiveness, growth, and understanding can be found in even the darkest circumstances. I know that love has power. Power to break and ruin, and power to rebuild.” She wiped away a tear. “I know that what is meant to be, will be. You can’t rush it. You can’t fake it. You just need to wait for the storm to pass and pick up the pieces when the time is right.”

My mother had never reached out. Never called, never visited me. There were days when the notion had festered in my blood like a disease. But, as Whitney had said, what was meant to be, would be. Only time could paint the clearest picture, and time had showed me in striking pigments that my mother didn’t deserve me. She wasn’t worthy of my love. Once upon a time, I thought I missed her. But it was she who’d missed out on me. Not all mothers were meant to be caretakers. Not all monsters were meant to be rehabilitated. And not all love stories were meant to last.

Mourning. Glory. Both bleeding together with despair.

“I love you.” Reed tried in vain to erase my tear stains with his desperate kisses. But they’d carved holes. Left scars. “I love you, Halley,” he gritted out. “I’ll never stop.” We lowered to a nearby bench, and he scooped me into his lap, cradling me as all the light was sucked from the night sky. That was where we stayed for another hour. Weeping and wishing. Delaying another painful goodbye.

“Forgiveness comes a lot easier when you’ve had practice. I spent years learning to forgive myself. I was the betrayer once. I was the enemy. Life is fragile, choices are reckless, and forgiveness is always hard-fought. Your father isn’t perfect, and neither am I. Neither are you. Neither is Halley. Imperfections are what bind us together. Our common thread. We’re all capable of screwing up, but we’re all capable of forgiving, too. That’s what makes us stronger humans.”