Left of Forever (Spunes, OR, #2)

by Tarah DeWitt

“But I can still hear you and smell you, and I think my body just, ah fuck”—he grimaces as his cock twitches eagerly—“knows you.”

It’s the most erotic thing I’ve ever seen, his shaft glistening with melted ice cream.

“Could you just … Would you mind just leaving me here for a bit?” he asks. “Alone. I think I’ll be able to calm down if I don’t know you’re right there.”

It’s pulling away, withholding our hurts that destroyed us before. Being too damn careful.

“I am scared,” I admit. “I’m scared this isn’t real. And terrified of how badly I want it to be.”

“I can’t go back in time and fix everything, baby. I would if I could. I’ve spent so much time wishing I could erase mistakes … And I hate that we lost five years together.”

“We can talk. We can write. And maybe we can tie you up and you can come on my tongue enough to make up for some of the times you weren’t taken care of.”

“Since you’re begging,”

“Oh, I’m begging. I’m so hungry, Byrd. Please.”

“Five years,” he grits. “I think we can start with five.”

“Fucking hell, Mom. It was you?” “Me, what?” she crows. “Mother. Did you change our reservation?”

“I mean, for goodness’ sake, Wren, you’re on a trip with the man to decide if you should get back together or not. You might as well sleep together!”

“Wow.” “And it sounds like such a lovely trip he’s planned, sweets.” “Are you my pimp or my mom?” “Oh, now, don’t be crass.” “This coming from the same mouth that just implied that I ow...

“That man is the best sort of good. He’s the kind of good that doesn’t want to be seen or fussed over with accolades. He’s a man of action.”

“I understand why you split before, mainly because I understand not wanting another person to have any influence over how you go about your life. I understand that marriage is highly inconvenient at best, and it’s paralyzing at its worst.”

“Most people would argue that marriage is convenient,” I say. Sharing money, meals, responsibilities. “Most people are fucking idiots,” says Mom.

“All I know,” she continues, “is that you are both the sort of people who deserve all the best things, who deserve to be taken care of, but I don’t think either of you ever got to know how, because you were both always taking care of other people, or maybe … maybe in your case, i...

but I think you can and should have everything you’ve ever wanted. Let yourself have it. Don’t be afraid to go after it again.”

“New beginnings are best when you get to pick and choose what you carry over from the old.”

“Wren, I can still taste you in my mustache. I can’t think of a single person on the planet to be jealous of right now.”

I think if Wren goes before I do, my body would probably give out. I can’t imagine I’d be long for this life.

“I miss sharing a bed, and not just for the reasons you think.” I turn back to the road. “I, uh, started sleeping on your old side for a while because it felt like the mattress was caving in on mine.”

“You could have bought a new mattress,”

“What about you? How would you finish that sentence?” “Everything, too,” she breathes. “Everything, everywhere. I want to be able to call someone and share what I’m worried about or puzzling over at any given point during the day again.”

“Sometimes just sharing helps, even when the other person can’t fix it.”

“Like, I don’t get it. Why’d we let the bad stuff win?”

“I actually have an answer for that,”

“Per my therapist.”

“Because when it comes down to it, on a physical level, feeling happy doesn’t take priority over surviving,”

“We’re programmed to remember the bad so that we know what to stay away from and how to keep going. That’s why the shit that hurts stands out in our minds. That’s why holding on to the happy takes work.”

“What’s your worst...

“From Silas, to you and Wren Byrd: This time, it was me.”

“From Kirby,” the robotic voice says. “Did you tell her yet?”

“Tell me what?” she asks.

“That I still love you,” he gasps, his eyes falling shut. “That I still love you. I was worried telling you too soon wouldn’t be fair. I needed to tell you the right way. I needed to show you the right way.”

“But you could tell someone else? You could talk about everything with someone else before you could tell me?”

Is how you didn’t trust me. Not now, and not then, either.”

“Did you ever want another baby, Ellis?” “I wanted you to be happy.” “Did you ever—” “No,”

“No. I didn’t want to take care of anyone else. I was tired of trying to hold all these pieces of myself together all the time. Too fucking tired to take on more!”

“I wanted to make you happy, though. I’d … I thought I’d robbed you of so much, Wren. Of more of a life! I felt like I’d trapped you into it with me in the first place, however accidental it was, getting pregnant so young, I still felt like I’d robbed you of something. At the very least, of getting to experience that, getting to feel excited and prepared for a baby. Having to do it when we were kids was fucking hard. I couldn’t stand the idea of taking anything else away from you.”

“You robbed me of YOU! Don’t you see how not telling me how you really felt robbed me of you?!”

“Three years, and I felt every single day. I felt you pulling away. You worked more and more. You were quieter and quieter. You retreated and retreated and retreated. And I thought it was because you were sad. And you didn’t want to go to therapy then. Didn’t want to talk to someone else back then. And you wouldn’t talk to me!”

“You wouldn’t talk to me...

“You’d get silent, too, and most of the time, I couldn’t stand the thought of pushing you, knowing how disappointed and up...

“I thought you were disappoin...

“No.”

“I know it’s not the truth now. But at the time when I was drowning in everything else? That’s how it felt to me. And I started to resent it.”

“I started to resent you. How much I needed you. How much I wanted you. While you could just pull further and further from me. And then … and then, Jesus Christ, Ellis. Three years, and then three days after my surgery, you tell me you’re done?! You’re getting a vasectomy. I felt like you’d backhanded me. It was your choice. Just like what we decided to do when I got pregnant with Sam w...

I hated that I couldn’t hate you. When I said I wanted out and you didn’t fight me at all, I thought I might, but the closest I ever got was hating myself. I couldn’t hate you, couldn’t even stay angry with you.”

“Because I know you. I know what kind of man you are.”