Never Me (23 page)

“So you really don’t care if we ever see each other again?” God, did I just say that and sound so damn desperate while I asked? And he had to have heard the crack in my voice. I put both hands on my chest to cover the invisible bullet and tried my best to breathe. He stopped walking right away and stood perfectly still for several moments. He slowly turned to face me. His eyes were filled with apprehension and unshed tears.

“I’m not the guy who gets you, Nadine.” His voice was shaking like mine. I looked up to see his face twisted. “I’m not the one. As much as I want to be, I am not the guy who gets you.” I shook my head in disbelief as he continued. “The guy who gets you will see you like I do, but he will claim you right away. Watch for him. He won’t hesitate. He will shelter you and love you and make you feel protected. He will be hard to handle and sometimes you will want to walk away, but he will be worth it because he will treat you like you are worth it. He will tell you how brilliant and beautiful you are all the time. He will touch you like I did.” I heard his voice crack again and saw his face strain to keep him from cracking further.

“So this isn’t love?” I croaked, begging him to say something, to give me any sign that I wasn’t alone. I didn’t know if it was love, but I felt like a piece of me was being torn away and all he had to do was stop it.

“I don’t know. For me maybe, for you I think it’s trust.”

“Trust?” I doubled over and put my hands on my knees. Trust can’t hurt this much.

“I don’t know why I feel this way.” I looked up as more tears poured from my eyes. Spencer was in front of me now, his eyes stormy and full of the same agony I felt.

“I have no idea what happened between us, Nadine. We could live a thousand times and I guarantee it will never happen again. But it was real, Nadine. I felt it, too, but it’s fleeting. We have to go back home. I can’t leave my dad and you really don’t want to leave your family, either.” He nodded toward Rory who was watching us carefully from the car. “Even the weather is telling us it’s over,” he said as a raindrop hit his hand as he held it up.

“I don’t know if I should be mad, or sad, or kiss you or what the fuck to do. I don’t even know what I want from you,” I whispered, clutching his t-shirt.

“More time, it’s what we both want.”

“So this is how we leave it?”

“Yes and no.” He grabbed my face and pulled me to him, searching my eyes. “It was real, don’t ever doubt that. And don’t ever doubt a word I said, either. I will remember this until the day I die, so will you. I know you will. You can’t forget me.” He grinned and I laughed through my tears.

He wrapped his arms around me, whispering his next words. “Kiss me goodbye, Nadine, and go hit all your levels. Go take over and do all the shit you were meant to. Just know it’s okay to trust and get hurt, or you aren’t living at all.” I nodded my head and pulled back as he lifted his hands to my shoulders.

“I’ll do that,” I paused, finding the strength to get myself together, “As long as you promise me you will let go at some point, so you can do the same.”

“I will.”

“Okay.” He kissed me the way he did the night we met, seven days ago, a night that seemed a lifetime ago. It was over. Before I could let him get away I had just one more thing to say.

“You win. You won.” I saw shock and awe on his face and the look only he could give me. I wasn’t afraid to say anything to him—this stranger who knew me better than anyone in the world now owned a piece of me. Love, lust, infatuation, whatever the hell it was, it was amazing and I was grateful for every single minute. “You totally won, Spencer, and I’m so damn glad you did,” I said whole heartedly as I fought to keep control. I had made this harder for us both.

The Grinch of love… God, I was so full of shit. And he knew it the whole time. He knew it.

“You won the second I laid eyes on you, Nadine.” He smiled as he wiped the evidence of his victory away from my face. “Grinch.” He chuckled as if he knew what I was thinking.

This was it, we couldn’t wait any longer. I didn’t feel ridiculous at all for wanting to hold him close to me. It felt like a cruel punishment giving him back to the world—a punishment that left me bleeding and aching without end, no relief in sight, just loss… The loss of him.

“Spencer,” I heard my voice lift in a cry as I said his name. I gave him one more slow kiss and I couldn’t take it anymore. I turned from him and began to walk, trying not to look back. If I did it would kill me.

Rory was waving me to the car and noticed my face. I turned away from her and back to Spencer, barely catching sight of him as he disappeared rounding his hotel. I looked back at the ocean and saw a small ray of sunshine peek through the clouds. I let the feeling of complete loss wash over me. I sat on the sand letting the reality hit me. I would never see him again. I reveled in the fact that I could feel what I did while it tore my heart apart. If I ever wanted anything in my life close to what I had with Spencer, I had a decision to make. I had to leave her here.

I felt the protest start inside me. A Jonathan landed just inches away from my feet and seemed to cheer me on as I stood and started to shove her away from me. My mind pictured her face filled with rage as I pushed her out. She clung to me for dear life and I closed my eyes and pictured Spencer’s smile. It was enough to make her leave. She stood before me screaming, but I couldn’t hear a word she was saying. I felt Jonathan eye me with approval before he flew away. I addressed her now, her face filled with rage, still screaming at me to let her back in, but she never belonged with me in the first place.

This whore wasn’t me and would never be me. And now, for whatever reason, she had ended up as a contrived part of who I was. I used the rest of my imagination to mentally set her on fire and watched the flames engulf her as she begged and pleaded with me to let her back in. I turned on my heel and left her there, no longer a prisoner to her urging. I smiled as the rays disappeared and the rain started to fall more heavily.

I had wiped a majority of my tears away but they just kept coming. I just liberated myself from my biggest burden and still my heart felt heavy.

Rory, alarmed and waiting for me, was quick to question me. “Holy shit, what’s wrong.?

I smiled at the cloud covered ocean, my heart ripped to shreds and looked at her with my tear filled gaze.

“He won.” I chuckled. I shook my head at my out of place laughter as Rory started the car.

“I knew he was good for you.”

“Oh yeah?” I croaked, crying even more tears for the death and awakening of my heart.

“He told me the very first night that you were going to be good for each other.”

I kept quiet for most of the trip home, silently wiping my tears away. I found it fitting that it rained the whole time. I felt Rory pat my thigh every once in a while. I didn’t know why I wanted this man in my life, but I sure as hell didn’t want to never see him again. Life would get in the way, we both knew it.

It was real, for both of us, but it was also fleeting like Spencer said it was. I had to put it in the right perspective and eventually I would… Eventually.

3 months later

I heard her bitching as she opened the door. “Damn you, Nadine!”

I couldn’t help the pain in my chest. The pressure was unbearable. New Orleans was gone. GONE! She opened the door and paled from looking at me.

“What? What?”

“I want to see it,” I said, my voice a near shriek.

“See … it. Oh, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.”

I rushed inside and turned her TV on. What I was seeing was unreal. New Orleans was under water, people were dead, dying, crying, begging for help. It was fucked, totally fucked.

“Look, I know I said I didn’t want to see, but it’s been three months and look, Rory, it’s GONE!”

“Nadine… look—”

“Put it on, Rory!”

I had to see Spencer’s face, to know our magic place still existed. She plugged it into her laptop, streaming it to the TV and handed me the remote. I saw the huge cloud covering New Orleans as the terror of what was happening swept through me, so many lives were ruined, so many people helpless. I saw the huge cloud disappear as the video from our trip started. The hurricane that was covering Louisiana was replaced by me running toward the blue waves of Pensacola. I was fully clothed and looked like a total idiot running into the water. I felt the gnawing set in, ready to see Spencer’s face. All I had was this damn video. I didn’t see Spencer anywhere.

“Rory, where the hell is he?” I saw Amy and Jack, a ton of footage of me dancing on the bar, taking shots, laughing with Ellie and then nothing... It was all Ellie, Jack, Amy and Rory.

“Where is he?”

“He’s not on there.”

“What? No, that’s impossible. How, Rory?”

“When I recorded, which wasn’t much, this is all I took. If I had known that it would be this important I would have tried harder…”

“RORY, TELL ME HOW HE IS NOT ON HERE!”

“You guys always took off. When I remembered to record either you weren’t there or you were doing something so crazy I kept the camera on you. I didn’t know you would want him … like you do. I didn’t realize.”