The Light of Day (3 page)

Chapter Six

Cora

I was nineteen when I met Rafe.  Nineteen and hell bent on acting like I owned the fucking world.  Trying to tell me I was young and naïve was a waste of someone’s breath.  I was struggling through fashion design school though I wouldn’t admit it, and I was desperately lonely.

              I’d never made friends easily, and though I’d always blamed it on the fact that I didn’t like girls, the real reason was I didn’t understand how to be around them.  Girls were public enemy number one.  I’d learned that at the knee of my own mother, though it had taken me a long time to admit that’s who influenced me.

              Girls were complicated where boys were easy.  Girls needed honesty and attention and loyalty.  And they weren’t afraid to tell you to fuck off and get over yourself when you were acting like an asshole.  I didn’t want someone telling me I was wrong, so I shut Mia out as much as possible, which was easy since we lived in different cities, and I kept to myself, only partaking in relationships with someone who saw the world like I did: one big party that owed me something.

As a result, I was never lonesome for a drinking buddy or a clubbing partner, but I was lonely when it came to everything else.  I ate alone, lived alone, studied alone.  To avoid this, I started partying more, going out in the early evenings and surrounding myself with as many people as possible to block out the silence that was deathly frightening to me.  Noise meant people, and people meant life, so I submerged myself in them to avoid listening to my own thoughts too often.

              When I met Rafe, he was everything I had been missing in my life.  He wasn’t like the rich and spoiled that I had been seeking out.  He was a hard worker with a plan; a bartender at night, a student during the day and when he looked at me, I felt like he actually saw a person, not just a thing.

I went home with him the first night we met, and rather than letting me sneak out the next morning, he drove me home and made me breakfast.  Suddenly, my apartment wasn’t lonely and I became addicted to that feeling.  Just that small piece of contact filled me, and I never wanted to let it go.  From that moment on, I ignored everything that wasn’t Rafe — I altered my appearance to fit in with his casually trendy look, altered my class schedule to fit his work and class schedule, cut out my night time endeavors to sit at the bar with him before he took me home.  My world was him, and a month after we met, I asked him to move in.  A month after that we were rushing off to Vegas in a drunken stupor to get married.

              For a little bit, we were happy.  Whether it was contrived happiness or genuine, I still don’t know, but I do remember waking up and thinking,
I did it.  I’m not alone like my mother always warned me I would be
. 
Someone loves me.

Shortly after we got married, though, it became apparent that there was more to blending your life with someone else’s than making breakfast and moving around some clothes in the closet.  Rafe came from a blue collar family, and he was working to make ends meet while studying to obtain a degree in marketing, and no matter how many times I told him I had enough monthly money dropped into my account to take care of us, he didn’t believe in living off his wife.  His free time was minimal, and those exciting times of sitting at work with him and being home with him while he studied quickly became monotonous.

              It never occurred to me to find something in my own life to fill my time.  I had married him because I wanted something and someone permanent to entertain and adore me, and when it became clear he had other things that occupied his time, I got mad.

Two months into our marriage I was seeking out old acquaintances, finding parties, coming home drunk and belligerent.  Not coming home.  I don’t know if that was the end or just a prelude to the end, but when it all crashed around me a few months later and Rafe moved out, I had never felt more alone.

The day he moved out, I remember standing there yelling at him, shoving any fear I felt to the back and relying on anger.  “You’re giving up? Just like that? Love me, my ass.  If you loved me you wouldn’t be walking away.”

He stood in the doorway, a bag over his shoulder and another in his hand, and I’ll never forget the look on his face when he shook his head.  “It’s not me who doesn’t love you, Cora.”  And then he left, and I was alone.  Again.

The silence was consuming everywhere I went.

I wouldn’t answer Mia’s phone calls, or any from the rest of her siblings.  Even the Scientist called, but I ignored her too.  I stopped going to class and failed out.  I wouldn’t go home and admit defeat to my parents, even when I was facing divorce and no career.  The only thing I had was the person I’d been before Rafe, so I embraced her and everything she’d once been, partying harder, waking up in places I didn’t remember going to, surviving severe hangovers only to get twice as drunk the next night.

It was Rafe who found me passed out after one of those nights and called Mia, one last act as my husband.  He’d come over to give me papers and get the rest of his things and I was on the floor, passed out after taking God knows what and chasing it with the better half of a fifth of vodka. He couldn’t get me to wake up.  A trip to the emergency room and a phone call later, Rafe kissed my forehead and walked out for good, but not before telling me that I had to make a choice or I wasn’t going to live.

One more thing that proved he was too good for me.

I don’t know if it was that or the look of terror on Mia’s face when she stepped into that hospital room, but I decided that enough was enough.  And though I kicked and screamed more than once during the process, I went to rehab, got sober and learned how to stay that way, entered group counseling when I got out, shifted to AA when I hit the six month mark, and then I began the painful process of starting over.

Almost a year after starting, I’m a licensed cosmetologist with a budding client list and thoughts of going back to school to get a degree in business, though they are admittedly dire thoughts as I hate school.  I’m not sure I’m happier now than I was a year ago, but I do know I
want
to be happy, healthy, and free from the demons I let control me for too long.

~

By the time I’m done running herd on Aunt Margaret and doing my duties as maid-of-honor, the rehearsal dinner is almost over.  I sat at Mia’s side through the speeches, laughing with Max as he embarrassed Ryan, shedding an honest tear when Ryan’s mother got up and started out with a teasing lilt and ended up crying a little as she said goodbye to her son and hello to her new daughter.

              I held Mia’s hand under the table as she cried silently during her older brother Joe’s speech, laughing as he ended with, “And who knows, we could be marrying in the families again if Caitlin and Joshua keep going like they are.”  The brother of the bride blushed while the sister of the groom cheered, and everyone else laughed.  I continued to hold her hand when the mood changed and her father stood to give a stiff, and somewhat detached speech about the blending of two lives.  It was drastically different than the other lighthearted speeches, but the fact that he’s here, that he stood and verbally congratulated his daughter, acknowledging Ryan as the man in her life, was a larger step than she could have ever hoped for.

              Her genuine smile and embrace for him after was her acknowledgment of that.

              If it made me think of my own father who was sitting and talking with Aunt Margaret, I tried to do so objectively.  He was here alone because she couldn’t make the trip, my mother, the woman who might not live to see my wedding day, and even if she does, she won’t remember it.

              She’ll always remember the first one, though, and I try to not care about that.

              My father wasn’t there, nor was she, but that isn’t the point.  They’ll remember their daughter coming home with a stranger and showing them her ring, a ring that meant little more than the ceremony itself, little more than the man — boy, really — who had bought it and given it to her.  They’ll remember that same girl a few months later admitting that she was getting a divorce, and that she needed help.  And they’ll remember the satisfaction of being able to tell her they were right, that she was reckless, careless, thoughtless.

That she was desperate and it had finally caught up with her.

              But only her father will remember what true desperation looked like as he visited his daughter in her first family session a brief three weeks after her divorce, facing her as she faced her withdrawals from every substance she’d ever used, and all of the people she’d ever surrounded herself with.

And only her father will remember how she looked at him and told him all she’d ever wanted was a mother who actually wanted her, and a father who actually stood up for her.

              I jolt back to reality at the sound of a chair scraping on the tile next to me.  Appalled, I look around and see that people are standing, leaving, coming over to our table to say their goodbyes to Ryan and Mia.

Mia throws a glance my way even as she smiles at an elderly couple standing in front of her.  I smile, motioning to the back as if I have something to do.  I wave and then turn to disappear before she can make an excuse to follow me.  I need fresh air and quiet and a minute to bring myself back together.

I skirt around tables as quietly as possible, smiling at people who call out my name, never stopping as I head toward the patio doors by the bar and out, away from the small fire pit that’s lit with a few partygoers standing around it, around the corner of the building to the shadows where the edge of the golf course meets the stucco structure.

              Leaning back against the rough side, I close my eyes and take a deep breath, sucking air in and out of my lungs slowly, waiting for the dread to cease and the memories to back off.  Christ, I need to get a grip.  I take another deep breath and open my eyes, relieved to see that I’m still alone.

              In a minute, I’ll go back and make sure that everything’s being taken care of, that Mia’s okay and still having a good time, but first I need to make sure there’s no remaining panic or sadness, that the memories that snuck up are well and truly buried for the time.

              “Sneaking out?”

              It’s not the voice so much as it is how close the voice is, close enough that a hand reaches out and steadies my arm when I jolt and stumble.  “Relax, Blue.  You look like you’re about to crawl out of your skin.”

              I feel like that, though I’m not going to admit it.  For the first time in months, I’m uncomfortable with my past, and whether it’s because Jake brings out things in me I’d long forgotten or because he tempts me in ways I don’t want to be tempted, I feel justified in turning that discomfort on the man next to me.

              “When a person leaves a party and goes to find a quiet corner, the implication is that they don’t want to talk to people.”

              He just raises a brow and leans a shoulder against the side of the building.

“When a person nearly sprints out of a dining hall filled with people she knows, she should expect those people to notice — and to worry.  Mia was going to come after you when she saw you bolt.  Instead of upsetting her, and possibly unleashing her mother on you when she followed, I offered to come and find you.”

              Guilt sneaks in and I blow out a breath, before leaning back against the wall.  “You’re right.  Sorry, I just needed a minute.”

              “Yeah, I got that from the look of distress on your face before you bolted.” He stands and holds out a hand, nodding his head in the direction of the course.  “Let’s take a walk, Blue.”

Chapter Seven

Jake

“So, want to tell me why you were on the verge of a panic attack in there?”

She tries to pull away, but I keep her hand firmly in mine as we walk through the course.  “Relax, I’m not going to jump you.  I’m just trying to figure you out.”

“Well, don’t.  If I wanted you to figure me out, I’d tell you things myself.”

I nod my head.  “That’s a valid point, so we’ll start there.  If I ask you things, will you answer me?”

“Probably not.”

“See, there you go making me want to figure you out again.”

She lets out an exasperated sigh and stops.  “Jake, it’s been a long night, and if it was any indication of how tomorrow’s going to go, I’m going to need all of my strength to get through the day.  So, right now I need sleep and some quiet time, not some bumbled attempt at flirtation.”

Maybe it’s a male thing, or maybe it’s just an ego thing, but when the word
bumbled
slips out of her mouth, along with that small sigh that falls just short of annoyed, everything in me snaps to attention.  Bumbled?

Turning toward her, my hand still holding hers so I can bring her against me, I look down at her, letting her see everything I feel, everything I want, everything I’ve done my best to hold back from her this week as we danced around one another.  The moon is overhead, lighting the green around us and highlighting that gorgeous skin of hers.  This time I don’t resist the urge to reach out a finger and trace it over that silky smooth cheekbone and down her neck to the hollow at the base of her throat.

When a shiver courses through her, I dip my head enough so our eyes are level and our mouths scant millimeters apart.  I wait, watching her eyes flutter before closing, wait still as I watch her breathe in, taking some of my breath with her.  When I see her tongue peek out of her mouth and wet her lips, the blood drains from my head and I can’t keep myself from moving into her.

Our bodies mold together, pressing every part of me against every part of her and I take a second to thank whatever gods are listening for the fact that in her high heels we’re only three inches or so apart, and then my mouth captures hers, absorbing the taste of her even as my body absorbs the jolt of recognition.  Holy mother of God.

She’s a banquet of flavors, spicy and sweet, intoxicating, and everywhere I breathe I smell her, taste her, feel consumed by her.  I reach my hand around and cup the back of her neck, holding her firm while I change the angle of the kiss, taking it deeper, letting my tongue slip inside of her lips and tangle with hers.

Not for the first time, this girl has done the impossible and made me think of nothing but her.

I don’t know what I expected when I kissed her.  Whatever it was, I most definitely did not expect her response to be this uninhibited.  Maybe a little shy, cold even, with an immediate attempt to pull away (which we both know I would have ignored).  Instead, what I got was all of Cora wrapped around me, her fingers in my hair, her body arching against mine, and her teeth nipping at my tongue and my lips before she changes the angle and does it all over again.

Whoever Blue is, I now know my instincts were spot on about her secrets.  She may dress and act like a choir-girl now, but after this moment, I know differently.

I cup her hips in my hands and pull her closer, flexing my hips into hers and dragging a groan from both of us.  When I say her name, just her name, my fingers digging in possessively, I feel her body tremble and then still, and I know my time is almost up.

I hold on a second longer, drawing out the kiss even though she’s stopped responding.  When I pull back, I’m almost relieved to see irritation on her face.  Too much longer kissing, and I might have begged her.

“What was it you were saying about a bumbled flirtation?”

She yanks her arms from around me and shoves against my chest.  It’s not because of her strength that I let go, but because I’m not quite steady and it’s mortifying to realize how shaken I am after one kiss. 
Jesus, Jake, get a grip, she’s just another girl.

Yeah, right, keep telling yourself that.

“I don’t know what you heard about me and I don’t care, but if you ever put your hands on me again without my consent, it won’t be just your elbow that keeps you from ever playing baseball again.”

Cora’s arms are hanging at her sides and her face is pink with anger and (hopefully) desire.  But her eyes are cold, lethal, as they bore into me and I acknowledge this, my own blood chilling at her words.  “I won’t apologize for wanting you, Blue, and I won’t apologize for kissing you when you know damn well you were kissing me back.  But,” I say before she can interrupt me, “I will apologize if you think the reason I kissed you is anything other than the fact that I want the hell out of you.”

She narrows her eyes.  “I don’t trust you.”

“You don’t know me.”

“Exactly.”

“But I want you to,” I say and realize I mean it.  “I want you to know me, Blue, because I sure as hell want to know you.  Ten minutes.  Give me ten minutes right now where you ask me questions and I answer and vice versa, and if your interest isn’t piqued by then, I’ll walk away and leave you alone.”

She stares at me as if assessing whether or not she can even trust what I’m saying and, for reasons I can’t explain, I’m starting to get annoyed.  Finally, she relents enough to relax her shoulders.  “Ten minutes, and then if I say I don’t want to know you, you’ll just leave me be, no more flirting, no more smoldering looks, no more kisses?”

I nod.  “But you have to be honest.  No ignoring me for ten minutes and then telling me to take a hike.”  Her lips tremble on a smile, and I relax a little, too.  “To show how good a sport I am, I’ll start by telling you I found out inadvertently today that you were once married.”

I don’t add that it made me want to put my fist through a wall.

She stares at me and then blows out a breath, slipping her beautiful shoes off before nodding and then beginning to wander barefoot through the spongy grass.  I match my pace to hers and for a while, we just walk in the darkened silence, the moon overhead barely a sliver and the world around us quiet.

“Gonna tell me why you got divorced?”

She smiles, and shrugs.  “Really, isn’t it easy to figure out? I wasn’t even twenty, and though age shouldn’t be an excuse, I think I was a young and naïve nineteen-year-old trying to make a decision that showed just how mature I was.”

“Who was he?”

“A bartender.  I went out, he served me drinks, we went home together.  Not that long after, we went to Vegas and made it permanent.”

I can’t help the shock that crosses my face.  “Why’d you do it?”

“Why not?” she asks and sighs.  “I was lonely, he was different from anyone else I hung out with at the time.  When we were together it made me feel different, too, like I was a part of something important and that made me feel good.”

I’m shocked by her stark honesty, and the way she’s glancing at me, I can tell that’s what she’s hoping, to shock me into walking away.  Not likely.  “What happened?”

She shakes her head.  “Nope, my turn.”

“All right.  Shoot.” 

I expect her to ask why I care about her, why I’ve been bothering her, whether or not I have a girlfriend, but instead she motions to my arm.  “What happened?”

I could pretend not to know what she was talking about, draw out the question further so I have time to get my wits about me, but then I remember that I’m the one who started this conversation.  “UCL surgery.”

“What does that mean?”

“You want the medical jargon?”

“I wouldn’t understand it even if you had it.”

“Then the gist.  I overworked my arm, the tendons got overstretched, too overstretched to keep the bones together or for me to throw worth a damn.  The end.”

She stops and looks at me.  “Is it? The end, I mean.”

I shrug because it’s something I’ve been trying not to dwell on.  “I don’t know.  They say it’s not, but then I’m in a weird position.  I’m not finishing my college career, but I haven’t been drafted yet, either.  I guess you could say I’m in limbo because there’s really nowhere I belong.”

Her eyes stay on mine and for a second I see understanding in them.  “That’s a hard place to be.”

I nod.  “Something tells me you’ve been there before.  With this husband of yours?”

“Ex-husband, and no.  Rafe was… the one time I thought I was actually somewhere that mattered.”

My gut clenches because this is not what I wanted to hear.  I wanted to hear that she didn’t love him, that he was a mistake, that he wasn’t the person for her.  I have no right to her, and yet I want her to look at me and tell me all of those things so I can take her.

“Ever been in love, Handsome Jake?”

I snap back and see her watching me.  “Uh, yeah, I guess you could call it that.”

“What happened?”

I run my hand through my hair, wondering if this was the smartest round of questions to start.  “Isn’t it my turn to ask?”

“Afraid to talk about your feelings?”

              Dammit.  “Nope, just thought you wanted to make things fair.”

              She laughs like she’s knows what I’m doing.  “You wanted to know me, and so far I’ve already told you things most people don’t know.  But I can’t trust you with more until I know you.  So, tell me about the time you guess you were in love.”

              “What do you want to know?”

              “How long did it last?”

              “A year, give or take a couple of months.”

              “Why’d it end?”

              “We realized we weren’t in love enough to actually fight for what we had.”

              “One word to describe how she made you feel.”

              “Comfortable.”

              I pause because it’s unflattering, and not what I thought I was going to say.  As descriptions of serious lovers go, comfortable is insulting, like a comparison to a nice pair of shoes or your baseball glove.

              Blue raises her eyebrows.  “Was comfort what you were looking for?”

              “I wasn’t looking for anything, not like you mean.  Hooking up with Lise, then dating her, wasn’t planned. It just happened.”

              She nods.  “A year is a long time for something unplanned.  How did you meet?”

              “Russian lit, my sophomore year.  We partnered up for a reading seminar and ended up in bed.  Since we liked the results, we kept ending up there.”

              She stares at me and I can see the wheels turning as she tries to comprehend what I’m telling her.  Since I barely understand what Lise and I were together, or what my feelings for her were, I stay quiet

              “Did you see other people while you were together?”

              Her question isn’t uncalled for, especially with the description I’ve just given her.  Hell, I might have assumed the same thing, and still, my mood darkens slightly.

              “No.  I don’t share, and I don’t cheat.  If I’m in a relationship with a girl, or even just in bed with her, she’s the only one I think about.  When either of our minds start to wander, it’s time to call it quits.”

              “Is that what happened with you and Lise? You decided you wanted freedom?”

              I blow out a breath and drop to the manufactured green grass that one can only find on a golf course in Arizona, not looking at her when she folds her legs under her and sits next to me.  Even though I started this conversation, I’m suddenly wishing I could pull the plug.  “Yes and no.  We were friends, Lise and I, and we liked each other.  For a while, sleeping together and talking literature was satisfying for both of us.  I gave her the break from the perfect pupil mold she always wore, and she reminded me that there was more to life than baseball.”

Blue waits, and then prompts me to finish when I trail off.  “And then…”

I shrug.  “And then she fell in love with someone else.  The real deal love.  Passion and jealousy and aching when you’re not together.  I got home from a road trip and she was waiting for me.  She told me, I kissed her goodbye, and that was it.”

Except, it wasn’t, not really.  Lise hadn’t cheated, not physically, but she had done the one thing I’d feared since my mom walked out before I was a year old: she’d stayed with me until she found something more permanent, or just something better.  Blue’s watching me like she knows what I’m thinking and I clear my throat.

“Is that really it?”

I nod.  “It was a surprise because like I said, I was comfortable, but if you’re asking if I wanted more, if I was heartbroken because she left, then no.  It was the opposite, actually.  She fell in love with someone else, and I let her go because, although I cared about her, she wasn’t someone I spent my entire day thinking about.”

              I turn to her now that she’s quiet, and I hold her eyes with mine so she can’t doubt any of the words I’m about to say.  “Not like I’ve thought about you every day for the past week, Blue.  Just hear me out,” I say, as she starts to shake her head and stand.  “The minute you walked into that party I was hooked.  I couldn’t look away.  Now that I know a little bit about you, now that I’ve tasted you and spent time with you? You’re all I think about, Cora, and after the last few months of not wanting to think, it feels really fucking good.”