I can finally start my life with Lily, but she doesn’t want it.
I got a text from Amy that Lily had left for the airport this morning. She’d freaking left. After I read Amy’s text, I said good-bye to my family and got in my car.
I want to drive far away from it all, far away from the memories haunting me.
But I have practice today, so my apartment will have to do. It isn’t the elusive distant place that I crave where I can hide and forget about it all, where I can try to numb the pain. The ache coursing through my body has an intensity so raw that it physically makes my stomach churn, and I have to swallow to hold down the bile threatening to explode.
In all my life, I’ve never felt like this. Through the trials of the past two years, when my relationship with Lily hadn’t been what I wanted it to be, I hadn’t felt like this. Through it all, I’d had confidence in our future, and that ray of hope had held me together. Knowing that it was all a means to an end had made it all bearable. Watching her heart break and knowing that I was at fault had caused an unimaginable pain in my chest, but it wasn’t like this.
My optimism is lost, hidden behind barricades of heartache. I don’t know how to manage my way through a life where Lily hadn’t chosen me, where she hadn’t chosen us. It’s so unbelievable that I can’t make any sense of it.
I wake up, nestled in warm softness smelling of sweet coconut. My brain is clearer than it has been in days. Sleep actually found me last night, a rarity for me as of late. My brain, now rested, can finally think straight.
The visions of the previous day come back to me. Stella found me, unshowered and drunk, sitting alone in my living room where I chose depression and beer-bottle smashing over having to deal with my emotions. She gently persuaded me to shower while she cleaned up the shattered glass on the floor. We didn’t talk much, other than me telling her that Lily was gone. But having Stella there felt good. Having someone to comfort me helped more than I’d known it could. If anything, lying next to her allowed me to sleep.
She stirs beside me and stretches her arms above her head. She turns her face and finds me staring at her. She really is so beautiful. She possesses that natural beauty where she is gorgeous without even trying…just like Lily.
Ugh…Lily. My chest hurts.
Stella levels a gaze at me. Her hand meets my cheek, and she rests it against my skin. “Sleep well?”
I gently clasp her wrist and pull it away from my face as I sit up. “Better than I have in days actually,” I confess.
She moves to allow me to swing my legs over the bed and sits next to me. “Do you want to talk about it?”
I chew on my upper lip, and I stare across my bedroom to the framed picture of Lily and me. In the photo, she’s on my lap with her arm around my shoulder, and I’m leaning to the side, dipping her. We’re laughing as we stare into each other’s eyes, as if we don’t have a care in the world. It was a captured moment of innocent bliss. God, I miss her.
I drop my stare from the photo, exhaling. “No, not really,” I answer truthfully. My head hurts with thoughts of Lily. Talking about it more isn’t going to help. No amount of discussion will make things better. Life sucks without Lily, and that isn’t going to change.
“Well, how about we go out for some breakfast? When’s the last time you ate?” Stella questions.
“I don’t remember. Yesterday sometime.”
“Really?” she asks skeptically. “What did you eat?”
I think back to yesterday, but honestly, most of the day is a blur. “Beer?”
She shakes her head, expelling a soft chuckle. “That’s what I thought. Come on.” She taps my leg. “Let’s go get some food.”
I find myself with more free time than I’ve had in years. Practices and training are things of the past, and my homework load is lighter than ever. I’ve been hanging out more with the guys and actually having a semblance of a social life, which is a new concept for me.
It’s a cold January day. The guys are studying, but Stella and I are finished. We decide to rent