I flex my fingers, curl them into a fist and close my eyes, listening to those voices from downstairs again.
God, I fucking love her.
I fucking love her more than anything else.
More than life.
Death.
And I’m never going to let her ass go. Not again.
Still, she might know what he did. How he let her go so easily. But that doesn’t mean she’s going to jump into my arms.
My smile pulls wider.
I planned for that too.
I’m running in the woods behind my house. I haven’t slept in what feels like days.
But it feels good to run. It hurts, too, because for the past three weeks, I’ve done nothing but get high, get drunk, sleep, and fucking rage.
This feels better. Productive. I have to focus on my breathing, pay attention to the forest floor, the trees ahead. There’s no clear path out here; I like it that way.
It’s hot for spring and sweat is dripping down my bare back. My lungs are heaving, legs aching. I need to stop smoking for good, probably lay off the coke, too, but I already know I’m not going to do either of those things.
Three miles, and it’s time to turn around, to go the three miles back.
There’s a thick tree dead ahead, and just as I’m about to swerve around it, because it would be impossible to miss even if I wasn’t focused, I stop, coming up short, my hands braced against the rough bark of the tree.
My heart is pounding, my breathing labored, the sun filtering through the canopy overhead, beating down on my back.
But none of that matters.
In this moment, I don’t care. Because all I see, just below my splayed fingers, is the smooth trunk of the tree, the bark peeled away in the shape of a jagged square.
Initials.
L & L.
Beneath that? M.
Circled with a fucking heart.
I press my brow to the tree, leaned against it, arms extended, fingers curling in the rough bark. Closing my eyes, I imagine it. A few weeks after we were married, we went for a run.
Like we always did. Together. Even on the worst of days, even when we’d dissolve into screams and tears and hatred in the evening, the mornings were reserved for us. We went running together, or we didn’t go at all. One morning, she felt sick.
I stayed home.
Another time, I was exhausted from all the coke I didn’t do.
She stayed home.
And the morning this happened, this bullshit a few inches beneath my fingers, we had fucked three times before we got out of bed. Before we got dressed, slipped on our sneakers. And a bandana.
I don’t even have one on now, but Sid insisted. She loved it, and she loved it when we both wore one.
Along with the bandana, she always carried a knife, and when we got to this tree, on our run back, just like this, she stopped me, flinging out her arm, catching me mid-run. I’d stopped, watched her peel away the bark.
When I realized what she was doing, I helped her.
Then she slipped the knife from the small pocket of her jogging pants and carved this. It was so unexpected. So…strange coming from her. A girl of shadows, made of darkness and regrets. Memories of trauma she barely survived, hidden behind a black curtain in her mind to keep her somewhat sane.
She was never one for romantic gestures, too busy trying to hold herself the fuck together.
It was so fucking strange, that all I could do when she was done, slipping the knife back into her pocket, was stare at her.
It didn’t seem real.
It was cold that morning.
After New Year’s. After one of my many fuck ups.
But she was smiling up at me, her silver eyes full of…love.
I’d thrown my arms around her, spun her around as I picked her up, listened to her laugh, husky and so goddamn sexy, I wanted to fuck her right there in the woods.
And I did.
She felt so fucking good, like she always did. But that was one of the only times I fucked her and cried. Because I knew she loved me.
My stomach churns now as I think of it, sitting in the living room, watching as Ophelia and Julie play with Finn, shooting glances my way, talking to themselves about nothing.
My heart tightens, and I think I might be sick.
Thinking of him fucking her.
Of her loving him.
Would she do something like that for him? With the fucking knife and the fucking tree? Would he love it like I did?