Goodbye to You (34 page)

thea.

marry.

me?

What?

I gasp and turn to Shay, and he’s on one knee. A group of people circles us, staring and pointing.

“I—”

“Please stop talking. I know we’re young, and life is crazy with me in med school, and it’ll be years before we can start a family, but—”

“Oh my God!” I cry out, then cover my mouth with my hands.

“Good grief, be quiet.” He laughs. “Marry me, and I promise to spend every day of the rest of my life trying to make you happy. Some days I’ll succeed, and heaven knows others I’ll fail miserably.”

“Get up! Just get up! Shut up and kiss me.”

He stands and cups my face in his hands, whispering against my lips, “Does this mean yes?”

“Yes, yes, yes!”

He kisses me quick and hard before pulling back.

“She said yes, everybody!” he shouts to the applauding crowd before answering his ringing phone. “Yes, Mom, yes! Tell Mac too.”

He turns around and picks me up, swinging me around till I’m dizzy.

He slides a gorgeous three-stone emerald and diamond band on my ring finger.

It fits like it was made for me.

Like this family.

Like this man.

To think opting for a mastectomy is the reason for this. The “Farewell to the Boobs Tour” put me in Key West, in Paddy’s Pub, at the moment my soul mate appeared. To think I tried to let him go
because
of the surgery. Because I was afraid.

Nothing scares me anymore. The full road to recovery lies long ahead, but there’s no better companion for me in the journey than this man.

“Seamus Edwin Kelly, I love you.” I jump up and lock my legs around his strong hips, raining kisses all over his face.

“I love you too. Come on,” he says, walking with me attached to him. “I have a present for you.”

“Hmmm. I think it’ll be hard to top this.” I wave my left hand in his face.

“This present is more from the family than me. Consider it a combination engagement-Christmas present.”

He sets me down, and we walk to the pier toward the family’s fleet of boats.

We stop in front of the boat Shay took me out on the night we met. He points to the stern.

I gasp.

“All the vessels are named after members of the family—a play on names or nicknames. Since you’re family, Da had this one changed.”

Stenciled in bold letters on the boat was my name. My nickname, along with his.

Gypsy and the Scamp
.

I choke back a sob and sink into him. It’s the most amazing gift. I’m honored to have a boat named after us.

Even more honored they consider me family.

“Thank you. For everything.” My words are lost in the folds of his shirt.

Then I whisper, “Thank you, Mama.”
For sending me a sign at the hospital, for the memories you gave me before you left. For giving me the strength to allow someone to take care of me.

I hold on to Shay tighter.

And never plan on saying goodbye again.

THE END

Want more of the Kelly brothers?

Enjoy this excerpt from
Come Undone
, Mac’s story, coming May 19, 2015 in e-book and print.

Chapter 1

“Like many artists, Key West musicians often self-medicate to numb feelings of failure or to piece together, if only temporarily, shards of shattered dreams. In this way, they are not unlike the rest of us.”—Trini Díáz,
Songs in the Key of Paradise
film school documentary project

New Year’s Day

The Welcome Inn

Homestead, Florida

I’m going to throw up.

The nausea resulted from the dozen donuts I’d consumed, followed by the bag of white cheddar popcorn, topped off with a chili-cheese dog, and the six-pack of beer I drank.

Which I should not have had since I’m nineteen, but the clerk at the gas station wasn’t much older. In between my flirting with him and showing him a little cleavage, he forgot to ask for my ID.

I don’t even like beer.

I’d hoped the foul stuff would help me vomit after I binged on all the disgusting junk food.

My last food orgy was about two years ago. I’d never purged because sticking my fingers down my throat made me shudder. However, one ill-fated college party taught me how too many beers could make me sick, and letting all the calories from this binge stick to my thighs and ass is not an option.

The emotions I’d been doing my best to work through the past two weeks—sadness, anger,
confusion—had come to a head, gnawing a hole in my gut. Which I filled with food.

So here I am in a bland, but thankfully clean, cheap motel in Homestead—empty popcorn bag crinkling beneath my leg and a donut box crushed under my arm as I move to find a comfortable position on the floral bedspread.

I want my head to stop spinning. I’d conveniently forgotten this side effect on my quest to not digest any of the thousands of calories I’d scarfed down.

My stomach muscles are being stubborn, like they’re clenching to keep the food down, reminding me of how low I’d sunk in such a short time after taking two years to climb so far.

I hate my body so much right now, and the disgust has nothing to do with the fifteen pounds that settled on my five-foot frame in the past four months.

My head starts pounding too, the blood in my temples throbbing so hard it thumps in my ears—a rhythmic, annoying thud.

One, two, three.

Pause.

One, two, three.

Pause.

“Trini! Open the door. I can see you through the crack in the curtain.”

Wait, what?
That couldn’t be him, but the voice sounds like Mac. Mac has only been on two islands his entire life: Ireland and Key West. And in the dozen years since we’d met, he has never left Key West, save for a handful of doctor’s visits in Miami with his mom.

Thump, thump, thump
.

“Trini! Come on!”

It
is
Mac. I push myself up on wet-noodle arms, shaking and sweating from the exertion. I roll my legs over the edge of the bed, my knees buckling. I grasp at the air in a lame attempt to steady myself, and my hands make contact with the rickety nightstand, which crumbles and crashes as I collapse to the floor.

The yellow jar lamp shatters. My hands sting when I push on the floor to stand up, shards of mustard glass piercing my palms.

The wall vibrates. Are my neighbors having noisy afternoon sex again, or are they banging to tell me to be quiet?

I finally pull myself up on my knees when the door bursts open, the frame splintering with a loud crack. A breathless Mac stands there, his lanky form heaving.

He’d kicked in the door. I didn’t think he had it in him.

Then again, he’d done a lot in the past twelve hours that didn’t fit the “Mac” mold.

He closes the door behind him, clicking the dead bolt since the now-busted lock wouldn’t latch.

“God, are you okay?” He rushes to my side, his normally-spiky reddish-brown hair falling in limp strands onto his forehead. He kneels down, but all I do is stare at the red streaks of blood smearing my hands. Mac takes my hands in his, pulling the larger shards out. His gaze darts around the room, and then he yanks off his button-down shirt and wraps the olive-green fabric around the worst of my two hands.

I was numb before he walked into the room.

Now I’m sad. Sad that the food only temporarily filled the chasm of need. The satisfaction from bingeing grows shorter every time.

Mostly I’m devastated he found me like this. I’d always been so adept at hiding my binges, and the guilt-ridden, tear-stricken aftermath. Mac and my mom knew about the binges, but this is the most pathetic state anyone’s caught me in after a binge.

My eyes burn with shame, and I stare up into my friend’s face. His hazel eyes burn with concern, and when I hang my head, he lifts my chin up.

“Keep your head up. Isn’t that always what you say when I’m low?” A soft chuckle vibrates in his chest, and his gentle humor is a warm blanket on my cold, frozen soul.

What a mess. Sometimes I don’t think I deserve him. Don’t deserve anything good in my life.

He pushes a few strands of loose hair behind my ears and wipes away my tears with the pads of his thumbs.

“Thank y–” Oh no. Not now. No, no, no.

My insides churn, and the burning from the pit of my stomach inches up, scalding my esophagus before exploding in a sour tsunami of semi-digested chunks of chocolate and chili and popcorn.

All on Mac’s clean white tee shirt.

Rock, meet bottom.

Happy fucking New Year.

Chapter 2

“The best advice I got from the struggling musicians? ‘When life knocks you down, don’t wait. Get up, right then, and kick life back in the ass.’”—Trini Díáz,
Songs in the Key of Paradise

December 17th

Key West, Florida

“Are you ever gonna finish that shit up? We’ve got a party to get to.” Dean pulls his phone from his pocket. “We should be there already.”

I pause the footage from my student film running on my laptop—a documentary about the music scene in Key West—spin in my chair to face him and cross my arms. “By
shit
, I presume you mean the work on my film?”

I expect him to flinch at the sharpness of my retort, but he continues to stare, expression unchanging. “Yeah. Must you work on that crap all the time?”

“Why do you disrespect what I do? For what I want to do?” My face grows hot, and my palms itch. And my stomach. Ugh. Conflict with Dean always makes me nervous to the point where I want to throw up. Or at least eat my weight in cookies.

A residual effect of my binge eating disorder. I haven’t fed my emotions with food in a long time, and Dean is clueless about my struggle with bingeing. I saw no need to share since I’ve been managing my emotions and impulses so well. Also, if he knew … it’s one more strike against me, the short, formerly-chubby, curly-black-haired Cuban-American girl in the sea of tall, thin, blond cheerleaders Dean had dated through high school.

He steps forward and pulls my arms from my body, squeezing my hands in his. My skin tingles at the contact. He nods at the computer screen behind my head. “Your movie can wait. Come to the party with me. We’re home together for just a couple more weeks.”

He rubs his thumbs in little circles on my palms, and my body struggles to resist. I moan, ready to jump up and follow him anywhere he asks. But I want to get this footage reviewed and annotated now so I can start editing. “I
really
want to. I do.”

“Then come.” He presses his lips to my forehead and my insides melt.

“Mmmmm. Okay.” I push at him. If he stays close, I’ll never get my work done. “You go. I’ll be there in an hour. Ninety minutes, tops.”

He crosses his arms and pouts.

Pouts.

It’s one of the most unappealing things he does.

“Fine.” He waves his hand at my monitor again. “I know what’s important to you now.”

My stomach convulses. “That’s not fair, Dean. You blew me off for your friends the night you got home from school. Did I say a thing to you then?”

He drops his arms, and his shoulders relax. His bright white grin spreads across his way-too-beautiful face. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

He leans in and cups my face in his hands, but I pull away, still stinging a little from his hurtful words. Instead of letting him kiss me senseless, I say, “I’ll be at the party soon. Thanks for understanding.”

Understanding. Ha. That’s one thing he’s never been about my passion for movies, especially for what he calls “boring” documentaries.
The Thin Blue Line. Super Size Me. Inside Job.
The
Paradise Lost
trilogy. These movies changed the world—freed the wrongfully convicted, exposed shady financial practices that collapsed world economies, and addressed the health risks of fast-food consumption, forcing restaurants to be honest about their menus.

Dean believes the sole purpose docs serve is to put him to sleep.

He walks out, and I turn back to my screen to review my interview with “Crawley” Crawford, a singer-fiddle player who came to Key West in the 1970s with his partner, Rob. The “live and let live” attitude of the conchs—Key West natives—allowed Crawley and Rob to live openly and peacefully. I cry when he says “My music and my Robbie, saved my soul.”

This is why I make my movies. To one day help change the world or at least change someone’s perception of unfamiliar cultures and people.