Life Interrupted (30 page)

             
I’m lying next to Rachel, to my
wife
, listening to her breathe slow and steady as she finally succumbs to sleep for the first time since we got married almost twelve hours ago.  The windows are open to the salty sea air, and the moon is glowing through enough that I can see her. 

             
It’s strange that at just twenty-one, I’ve been given everything I’ve ever wanted.  Watching Rachel come toward me today, walking up those steps with Gracie’s hand in hers, her beautiful eyes on mine, everything she was feeling reflected in them, I was afraid to blink and wake up.  Her raven hair was loose and flowing over her shoulders to her breasts, her eyes and Gracie’s glowing at me with twin expressions of love and laughter, that misty, sea-foam color mesmerizing me so I could hardly breathe.  Her skin, browned by the sun, glowed against her white dress and fit her perfectly, showcasing her lean frame that holds so much strength.

Sh
e’s always been strong, my Rachel, too strong.  The kind of strong that is afraid of weakness, of help, of needing someone, and the first time she ever let me into her bed I was afraid I needed her too much and pulled away.  I was sixteen and fucking terrified, and now at twenty-one I’m no less afraid, just more sure.  She’s mine—she always has been and always will be because there is nothing and no one in my life who I need more than I need this beautiful woman, and living with her the past few years, being with her, I know she needs me, too.  She and Gracie.

Shifting slowly so I don’t wake her, I press a light kiss to her bare shoulder and take one last minute to remember
her as she was only an hour ago, naked and beautiful as she rose above me, captivated me, loved me not just as my lover, but as my wife.  I see the simple white-gold band that glows on her finger and can’t help the surge of emotion that pulses through me.  If she was awake, she’d surely be mocking me and asking if I needed to write in my diary.  I’d smile, because we both know I’m more prone to sharing my feelings than she is; I was too afraid to do it once and I paid for it.  Now, I just don’t give a shit if it embarrasses her because every day I have her I love her more, and I have a need to tell her. 

Since I know I’ll wake her up soon enough to
love her again, I turn and slip from the bed, grabbing a pair of shorts and pulling them on as I walk to the small writing desk that faces that ocean beyond the beach.  There’s a pen and paper there, courtesy of the home-owners who rented us their place for the week, and I grab it and sit, needing to purge myself of the words that are building inside of me (another thing I’m sure my wife would tease me about should she become aware).

My darling
Gracie,

             
I’m stealing this moment like a thief as your mama sleeps in the bed behind me.  Since she sleeps like a rock (probably because her head is so damn hard) I have a few minutes and I needed to give them to you to say a few things. 

Today, you and your mama became mine.  Really mine, though I’ve thought of you as mine for a lot longer. 
I was just remembering the moment you looked at me and how much it made my heart hurt to realize that I really was lucky enough to get to keep you both (though, it wouldn’t hurt to remind your mother of how lucky she is to have me every now and again, if you feel like helping your daddy out). 

Daddy.

              It awes me and terrifies me to get to finally say that you’re my daughter.  I’ve loved you since the day I saw the picture of you still in your mama’s stomach, a little panda-bear we called you, your nose and profile so much like your mother that it stole my breath, and my heart.  I’ve loved your mama over half my life, my darling Gracie, and just like my love for you terrified me, my love for her made me want to run.  I did once and it was the biggest mistake I ever made.  I’m back now, and I won’t run ever again, because now that I have you, I feel like I have everything.  I know you’re going to have questions as you grow up, Gracie, things that you need answers to and with your mama, I’ll always do my best to answer them, but while I sit here on the night you  became mine, I want to remind you of one thing: the day you came to be, the day you interrupted our lives and changed the course we were on, will always be the best day.  Don’t ever doubt it.

             
You brought us back together, Gracie, your mama and I, and made us see that life, while oftentimes an asshole, can be really fucking awesome, too (sorry about the language, but being as your mother’s no better, I’ll bet you’ve heard it a time or two by the time you read this letter). 

             
I didn’t just marry your mom today, Gracie, I married you, and with that comes the promise that I’ll never, ever leave you or make you wonder if I care.  I love you, more than I ever thought possible, and as you grow up I’m going to be here every day to remind you.  You’re my daughter and I’m your daddy, and I can’t wait to share every moment with you.  Thank you for letting me be yours.  I love you, darling girl.  I always will (even when you’re twelve and slam your door because you’re mad—I live with your mother, one slammed door is nothing, trust me).

Daddy

              Setting the pen down, I sit back and stare out at the Pacific coast, the ocean so dark even with the moon’s light on it.  Feeling like the luckiest fucking man in the world, I stand and fold the note, putting it in the pocket of my shorts before slipping them off and getting back into bed with my wife.  Yeah, I’ve used that title a few times today, and I’m going to fucking keep using it, because I can.

             
“Finished writing in your diary?” she mumbles as I wrap her close and smile, my lips still against her neck.

             
“Maybe.  How long you been awake?”

             
“Long enough to miss you,” she says and turns.  There it is, the look that changed my life, the one that tells me she’s mine.

             
“Oh yeah?” Rolling, I pin her with my body and stare down at her.  “Well, Mrs. Jones, I’m here to serve.  What did you have in mind?”

             
She grins and tugs me down so her lips are a breath from my ear.  “Everything.” And then she’s rolling, reversing our positions and claiming my mouth and I let her, thinking that sounds about right.

Acknowledgements

              I’ve never done an acknowledgements page because I’ve always felt that the dedication in the front of the book said it all.  My first book is dedicated to my parents, because their love has inspired me every day.  My second to my sisters, because they were the constant in my life that picked me up time and again, even when I didn’t know how to pick myself up.  And now for my third, dedicated to my beautiful baby girl and her daddy, the two people in my life who have showed me that love can overwhelm and intensify in the span of minutes, and be twice as wonderful one day as it was the day before.  Thank you, Jan and Livvy, for being the most important people in my life, and for showing me every day what it means to live. 

             
Thank you to Eunice and Michele and Courtney and Sara and Carrie and all others who read and reviewed
Finding You
and
Beyond the Horizon
—your comments and emails and support came at a time when I needed them most.  Thank you to Erica at Erica Streelman photography for your friendship, photos, and beautiful vision that helped make this book come alive.  And finally, thank you to those students of mine in the past eight years who have inspired me.  Your strength, compassion, dedication, and absolute belief in life despite all of its ugliness has reminded me exactly why high school is such a pivotal time in all our lives.  I’m so grateful to those of you who ever shared a part of yours with me.  Remember, choose yourself, first and always, and choose love.  #IChooseCake.  xoxo

A
bout the Author

             
I grew up in West Eugene and went to school in Corvallis, Oregon.  After eight years in the desert, a place which granted me my husband and my beautiful daughter, I’ve finally moved back to the Pacific Northwest.  I read and write love stories because despite the ugliness that the world holds, it also holds so much love, and so much grace, and everyone needs a happy ending.  I love coffee, books, big dogs, and rainy days.  Visit me on the web at any of the following places so we can chat.

http://kristenkehoe.wix.com/kristen-kehoe

@KKehoeYAauthor on Twitter

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Keep reading for a preview of my new novel

The Light of Day

A Beyond the Horizon Novel

Coming Soon

Chapter One

Jake

When you’re twenty-two and watch every dream you’ve ever had drain down the toilet in just under two minutes, there’s not much to do except bend over and take it.  People try and cheer you up, try to see the glass half full and all of that bullshit that some optimistic prick has made millions writing about, but you know it isn’t, and it won’t be because one look at the doctor’s face when he took out the x-rays confirmed what he hadn’t yet: you’re done.  Find a different dream.

I was twenty-two and six days old when this occurred.  Twen
ty-two and six days old and eight weeks away from entering the Major League Draft, the one that I had been working toward my entire life.  I’d chosen to finish my career at ASU, to go my senior year because all I wanted was a title.  What I got was a busted elbow and a crushed career.  Yeah, I shattered that fucking glass.

Now, at twenty-two and forty days old, I’ve got a hangover on the horizon and my eye on a brunette who walked in an hour ago.  She’s tall, long and curved, not bony like most girls I’ve met in the past few years, but healthy looking.  No nose candy or other recreational drugs for this one.  Nope, her skin’s too clear, her curves too toned.  Healthy is what I’d describe her as.  And fucking stacked.  I can’t see her eyes clearly from here, but I’m sure they’re clear, too.  I haven’t seen her drink anything but water since she came through the door, and I haven’t looked away from her in the hour she’s been here. 

That’s also something new.  In the past month, there has been little to keep my attention for more than a few brief moments.  Which is why I took medical reprieve from classes with the intent of going somewhere else in the fall and starting over.  Just the phrase makes me swig from my bottle.  Starting over.  Finding something else.  Looking beyond what I was to what I can be, which isn’t what I wanted to be.  Fuck.  Not even Jack can cure that thought, no matter how deeply I gulp him down.  But another look at the brunette has my eyes finally meeting hers.  I recognize the golden haired angel she’s standing next to, but I can’t place her at the moment.  I haven’t slept with her, that’s for sure; too innocent.  The brunette looks clean, but there’s something darker about her, something mysterious, like a secret that she’s wearing on the outside, showing the world without saying a word.  The angel next to her looks just that: angelic, sweet, pure.  I’m not pure, and I’m not looking for it.  I’m looking for hard, rough, mind numbing…something.  Anything to finish what the alcohol can’t and make me forget for a while.

I keep my eyes on the brunette as I set my drink down.  It lost its appeal an hour ago when I saw her, and as a result the drunk I was headed toward has now softened to a buzz.  I can’t explain the pull that I feel, but I can say I don’t want to let it go. It’s been too long since
I’ve felt this need, this force to do something besides wallow and I’ll be goddamned if I skip over it. 

Standing, I wait for the ground to settle beneath my feet and take my first step toward her.

Chapter Two

Cora

              When your cousin asks you to be her maid of honor, you accept, even if the thought of it makes you want to vomit, not because you don’t love your cousin, but because the idea of happily-ever-fucking-after is a joke you’ve been sold one too many times.  Worse than that, looking at your cousin makes you want to believe in it and that just pisses you off all over again.

             
Despite how nauseous the whole idea makes me, I watch Mia as she readies for her big day and I can’t help but be just a little envious of her.  She has it; if ever someone has a chance at happily ever after, it’s her.  And she deserves it.  Maybe this is one of those times that justice actually comes to those who deserve it and Mia, the nicest, most giving person I’ve ever known is getting hers in the form of finding someone who loves her beyond all bounds.  And maybe that’s why mine has never worked out; I don’t have a nice bone in my body, and rehabilitated or not, I’m no better a person sober and celibate than I was drunk and promiscuous.  Drunk just gave me an excuse.

             
“You okay?” Mia asks me and I nod.  No way I’m going to tell her that being at a party two days before her wedding is making me want to find a razor and end it.  Or just end those people around me; I’m not really big on self-harm, but I have been known to fuck up a few of those people around me.  Hence the rehab. 

             
“The question is not if I’m okay, Cousin, the question is if you’re okay. We’re closing in on your last days of freedom, any wild wishes you need to live out before the big day?”

             
She laughs and shakes her head before sipping from her drink, her first and I’m betting only for the night.  Yep, where she’s a poster child of self-control, I’m the opposite.  Eleven months clean and I still think about taking a quick drink, finding an easy mark who’s looking for the same thing and checking out for a few hours because it’s nicer in the dark than it is in the world.

             
But the world always comes back, I remind myself, and when it comes back after a night of overindulgence, it’s a lot uglier than it was when you checked out in the first place, and so’s the person you wake up with.  So, instead of giving in to my urges to drown myself in a bottle and/or a body, I grab some water and sip from it, keeping an eye on Mia as she watches the door for her betrothed while scanning the room and observing those people around me. 

             
As expected, there are more girls than guys, but that’s because we travel in packs.  Well, most of us.  I never have.  Mia has been my one and only true friend since we were little and as I was growing up I thought that was okay.  Other girls were the enemy, my competition, the person who stood in between me and whoever I wanted and so I rejected them, making sure to stay alone.  Now, at almost a year sober and celibate, I’m realizing that connections and relationships are necessary in order to live.  I can’t explain why except that without people, I want to find that dark hole and sink.  It’s Mia’s who’s pulled me out time and again since our freshman year of college, when I decided I was going to be the person my mom always thought I was, but Mia wouldn’t let me sink all of the way.  At the end of our sophomore year, she’d had enough and sent me to rehab, a thirty day detox where she visited me every chance she was allowed.  Not because she wanted to check on me, but because she wanted me to know that I wasn’t alone. 

             
Then I transferred cities, moved to San Diego to work and move in with her.  For the past year she’s been my backbone, my base, and now it’s time that I stood for her.  In two days, she’s marrying her first and only love, and I’m going to stand there in the champagne dress she’s picked for me and smile even if it kills me.  For Mia, I can do it, even if I’m still learning how to be strong for myself.

             
When my eyes meet the dark brown ones across the room, I’m surprised to feel the small jolt of electricity.  Interesting, is my first thought.  And dangerous.  I was in the game long enough to know a train wreck when I see one, and this gorgeous package has CRASH written all over him.

             
From his seated position I can’t tell his entire height, but I’ve assessed enough men in my life to know it’s more than most of the guys here, an easy six-four or six-five.  I take in his shaggy brown hair that screams baseball player with its curling ends and sun lightened spots that my trained eye knows are less calculated than those from a stylist.  His skin is olive, darkened to a bronze from what I can see on his arms, arms that carry one distinct swirl of black ink on the inside, but its shape I can’t tell.

             
When Brown Eyes sets his drink aside and stands, I wonder if it’s smart to be looking at him.  When he starts over to where I’m standing, I go from wondering to knowing it’s a mistake to keep my eyes on his, and yet, I don’t look away.  For the first time since I got out of rehab, I’m tempted by the opposite sex.  I’m not thinking of safe and healthy, I’m not even thinking of alcohol, which is usually where my temptation comes from.  I’m thinking of his skin, warmed and golden from the sun, and how it would feel against my much paler skin, which suddenly feels cold as I look at him.  I want explosions, mind numbing explosions and warmth, touch and feeling, cravings that remind me I’m still alive.

             
And that line of thinking is what sent me to rehab in the first place.  Straightening my shoulders, I bring myself up to my impressive five-nine and meet Brown Eyes head on as he stops in front of me.

             
“Name,” he says in a voice that’s low and scratchy, like he hasn’t used it in a significant amount of time and he isn’t happy about using it now.  Shivers break out on my arms and I think
well done
.  And then I remember that the girl I used to be is the one who would have responded to that in under twenty seconds, had his shirt off in double that.  I’m different now, because Mia believed I could be and because I want to be, deep down underneath all of this stuff and these feelings, I want to be different, too. 
Uh-uh, Cora
, I tell myself.  Explosions are only so fun, especially when someone else is lighting the fuse.

             
Thinking that I need control so this doesn’t get out of hand, I raise my brow.  “You first.”