He Loves Me...He Loves You Not (10 page)

Callie’s weight on the bed shifts. “Henry,”
she whispers. Her lips make a smacking noise again.

Henry stands and my head turns. I catch a
glimpse of the bottom of his feet from the tiny sliver of light
shining from the bed skirting. “I said, no damn it!” he snaps.

Callie’s weight shifts again. “What is with
you?” she retorts. “You’ve been acting weird all summer! You rarely
touch or kiss me anymore and you always seem distracted! Am I not
good enough for you anymore? Because if that’s the case, I can name
at least ten guys that would kill to have me!”

I feel the bile rising up in my throat and I
gag. It’s hard for me to imagine the Henry I know wanting to be
with someone who is so self-absorbed.

He lets out a strained sigh. “You know I’m
going through a lot right now. It would be nice if you’d be more
sympathetic.”

Callie stands and her hot pink stiletto’s
clink against the floor. “Does this have to do with your Mom?”
Callie’s tone is somber.

Henry doesn’t answer and I figure that Callie
is right.

But then my mouth hangs open and I scrunch my
eyebrows together. What’s going on with his mother? He rarely
mentions his parents to me and I’d never been to his house when
they were home.

“How is she doing?” Callie asks. “You know?
With the treatments?”

“As well as expected I guess.” He speaks with
a detached tone, but there’s more emotion in his voice than
anything I’ve ever heard out of him. He’s in pain, lost and
conflicted.

Part of me wants to comfort him. Part of me
wants to soothe him with loving words and tell him that everything
will be okay. I want to tell him that no matter what he’s going
through. I’ll be there. I’ll help him through it. We’ll get through
it together.

But I’m consumed with an uneasy feeling
because he didn’t tell me. He never told me there was something
wrong with his mother. He told her, but not me. And it hurts. I’m
hurt because he knows he can tell me anything and he knows that I’d
drop whatever I was doing and come to his aid because that’s how
much he meant to me. Why didn’t he tell me?

“She asks about you,” he tells Callie. “She
wants to know if you’re going to visit her soon.”

Callie sighs. “Of course.” She’s silent for a
second. “It’s just hard for me to see to her like that. You know.
Hooked up to all those machines and everything.”

“You?” There’s a bit of hostility in his
voice. “She’s my Mom and she’s dying of cancer. And you want to
talk about how hard it is for you?”

I gasp. Tears brim in my eyes then I quickly
throw my hand over my mouth. I hurt for him. And just like the way
I ache for his touch, I ache for him because of the way he must be
feeling.

“What was that?” Callie snaps.

“Probably, nothing.”

“I heard something.”

“Callie!” he shouts. “I’m trying to talk to
you about my Mom and all you can think about are the noises you
think you hear!”

“Look, Henry,” she says, kind of
thoughtfully, but I detect a hint of snarkiness in her tone. “I
feel bad, but you know how I feel about hospitals and people dying.
It’s just something I’d rather not talk about or see.”

I’m so furious that I’m grinding my teeth.
Rage pounds through me like a jackhammer to the pavement. If Callie
doesn’t leave this bedroom soon, I’m going to crawl out from under
this bed and punch her in the face.

How can you love someone and see them hurting
like that and not feel like every part of you is splitting in half?
I’m in agony and I didn’t even know. I feel like someone has just
given me the bad news about one of my own family members. I want to
bury myself in a hole of depression grief and misery for him
because when you love someone if they hurt, you hurt.

“Just leave me alone, okay Callie?”

The sound of her heels echo against the
floor. “Should I tell everyone to leave?”

“No,” he says softly. “But you should.”

“What?”

“Leave.”

“But, Henry I—I”

“Just leave!” he screams. His voice is high
and shrill and I’m certain the whole bedroom is shaking.

Callie slams the door and I listen as the
sound of her footsteps fade away. Me, I’m torn. I don’t know if I
should make my presence known or remain hidden. Part of me is
afraid. Clearly he’s okay with Callie being privy to the
information about his mother, but he hasn’t told me. So what if
he’s not ready to tell me?

Then the sounds of his sobs cut into my
thoughts. The bed shakes from him trembling and my vision blurs
from the wetness forming in my eyes. I can’t even imagine what he’s
going through. I thought it was the end of the world when my
parents separated and that is nothing compared to watching one of
them die.

I wipe my eyes with the palms of my hands.
I’m coming out. I’m going to hold him. I’m going to be that crutch
he needs right now. I’m going to comfort him. I’ll let him cry
until there isn’t a tear left in his entire body.

His cries cut out and I hear him dialing a
phone number. The ringer on my phone squeals out and Henry hops up
from the bed. His voice is thick, like it’s clogged with a coating
of molasses. “Riley. Are you in here?”

I reach out from under the bed and wrap my
hand around his ankle. He jumps, startled and I clear my throat.
“Yes. I am.”

Chapter 14

“
It is the passion that is in a kiss that
gives to it its sweetness; it is the affection in a kiss that
sanctifies it.”~ Christian Nevell Bovee ~

Henry grabs me by the wrists and pulls me out
from underneath the bed. “Were you there the whole…?”

I finish his sentence. “The whole time,
yes.”

He looks away from me. “So you heard
everything then?”

“Yes.”

I can tell he’s a jigsaw puzzle. A million
pieces scattered sporadically. Looking away only so he can put
himself back together.

“Everything?” he repeats, whispering.

“Yes, everything,” I assure him.

I’m observing him. Watching his profile as
the muscles in his jaw flex. I take his face in my hands and he’s
still not looking at me. For a second I close my eyes. I’m tearing
up and what I really to do right now is be strong for him. “Henry,
look at me,” I demand.

He doesn’t meet my gaze.

“Henry! Look at me!”

He lifts his eyes slowly. The pale blue
irises are swimming with tears. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I place
my forehead against his and sigh. “You know I would have been there
for you.”

His voice cracks. “You had your own problems
going on with your parents and everything.”

“That doesn’t matter. You know I love you.
You know I would have been there for you in a second. What’s
happening with my family is minor compared to this.” I hesitate for
a moment and breathe. “What stage of cancer does she have and what
kind?”

“Pancreatic. Stage four.”

I remember learning that pancreatic cancer is
one of the worst kinds of cancer to have. “When did you find
out?”

He lifts his head, a serene look on his face.
“Three years ago. We were optimistic at first and so were the
doctors. They thought they’d caught it early enough. After her
first round of chemo, she was doing so well. She went into
remission. Then about eighteen months ago, it came back and it’s
been a downward spiral ever since. She just keeps getting worse. In
and out of the hospital. I’m at the point where I don’t know what
to do anymore. My dad tells me that I shouldn’t stop living. That
my mom wouldn’t want me to be living next to her bed at all times.”
A painful smile forms on his lips. “If she were here she’d tell me
that she’s fine. Not to worry about her. To try and live.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Henry,” I tell him. “I’m
so sorry I acted the way I did.” There was a point during our
argument where he was trying to tell me something. I could see in
his eyes that he was hiding something, but my own thoughts and
concerns were the only thing I could think about. I’m the selfish
one. I’m the one who is to blame for that fight. “Where does Callie
fit into this?”

Just mentioning her name makes me cringe.
Callie, to me is almost inhuman. A heart made of ice.

A soft smile forms on his lips. “My Mom loves
Callie. She used to tell me that Callie was like the daughter she
never had.” He laughs, a restrained laugh. “I know that’s no excuse
for what I’m doing with both of you, but my Mom is dying and I just
couldn’t end it with Callie knowing how my Mom feels about
her.”

I exhale. “I’m sorry, but I’m having a hard
time believing that.”

He scrunches his eyebrows together.
“What?”

“I’m having a hard time believing your Mom
could love someone like her so much.”

Henry shakes his head. “Callie wasn’t always
how she is now. She used to be sweet. She used to be thoughtful.
Somehow she’s morphed into someone different. Someone I don’t know
anymore. Four years is a long time to be with someone and I think
that most couples don’t anticipate the other one changing, but
people do change. For a while when my Mom got sick again, I thought
the old Callie I fell in love with would come back. I thought she’d
be there for me, because that’s what you do when you love someone.
I stayed because I knew how much it meant to my mother, and to see
the look on my mom’s face when Callie would walk into the room,
well, it was like a blinding light shining on the darkest of days.
It made her so happy and I just didn’t have the heart to take it
away from her.”

Tears pour from my eyes and I feel like such
a jerk. “I’m so sorry.” That’s all I can really say.

He places his fingers under my chin and tips
it up. “That day I saw you. It changed my whole life. You changed
my whole life.
You
made me feel alive again. For the first
time in years. I love you. I mean it.”

A mixture of sadness and joy fills me up. All
I can do is sob. I reach up and run my fingers through his hair. “I
love you too. So much.”

He cranes his neck down and brushes his lips
against mine. A soft, loving kiss that exalts all of my senses.
Then the kiss intensifies and we fall back on his bed, wrapped in
each other’s arms, warped by a haze of love and passion.

His lips are against my ear. “I want you. All
of you,” he breathes.

That’s all I’ve ever wanted to hear from
him.All I ever wanted is for him to choose me. Pick me. Love me.
And he has. “You have me,” I tell him. “You always will.”

Another deep kiss and I feel like the room is
spinning, whirling around me. I’m on the tilt-a-whirl at the
hometown fair. An elated feeling tickles my stomach. The wind whips
through my hair and I’m laughing. I’m happy, giddy and full of
glee.

Henry’s teeth scrape against my bottom lip
and I’m stuck in a diluted limbo that blurs the lines between
fantasy and reality.

I’m covered by a blanket of his arms, so warm
and so hot that his body on mine sends an electrified wave of heat
trickling down my spine. I’m already overheating and I’m craving
another temperature spike. I want him to bring me to a rumbling
boil.

A soft creak from the door rings out in
between our breathless kisses.

“Is this the—?”

Henry sits up quickly and I prop myself up on
my elbows.

Rosa stands in the doorway with her mouth
hanging open. “What the hell is this?”

Henry lies back on the bed, still trying to
steady his breathing. He pinches the bridge of his nose and
sighs.

I glance between him and Rosa. She folds her
arms across her chest and twitches her hip. I stand slowly. “Rosa,
I can explain.”

Rosa backs away from the door. “How long has
this been going on?” Her eyes shift from me to Henry then back to
me again.

I can’t face her. So I just keep my eyes on
the floor. I know she knows I’ve been keeping this from her. She
knows me that well.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!” There’s
a hint of anger in her voice mixed with pain.

Lifting my head I catch a glimpse at the look
on her face. She’s sneering. Eyes narrowed. Shaking her head. It
actually surprises me that it took her this long to figure out what
was going on between Henry and I. “Seriously, Rosa.” I give her a
desperate look. “Let me explain.”

She backs away, shaking her head and bolts
down the hall. I’m up in a flash, chasing her. I catch her, yanking
her by the arm right before she starts down the steps. She moves
away from the stairs and rests against the wall. Rosa scowls,
keeping her head turned in the opposite direction. “Ro, would you
look at me?”

She ignores me.

“Ro! You can at least let me explain!”

She drops her head down and shakes at the
floor. “I tell you everything,” she says, sounding more hurt that
anything. “Everything.”

I place my hand on her shoulder. “I couldn’t
tell anyone.”

Her head snaps up. “Why? Because of Callie?
Did you think I would tell her?” she asks accusingly.