The Bucket List (40 page)

He smiled at
Mandy and prayed she was right. Because he could see absolutely no way out of the hell he had created for himself.

"I'll be at my mum's," he said to her. "You can send my stuff there."

"You're still moving?" John questioned.

"Of course," he said with a frown.

He'd come here and done what he needed to do. He'd apologised for holding her back, for keeping her away from the man she loved. Now it was time to move on.

"Ethan, could you go post this for me today? It's kinda urgent," Corey said as he dropped an envelope on his brother's lap then walked out of the den to the kitchen.

"I'm going to leave your dinner in the fridge tonight, sweetheart," his mother said as he got a beer from the fridge. "
Irving and Sara invited us out for a few drinks and a meal to get Rae out of the house... "

Her voice trailed off when she realised what she'd just said. Besides knowing if she was really okay after the surgery, he hadn't even wanted Rae's name spoken in the house.

His jaw clenched a little but he let out a little smile for his mother's benefit.

"It's okay, mum," he lied. "I'm sure I can survive without you for one night."

It wasn't as if every meal she had placed in front of him so far hadn't been wasted, anyway.

He didn't let his mother say anything else as he turned and made his way out back to the swing chair.

A month. A whole month of torture.

Rae had been home a whole month and he'd had to force himself not to walk from his parent's gate to hers. It was killing him. He couldn't do it anymore. Just another week and he'd be free from all this. It would be a hell of a way easier to fight temptation when he was half way around the world. He'd found a little place somewhere in the middle of nowhere, his agent was in the process of
finalizing the deal. As soon as the old owners moved, it would be ready for him to move into straight away. He was just counting the hours now.

He lit a smoke and drew heavily on it as he thought again how shitty his life had gone the past few weeks. From the terrifying thought of losing Rae to cancer to actually living the nightmare of losing her to another man. He was torn inside, broken. And there was no way to put
himself together again. He wasn't stupid, he knew that once he moved he would still feel the way he was feeling; but he needed to get as far away from Rae as possible.

He would die a miserable shit, but it didn't matter because she was happy with
Nate.

"What's this?" Ethan asked as he walked out to join him.

"A letter," he answered, pointing out the obvious.

"Don't be a
smart-ass, I can see it's a letter. But it's addressed to Vince," Ethan said as he sat down next to him.

"It's my resignation."

"What?! Why?"

"I can't work for him anymore," he answered, pulling on his smoke again.

"Because of Rae? God, Corey! This shit has gone on long enough. All you've been doing is walking around here like a fucking zombie, drinking yourself to sleep every night and being a fucking pain every time someone mentions Rae's name," Ethan snapped. "Just go over there and talk to her already."

"I can't."

"Because she chose Nate over you, yada yada," Ethan mocked. "Yes, you've told us this a million times. But I've been to see Rae, and___"

"I don't want to know," he cut in.

"___ and she's miserable, too," Ethan continued, ignoring him.

"Of course she's miserable. I've ended a friendship older than dirt, that's bound to affect her. But she'll get over it."

Ethan sighed as he sat back in the chair, obviously frustrated with trying to knock the same thing into him over and over again. It probably didn't help that he'd been drinking from the minute he'd got up.

"You could end all this by just talking to her," Ethan tried again.

At this, he turned to look at his brother and sighed.

"You don't get it, do you?" he started. "I love her. I love her that much that every minute I'm up, and even when I'm asleep, I'm thinking of her, dreaming of her. Every minute I'm sitting here and not down the road with her, my insides are twisting up; my breath is coming slow and painful, and my heart feels like it stopped beating. I'm craving her. Every ounce of me is aching; screaming at me, begging me to just go over there and hold her, kiss her, touch her one last time. I see her everywhere, I feel her everywhere and on those rare occasions when I get to sleep, I dream of her and can even taste her. I can't breathe without her, I can't eat without her,
I can't do anything. I'm hurting."

"So talk to her."

"She threw me away. She chose Nate," he sighed. "I told her how I feel and she went with it because she thought she was dying. But now she knows she's not, she's not going to waste her time with me."

Ethan sighed again before he muttered something about smashing his head in with a shovel under his breath as got up.

"Okay, so move out already. Stop making everyone else miserable with your bullshit. Rae is just there, just down the road. If you think Nate stole her, then fight for her, you dickhead. If you don't, if you just sit there and feel sorry for yourself, you don't deserve her at all."

"Don't say that."

"But it's true. You're sitting there telling me how you're just dying without her when all you're admitting is that you're just a big coward. You're not man enough to tell her to her face why you're doing this so you're definitely not man enough for her."

"I said stop it."

"You say Nate stole her? Good. She's better off without a snivelling little bastard like you anyway."

He supposed he should have got up and knocked Ethan's teeth out, but he couldn't feel any anger at his brother's words. He couldn't feel anything.

"Just go post the letter, Ethan," he sighed.

Rae stood in front of the mirror in her room and sighed. She looked a mess. Her make-up didn't quite cover the bags under her dead eyes, or her sunken cheeks. And even though the little blue dress she wore was beautiful, she felt it was just hanging on her like a sack.

Sara had made an effort with her hair, though. It had been greasy as fuck and stringy because she hadn't felt like washing it the past month, but now it hung glossy and full down her back. She thought it was her only saving grace.

Why were they trying to force her to go out anyway? Couldn't they understand what she was going through? She was dead inside, yet they expected her to pretend she was
all right. To put a smile on her face like what she'd gone through, what she was going through wasn't worth shit.

"Liz and Bob are here," Sara said from her doorway. "Oh, sweetie, you look so gorgeous."

"Thanks," she said, even though she didn't buy that.

How were they expecting her to sit through a night with the
Steeles? They had been to see her almost every single day, and Ethan everyday when he was home from work, but she hadn't heard a single word about Corey.

Was he
all right? Had he moved on? Why hadn't he called her? Why had he kissed her they way he'd done before she'd gone in for her surgery only to disappear from her life? Why couldn't he just come home? She would tell him then, that Nate wasn't her boyfriend. Even though she doubted it would make a difference. Maybe she should have listened to Nate when he'd said she was making Corey jealous, but deep down she knew that wasn't the reason he had stayed away.

She knew how he got when he was jealous. The first thing he would have done was
kicked Nate's teeth in. Then he would have claimed her as his own.

No,
Corey wasn't jealous. He'd just used Nate as an excuse to stop loving her.

Corey
had made his choice and it wasn't her. All those years together as the best of friends had meant nothing to him. A whole month she'd been home from the hospital, yet he hadn't even come to see her. He hadn't even called. And he hadn't had his fucking phone on.

If that didn't spell out, 'Stay the fuck away from me,' then she didn't know what did.

"I'll be down in a second," she whispered as that thought speared her in her heart.

Sara nodded and walked out of the room.

She waited until she was sure the other woman was out of earshot she slid down to the floor and let out a silent cry.

Why was he doing this? He'd told her he loved her... He'd told her he'd never leave her... He'd lied.

"Rae?"

She heard John's voice from the doorway and quickly wiped her tears away.

"Baby, don't cry," John said as he quickly joined her on the floor.

"Why did he lie to me?" she cried. "Why is he hurting me like this?"

"Hush, baby. Please," John said as he held her tightly in his arms.

She knew John wouldn't have been able to answer her questions.
Corey had refused to see him as well since the day of her surgery.

"I can't go out," she whispered. "I can't face being out there right now."

"I'll tell Irving," he nodded as he kissed the top of her head.

He wiped her tears and gave her a little smile before he got up to leave the room.

She didn't know where she would have been without John. Soon after she'd got home from the hospital, they'd finally been able to talk about that night and lay a few demons to rest. She understood why that night had happened. John had sensed what she had been trying to tell him and had acted on his fear. It was exactly the same thing Corey had done.

With
Nate out of the picture for a while and Corey out for... well, forever, he'd been the only person she'd been able to really talk to. He'd been the one who'd stayed up with her late at night and let her cry her heart out. He'd given up his free time for her; rather than going home on his days off, he'd been coming to hers.

It helped a little, but it still didn't stop her feeling like her heart had been wrenched out of her body
; like she would never ever be able to really breathe again.

Corey
waited about an hour after his family had gone out before he left his parents' house. He didn't really need anything from his house... Rae's house, but from the moment his mother had told him they were all going out, he'd felt this need to be close to Rae. Even if he was only close to her stuff.

It was pathetic really, what she had reduced him to, but there was nothing he could do. He needed to be close to her.

The house was in total darkness, except for the security lights, as he walked up the driveway, just as he'd expected.

What was he really doing there? Was he not hurting enough? How would it help him, to be there again? And what did he really expect to do? Sniff her panties? He was being a jerk. He wasn't supposed to be there. He had to turn back, before he made a fool of himself.

Well, before he made a bigger fool of himself. He was already a fool for loving someone who belonged to another.

"Go home,
Corey," he whispered to himself, his hand on the door handle.

'Don't be a dick. Put your hands above your head. Step away from the fucking door. It's over. It's fucking done. Just go,' he thought to himself. But he turned that damned handle anyway.

He'd never been too smart when it came to Rae. He'd had plenty of time to think about it over the past few weeks; to think about all the years he and Rae had been inseparable. He'd bent to her every wish, hung on her every word without even realising it. Even as a toddler, he would have protected her with his life. He would have, and had done anything to make her happy. He had blindly followed her everywhere. And he'd been happy doing it.

His life had always been
centered on her. No wonder John and Irving had told him they could see he was in love with her from miles away.

He pushed the door open and slowly walked in. Everything seemed as he had left it. There was no indication anywhere that a black cloud had settled over anything, the way it had settled over him. He didn't know why he expected to see anything different, it wasn't as if she was heartbroken over him or anything like that. And besides, she'd had people all around her, taking care of her since her surgery. There would have been no heaps of dirty clothes, no dirty dishes, no dust, anyway.

With a sigh, he walked switched the lights on and walked down the hall slowly to the kitchen. The place was neat and tidy as always, everything was in place. He started remembering the old days, soon after they had moved in together. They'd cooked together, ate together and washed up together, usually among a lot of laughter and joking about. No, life had never been dull with her there.

He pushed open the side doors and looked over the back yard. They'd had plenty of parties here; they'd shared so many guilty pleasures in that very swimming pool. He'd lost count of the women they'd had in there, and only now he'd admitted to himself why those women had always been so good.
Only because Rae had been there. Only because touching her, kissing her had heightened all his other senses.