You Make Me (27 page)

“I should have told you.” It shouldn’t matter, but I couldn’t stop myself. “Did Heath fix Ethan up with a girl?”

Her eyes bugged out. “What? No. Not that I know anything about. I don’t think they’re actually friends, you know.”

“Is Ethan dating someone? A brunette.”

She shook her head. “No. Ethan is basically banging his way through every weekend. He’s never really been Mr. Casual Sex, but he’s making up for it now. And I’m only telling you that because I can see by the look on your face that you already know about it.”

I swallowed hard. The answer wasn’t satisfying. Whether or not Heath had introduced Ethan to someone, he had said it to hurt me. And despite the fact that I had been with Heath, it still hurt to hear that Ethan was so completely over me. “He has the right to do whatever makes him happy.”

“I don’t think that fucking random girls is really making Ethan happy. I think he just needs a distraction right now and Jagerbombs are providing it.”

“I’ve never liked Jager,” I said mournfully. I could use a distraction myself. But then again, I’d never been a drinker either. I’d seen all too clearly what it had done to my brother.

“Did you really break up with Heath?”

I nodded, unable to speak.

“Why exactly? Did something happen tonight?”

“It’s complicated.” I looked at her with watery eyes. “I can’t explain it, Aub. It’s like I don’t recognize myself with him, yet I don’t know who I am without him.”

Heath was me. And I was Heath. It was the way it had always been.

“I need to text him,” I said. “I left in a bad way.”

The cop brought me home.

Good. I was hoping you’d go with him.

That was all he wrote. I watched the screen but nothing happened. Nothing changed. I texted again.

The ring is beautiful.

There was no answer.

Then, because once the crazy starts, you can’t seem to stop it, I typed again. What I wrote wasn’t fair. But I did it anyway.

I thought you were going to fight for me.

After a second, he responded.
I left the war in Afghanistan. I think I’m done fighting battles I can’t win.

That was enough to destroy me all over again. I started crying, and Aubrey reached out and hugged me.

We both cried.

Who do you become when you’ve lost sight of who you are, but the false you isn’t one you can pretend to be anymore?

I didn’t know.

But I did know that I couldn’t do it, any of it.

I had already scaled back on going to meetings and art club and social events when I’d started dating Heath. Then I stopped entirely.

Now I stopped going to class, too. None of it seemed important. I couldn’t find the energy, couldn’t find the interest in my goals, the future. I lay in bed for two days, not showering, staring at the ceiling and despising my life. Eating leftover candy I’d bought discounted the day after Halloween, I shoved chocolate bar after chocolate bar in my mouth until I felt nauseous and like I might climb the walls of my self-imposed cage. I needed to escape. I needed to be outside.

Outside was the only place I didn’t feel stifled, desperate.

Forcing myself to get dressed, I wished there was enough snow to go cross country skiing, but there was only a smattering. Too much to jog, not enough to be useful. But once I hit the sidewalk, I didn’t care that it was dangerous to run in the slippery snow. I just ran, pumping my arms, wishing I hadn’t given up track in college.

The beautiful thing about Maine was that it was quiet in winter, like the sound of people got lost among the trees and the falling snow. Nature absorbed humans, was stronger than our personal impact. I felt completely isolated, yet less lonely than I had inside. My stride wasn’t familiar, it had been so long since I’d run for more than a short burst, but I found it after a few minutes, pushing myself steadily, wanting to run from the house, from the pain, from my mistakes, from my fear.

When I was a kid, the future had seemed to be a vast and promising question mark, where I could be anything, from a princess to president, as long as I believed in myself. Then as a teenager the future had meant nothing more than life outside of Vinalhaven, of achieving social acceptance and financial success. I had worked towards that doggedly after Heath left, but I no longer wanted it. The future now was the same yawning emptiness, but without hope, without happiness. It just… was.

Where would I go when the break came around? Where would I spend next summer? Where would I live if I gave up my room in the sorority house?

How would I survive knowing I’d had Heath and lost him, yet again? And this time, I had pushed him away? He owned my house and I had no idea what he would do with it.

Everything was crowding my head, and it felt like I’d taken a pen and viciously scribbled out my future. Start over. I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to do that.

I ran without knowing where I was going, then or in life. I ran, the only company the steady thump of my shoes, and the wheeze of my breath. I ran until I found myself at Heath’s apartment building.

Running up the stairs before I could change my mind, I knocked on his door.

There was no answer but I could hear the TV from inside, so I knew he was home. I knocked harder. “It’s me, Cat.”

Still nothing. I debated texting him, but what difference would that make? He was ignoring me and he could just ignore a text as well.

Wanting that cold hard door to swing open, wanting him to forgive me, wanting him to tell me I wasn’t crazy, that our love was something amazing and true, I smacked the door again with my fist, an urgent and childish attempt to get a response. “Heath! Please, it’s me. Let me in.”

I was crying and I felt so tired, so defeated.

When he still didn’t answer, and I swore I could actually hear him
breathing
on the other side of the door, I banged again and let out a cry of pure frustration. “Let me in!”

Sobbing, I slid down the door, ending up on the floor, my back against the metal, legs out in front of me. I was sitting in the damp my wet shoes had created on the carpet and I didn’t care.

He didn’t open the door.

And after a few minutes, I dragged myself off the ground, wiped my eyes and walked home.

But every day I I forced myself to stumble through my classes in total distraction and every night I ran.

I ran because I couldn’t stand still. I ran because I couldn’t be in my own space, in my own skin. I ran because I wasn’t ten anymore and nothing was simple. I ran because if I didn’t I would drive to Vinalhaven and throw myself off the edge, down onto the rocks. I ran because maybe if I ran I would figure out where I was going.

And every night I ran past Heath’s, though most nights I didn’t stop, I didn’t even look. Though twice I knocked on his door, and twice I hated myself for being so weak. He didn’t want to see me. He didn’t answer, and I needed to accept that.

But after six nights in a row, he texted me.

Please stop running alone at eleven at night. It’s dangerous.

I can’t stop.

It was true. If I stopped running, I would collapse. I needed the air, the space, to be where it was okay to be alone.

But I was glad he cared. Glad he had noticed what I was doing.

I ran myself to Thanksgiving. I put foot in front of foot until I found myself alone in the sorority house on Thanksgiving, everyone having gone home or out to dinner. Janice had invited me to her parents but I had declined, knowing I wasn’t good company. The snow had disappeared, being replaced by rain, and it was a gray, dismal day that matched my mood.

Lying on the couch in the lounge, I watched TV and ignored my grumbling stomach, ignoring the memories of the Thanksgiving before when I had been at Ethan’s parents’ house, in a warm house with delicious food and traditions that dated back three generations. I ignored the memory of the Thanksgiving my junior year in high school, when my mom had insisted on cooking a turkey, only she forgot to turn on the oven. When my father pointed it out, she had thrown a can of peas at him, catching him on the shoulder.

If I thought about that, then I would think that maybe I was more like my mother than I had ever realized. I would stop to think that my father had been wrong- that loving Heath wasn’t like him loving my mother. That Heath loving
me
was like loving my mother.

The turkey had been thrown out into the yard raw, to rot, before my mother had taken her pills and fallen back into silent vacancy, and Heath had taken me into the woods, where he had kissed me for the first time.

It was a kiss of tenderness and promise, of secrets and giddy optimism.

When the hunger pain in my stomach was too persistent to ignore I ate dried cereal from the box and chugged soda like it could fill the hole in my gut. The carbonation burbled inside me, and I wondered briefly if it were possible to explode, from the inside out. Internal combustion.

Aubrey texted to check on me as did Tiffany. I answered as briefly as possible, then let my wrist fall slack, so my phone fell a foot onto the cushion next to my prone body. I held my left hand and stared at the ring I’d put on my finger. It was a creepy thing to do, I was well aware of that. But I hadn’t been able to stop myself from drawing that onyx ring out of the satin box and sliding it down onto my finger, where it fit. Where it belonged. I admired it in the dull lamplight, using my thumb to rock it back and forth a little.

Beautiful.

Much more so than me.

I hadn’t bathed in two days and my hair was limp, greasy. Sitting up, I tied it up with its own length and reached for the shoes I had kicked off. I needed to get outside, despite the rain. Not bothering with a hat, figuring my hooded sweatshirt would work, I put my cell phone in my bra and started for the door.

The cold mist hit me and I lifted my face to the sky, blinking as the rain washed over my warm skin. It felt cold and tingling, and I welcomed it. Breathing deeply, I started jogging down the walkway.

But I lost my stride when I got to the corner and looked up.

Heath was standing in the rain, watching me.

Chapter Twenty-Two

He was fifty feet away and even though he had a hood on, leather jacket over his sweatshirt, I knew it was him. I would recognize him anywhere. He was standing there, not moving.

I faltered, not sure what to do. If I ran to him, would he walk away from me? Would he reject me again?

But I realized it was worth the risk. Him. Us. It was worth the risk. The fear of living forever without him was much greater than the fear of having him turn me down.

It was fully logical that he would be angry with me for the way I’d acted at his apartment.

But I had to know why he was there.

Regaining my step, I ran towards him, my stride becoming stronger, more determined, more desperate. My heart and body ached for it, and I ran, compelled to go to him. He had been right. There was no escape.

There would never be a me without him.

So I ran right up to him while he watched me, and I came to a stop, breathing anxious, rain streaming down over my head, clinging to my eyelashes. My hair had fallen out of the knot and tumbled over my shoulder in heavy damp strands. I stared up at him, a foot away, mouth open, wanting him to see and understand why I had done what I had, wanting him to speak.

But he didn’t say a word. He just watched me for a second, his eyes raking over my face, my lips. Then he moved quickly, his hand going in my hair and his mouth covering mine in a hard demanding kiss. I barely had time to give a cry of shock before we were clinging to each other, kiss after kiss after kiss exchanged in a hot fervor, raindrops an inconsequential inconvenience as we poured out our emotion, our love.

And I knew. I knew everything I needed to know in that kiss.

That what we shared had always been there, and our own insecurities had almost destroyed it. But nothing could truly destroy a love that was as deep as the ocean we had to cross to get home.

His grip on my head was firm, his tongue commanding, and my eyes drifted closed as I reveled in the taste, the touch of him. It was desperate and loving and deep, our reunion aching, emotion bursting.

When we broke apart, gasping, he studied me. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“Do I know you?” The corner of his mouth turned up slightly.

I gave a soft laugh, grateful he didn’t seem to be angry with me. Grateful for a lot of things. “Let me introduce myself,” I murmured. “I’m Cat Michaud Deprey. I live in Vinalhaven and I’m a track coach and an art teacher. My husband is a fisherman and we live in my parents’ old house.”

It was who I was. Who I had always been, even before I’d met Heath. We were destined to be together, on our island.

“It’s nice to meet you,” I added.

For a blink, he looked away and when he turned his head back to me, he had tears in his eyes. I’d never seen him display such deep, vulnerable emotion like that and it made love swell even stronger inside me.

“Nice to meet you, too,” he said gruffly. He took both of my hands and when he lifted them to kiss my knuckles, he saw the ring I was wearing. His ring.

He gave a deep, shuddering sigh, his jaw clenched before he kissed me again, in the rain, our bodies pressed tightly together.

“Why are you here?” I asked, wiping droplets off of his eyebrows.

“Because I couldn’t accept what you said. Because you belong to me. And I belong to you. Cat and Heath.” He ran his finger over the tattoo on the inside of my wrist, brought it to his lips. “Forever.”

We lay on the dock in the dark, staring up at the inky sky. I was bundled up in boots, long johns under my jeans, layers on under my puffer coat, wearing a hat, gloves, scarf. Heath was wearing his sweatshirt, jacket, and gloves, but didn’t seem to notice the cold even though we were lying on snow. Our breath misted up, our padded hands clasped in a clumsy grip.

“Did I ever tell you about the first dead person I saw over there?” he asked.