I moved her away from me so I could look her in the eye. “You don’t think you’re worth it? Are you kidding me?”
Her exhausted eyes just stared back at me, empty. “I’m not worth it. I’m a mess. I’m irritable and impatient. I’m bossy and demanding. And I have all these health issues. I can’t give you babies. I’m not worth it, Josh. I’m not. Another woman would be so much easier.”
“I don’t want an easy woman. I want you.” I shook my head. “Don’t you get it? You are perfect to me. I feel like a better man just knowing that I can do anything for you—make you lunch, make you laugh, take you dancing. These things feel like a privilege to me. All those things that you think are flaws are what I love about you. Look at me.” I tipped her chin up. “I’m miserable. I’m so fucking miserable without you.”
She started to cry again, and I pulled her back in and held her.
This was the longest talk we’d had about this. I don’t know if she was just too tired and sick to shut me down, or if she just didn’t have anywhere to run to, stuck in my truck like she was, but it made me feel hopeful that she was at least talking to me about it.
I nuzzled into her hair, breathed her in. “I don’t want any of it without you.”
She shook her head against my chest. “I wish I could love you less. Maybe if I did, I could stomach taking this dream from you. But I don’t know how to even begin letting someone give up something like that for me. I would feel like apologizing every day of my life.”
I took a deep breath. “You have no idea how much I wish I could go back and never put that shit in your head.”
Her fingers opened and closed on my chest. I felt happy. Just sitting there in my truck in a Burger King parking lot, I felt more peace than I’d felt in weeks just because she was there with me, touching me, talking to me, telling me she loved me. And then that joy drained away when I remembered that this wasn’t going to last. She was going to leave again, and Brandon was still gone. But it was this temporary reprieve that told me that with her by my side, I could get through anything. I could navigate the worst days of my life as long as she stayed by me.
If only she’d let me get her through the worst days of hers.
She spoke against my chest. “You know you’re the only man I’ve ever cried over?”
I laughed a little. “I saw you cry over Tyler. More than once.”
She shook her head. “No. That was always about you. Because I was so in love with you and I knew I couldn’t be with you. You turned me into some sort of crazy person.”
She lifted her head and looked at me. “I’m so proud to know you, Josh. And I feel so lucky to have been loved by someone like you.”
She was crying, and I couldn’t keep my own eyes dry anymore. I just couldn’t. And I didn’t care if she saw me cry. I’d lost the two people I needed most in this life, and I’d never be ashamed for grieving over either one of them. I let the tears well, and she leaned in and kissed me. The gasp when she touched me and the tightness of her lips told me she was trying not to break down. She held my cheeks in her hands, and we kissed and held each other like we were saying goodbye—lovers about to be separated by an ocean or a war, desperate, and too grieved to let go.
But she didn’t have to let me go.
And she would anyway.
She broke away from me, her chin shaking. “You deserve to give all that you are to your children one day. To have a little boy who looks like you who you can raise to be the same kind of man you are. You have to move on, okay? You have to.”
We were back at the stalemate. I held her forehead to mine by the back of her neck, and I was desperate to know what to say to change her mind. But there was nothing I could do. She was so deep in this mind-set. And how could I even chip away at her when most days she wouldn’t let me anywhere near her?
“Kristen, I’m never going to give you up. I’m just not. And you’re hurting me. Please stop hurting me. I need you with me. Do you understand?”
And then I lost her again.
Her face took on that stony look that I knew so well. She moved away from me, back to the passenger seat, the wall crashing back down, heavy and final.
I leaned forward and put my face in my hands.
I waited a few heartbeats before speaking again. “Can you at least start getting some sleep? If I go to the hospital, will you stay at my place and go to bed?” I looked back at her.
She nodded. “Josh?”
“What?”
“It’s quiet,” she said.
“What is?” I asked gently.
“My mind. It’s finally quiet. It’s only quiet when I’m with you.”
* * *
It took a long, emotional discussion with Claudia and her parents, but they agreed to take Brandon off life support tomorrow.
After our meeting at their house, his parents hugged me goodbye, and Claudia followed me out to the driveway. The sun was setting. The freeway hummed nearby. I dragged open the heavy white wrought-iron gate that enclosed their tiny East Los Angeles property.
Claudia had volunteered to stay the night with Sloan in the hospital so I could go home. I just wanted to get back to Kristen. I wanted to slip into bed with her, feel the relief of the sleep that I only found with her next to me.
“Thank you,” Claudia said as I turned back from the gate.
She was Brandon’s carbon copy. They had the same expressions, the same eyes.
I’d never see my friend’s expressions again. The thought hit me like a fist to the gut.
Claudia pulled her sweater around herself. “I don’t think they would have done it if you hadn’t come. It meant something to them that you said this was what he’d want.”
She hugged me and when she pulled away, she wiped at her eyes. “It’s hard to argue against faith. You can’t see it, you know?”
“You should try arguing against logic,” I said, clearing the lump in my throat.
She sniffed. “I’d argue against logic any day. Logic can be reasoned with as long as you have the facts. Good night, Josh.”
On the drive home, I caught rush-hour traffic. I sat there thinking about the meeting with Brandon’s parents. Horns honked. Red brake lights flashed.
I thought about Kristen, about how no matter how much I told her I wanted her, she didn’t waver. I wanted her to believe in my love for her, to put all her faith in something intangible, the way Brandon’s parents had believed in their prayers being answered. But Kristen wasn’t like that. For her, feelings weren’t grounds for decision making. She looked at this situation like she was a cool car that I couldn’t afford. Something I wanted because of the way it made me feel, not because I’d considered the price tag and made an educated decision to buy it. She was pros and cons, facts and numbers, black and white. Common sense. She was practical, and there was nothing logical about being with me.
Or was there?
Logic can be reasoned with as long as you have the facts…
I stopped breathing.
Holy shit.
Holy fucking shit!
I’d been making the wrong argument!
Suddenly I knew how to get through to her. I knew what I had to do.
It would take some time to pull it all together—a few weeks maybe. But I knew.
I smiled the rest of the way home, until I got there and saw her car was gone.
Inside, my laundry was washed and folded. The apartment was spotless and aired out. And the hoodie I’d given her all those weeks ago was folded neatly on the bed.