Page 46 of Make It Without You

“I know. It just happened. And no, my dad hasn’t talked to Mr. Taylor since the accident.”

Something dawns on me. “How old is she? And how long have you two been seeing each other?”

“She’s twenty-one. And for about six months.”

“Nothing happened before, right?”

He looks at me like I’m insane.

“I’m just checking. Grief does weird things to people.”

“That it does,” Brandon agrees. “She wants us to tell our parents.”

I glance down the darkening neighborhood street as the sounds of cars passing on the road hum in the distance, breaking up the relative silence. “What do you want?”

“Em, I don’t even know. On one hand, it would be so easy to move away—start over where no one knows our story. And on the other hand, the weight of keeping this from the people we love is killing me.” Brandon paces between our driveways. His hands in his hair and tugging the strands tightly I fear he’ll rip them out.

“Do you love her?”

That question stops his pacing. “I shouldn’t. Her brother drove his truck into the back of an eighteen-wheeler taking my brother’s life with him. I’m nine years older than her. She’s still in college. So I shouldn’t. And yet, the more time we spent fighting against this attraction, the harder I fell.”

“How did you two…you know, come to be this?” I cross my arms and tuck my hands trying to keep them warm.

“I went into a bar for happy hour with some co-workers and she was there.”

My eyes widen and Brandon sees.

“What?”

I shake my head as his story and mine have some tiny similarities. “Just thinking–of something.”

“Something or someone?”

“This is your story, not mine. Back to it.” I scold him.

He snorts but continues. “When we walked in I saw her and immediately wanted to leave. Because how could I stay in a place, and be served drinks, by the girl whose brother took my brother’s life? And I know she had nothing to do with what Liam did. But I couldn’t separate the two, you know?”

“It’s misplaced anger. Or hatred in your case,” I interject.

“Don’t I know it. I planned to tell her off. But when she saw me approach her, her face dropped. And as I looked closer, atthe girl under the skimpy assigned work outfit and the full face of makeup, I saw a girl who was still coping with the loss of her brother. Of the loss of her only sibling. And what kind of person would that make me if I chastised her for her only brother’s actions when I still had some of mine?”

I look at Brandon and see he too is still dealing with the loss of James.

“I went back to the bar a few days later and she was working again. I think she was more shocked I was there again than I was that I returned to her place of work. This went on for about a month until we finally spoke. And it was like the sound of her voice wrapped around my heart, kickstarting it into overdrive. So I stayed until the end of her work shift, followed her out to her car, and kissed her.”

I watch him process the past events of how they came to be. It’s a classic forbidden romance, and not just because of their age difference.

“I’m still friends with Kamryn.” I blurt out and his deer-in-the-headlights gaze locks on me. “I know. It would have been so much easier to cut her off. She was a painful reminder of that day. Because instead of grading papers and spending time with my fiance, we got called to go our separate ways to help them manage the fallout from their failing relationship. I stopped talking to her for a while. I stopped talking to everyone.

“The grief that I was attending his funeral instead of the elation over our wedding switched something in my psyche. So while I don’t know what it’s like to love someone that should be off-limits, I do know what it’s like to feel something for someone when you shouldn’t.”

We walk up the front walkway and sit on the steps in front of the door.

“You met someone?” Brandon asks.

“Yeah. I think I did.”

“Why do you sound so unsure?”

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