Page 70 of Sweet Nothings

“That’s the first memory I have of my father.” My voice cracks. “But it’s also the first memory of my mother telling me something sweet.”

Laurel sucks in an audible breath. “Sweet nothings?”

“She didn’t call them that,” I point out with a weak smile, circling my fingers across her smooth skin. “I only coined that nickname the night we met. But that night, after my father walked away with his stripper, my mother stared at us wide eyed. I don’t think she knew what to do. Tears streamed down her face when she turned to me and Jude. She inhaled a shaky breath and said, ‘When John Lennon was growing up, he used to play in a field near his house called Strawberry Field.’ I recall sitting there looking at her wondering why she would bring that up after watching our father snort cocaine out of a stripper’s belly button, but then when I watched Jude’s face brighten, I understood.”

I turn my head again, looking down at Laurel. I hadn’t realized but tears now line my eyes. Laurel places her hand on my cheek. “Whenever I would have a bad day or life turned to absolute shit, my mother would always tell me something sweet. A random fact that has nothing to do with the dark thoughtsclouding your mind. She would turn something that seemingly meant nothing and make it sweet.”

Laurel’s cheeks flush pink, and a dimple presses into her soft skin when she smiles. “I love that.”

“The night we met,” I tell her, turning on my side, “was the night after my mother died.” I slide my hand down her ribs, circling my fingers across her bare hip. She’s completely naked lying next to me, the sun shining a warm glow on her pale skin. Thinking back to the night I found Laurel in the back of my car is a mixed bag of emotion.

Laurel’s indigo eyes fill with tears. I hate seeing her cry, but I know I need to tell her. I’ve never opened myself up to anyone. Until her.

“I’m so sorry, Lennon.” Her chin quivers. “I had no idea.”

“The night before I met you at the club, I’d just made the toughest decision of my life. It’s haunted me ever since.”

“Your nightmare?” she asks, swallowing.

“Yeah.” I trail my finger along Laurel’s hip bone, focusing on the good. The sweet. I can’t allow my nightmares to control me. Not like they have been. Being here with Laurel helps.

“Is it the same every time?” She wipes her thumb across my cheek.

I nod. “It’s of the night I had to let my mother go. She was in a coma after collapsing at home by herself.”

“Your dad wasn’t there?”

“No.” I shake my head. “He never was. I never understood why she stayed with him all those years, but I guess love doesn’t make sense sometimes. After she’d collapsed and fell into a coma, though, the doctor told me she wouldn’t survive if she were taken off life support. She’d left me as her next of kin, so I had to make a choice. The doctor assured me she no longer had brain activity, but making that decision, with my brother begging me for answers, broke me. I was shattered that night.”

“I’m so sorry.” Her cry comes out strained on a whisper.

Pressure swells behind my eyes as I look at Laurel. My eyes fall to her hand and the ring wrapped around her fourth finger. “I killed her, Laurel. I killed my mother, and it’s haunted me every day since she died.”

“Oh, Lennon.” With flushed cheeks and concern woven into her beautiful eyes, she grabs my face. “You didn’t kill her.”

I sniff, the guilt still eating away my soul. “I did. She was breathing until I signed that piece of paper.”

“No,” she says, tears slipping down her cheeks. “If anything, you saved her, Lennon. It might not feel like it, but you did the right thing.”

With my chest tightening, I pull Laurel closer. She wraps her arms around me, hooking her leg over my waist. Warm limbs and soft skin, she cries into my chest.

But I don’t want to stay like this too long. I don’t want to dwell on the decision I made that night and how it’s tortured and haunted me since. I need Laurel to know what she means to me.

I place my hand on the back of her head, threading my fingers through her long brown locks. “I went to the club that night to drown myself in my guilt. I wanted it to eat me alive. I wanted it to chew me up and spit me out. I deserved it. All I kept debating that night was if I made the right decision. Even if the doctor said she wouldn’t have ever been able to live without life support, I wondered if there was a slim possibility she could. And I’d robbed her of it because I’d chosen wrong.” I look into Laurel’s eyes, wanting to get lost in them. My heart hammers in my chest, and my body warms with her around me. It’s strange. For so long, I’ve lived in the dark, detaching myself from everyone in my life. I’ve never been committed to any other woman because none of them were Laurel. “But then there you were. Sitting in the back seat of my car like a princess in your tight, shimmering dress, with your fucking birthdaytiara and large, hypnotic, indigo eyes. Your cheeks flushed in embarrassment, but I was drawn to you. I didn’t want you to leave. I wanted more time with you. We had only one thirty-minute ride together, but it was the best fucking thirty minutes I’ve ever had. And it was a euphoria I never stopped chasing.”

She lifts her hand and places it over mine. Lifting our arms up, she looks up at them. Our fingers mingle and intertwine in the sunlight. She watches them over and over, her delicate hand in mine.

“I thought you would hate me for never telling you I remember our night together,” I confess.

“I don’t.” She frowns, still watching our hands.

“You should.” My confession drops in the air like a rock sinking to the bottom of the ocean. It’s quick and unforgiving.

“But I don’t,” she repeats.

She shakes her head, sadness drowning in her eyes. I’ve seen the same sadness in her beautiful gaze before when she thinks I don’t notice. It’s as if she’s stuck in her own head, standing too close to the edge of giving in to whatever sadness she allows to sneak in.

“I figured that was why you were so adamant on not marrying me when I first proposed. Because you hated me for not remembering.”

---