Page 50 of Every Inch of You
Chapter Seventeen
BRAD
Before I knew it,it was May, and Vivian had to spend the entire weekend up in Seattle for her sister’s bridal shower and the wedding luncheon that her mom hadorganized.
I had found myself offering to drive her to the airport, but her flight was Friday evening and I had back-to-back appointments that I couldn’t reschedule. Regardless, I’m not sure which of us was more surprised that I had even offered. The only women I had ever taken to the airport were my Mom and myGrandma.
I kept myself busy at the gym all day Saturday. If I wasn’t training someone or talking to my employees or an air purification system technician, or eating, I was working out. She’d texted me when she got to her parents’ house the night before. In the morning, she sent me a picture of my old house on Mercer Island. The current owners had remodeled it until it was sleek and contemporary and Instagram-worthy—virtually unrecognizable from eight years ago.Kind of like you and your body…shewrote.
By nightfall, me and my body missed her, and my brain knew that I had to get through another forty-eight hours withouther.
I had gotten so used to seeing her almost on a daily basis. I wasn’t expecting it to be so difficult to get through one weekend without her. It was so dumb. Without realizing it, I had let her become my best friend again. She was the person I most wanted to talk to. Whenever something funny happened, or I heard a song that I liked, she was the first person I wanted to talk to about it. Almost every night we would Netflix and Chill while making out on my couch, kind of like in junior year, but way, way, waaaaayyyyyydirtier.
I often wondered what Little Badass thought. Ever since I’d brought her into my home, Vivian and I had been like cats in heat. In fact—the one night that Vivian and I didn’t have sex was the night I’d brought LB home from being spayed, because I wanted to devote all my attention to her and keep things mellow at my place while sherecovered.
I took a picture of Little Badass napping and sent it to Viv, telling her that she missed her. She immediately wrote back:Awww! Give her a big kiss forme!
Vivian: Oh BTW! Tried on bridesmaid dress yesterday! I can wear itnow!
Me: Highfive.
Vivian: But it’s still tootight:-(
Me: You have to tell Sebastian you need to ramp things up. Maybe do a one day cleanse. Or stop eating donuts and ice cream just because some guy brought it to your house. Or let me buy you a biggerdress.
Vivian: Oh so that was a test! Damn you,Mitchell.
Me: Hah. It wasn’t, I promise. Our metabolisms really do kick into high gear if we have one cheat day a week. But only one aweek.
Vivian: Hey, I have to go. Have a great night.Xx
So I wouldn’t be communicatingwith her for the rest of the night. Agony. I almost succumbed to filling the void with pizza and ice cream. But I didn’t. I did about a month’s worth of laundry, because I had been spending so much time with Vivian lately I just ordered a bunch of new workout clothes. I started reading a biography of Winston Churchill, because I figured there was nothing sexy in it, nothing that would remind me of Vivian. One of my all-time favorite quotes was his: “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” A lot of the quotes I had used for motivation—for myself and my clients—were from him, infact.
I got to the part about his Finest Hour speech, wherein he said: “If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost thefuture.”
That made me think of Vivian. I realized I had finally stopped thinking about the past. I didn’t care about any of it anymore, I only cared about what was going on between us now. Aside from the fact that she wasn’t actually with me in that moment—now was good. Now was amazing. I just had to make it to Monday night, when I could touch her and smell her and kiss her allover.
Sunday morningI felt like I had a hangover. Drinking tons of water did nothing to help my Vivian Sparks withdrawal symptoms. Inhaling the bed sheets that I hadn’t yet washed since she was last on them made everything so much worse. I was at home, but I felt homeless without having her with me. It wasterrible.
If LB had been curled up with me when I woke up it might have made things easier, but the little thing seemed to be repelled by my angst. She was like: “Yeah I’ll just let you deal with this on your own you big pussy.”Cats.
I didn’t want to seem pathetic. So I texted Vivian a reminder not to eat too much at the luncheon. What anasshole.
Just as I’d written that I realized I had been stuffing my face with blueberry oatmeal flax cookies. I wasn’t evencounting.
Eventually, she sent back a picture of her middlefinger.
I kissed the screen of myphone.
Iwaspathetic.
I wrote to ask if she had any plans besides the family luncheon today. I wanted to know if she was going to see herex.
I completely knew that he was going to want her back, and I was fully aware that I would not let that happen. I was fairly certain that she wouldn’t be interested, but I couldn’t know for sure. Vivian Sparks had a history of shocking me with her attraction to assholeidiots.
Vivian: Hey, my phone battery is getting low, I think there’s something wrong with it. I need to turn it off for a whileokay?
Nowwhat.
