Unconscious Hearts

  Wilder doesn't so much as blink.

  "And fuck me; I can't just let it go. I can't just let her go."

  "So don't."

  "Tell me then. I get her to finally pick up the phone, and by some miracle, we figure out how to explore this shit, I'm supposed to offer her what?"

  He scratches his head. "I'm no expert, but maybe start with seeing where it goes, and if it keeps going good, a future you both enjoy?"

  "You know my past. She won't want much of a future with me. Not with that shit riding my back."

  "Right, well, you've already made it this far past your usual hang-ups. First, I think what you do know about her proves that she isn't like the women who gave you those fucking hang-ups to begin with. Second, just because you believe you're like your piece of shit parents doesn't mean you are. Can't use that shit to convince yourself she won't want something more. Not with all that shit you just told me. Got this far, so maybe see what else she can make you want."

  Everything. The thought pops into my head immediately.

  "Whatever you do, drain some of that anger you're wearing like a second skin before you find a way to get her to stop ignoring you. You might not be the only one with shit fucking with your head. You go in as pissed as you are, might as well not even try."

  Wilder gets up and walks out of my office, not saying anything else, but he doesn't need to. He's given me enough to think about. Given me enough that I know he's right. And if I'm able to get past some of my shit, who says I can't help her get past whatever made her run?

  I just have to find her first.

  My email chimes, and I check to see a message from my private investigator telling me that he'll have what I need before the end of the day.

  Soon, Ari. Fucking soon.

  Until then, I might as well use all this pent-up energy and formulate a plan that will ensure when 'soon' comes, she'll be begging me all over again.

  Only this time, she'll be begging for a whole lot more than before.

  Day by day

  "Pass me a tissue," I cry, clutching my new kitten to my chest. The new kitten I picked up last week when I decided that I was, in fact, going to start my life as a cat hoarding spinster, doesn't wake from his nap. He doesn't even flinch when I choke on a choppy breath, only to have it come rushing right back through my lips a second later; the mother of all sobs assaulting my body as I continue to bawl.

  "I can't," Piper wails next to me.

  I wipe my eyes on my new baby's fur and sniffle, my heart continuing to break in more tiny pieces.

  "Oh, my God, this is so hard. Why does it always have to be so hard?" I gasp out.

  "I can't take it anymore. I can't, Ari. This is the last time we do this."

  Dwight jumps up on the couch, takes one look at us, and jumps back down, clearly deciding we're too unstable to tolerate being near us. Jim, my new baby, doesn't miss a beat and jumps from my arms. I hear Dwight hiss before the sounds of them taking off in chase begin a moment later.

  "No," I cry when I focus back on the television. "Oh, no!"

  Piper grabs my hand and clutches it tightly, and together, we silently--well, with the exception of our loud crying--watch in heartbreaking horror as Mark Greene's wife finds him dead. Our distress over what will always and forever be the most depressing death in all of television makes us belligerent as we continue to weep.

  "Why did we have to watch this season of ER!?" I yell at Piper after the end of the episode, having just finished another crying fit through the credits after the final scenes showed some of our favorite characters, who had left the show, making an appearance at Dr. Greene's funeral. "We need to go back and watch the episode when Carol has the twins." I reach forward, grab a tissue, and blow my nose. "That will take this pain away. Plus, Mark's in that episode, so we can pretend none of what we just watched actually happened."

  "No way. Last time you watched that one, I had to listen to you carry on for a week, yelling about how Doug should have shown up during her labor with their twins, giving Carol a grand gesture of love because that's how their fairy tale should have played out."

  "Well, he should have!" I argue, tossing the tissue into the huge pile on the floor at our feet. Or what's left of the pile since the cats have taken great pride in ripping every piece they can to shreds. "The writers really screwed that up. They had the opportunity to give viewers the most epic romantic act ever. I know it in my bones! Doug was supposed to rush into the room--just in time, I might add--thank Mark for being there until he could, then kiss Carol. They could have made plans for her to turn in her notice and finish her last couple of weeks at County before packing up and heading off for their happily ever after in Seattle."

  "And then how would we have gotten deeper into the tortured love life that is Luka Kovac?"

  "Don't even get me started on Kovac," I deadpan. "I'm still bitter he took so long to realize who he was meant to be with." I could go on for hours about the ER characters I love.

  "I can't believe I let you talk me into watching this season."

  I ignore her, knowing she doesn't mean it. It was her idea to start season eight anyway. She persisted even when I reminded her that season eight was that season.

  We clean up our mess of tissues and the snacks and drinks we've accumulated over the past day and a half. When she showed up yesterday with more junk food than we could possibly consume and the promise of letting me watch anything, I didn't even have to think about it. I picked ER, she picked this season, and we lost our Saturday (and most of our Sunday) to the roller coaster of emotions induced by this show.

  And that brings us to now.

  "I'll be back at work full time on Monday," I tell her, coming back in from the kitchen. I head to the couch with my portable vacuum to clean the many crumbs left from our binge watch session.

  "So you said," she replies. "Are you sure you're ready?"

  "Yes. Thank you for covering things for me. And," I add, stopping what I'm doing and looking at her so she sees the sincerity in my words, "giving me this time."

  "Did it help?"

  I shrug and go back to the vacuum, letting the soft hum of it fill the silence of my non-answer. We haven't talked much about how I've spent my past two weeks since she essentially woke me up. Not because I'm keeping it from her, but because I didn't even really understand where I was mentally until the other day.

  "Well?"

  Standing from my crouch, I turn to face her. "I'm not in the middle of an emotional breakdown anymore. So, I would say it did."

  "That's good. And?"

  "And what?" I hedge.

  "And ... what about the rest?"

  I walk away, returning the vacuum to my laundry room just off the kitchen.

  "Ari, I haven't said one word since you asked me to give you time. I kept my mouth shut when you called after his message about the pickup and insisted on sending him a check through some messenger service. I didn't say a word when you told me what to include on the note with that check either. I kept my lips zipped and held back from doing more than check in on you during that first week. I even went against my better judgment and didn't even say anything to him when he showed up at the store trying to find you. But I've given you your time until you told me you were ready--which you have repeatedly done since I showed up this weekend--and now you're going to tell me what you've been going through for two really long weeks."

  "I'm working on all of that. The Thorn stuff. I really am." I know that's not exactly what she was hoping I would start with, but I know it's a big part of what she wants to know.

  "Have the calls picked back up?" she asks, unnecessarily, seeing as she saw his name on my phone last night when he called.

  "You know they have."

  "Right, then don't you think 'all of that' should have taken a front seat long enough for you to have something better than 'all of that' when referring to your situation with him? A day of blowing him off, I understood. Two days, even. Then days passed and you
pulled that check crap, and I was starting to not. Now, it's been two weeks, he's still calling and you're still blowing him off. All of this and you're going to have to eventually see him when you go supervise the packing of that small fortune you bought from him. So, tell me, is that when you're planning to ... deal with figuring out 'all of that'?"

  I flinch. Hearing her lay it all out just makes me feel worse. I might have screwed it all up by taking this much time and giving him a whole bunch of nothing, but it had to be done. It had to. If I lose him before I even had a chance to get him, well that's on me. The least I can do is find him to thank him for being part of the catalyst that pushed me into healing myself.

  "He calls every night at the same time," I admit, looking out the window and continuing to whisper. "Like clockwork. That started two days after he received the check. He never leaves a message anymore, but he follows each of those calls with one text. 'We're not finished.' That's what I got after the first week passed. Now, I could read into that one text in so many different ways. We're not finished ... sleeping together? We're not finished ... with our bet. We're not finished ... with our business deal." I shrug. "But, as I said, he never left a message or sent another text to follow that one up, so I'm not sure what 'we're not finished' means for him. Three days ago, he started adding a countdown to those three words. First up was just the number three. Yesterday was the number one. I imagine, unless he wants to change it up, that either zero will come tonight ... or something else. To be honest, I haven't let myself think about what happens when he gets to zero OR what that something else could be."

  The doorbell rings, and she rolls her eyes, clearly exasperated.

  "Food's here," I say with a weak smile and an apologetic shrug, moving around the couch to go answer the door. I stop when Piper holds her hand up.

  "No, you stay here and think about what you're going to tell me about all of that when I get back. I mean it, Ari."

  She stomps off, leaving my living room. I lose sight of her when she turns the corner to go down the hallway toward the front door. What does she want me to say? I know I screwed up when I let my silence go on for this long. I owe him an apology for my silence as well as for leaving, and then maybe, if he forgives me for that, well ... then I see where we stand after that. I knew I would try, though. Try for his forgiveness. Try to move on. Try to let him close.

  The weekend I ran from him, the one where I silently begged my parents for a sign and got one, set me on the path I've spent the past two weeks traveling. Maybe it's silly that I believe it was a sign, but no sooner had I asked the ceiling for one, my silenced phone had crashed to the floor, and when I picked it back up, it was vibrating in my hands with Thorn's name on the display.

  Bright and clear.

  My sign.

  I'd left him running scared, but that sign had jump-started my past two weeks. I went from that day on with more clarity than I had ever felt in my life--wanting to make myself better than what I had become. Knowing, even if I didn't get him, what I needed to do to make sure I was able to truly move on.

  After almost a year of silence from me, my therapist happily welcomed me back with open arms and understanding. After the first visit--the day after I ran from Thorn's bed--we set the course of daily visits and the plan of intense therapy that has brought me to where I am now. I figure, if he's meant to be more than the person who pushed me to start healing, something else will happen to tell me so. If he was just supposed to come into my life to show me what I was missing, it would suck, but I would find a way. I knew I was strong enough to now.

  "Ari."

  I drop the remote, spin with a gasp, and almost pass out when I see him--Thorn--standing in my house.

  How's that for a sign?

  "Shut up," I mumble, not needing my inner thoughts to start the 'I told you so's'.

  He narrows his eyes.

  "Not you," I rush when I realize he was narrowing them because he heard me. How humiliating.

  His eyes look around the room, I'm sure trying to find someone else in here. Well, if he's not going to call me on it, then I'm not admitting that I was talking to the voice in my head.

  "Where's Piper?"

  "Leaving," my best friend answers, squeezing past the imposing man standing at the mouth of my hallway. "I'll see you Monday. If that changes and you need more time off, for a six-foot-huge kind of reason, let me know, and I'll open the store. If it's for any other reason, forget you know my number and you can open the store your damn self. Also, dinner's coming with me. I'm hungry and emotional. And I deserve it more." She grabs her purse off the sofa table, the pizza box still clutched in her hand, and turns back around to look at Thorn. "Good luck, big man."

  Then she's gone.

  "You've been crying," he says, his face impassive but those stunning blue-green, magical eyes of his looking almost ... concerned.

  "It's nothing." I wave him off.

  "If it was nothing, you wouldn't have cried over it."

  "How did you know where I lived?"

  "What made you cry?"

  I throw my hands up and roll my eyes. "If you must know, I was watching a show."

  "A show? A show made you look like that?"

  My eye twitches, and I purse my lips. "It was a sad show."

  "I see," he replies. Yet judging by his incredulous expression, he's clearly not actually "seeing."

  "How did you find out where I lived?"

  "Why did you leave me?"

  "Thorn." I draw his name out.

  "Why. Did you. Leave?" he repeats.

  I don't answer, and instead, my gaze takes him in. He looks good; though, I'm not really surprised. Dark jeans, distressed enough in all the right places that you know he didn't pay for them to look that way. Gray shirt tight across his chest and around his arms. Short sleeves showing off his brightly colored, muscular arms. When I reach his face, I take my time, not even caring about the stretching silence.

  He hasn't shaved, making him look even more imposing with the hair on his jaw. His lips stand out more against the black hair. His eyes hold mine when I reach them in my study of him, and I quickly slide past, avoiding their intensity. The long hair on top of his head wasn't styled like it had been the weekend I begged him to take me, but instead, it's unruly and falling across his brow. Just like it did when he walked into Trend after wearing his helmet.

  When I look back down at his eyes, giving him my attention again, I notice how tired he looks. My breathing speeds up, matching the rapid tempo of my heart.

  "Why did you leave me?" he asks again, his deep voice rough but laced with something that I can't quite put my finger on.

  He almost sounds ... vulnerable.

  It's because of that slight vulnerability that I finally feel the tension in my shoulders dissipate, and not even a second later, my mouth is moving, my whispered confession making me feel the vulnerability I heard in his voice slam right into my chest.

  "Because I was scared."

  "Of what?"

  He doesn't move. I wonder briefly if he wants me in his arms as badly as I want his arms around me. I shake my head, letting everything I had come to terms with and worked through with my therapist keep me strong.

  "You," I admit.

  "Why?"

  My shoulders lift, offering him a shrug because I didn't know how to put the rest into words. I don't want to freak him out when we're already on shaky ground thanks to my disappearing act.

  "Why?" he says again, stressing the word with force.

  This time, I shake my head.

  "Why!" he bellows, still not moving, making me jump.

  "Because!" I scream back. "Because! Because I have never felt that before, Thorn! Because I spent one night with you and woke up feeling like I needed to get out, away from those feelings immediately, before I got hurt!"

  His head jerks back as if I had physically slapped him.

  "You think I would have hurt you?"

  "At that time, yes. The things
I knew about that kind of hurt leading up to that moment had taught me that anytime someone makes you feel anything, especially that kind of intensity, it will only ever end in pain."

  A flicker of understanding flashes.

  "I've had enough pain to last a lifetime, Thorn. So I ran. I'm not proud of it, and I'm sorrier than you will ever know, but that's all I could do at the time."

  "You aren't the only person to feel pain, Ari. Don't take your lessons from that shit and refuse to learn from them."

  "I learned. I learned that it's not worth opening yourself up to the chance of more if you can help it."

  "Then you didn't learn shit."

  "Excuse me?"

  He stalks toward me, his long legs making the short distance in half of what it would take me. "I know pain. I know the kind of pain the devil himself would hesitate to inflict on his worst enemy. You aren't the only one to feel that lick your soul and sear it deep. I know that, and I still woke up that morning ready to take that pain, those lessons, and open myself up to more. Only, where I expected to find the woman who woke that need inside me, she was gone. So, tell me, Ari, what pain makes you so scared?"

  "I'm not sure I'm ready for this," I breathe, my nose burning. I go to walk around him only to stop when his hand closes around my arm, tugging me with care to his body. "I thought I was ..."

  "Tell me."

  I close my eyes, drop my forehead to his chest, and try to calm myself with slow, deep breaths. His heart pounds against my head, the beat rapid and telling. He's not calm. He's far from unaffected. I soak up the feeling of being this close to him, though, letting everything I learned focus my thoughts. Using the tools from my therapy sessions, I sort my thoughts and organize my mind.

  "You got in," I confess softly. His other hand comes up and around my back, pulling me tighter against his body. "For seven years, no one but Piper has even come close to touching that spot inside me. And you didn't just get in, Thorn. You were in deep and had started filling the emptiness inside me. After just one night, I could feel it getting smaller. One night."