I always came back to her stomach, and the act produced a conglomerate of horribly conflicting feelings of remorse, terror, comfort, and joy.
Tria shifted in my arms and then looked back at my face as she reached up to run her fingertips over the black and blue mark under my left eye—the one roughly shaped like Yolanda’s left hook.
“I’m so sorry all of that happened,” Tria whispered as tears formed in her eyes again.
I reached up and wiped them away.
“Don’t be,” I said. “You didn’t kick me out of the apartment, and I’m the one who spent the rent money on H. Yolanda always beat me up when I relapsed, so that was expected.”
I licked my lips and looked away from her for a moment.
“I deserved it.”
“Why did you do it?” Tria asked. She played with the hairs on the back of my head.
“Do what?” I asked with a humorless laugh. “I mean, I’ve done a lot of stupid shit lately.”
“Go back to heroin.”
“Oh.” I tensed and tried to think of what I should say.
“I need to understand,” she said.
I really had no idea how to explain it, but I didn’t think I was going to get away with just saying I was a fuck up. Besides, Tria deserved a little more effort.
“It just…hurt too much,” I whispered. “I couldn’t shut it out—I couldn’t stop thinking about you and…and what you said. I couldn’t stop thinking about you being…on the floor…with blood. And there was nothing I could do because you were gone. I couldn’t keep you safe.”
“But why heroin?”
“It makes me stop thinking,” I said. “When you shoot up, it’s like everything else just melts, and you stop feeling anything. It makes all the pain go away.”
I turned my head so I was looking down at her.
“It hurt too much,” I said. “Knowing you were out there, and there was nothing I could do to keep you safe. Knowing the same thing could happen to you that…that…”—I swallowed and forced the rest out—“…happened to Aimee. I didn’t get to her in time. If I had been with her earlier, she might have been okay.”
I took a long breath through my nose and blew it out between pursed lips.
“I couldn’t take it,” I admitted. “It was too much, and I think I was convinced you were going to die, and I might not even know about it because I didn’t know where you were. You could have dropped out of school or gone back to Maine, for all I knew.”
I tucked my head against her shoulder.
“It was all too overwhelming, and I hurt too much. I couldn’t stand feeling like that.”
“Did you feel like that again?” Tria asked. “I mean, after you got out of the hospital the second time? After I…after we talked, and I left?”
“Yes,” I said.
“But you didn’t use again?”
“No.” I looked her in the eye. “I swear, Tria—I didn’t touch it. Not at all.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“What?”
“Why didn’t you use this time?” she asked. “It was as bad as before—worse even. You didn’t have a job or a place to live, but you didn’t use. Why?”
“You…you were so mad,” I said. I blinked a couple times as I returned my focus to her face. “You said I had to be clean if I…if I wanted you back…if I wanted to make it right. The only way you might let me protect you was if I stayed clean, so I had to.”
My throat tightened up, and my eyes started to burn again.
“I wanted to,” I told her. “I wanted to so bad. I thought about it all the time. It was right there, and it was so close. If I had money, I might not have been able to stop myself. But I was going to have to get money for drugs, and…well…”
I paused, trying to decide how much full disclosure was really needed, and determined some things were best left unsaid.
“My options were limited,” I finally said. “And I didn’t want to have to tell you that I used again or what I had to do to get the money.”
Tria’s fingers stilled against my face.
“You didn’t, though, right?”
“I didn’t,” I said. “I swear.”
She rubbed the back of my head again and stopped with the questions.
Closing my eyes, I inhaled the scent of Tria’s hair as I held her against my chest. The bed was remarkably more comforting with her lying beside me and her hands covering my skin. She ran a finger over the edge of my bicep.
“I missed these,” she said quietly.
I tightened my grip on her, and she relaxed against me.
It was late—well past midnight—but neither of us had tried to go to sleep. We hadn’t tried to do anything except hold each other and look at each other. I was perfectly fine with that, too. I felt the need to memorize everything about her.
Tria seemed content to just run her hands over my arms and chest, which also suited me just fine. It was comforting and sensual though I didn’t think either one of us was looking to take it to the next level at the moment. Everything was too right just as it was.
She tickled my jaw and scratched at the scruff.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“Don’t be,” I said automatically. “After everything I did to you, I deserved—”
“I mean about what happened to you,” she said. “I’m sorry about what happened to you and your girlfriend…the baby.”
My body tensed all over, and my eyes squeezed shut. I tried to nod in acceptance, but my whole body just froze up.
“I didn’t say that before,” Tria continued, “and I understand why you didn’t tell me and why you still don’t want to talk about it.”
I could only manage to nod but figured that was better than nothing.
“I don’t expect you to talk to me about it,” she said, “but you need to get counseling.”
“I know,” I responded. “I will. Baynor gave me a name.”
“Did you make an appointment?”
“Not yet.”
“You have to do that.”
“I know I do,” I said.
“I don’t want to…to blackmail you into getting better.”
“You aren’t,” I said. “I know I have to do this.”
I knew no such thing, but I was determined to do whatever it took to keep her close to me—to keep her safe. If that meant talking to some complete stranger about shit I can barely think about…well, I’d just have to see what I could do. I was at least going to try.
Tria’s head rested against my shoulder, and I held her tightly, but sleep still refused to come for either of us. There were too many things left unsaid; too many things to figure out. We both seemed to sense it.
“I’ve been trying to…to do everything Baynor said,” I told her.
“Like what?”
“Um…well, not shooting up.” God, that sounded fucking awful. “I mean—more than that. I…um, I have a whole list.”
“A list?”
“Yeah…I mean, Baynor gave me a journal.”
“A journal?” Tria looked up and raised an eyebrow. “You wrote in a journal?”
“Yeah,” I said as I shrugged one shoulder. “I wrote in it.”
“What did you write?”
I reluctantly untangled myself from Tria and grabbed the journal. I sat back against the pillows, and Tria scooted over next to me. I handed the book to her, and she looked at the first page’s declaration of me not knowing what the fuck I was doing. She glanced at me with a half-smile and then turned the page.
“I made a list,” I said. “It’s a list of all the shit I need to do.”
She looked over it.
“Did you really clean the apartment?” she asked.
I chuckled.
“Yeah, right before I got kicked out of it.”
“You don’t have to do this one,” Tria said quietly. Her finger trailed over the words Talk to Mom. “I just…I thought you needed to reconnect with your family,
but I shouldn’t…I shouldn’t have said that.”
“I don’t know,” I responded. “I might need more of a push. I can’t say it’s something I want to do, though.”
Tria turned the page again.
“I, um…I wrote you a letter, too,” I said.
She looked quickly at me.
“Can I read it?” she asked.
“Um…yeah,” I said. “It’s for you.”
I watched her face as she read the words I had written. Her eyes filled with tears, and she covered her mouth with her hand.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Do you mean all of this?” she asked. “I mean…you weren’t…high or anything?”
“I don’t think I could have found the right end of the pen if I were high,” I said. “It was after that. Baynor didn’t give me the journal until I was leaving the hospital.”
She nodded and moved her fingers over the last sentence.
“You’re not going to fight anymore?”
“No,” I said.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to try to get a job with my family’s business,” I said, “setting stones in one of the workshops.”
“Setting stones?”
“You know, putting the pretty rocks in the settings for earrings and necklaces and shit. I’ve done it before, and…well, I’ll probably get it since Michael’s my reference. I don’t like doing shit that way, but I have to have a decent job with health benefits and all that.”
She sniffed.
“Why are you crying?” I asked.
She dropped the journal in her lap and reached out to wrap her arms around my neck. She started sobbing into my shoulder.
“Tria! What is it? What’s the matter?”
“You’re doing all of this for me!” she cried.
“Well, yeah,” I responded, still confused.
She kept crying, and I just didn’t get it at all. Women were weird—that was all I had. I just held onto her, and when she was done, I grabbed the box of tissues off the nightstand. I kept my arms round her as she blew her nose and collected herself.
“Where will we live?” Tria asked as she tossed the last tissue into the trash.
I felt the corner of my mouth twitch at the word we.
“I’d be working on the northwest side of town,” I said. “It’s kind of an industrial area, but there are apartments around. It would be easy enough to bus to work.”
“How would I get to school?”
“Shit,” I muttered under my breath. I really hadn’t thought about that. “The bus probably heads that way, too. Um, is school out for the semester yet?”
“Finals are next week,” she said.
“So it wouldn’t matter so much until fall, right?”
“I still have my job at the library,” Tria reminded me. “Right now I’m only two days a week, but they said I could pick up extra hours over the summer if I wanted to. It would help. If the bus line near the apartment went to the school as well, it would work.”
“Two sets of bus fares,” I said as I shook my head, “twice as much cost. We should find a place near campus instead. There is plenty of housing there. I’d have to take the bus a little farther to work, but you’d be able to walk or take the campus shuttles.”
“Do you think we’ll be able to find a place?”
“We’ll start looking right away,” I said. “As soon as I get a couple paychecks, we’ll be able to get a place. Michael said I could stay here until I was ready. I’m sure he won’t mind one more person.”
She nodded, but she was still worrying her lip with her teeth. I pulled her close to me and kissed the top of her head. I inhaled deeply, surrounding myself with her scent.
“I love you, Tria,” I told her. “We’re going to make this work, and I’m not going to fuck up. I want everything to be right for you and…and the baby.”
It was still really hard to say that word for some reason.
Tria traced the edge of my jaw, and tears formed in the corners of her eyes again.
“Oh, Liam,” she said softly, “I love you, too.”
Her words hit me in the center of the chest, and for a moment, I couldn’t breathe. I felt as if I’d just been hit in the gut with a dodgeball.
“When?” I asked.
“When what?”
“When did you know? I mean—know for sure?”
Tria smiled gently.
“That’s easy,” she said. “The first night I moved into your apartment and I woke up with you holding on to me. I knew then.”
My eyes probably bugged out of my head.
“You never said anything.”
“No,” she replied. “If I had, you would have freaked out on me. You certainly would have then, but even later, I knew you wouldn’t be ready to hear that until you said it yourself.”
“That didn’t bother you?”
“I knew how you felt,” she said with a shrug. “That was all that mattered.”
“When did you know that?” I asked.
“When you punched Michael for calling me a hooker.”
I laughed.
“You are a very observant woman,” I informed her. I grabbed onto her hips and pulled her on top of me. “But there’s no way I’d let anyone say something about you to make you feel less than what you are. You are too wonderful for anyone to…”
A lump lodged itself in my throat, and for a moment, I couldn’t breathe.
I was such a fucking idiot! I hadn’t even considered what all of this meant—what had to happen and happen quickly before…
“Oh shit!” I exclaimed as I sat up in bed.
Tria squealed a little and grasped my shoulders to keep from toppling off of me.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Shit, shit, shit!”
“Liam! What’s wrong! You’re scaring me!”
I looked straight into her eyes and placed both my hands on the sides of her face.
“We have to get married,” I said. “We have to get married right away so the baby doesn’t realize it was an accident!”
*****
My impromptu marriage proposal last night didn’t go over all that well. The only saving grace was the realization that she wouldn’t be able to benefit from my medical insurance unless we were legally bound. The whole idea didn’t seem to make Tria happy at all, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that though I agreed to drop the subject for the time being.
I wanted her. I wanted our family. What better way to solidify that than by getting married?
Apparently, she wasn’t so sure about that.
I got out of the shower, dried off, and dressed. Tria wasn’t in the bedroom, so I headed downstairs and made my way to the kitchen. I could hear both Tria and Chelsea’s voices before I reached the doorway, so I paused before I just barged right in.
They were sitting at the breakfast bar in the kitchen with mugs of coffee and little cheesy Danish pastries on a plate in front of them. I could tell just by the tone of their voices that they were talking about me, so I continued to hover in the doorway and quietly eavesdrop.
“He told me what happened,” Tria was saying, “but I don’t understand why no one went to get him and take him home. He was just a kid.”
Chelsea nodded her head a few times and gripped the mug with her fingertips.
“He was completely inconsolable,” Chelsea said. “Douglass understood why Liam was angry with him, but I don’t think any of us realized just how much he blamed his father—and Julianne, too—for what happened. He shut us all out. He wouldn’t speak to anyone, even Ryan. Then, on the day of the funeral, he just…disappeared.”
“He said Aimee’s mother wouldn’t let him go to the service,” Tria said.
“The poor woman was a wreck, just like he was. If they could have found solace in each other, maybe things would have been different.”
“How so?” Tria asked.
“He pushed everyone away,”
Chelsea said. “First mentally, then physically. We couldn’t find him for weeks and weeks. No one had any idea where he had gone. He had just turned eighteen that summer, and even with Douglass’s connections, the police would only do so much. When they eventually found and talked to him, it was clear Liam left of his own volition, and he didn’t want to come home. Legally he was an adult, and they couldn’t force him to leave where he was. There was nothing they could do to help us.”
“I hired a private investigator,” Michael said from the other side of the kitchen. “Four of them, actually. I found out where he was and what he had been doing—”
“He was shooting up,” Tria interjected.
“I was sure he was going to kill himself,” my uncle said quietly. “I wanted him committed, but all anyone was willing to do was have him arrested for possession. It might have gotten him off the streets temporarily, but with his temper…Well, I didn’t think he’d do well in jail.”
He took in a long breath.
“All I could do was have him watched,” Michael said. “We would lose him every once in a while over the next few months and then have to track him down again. He was so bad off—living in a burned-down warehouse with a bunch of other junkies and prostitutes—I was actually considering just having him kidnapped and hauling him off to the Caribbean. Maybe I should have. I was getting kind of desperate and running out of ideas when that fighter-woman took him in. She got him sober, at least.”
“Yolanda,” Tria said with a nod.
“She probably saved his life,” Michael said. He took another step toward the breakfast island, and he spotted me. “He needed someone who would be strong for him. Once he was clean, he would at least talk to Ryan and me. I refused to give up completely though he didn’t make it easy.”
“Ryan wouldn’t give up either,” Chelsea continued, but she hadn’t noticed me. “He kept finding Liam in worse and worse shape, but Liam wouldn’t come home. When he took Douglass to talk him into coming home, Liam hit him and ran off. It was clear he was going to stop what little contact he had with his uncle and cousin if we kept pushing him.”
“I didn’t want you there.” I spoke up from the doorway. “You were all just reminders, and I didn’t need to be reminded of that shit.”