Even after squeezing her eyes shut, a flashback came anyway…
“No, Daddy. Please. I’ll be good.”
“We must abide by their wishes or risk breaking the law.”
She closed her eyes before the tears could slip down and cleared her mind of the damaged parts of her brain. Instead, she went through the thirty-three flavors of ice cream at her favorite shop, until she figured it out. Hazel wasn’t pistachio. No, that just didn’t fit who she knew him to be at all. Smiling to herself when his arm wrapped around her, she knew exactly what flavor she would order the next time they happen to be out in the middle of winter wanting a sweet treat.
“DON’T YOU HAVE to work?” Jude asked, her fingertips running freely over his chest.
“It’s Sunday.”
She sat straight up, her hands on the bed holding her upright and glanced at the time. Three fifty-three in the afternoon. Another second ticked by and she threw the covers from her body and raced around the bed. Grabbing her dress from the floor, she continued to the bathroom.
Taylor watched, rolling onto his side and propping himself up by the elbow. “You’re leaving? Now?”
She came back out and turned her side to him. “Zip.”
“Why are you leaving? Stay.”
“I can’t. I have dinner plans.”
His fingers, holding the zipper, stopped halfway up her ribs and he tilted his head to the side. “Care to elaborate on that after having sex with me all night, morning, and day?”
Looking down at him, she giggled. “With my family. Don’t worry. I’m not sleeping, eating ice cream, or having sex with anyone else tonight.”
When she faced away again, he finished with the dress, and lay back. The edge of her dress was held firmly in his hand and he tugged twice. “Are you coming back?”
Exhaling loudly, she sat on the bed, her bottom pressed against his legs. Jude looked into his eyes, the hazel brighter, a tempting green. “Do you want me to?”
“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.”
She leaned over him and kissed him. He grabbed her around the waist and flipped her onto the mattress next to him until he was on top. “Come back to me.”
Her fingers weaved through his messy hair. “I like you like this.”
“As opposed to what?”
“As opposed to being a Barrett.”
“Oh, don’t lie to yourself. I’m a Barrett through and through. All signs will lead me into temptation of societal acceptance and wealth at the expense of family, friends, and lov—”
Her finger covered his lips, stopping him from saying anything more. “Don’t finish that thought. Don’t give up before you’ve had a chance.”
“A chance at what, Jude? Tell me.”
“A chance at life. A chance at happiness.” Her voice got so low he almost didn’t hear her say, “A chance to love.”
Dropping his head down on her shoulder, he took her hands in his and raised them above her head, and whispered, “Show me how to love. Until I met you, I think I’ve been doing it all wrong.”
SHE KISSED HIS temple and said, “When done right, love is felt, not shown.” Sliding out from under him, she put her back to him as her feet touched the ground again.
He groaned from her absence. “Sounds complicated.”
“It is. My family has shown me how much they love me to the point of smothering me.”
“But you still leave me to have dinner with them.”
She looked back, angling so she could really see him. “Maybe I’ve got love all wrong. Maybe it’s supposed to be suffocating and hollow.”
One of her delicate hands lay across her lap, the other on the bed behind her. He took the one that supported her, the one that would leave her relying on him, and held it. “What’s your last name, Jude?”
Her head tilted down and she watched her feet, an overwhelming sense of self-preservation would slip away if she wasn’t careful. “Let’s not muddy the snow with such things that don’t matter in the days to come, Hazel.” Her fingers slipped from his as she took her coat and walked away. Standing at the crossroad of his bedroom and her goodbye, she said, “Sometimes you don’t even have to find the end of a rainbow to find its treasure.” Wiggling her fingers, she left him.
Taylor didn’t debate whether he should go after her this time. This time he let her go because she was going whether he wanted her to or not. But before the front door could close, he said, “Come back when you can, Pretty Jude.”
The door clicked closed and he was left with the scent of lingering cigarette smoke and the memories of surname-less Jude engulfing the rest of the space. For someone he’d known less than twenty-four hours, she sure knew how to occupy his mind. He’d never understood love at first sight, but it became conceivable in that moment. How she’d managed to disrupt his whole world, spinning it onto a new axis in such a short time was surprising. He smiled wanting to fully embrace this new trajectory.
In her absence, he watched the day deliver the night right to his window. Not even getting the courtesy of a golden winter evening, which was his favorite. No, darkness set in quickly tonight. And that was that.
Around nine, he stared at the turned-down frame on the nightstand. It reminded him of long-held anger from his past. An emotion he had forgotten while Jude filled the space, showing him there was a different way to live, a way to move forward.
Reaching across the bed, the mattress where Jude had slept, he opened the drawer and slid the frame inside, facedown, and slammed it shut.
There was no satisfaction in the action like he once suspected he would get if he had the strength to actually do that. No, none came. Just an emptiness he didn’t know how to fill. So he ate. Frozen waffles that cooked in sixty seconds in the toaster. A can of soup he found in his small food cabinet for days when he was sick. Grapes he picked up on Wednesday. He was stuffed when he finished, but the emptiness still sat heavy in his belly, undigested.
Snow fell in rolling sheets, blowing across the wall of windows of his living room. Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday wafted through the room as the hours ticked away.
By eleven, Taylor got up from the couch and stood with his toes touching the wall of glass. With a highball of Whiskey on the rocks in hand, he put his other on the window. It was cold, much like his insides. He finished the drink and sat at his drafting table in the corner. Sketching frantically before his hand would relent, he found himself drawing wide blue-green eyes and jagged brown hair. Taylor mixed two colors to create the shade of green he was missing the most about now. But before he had enough drawn to make sense of it, his phone rang.
He looked down at the phone as it rang until the number came into view. But it wasn’t a number; it was a name. A name that he had thrown into the drawer earlier that night.
Katherine.
Katherine.
Katherine.
Turning the music off with the push of a button, he took a long breath. When he lifted the phone to his ear, he knew he shouldn’t. He knew it was the same as opening the door to her, which he was doing to his own detriment, but couldn’t stop. “Hello?”
“Taylor.” Her tone was deeper, melancholy, trying her best to get to him. “How are you?”
He stayed quiet a minute, but gave in, into the weakness of giving her any of his time again, and snapped, “I’m still sick just in case you’d forgotten.”
Her exasperated breath said more than her words. “I heard you were better.”
“Depends who you’re talking to.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called. I just…” He remembered her using this ploy to draw him back to her when he was lost in his own thoughts. It didn’t work anymore, so she said, “I miss you, Taylor. I miss us.”