Page 34 of Everything After

“She’s good, but you need to call her. I can’t believe you didn’t tell anyone where you were going. If I hadn’t found out that Oscar had gone off grid as well, I’d have filed a missing person’s report.”

“I’m fine,” I insisted as I tucked my cell phone between my jaw and my collarbone before I proceeded to stuff dirty laundry into the washing machine at my old home. “I had a lot of thinking to do.”

“Talk to Lily.” The urgency in his order made me stop what I was doing.

“How is she?” I asked.

“Pissed, confused, hurt, angry… in mourning that you aren’t with her,” he mumbled. “There’s been some kind of rift between her and Elle.”

“Sorry, dude, I know this was supposed to be a chill time,” I mumbled, feeling guilty. I hadn’t intended for Lily to involve other people in the mess we were in.

“You need to talk to your wife,” Drew insisted again.

“And I will… when I’m ready,” I muttered more insistent in my tone.

“No. Now, you need to talk now,” he snapped.

I shrugged even though he couldn’t see me. “I’m not ready. I still need time to myself.”

“You’ve had weeks to figure this out. Go see her,” Drew bit back.

“I’m not sure there’s any point in talking since it all leads back to what Lily wants,” I replied, shocked at how callous I sounded. If anything, my words were bravado because I’d missed her every minute of every day, we hadn’t been together.

When I was in Wyoming, it had taken every scrap of self-will I possessed not to turn my cell phone on and call, just to hear her voice.

But I was determined to stick to my guns and believed that if Lily and I were going to survive our marriage, something had to give.

Being apart without being forced to do it by band commitments appeared to be the only way to make Lily realizethat she needed to play her part in closing the distance that had developed between us. Otherwise, the future for us looked bleak.

“Where are you now, back in Florida?” Drew asked.

“Yeah, at my parents’ house.”

“Is that where you’ve been staying?” he asked, like a puzzle had been solved for him.

“On the first night I left home I did… before Wyoming,” I admitted.

“Running away isn’t going to resolve anything,” he offered again.

I shook my head. “I didn’t run. I made it perfectly clear I wanted space.”

“But, dude, she’s a mess. You need to go see her.” A kettle bell weight sat on my chest when I heard those words.

I imagined she would have worried when I hadn’t been in touch. It gave me no pleasure to do it, but I didn’t know she was looking for me.

“I know she’s hurt… me too. But believe me, it’s the only way forward now. I need more from a relationship than Lily apparently wants to give. It breaks my heart that I’ve tried to anticipate her every need and feel she’s been oblivious to mine.”

Drew sighed and his tone softened. “Okay, I’m down with that because I’ve witnessed her lack of attention for myself. If it’s any consolation, I don’t think any of that shit has been intentional. Lily’s head’s up her ass when she’s working. Maybe if you played harder to get, she’d have been more attentive,” he suggested.

“Are you saying if I’d treated her with less respect and made her worry about what I was up to, like I did in the beginning, she’d be more needy of me?”

“That’s a blunt way of putting things, but perhaps. Maybe Lily has her priorities wrong and has taken you for granted these past couple of years.”

“Thanks, that’s exactly how I’ve been feeling. I know you and the rest of the guys have spoken about me always running off to spend time with her. How else would we have gotten this far if I hadn’t?”

“You love her,” Drew stated quietly.

“I do, with every beat in my heart, but I’ve been dying a little every day that we’ve been stuck in this never-ending cycle.”