Page 141 of Running from Drac

I freeze, fingers twitching at my side as my stomach knots and twists uncomfortably.

“I’m not—” I start, but stop shortly after, my mind racing with possibilities I never thought of.

Am I?

“Sometimes the body knows before the heart is ready.” Wisdom clouds her eyes, those wrinkled hands trembling as she takes a step back to admire me. “I’d say at least a month maybe two.”

I laugh nervously. “Etti, I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not that. I’m just in a depression.”

“And yet you throw up every morning.” I don’t like the way her eyes are twinkling. It’s mischievous and playful, and eluding to things I’m not ready for.

Before I can argue more, she’s back to pruning, humming softly as the sun bathes her in its warm glow.

My hand finds its way to my belly, resting there like it’s waiting for a response.

She sheepishly looks away when I catch her smirking, both of us knowing what’s happening to me without really saying it out loud.

The weight of it all humbles me.

I made this move to start over, and find peace within the madness. I wanted to forget about everything and never look back. But I can’t do that now. Not if what we’re thinking is true.

Eventually they’ll both need to know.

The question is, when will I feel strong enough to tell them?

Epilogue Two

Eddie

Two Months later

I never thought a breakup would hit me this hard. Everything feels different about this one… final… over. The words are like open wounds I can’t mend. No amount of staples, stitches, or glue can fill the void she left me with. Her absence is felt everywhere. It’s in my mind that’s consumed by thoughts of us, and in my hands that always feel like they are reaching for something they can’t quite grasp. But most of all, I feel it in my heart that thunders inside my chest with broken stutters and an erratic rhythm every time I see someone who even remotely looks like her.

I’m in my own personal hell, one that I can’t quite shake. It’s why I’ve tortured myself every day since the day of our wedding,hoping and praying that she’d change her mind and come home to me.

She hasn’t, obviously, but that still didn’t stop me from going to the airport the day she was supposed to return home.

At the three-week mark, I found myself in the airport lobby, staring down at the plane ticket with my name. My flight had been canceled, Amber’s doing, but it still had a return flight stamped on it.

I stood there staring at the stupid ticket for hours, noting the time she was supposed to land in my head, and realizing it had long since passed. My hands trembled with emotion, externally bleeding what was left of my heart through fresh cuts etched into my palms by the thorns not pruned from the roses I bought her.

Roses she’d never see. Roses she’d never accept.

Bitter tears wept from my eyes as I stood there like an idiot—a man so broken he could only hope her stupid plane was delayed instead of the inevitable.

But she never came, and when the last of the arrivals erased from the lobby screen, I was directed out of the airport by a security guard who was just ready to go home.

The look of pity in his eyes was disheartening. He’d seen this before, probably many times in the past, and yet he still ushered me out like I was nothing but a nuisance.

Once outside, I stared up at the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, admiring the snow-capped tips and heavily forested trails that lead up to Lake Tahoe that were silhouetted by the moon. It was one of our favorite spots, and yet we’d never experience the cool blue water together again.

Somehow, I felt that in my heart, knowing the only woman I ever truly loved had left me for good this time. Where she was,I had no idea, but it was like I could feel the distance between us growing by the second.

As a shooting star crossed the sky, I held my breath, hoping that she was somewhere out there staring up at the stars too?

Everything inside me was unraveling, and I cried out in pain as my hand clenched around the stems of the roses and it cut even more into my palm.

“These fucking stupid flowers!” I growled, knowing it was a dumb idea to buy them in the first place. What did she even have to come back to?