Page 80 of A Lifetime of Afters
“Have you ever spoken to anyone about this? Professionally?”
Keeping his eyes closed, he rested his hand on my thigh and released a deep sigh. “This happens every year when Mom throws the birthday dinner. She doesn’t understand why I don’t go.”
“Why don’t you go?” I asked softly. “I feel like we should.”
“You can go if you want to, Noelle,” he answered tiredly, “but I’ve been through this argument with my mom every year. Please don’t make it something I have to go through with you as well.”
“No,” I replied at once.
“You can go.”
“I’m going to stay with you.”
“I usually like to do something he and I used to do on his birthday.”
“Can I go with you guys this year?”
He opened his eyes and looked into mine. “You want to come with us?” he uttered softly.
“Only if I won’t be in the way,” I whispered back.
Closing his eyes to shutter the pain, he leaned his forehead against mine. “You could never be in the way. You are the way, the way I want to take forward. My past mistakes keep dragging me back.”
“What mistakes?” I tried again, hoping against hope that this time he’d give me an answer.
For a long moment, he was quiet, then, finally, he shook his head and closed his eyes. “I just get down at this time of year. It starts at Christmas and lasts until his birthday.” He paused. “It also happens around Hallowe’en and the anniversary of his death. I miss him. I think about how things might have been different.” He opened his eyes and offered me a weakly sardonic half-smile. “You don’t deserve this up and down bullshit.”
“What could you have possibly done differently, Hawk? You weren’t even in the car,” I challenged him but stopped at the flash of agony in his eyes. “You feel responsible.”
“I am responsible,” he confessed.
When I opened my mouth to respond, he placed his index finger across my lips. “That’s the most I’ve ever spoken about Hunter. I can’t do any more today. Okay?”
Everything in me wanted to dig deep, drill down, and exhume the beast that did its best to devour him three times a year. Perhaps I had more in common with Max than I thought.
Instead of answering, I rolled on top of him and looped my arms around his neck. “You can be my bodyboard.”
His arms encircled me, his hands cradling my ribs. “I love being your bodyboard. We going to go out on the lake in the summer?”
“Of course! We’re going to do it all, baby.”
Well into the second week of January, I watched him struggle. I ached to see his smiles all but disappear. His hands and mouth greedy and insatiable in the hours between dusk and dawn, I gave him the comfort his body craved. Still, his mood darkened by the day, a downward spiral until the day before Hunter’s birthday when he couldn’t get out of bed.
When I’d left Hawkley at my place that morning, he assured me he planned to get up and head back to his place to work. Worry niggled at my brain all morning. Finally, right before lunch, I texted him. When he didn’t answer, I headed home to check on him.
I closed my eyes at my door, almost afraid to open it. He wouldn’t do anything stupid. He wouldn’t.
I walked in quietly, noting Bruce did not run out to greet me before punishing me for my absence. Moving quietly, I peeked into the bedroom where a giant, Hawk-shaped lump lay still beneath the covers. Bruce lay curled against his stomach.
I circled round the bed. Watched his eyes as he tracked my movements.
“Baby,” I called softly, sliding onto the bed behind him, twisting to curve my body around his back and tucking my knees behind his. I looped my arm over his waist and stuck my hand up his shirt to lay over his wounded heart.
“I’ll be okay, Noelle,” he reassured me, his voice monotone. “This is the hardest day. I know they’re going to be all together tomorrow, and, in a way, Hunter will be there, too, and I won’t be.”
“Did you change your mind? Do you want to go?” I pushed up on my elbow and lay my cheek against his arm.
“No. I can’t. I… just can’t … because… “
