Page 48 of Pillowtalk

Kennedy

Kennedy sucked in a deep breath, holding it in her cheeks until her head went fuzzy, then let it out slowly.

“It’s okay,” she told herself for the millionth time, though it felt anything but “okay.” She’d been a complete wreck ever since she left Lyra Valley, her week back home just one string of Netflix binges and edited manuscripts. But no amount of work or hourlong dramadies could erase the immense amount of guilt that racked her every day and consumed her every night.

Her fingertips grazed the cold brass of the closet doorknob in her one-bedroom apartment, sending goosebumps up her arm and the back of her neck. The box full of empty trash bags felt like the weight of a thousand horses. She bit her lip and straightened her spine. This was long overdue, and how could she ever learn to move on if she couldn’t learn to let go?

The door creaked as she opened it, the sound long and jagged over the tunes coming out of her iPod speaker. She’d set the playlist to her “You Go Girls” playlist, which was all her songs that had strong women singing strong things—she’d hoped that it would help, but the moment she inhaled the subtle scent of Jared’s cologne, all the music did was fade into the background.

Her eyes ignored the right side of the closet, which held all her belongings, hanging loose and unorganized since she would run in and get ready each day and run back out. The left side, however, was all color-coded, each shirt hanging sleekly next to another, the one suit in a black, zipped-up garment bag, and shoes set up neatly in a holder behind the door.

Kennedy pressed her lips together hard, and she winced as her teeth nearly broke through the skin. Jared had had so many hats that they took up the entire top shelf, and they were stacked at least ten tall. She tentatively lifted a hand, drawing it back only briefly before taking a breath and plucking one of his favorites from the stack nearest her. When he’d shaved his head clean before his treatments, this was the one she bought him. A small smile formed as she remembered his face when he’d opened it.

“I look that bad bald?” he’d teased with his signature half grin and wink. That look alone had gotten him lucky on many occasions, and Kennedy missed it now.

“It’s so your head doesn’t burn to a crisp out in the sun, Mr. Ungrateful,” she’d said right back, taking the hat and slapping it on his smooth head. It had suited him, the color bringing out the brightest of blues sparkling in his eyes. Those sparkles faded quickly when treatments began, and Kennedy slammed her eyes shut, forcing those memories away. They were painful enough to live through, and each time they made their way back, it was like the wound was ripped fresh open.

With one exception, however. And her eyes slowly opened up again as she remembered a night, not long ago, when in the darkness with a man she hadn’t really known, she was able to reminisce without feeling so broken. In fact, it was Aaron whom she was channeling now, the easy way he made her feel, the comforting touches that seemed to heal every jagged scar, that made her feel ready to do what she needed to do to move on.

She looked down at the hat, eyes filling to the brim with the first of what she gathered would be very many tears, and she placed it next to the “stay” box. The rest…the rest of the hats would go, and she steeled all her strength to reach up, grab a stack, and set it next to the box marked “donation.”

Her knees hit the floor, and she sank into her tears, letting them overtake her for several minutes. The clothes were already losing their smell after a year, now more musty than “Jared,” but that didn’t change the fact that it was all she could think about—how cleaning out and giving away meant losing his smell. She’d already given up the ashes, the inanimate urn that she spoke to every night; foolishly, she’d thought this would be easier after that. But it was then that she realized that none of this would be easy.

Tingles ran through her feet, her position quickly making her legs fall asleep. She sat on the floor and pulled her knees up to rest her forehead against.

“I’m not trying to forget you,” she told the empty closet. “I just…I need to know how I feel, and I can’t do that if I don’t try to at least…let you go. Just a little bit.”

The answering silence was just another heartbreaking reminder of how alone she was—that even though her heart felt torn in two pieces, it really didn’t belong to anyone, because she hadn’t learned to give it away. She wasn’t sure how to anymore.

She blinked out another tear or two, let them track down over her cheekbone and drop off her chin as she looked at the hat she wanted to keep. Jared had worn it during a conversation she couldn’t believe she’d forgotten until right then. The memory hit her like waking up from a yearlong dream.

Jared’s body was weak, monitors around them as they lay side by side in a hospital bed. He was thin, a whisper of the man he used to be, but it was somehow still him, buried under layers of that wretched disease. Kennedy stirred next to him, wanting his arm to lift and hold her, but knowing that he had no strength to do it.

She traced his face, trying to smile through all the sorrow she was feeling. Jared had made her promise to smile; he’d said it was his favorite thing about her, and he wanted it to last for as long as he did.

“I love you,” she’d whispered, as she had every moment they spent together in the hospital bed, several times throughout his last days. He didn’t always respond verbally—there were times he’d simply nod or try to squeeze her hand….Kennedy understood, but she was slowly realizing just how quiet her life was becoming, and how achingly silent it would be once he was gone.

When Jared had made no movement, she’d let out a sigh, still trying to smile through a wall of tears. “I always will, you know? No one’s going to steal this away from you.”

She’d lightly tapped her chest before settling down on his shoulder. It was a good while before she’d felt Jared shift, his eyes deadly serious when he caught her gaze.

“You…” he’d mumbled, his voice hard to make out and barely recognizable. “Neesom wan ta…” He’d paused then, his forehead wrinkling from the strain it took to speak, to think, and his arm making a slow path across his body so he could lift a finger to Kennedy’s heart.

It had been so long since he’d said something, that when Kennedy recalled what he’d said next, she’d forgotten what he’d been trying to say before…what he had beenreallysaying to her.

“Take care of it,” he’d said. It was broken and fell off his lips in a mumbled rush, but Kennedy had thought she understood, and she’d nodded, promising him that she would—she’d save her heart, take care of it until they could see each other again. But as she sat in the closet, remembering the broken fragments of the beginning of that sentence, she realized she’d been wrong. Even in his last moments, Jared had told her that it was okay.

“ ‘You need someone to take care of it,’ ” she whispered into the hat, a small laugh coming out at herself as she imagined Jared sitting somewhere on the edge of heaven and earth saying,“Finally.”

“That’s what you were saying, wasn’t it?” she said, pulling the hat from her lips. “You…you want me to find someone to take care of it while you’re gone and I’m still here.” As the memory invaded her, it brought something warm and bright in its wake, starting up in her chest and spreading through her like wildfire. It stole the breath from her lungs, made the entire room disappear, and she felt something she hadn’t in all her conversations with Jared, in all those times she’d spoken with the urn propped up on the bed next to her, in all her joking and angered and sorrowful conversations….

She felt aresponse.

It hit her in the chest, so overwhelmingly clear that it rocked her where she sat. Aaron’s face was brought to the forefront of her mind, his smile, his touch, the way he held her on the dock, his muddy grin at the dirt hills, the shadows on his face in the dim light of the fire as he told her his worst mistake, and the look in his eyes every time before he kissed her. She grasped at her chest, blinking against the unknown power that seemed to be healing her from the inside out. Her heart expanded, pulsing just under her palm.

No…she wasn’t torn in two. She wasn’t a woman clinging to one man while falling for another. She was a woman in love with two men—one who was her past, and one who she hoped would be her future.

She let the tears come, let them fall as she covered her face and laughed at the sheer joy and relief andcalmthat she felt in the wake of whatever had just hit her. Was it possible that her heart was big enough to contain all she felt for both these men? That she could give to Aaron as much as she’d given Jared…maybe more? For the first time, without a doubt, she could answeryes.

She scrambled to her feet, clutching Jared’s hat in her hand as she plucked her phone off her bed. Uncontrollable laughter came through her tears as she fumbled through the train times, finding the soonest one she could make. She had a lot of apologizing to do, to both the men she loved so dearly. To one, for letting him go. And to the other, for clinging on too tight.

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