Dirty Letters(64)
“Shh . . . you’re safe now. We’re both safe, sweetheart.”
Eventually Luca’s crying exhausted her so much that she literally cried herself to sleep. One minute she’d been whimpering through a painful breath in, and then the next she breathed out a snore. I stayed awake until after the sun rose, holding her tight and listening for any change in her breathing. Visions of the night she described kept playing over and over in my head, and I was so angry with myself that I hadn’t been with her—even though I knew logically that made no sense. We were just kids and had lived an ocean apart. Still, that didn’t make what I felt any less real.
Somehow I finally fell asleep, and when I woke up in the early afternoon, the first thing I did was reach for my girl. A feeling of panic hit me, finding nothing but a cold bed where she’d been sleeping. And a note.
Be back later. I emptied your suitcase and did your laundry so you can pack for your flight.
-Luca
At least she’d left out what she’d really been thinking: Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on your way out.
CHAPTER 26
LUCA
“I just don’t see how it could possibly work. A long-distance relationship is hard enough, but one that basically involves Griffin coming to visit me in my little sheltered bubble whenever he has time off from being a rock star isn’t realistic.”
“What does Griffin have to say about all of this?”
Doc and I had been walking for at least two hours. When he arrived this morning without binoculars, I knew today was going to be a long and hard session. We’d talked for more than an hour and a half about what had happened at the hotel and how I reacted and felt. That conversation led to what was going on with Griffin and me, and now we’d moved on to the subject that gave me physical chest pains. Saying goodbye to Griffin later.
“He doesn’t understand how being with someone like me will drag him down. He’s worked so hard to get where he is, and I can’t tie a noose around his neck. His heart is in the right place; he definitely means well, but he deserves so much more. He should have a woman who stands on the side of the stage while he plays to sold-out stadiums and goes to charity balls with him.”
“Griffin doesn’t seem like a charity-ball type of man. He seems more like he’d write a check and make an anonymous donation to something that’s important to him and then come home to chill.”
Doc’s use of the word chill made me smile. “You know what I mean. It’s not the event that’s important; it’s him being able to share all his successes with a real partner. What if he won a Grammy award? I would never be able to even go to an event like that.”
“And you believe the only way you can share that success is by standing next to him physically? Can’t a person stand by someone’s side in a figurative sense? What about a woman who chooses to stay home and raise the children while a man goes off to work every day? Isn’t she standing by her man’s side?”
“That’s not the same thing.”
Doc shook his head. “Explain to me how it’s different.”
“Well, those are choices that a couple makes together. They have one big pool of responsibilities, and they’re divvying them up—one person doing the job of child-rearing and the other of supporting the family financially. But in my case—no one gets to make a choice because I’m so screwed up.”
Doc stopped walking and waited until I turned back and gave him my full attention. “You’re wrong, Luca. Someone is making a choice about this relationship and how it will work—and that’s you. You’re not giving Griffin any choices at all.”
Doc had left me with a lot to think about. It wasn’t that I didn’t understand what he was trying to convey; I just wasn’t sure I believed it, that Griffin knew what was right for him, that he would be able to work around my issues forever. He might be willing to accommodate my limitations now, while things were still fresh and exciting with us, but being with someone who couldn’t truly have his back would get old real fast. I wanted things to work out with him more than I wanted to breathe. I just didn’t think the reality of our lives would allow it. Losing him later might be harder than letting him go now. But the thought of truly letting him go was painful. I was still so confused—that was all I was sure about.
Griffin was sitting at the foot of my bed with his hands on his temples when I returned home. His hair was a mess. It looked like he’d been raking his fingers through it in frustration. He didn’t see me at the doorway. Observing him like this, seeing how frustrated he looked, really brought home how serious this situation was—what I’d done to him. He was doing everything in his power to make things right for me. But it shouldn’t have to be this hard. It wasn’t fair for him to have to constantly walk on eggshells just to make me feel safe and happy. I cared about him so much, and I honestly wondered if that meant I needed to let him go.
The suitcase was upright. He was all packed. My needing to talk to Doc had cost me valuable hours with Griffin. Now it was nearly time for him to leave to catch his flight back to Chicago. While there, he would finish the video shoot he’d abruptly had to abandon because of me. Then he’d fly back to LA before leaving with his bandmates for the tour. It was going to be quite some time before I saw Griffin again—if ever. My stomach was in knots.