“I’ll wait.”
I shake my head. “Don’t. I don’t plan on coming back.” I lean up and kiss his lips ever so softly with my tear-soaked ones and pull away. This is our final goodbye. This is what he needs to move on. This is what I need to do to let him go.
He grabs his bag, turns his bare back on me and walks out.
I leave the next day.
And I don’t come back for two years.23OlympiaNow
“It has to be spoken of, Olympia. I loved her as I loved you.” He holds me as he rocks back and forth with me in his arms. It’s been two years now since I lost her, and not a day goes by I don’t imagine how different my life would have been if I didn’t drive myself home that night, and how full my life would be if I had her in my arms right now.
“She’s in here.” I tap my chest. “Where she will always be.”
He kisses the top of my head. “Good, I’m glad. He has a son, hey? How is that?”
I pull away, wiping my tears from my face as Slate watches me. I see him now as a man that I love, there’s no denying that. He’s just that person, he was there handling my grief with me, and I didn’t let him grieve enough as I was too wrapped up in my own world. It was one of the reasons I let him go in the first place.
“It’s odd.” I look at him and think, Wow, is this what it would be like?
“I bet you sing to him like you used to sing to your belly.”
I smile. “I do, he’s beautiful.”
“You aren’t replacing her if you love someone else’s baby. You know that, right?”
I look up from pouring myself water. “What’s with all the knowledge?”
He shrugs. “I did a lot of therapy after you left, to try to piece my world back together.”
Ah, that makes sense.
“He doesn’t even like me.”
This time he smirks. “Oh, no, baby, he’s falling for you, and hard. I know that look because I had that look. You make it easy to fall in love with you.”
“I’m sorry I broke you, Slate,” I say walking back around to him, my hands touching his chest as I lean in. “I didn’t mean to.”
He brushes some of my blue hair away from my face. “You didn’t. You just made me view the world differently. And that’s okay. But Olympia...” I glance up and see his eyes, the same ones I’ve loved for years, “… if you told me you loved me back right here and right now, I would leave with you. The love I have for you never dies, it just changes.” Laying my head on his chest, I hear his heart beating so loudly. I give his words a couple of minutes to sink in.
“That would be selfish of me. You have a woman who loves you the way you need to be loved. Keep her, but know you will always be my first love, Slate, no one can replace you. We just have to learn to love differently.”
He nods his head and brushes his fingers through my hair. “So what do you plan to do now you’ve quit?” I shrug because honestly I have no idea. “Well, before I go. Let me take you dancing.”
“Are you sure your fiancée doesn’t need you back? I don’t want to cause you any troubles or heartache.”
He shakes his head and pulls me into him. “No, she’ll be fine. She knows our history. How about you go and do what you need to do today, then we can go dancing tonight.” I nod my head and he grabs my hair. “Blue, ha?” HhjiHHe always laughs at me for my choices of hair color. “You don’t need to do this anymore, you know? You’ve proved your point to your father.” I shrug, I’m used to it now. “Any color looks good on you, though.” He kisses my cheek and pulls out his phone as he goes to leave. “Be ready at seven, Olympia, you’re taking me dancing one last time for old time’s sake.”
He steps over to the elevator, the phone going to his ear as the door closes with him smiling at me.“Holy shit! No way, Olympia. You didn’t!”
Slate grabs at my hair, and his smile is so big that I’m glad I did it. “I did. Does it look okay?”
He whistles loudly. “Yes. Yes, a million times, yes.” He laughs pulling at my hair. “It’s really your color. I saw it when…” he trails off. He’s talking about after—after we lost her, when I didn’t go out so my hair color grew out gradually. “Well, you know what I mean, it suits you. So do the colors, it will be weird to get used to it being normal again.”