But I do.
Because like always, my Mom is right. If I ain’t makin’ her mine, why am I meddling? If I can’t commit, I need to disafuckingppear.
Committing to someone, agreeing to give a part of myself to another person knowing they can crumple it up, torch it, tear it or toss it away… I’m forty-two and fuckin’ terrified.
I rub my chest as I put my truck into park in my driveway. Seventeen years and the pain of Mere’s loss still radiates through my heart, searing my bones, permanently affecting how my blood flows, how my brain takes on thought, how I fuckin’ live.
Deep pain does that. It changes you. And it's a permanent change. There will never be another truly happy, carefree day without Mere around.
If I asked Goldie to give this dirty grandpa a shot and she said no… I twist my hands around the steering wheel, the hurt I’d feel already raw and spiky at the surface.
I’d be devastated.
And if we got together and she got tired of me and left me.
I’d be ruined.
But what the fuck am I now? Griping at Miller and Delane, giving the silent treatment to Beau, and barking at my parents over the pilot light? That’s the fuckin’ highlight of a normal week?
I let out a heavy sigh. A sigh that holds years of emotion and fear. A sigh that changes my perspective.
The pain, I always told myself, took up everything inside me. It left no room for happiness. I couldn’t be the grieving brother and diligent son while being anything but a mechanic. I always believed there wasn’t room for more, that my grief held the majority share of me.
But Goldie’s made a spot for herself inside me, and the more I deny it, the more tortured I become and the more time I waste. Taking a risk means losing, but what if I win?
And fuck that. I’m not a pussy who can’t take a fuckin’ risk.
Her nails drumming next to Meredith’s polish flit through my mind, and my collarbone and sternum seem to grow tight at the memory.
And right there in my driveway, I make a choice.
I’m going to make room for love alongside grief.
* * *
“Courthouse?”I yawn, scratching the side of my face.
“Yeah. In twenty. Is that doable?” Beau asks.
It’s Saturday morning. It’s been over a week since I’ve seen Goldie. A long goddamn week. It could’ve even been considered a torturous week.
When I lifted my razor to my face yesterday morning before work, ready to get rid of the chaotic stubble that had taken over my jaw like wildfire, I couldn’t fucking do it.
I can still smell her on my face. I can still feel her splayed out over my mouth, riding and moaning.
I now have a beard.
I glance at the clock sitting on my nightstand. “Meet you at 8:30 at the courthouse on Saturday morning?” I repeat the details back, yawning again.
“Yeah. Can you do it? We need a witness.”
Sitting up, I run a curled knuckle to my eye, wiping the sleep away. “Witness,” I say, my brain a little slow, considering I woke up to this conversation without any small talk.
“We’re getting married at the courthouse, and we need a witness,” Beau says, and I can fuckin’ hear his ear-to-ear smile through the phone.
The side of my mouth curls, but I’d never tell him. “I’ll be there.”
* * *