| |
—Simone—
––––––––
When Banks’s truck idled into the driveway and came to a stop by my knees, I rose from the front step of his home. I’d spent the last half an hour trying to talk myself down from an invisible ledge.
I hadn’t believed in happily ever afters after losing mine, but perhaps they did exist. I mean, fate or not, I’d been stopped from leaving and ended up on Banks’s doorstep within the hour.
I held my breath and swallowed down my apprehension as Banks slowly climbed from his truck. The door clicked closed as his eyes found mine. Held. Didn’t so much as blink as he approached. He erased the space between us with one calculated step after the other.
His expression remained unreadable, not so much as a smirk touched his mouth, and his hazel gaze hardened around the edges.
My held breath escaped as a shudder when Banks came to stand before me. His looming presence seemed ten times larger than usual, and despite me standing on the bottom step, he still towered above me.
He stared for the longest time and gazed directly into my eyes in the most unsettling way until I opened my mouth to speak.
“Ban—”
“Simone,” he cut me off. “Give me your hands, babe.”
Confused, I complied, slowly raising them and flinching when he captured my wrists in his warm grasp. My entire body vibrated with unease until he pressed my palms to his chest.
“No matter whose body this heart calls home, it will always belong to you,” he stated hoarsely.
My lower lip wobbled as I tried to hold myself together. Never in a million years would I have guessed that one heart held the power to claim the same love during two lifetimes, but Banks was living proof it could happen.
Each beat under my palms held resilience and promise.
“It feels so strong,” I murmured, staring up into his bright hazel eyes.
Banks hummed, adding yet another vibration beneath my hands. “It’s obvious it beats for you and you alone. Want to know something that still astounds me?”
I nodded. “Sure.”
“The day of my surgery, before I went into the O.R., I listened to my old heart one last time. I thought it sounded fine. A little faint, and yes, a little weak, but beating rhythmically nonetheless. After surgery, I was offered the same grace—to listen to my new heart.”
He paused to clear his throat and blink the sheen of tears from his eyes. After a shuddering inhale, his eyes glazed over as if staring into a faraway land.
“As soon as I touched the stethoscope to my chest, I realized just how bad my old heart had been. This new one was so much louder. It beat so much stronger, brimming with life and hope and a second chance I didn’t know if I was going to get. I remember this overwhelming burst of gratitude that brought me to tears. The more I listened, the more I cried.”
His focus sharpened and snapped back to me. “I cried for my second chance, but I also cried for the person who gave it to me, because as my family celebrated at my bedside, I knew there was another grieving. I’ve never felt so joyous yet upset before until I had you then thought I’d lost you for good.”
“I— I—” Each stammer came out confused as different thoughts battled to be voiced first. I shook my head. “I hadn’t considered it from the other point of view. I can’t imagine the relief and joy to hear a healthy new one beating inside. Especially after not knowing if a donor would be found...”
He swallowed thickly and nodded. “That was the scariest part. Each day was a step deeper into the unknown... Just like today.”
My gaze shifted from my hands pressed to his t-shirt covered chest to his eyes. “I’m scared too. Terrified, in fact.” As if my body needed to reinforce my words, it began trembling.
Banks ran his hands up and down my upper arms. “You cold?”
“No.” I hugged myself and tried to stop the shivers. “I’m... a little in shock, to be honest.”
His warm touch smoothed its way over my shoulders and cupped my cheeks. “Same. Come inside with me?” he offered with surprising apprehension.
“That’s why I’m here,” I whispered and offered a shaky smile.
Banks nodded and smiled a little. “And that’s why I’m grateful for the stars aligning today. I would have hitchhiked to Denver if I’d needed to.”
I grimaced. “I wasn’t heading for Denver.”
A pucker formed between his eyebrows. “Then where were you going?”
Insecurity had me feeling foolish. “I don’t know. I was just going to drive and see where I ended...”
“Christ, Simone.” Banks’s forehead connected with mine. “Pinch me so I know this isn’t a dream... Ouch, fuck!” he then exclaimed when my fingertips found a small piece of torso skin to latch onto.
My laughter danced across his mouth. “You said pinch me. Don’t ask for what you can’t handle. And that goes for having me here too. It won’t be a smooth road, Banks.”
His lips tenderly drifted across mine. “I’ll handle you just fine, babe.” After kissing me sweetly, he pulled away and guided me into his home.
Hand in his, I limped as I followed, feeling like I was entering a place that wasn’t mine. The way I left last time still stung, and I noted when passing the guest room that the bed was remade and staged with all the pillows I never used.
Banks noticed me looking. “You won’t be in that room this time, Simone, you’ll be in mine.”
“Okay,” I breathed out as butterflies took flight in my belly.
Banks slowly led me to the couch before going to the sliding glass door to let in an impatient Pepin. She immediately ran and jumped into my lap, licking my face and obliterating all degrees of personal space.
I laughed while fending her off, then wiped her doggy saliva from my face once she responded to Banks’s growl to get down.
“Someone’s missed me,” I laughed.
Banks snorted. “Pepin can get in line. I missed you first, and I missed you more. Not that it’s a competition... but if it was, I’d win.”
“Cocky.”
“It’s bred into me,” he declared offhandedly, then turned caring as he took my hand and scissored our fingers. “Would you like a drink? What can I get you?”
“What are you having?”
A smirk tugged his mouth. “I’m going to have a beer.”
I straightened my spine confidently. “Then beer it is.”
His grin widened, and he tapped my leg. “Good choice, babe. Hang tight.”
While he went to the kitchen, I used the moment alone—with Pepin—to inhale and exhale a series of long, calming breaths. I wasn’t nervous about physically being here; it was the talks that would no doubt come over the next few days that had apprehension rising.
Turns out, Banks wanted to jump right into the hardest conversation of all. He returned and handed me a freshly poured beer in a beer mug, then sat across from me on the hardwood coffee table. I noted a brown paper bag tucked between his bicep and torso as I took an apprehensive sip.
After a long sip of his own beer, Banks set it aside and plucked the paper bag out from under his arm. With slow movements, he turned it over and over while eyeing me.
“I’ve got something for you, Simone. Sorry, I intended to wrap it. I ah... I dug it out last night and wrote what came to mind at the time. I haven’t re-read it since, but it’s still what I want you to know.”
I swallowed and set down my beer glass, then accepted the mysterious package when he offered. My hands trembled, and my chest squeezed as I felt the object through the paper.
“I can leave if you want a moment alone? It’s gonna be fairly hard-hitting.”
“Okay,” I whispered. “Do you mind? Please?”
“Not at all.” He stood, pressed a kiss to my temple, then plucked up his beer. “I’ll be outside on the deck if you need me. Just call out and I’ll be here.”
“Okay,” I breathed out, barely audible.
With one last long look, Banks smiled despite the overshadowing worry in his eyes, then quietly left the house.
I waited until he was settled in a deck chair before returning my attention back to the package. My clammy fingers barely cooperated as I slowly opened the little bag, and my heart dropped when I peered inside. A CD.
I slowly removed it from the paper and turned it over to the front cover where the label read Gatlin Falls Imaging.
“Oh my god,” I whispered as my throat grew tight with trepidation.
While holding my breath, I opened the cover to find a piece of paper folded to fit the case. After carefully unfolding it, my eyes watered when I realized what this was: a handwritten poem.
From Banks.
Bleeding words directly from his soul.
My lungs clenched and tears spilled as I began to read.
It once was his,
now it’s mine,
and it holds the love of two lifetimes.
With every pump,
with every beat,
it’s unfair how fate should allow us to meet.
What it took from you,
it gave to me,
and for that, I’m thankful for eternity.
Each moment without out you saddens my life,
because I hope someday to call you my wife.
But if that can’t happen,
(I hope it can, I won’t lie),
here’s something special to remember us both by.
Tears streamed down my cheeks. A harrowing sob escaped despite pressing my hand to my mouth. Banks’s gift broke my heart while healing it a million times over.
I couldn’t imagine what it was like to fall in love with damaged goods, let alone coming second to a man who was the first keeper of my soul. For Banks to claim my heart while Reagan’s beat inside his chest was utterly breathtaking. Literally.
“Banks!” I called on a sob.
He appeared as if by magic, expression bunched with concern. Without me uttering another word, his eyes dropped to the open case.
“This way, babe.”
I rose to my unsteady feet and trailed behind him, biting back emotion with each limp toward the unknown.
Banks showed me how to use his stereo unit, and when the CD tray opened, he gently touched my arm.
“I’ll be outside again, sweetheart. All you need to do is put the CD in and put these on.” He indicated the headphones.
After a lingering kiss to my cheek, Banks reluctantly withdrew from my space and returned to the outdoor deck chair.
My movements came slow and forced. I fumbled getting the CD from its case and dropped it. Cursing as I carefully retrieved it from the wooden flooring, I had to swallow back waves of nausea that inched higher with each second.
Despite panting shallow breaths, anxiety stole every last molecule of oxygen in my lungs, leaving me dizzy and silently screaming for help.
I dropped the disk into the tray, then slowly pressed the close button.
Conflicting emotions raged. I feared what I’d hear as I held my breath and slid the earphones over my head.
The first pulse pulled a gasp from my mouth. The second had me pressing my trembling hand to my lips. The third had tears swamping my vision, and the subsequent heartbeats that followed had the brimming moisture overflowing.
I had never heard a sound so comforting, yet so traumatizing. So loud it consumed me, yet not thick enough to grasp and hold onto with all my might.
I lowered to my knees and pressed my palms flat on the cold tongue and groove floor, hoping it would anchor me and stop the world from spinning. Closing my eyes, I focused on the subtle changes in the heartbeat’s rhythm.
As if I hadn’t cried enough over the last two years, I sobbed some more. God how I cried; until each breath was nothing but a stricken pant amid a thick torrent of tears.
I was there when Reagan’s heart had stopped. I’d witnessed the moment when it wouldn’t beat on its own and Reagan drew his last breath. I saw the last spike on the monitor as his heart gave one final beat. Then nothing. Nothing but ringing in my ears and the unshakable weight of loneliness.
Since moving to Gatlin Falls, my eyes were forced to open; my identity and dreams hadn’t gone, they’d merely been forced to shift and adjust.
When all seemed bleak, Banks had been a beacon of light I had to squint against. So bright and accepting, pushing me to find my footing, then grow. Falling for Banks wasn’t part of the plan. But whether I wanted to or not, I had.
And the hardest part of the realization to swallow? Maybe my soulmate hadn’t been taken away either. It seemed that Reagan and Banks were both made for me within this lifetime. Perhaps losing Reagan to find Banks was fate’s harrowing plan all along.
I drew in a shuddering breath as my fingernails bit into the polished flooring. Reagan’s heartbeat continued to pulse around me as every new breath I drew finally began to steady.
When calmed, I carefully returned the precious gift to its case and sealed it tight with the folded poem from Banks.
My past and present were poised between my shaking fingertips. Real and raw and asking me to take a chance.
On unsteady legs, I rose to my feet and shuffled my way outside. Banks paced the length of the deck with his hands laced behind his head. He swung around at the far end to retrace his steps but stopped dead when he saw me standing in the open doorway watching.
His wretched expression caused further pain in my heart as he remained rooted to the spot, waiting for my lead.
The instant I lifted my arms in invitation, he ran to me and bundled me against his chest without slowing his pace. I clung to him as if he was my saving grace. He’d given me the greatest gift, and I could never not be grateful for him gatecrashing my life.
