and let Zack get out of bed and go into the bathroom. He came back a couple of moments later and slid back into bed. She looked at his profile. Strong, set. So handsome, so special to her. For so long she’d imagined that she knew everything about Zack. Now she found out there was a huge piece missing.
“Zack …” She knew she probably shouldn’t say what was on her mind, but they were naked and in bed together. If they couldn’t be honest now, when could you be honest with anyone? “What happened?”
“I told you,” he said, his voice stilted. He knew what she meant. No need to clarify.
“Sort of.”
“You want to hear more?”
“I want to know what happened. Have you ever told anyone?”
There was a long pause, Zack shifted next to her. “I don’t talk about this, Clara. Not ever. Not with anyone.”
She put her hand on his shoulder. “And I don’t let men see me naked. Not ever. But I let you. So tell me.”
He paused and she thought, for a moment, he wasn’t going to say anything. “We named him Jake. He lived for forty-eight hours. No one at the hospital thought, even for a moment, that he had a chance. But I did.” Silence hung between them, heavy and oppressive. She didn’t interrupt it.
Zack breathed in deeply. Faintly, in the dim light filtering in through the windows, she could see a single track of moisture shining on his cheek. “I was wrong. There was no miracle. No beating the odds. I’d thought … I was sure he’d have to be okay. I’d changed all my plans, in my head, my whole future was different. And then it was back to being the same, except it wasn’t. It never would be again. And my parents … I think they were relieved. They’d been so angry that I was throwing my future away. I think they were relieved when my son died, Clara.”
“Zack …” She started to offer something. Comfort maybe. But she wasn’t sure if there was any comfort for that kind of pain. She wasn’t sure if it was a wound that could heal.
“Sarah didn’t want to talk to me again and I don’t blame her. Every time I looked at her I just remembered. I think it was the same for her. So I just left. I couldn’t stay there.” He paused for a moment. “He would be fourteen now. Just two years younger than I was when he was born. Maybe he’d play football, like I did. He’d be close to the age where I would be teaching him how to drive and telling him about girls. I think about it still. About him. I didn’t understand how one person could, even for such a short amount of time, became my whole world. For those two days, I breathed for him. And when he stopped, I almost forgot why I was still trying. Rock bottom is … something else. There’s a lot of alcohol there, let me tell you. But not even that fixes it. It just makes you pathetic. But I got hired on at a coffeehouse here, even though I was an aimless wreck. Once I had that job, I had a new focus. I got my GED, I found out I loved coffee. I worked my way up in the company, and I bought it from my boss when he retired. I think that’s the beginning of what you, and everyone else, already knew.”
She wiped at a tear that was sliding down her cheek, her heart aching, her entire body aching, real, physical pain tearing at her. She turned to the side and rested her head on his shoulder, her hand on his face. He wrapped an arm around her and held her to him.
“But that changed me,” he said, his voice strong. “It made me grow up. Made me move forward. It taught me to value control. Responsibility and planning. It’s why I’m here. Why I’m so successful and not some burned out, ex-college football star has-been.”
He believed it. She could tell he did. But the road to success had been hard. It had hurt. And along with conviction, she heard the pain in his voice, too.
“Arrogance, impulsiveness. That leads to disaster. It creates grief. Needless grief,” he said.
She wished she could tell him how much she loved him, but she knew that it was the last thing he wanted to hear. So she just held him, and let him hold her. Let him offer her comfort, so that he didn’t realize she sas offering him everything.
“So,” she said after a while, “do you want me to go?”
“I want you here,” he said. “Spend the night with me.”
“Sure, Zack,” she said, breathing a sigh of relief.
He tightened his hold on her and neither of them spoke.
Tonight they were together. She hoped she didn’t fall asleep. She didn’t want to miss a moment.
Clara rolled over and stretched in the morning, her eyes opening to a familiar sight. Zack’s room. Though, it wasn’t familiar at all to wake up in Zack’s room. Even less familiar to wake up in Zack’s room after making love with him all night.
A slow smile spread across her lips, followed by a pang of sadness when she remembered their conversation. When she remembered his story about his son.
She looked at Zack, his eyes still closed. She wished, more than anything, that she could take his pain from him. His grief was something she couldn’t begin to understand, the kind of cut it would leave so deep she wasn’t sure if it could heal. She knew it couldn’t, not really. It would never disappear. He’d said himself it had changed him. Had changed the course of his entire life.
His eyes opened and he smiled. “Good morning.”
“Morning.”
“So, I guess we should get ready to go to work,” she said.
“You think so?”
“Well, it’s almost time.”
“True,” he said, wrapping his arms around her and rolling her beneath him. “But you might be able to go in late today. I know the boss.”
“So do I,” she said, wiggling underneath him. “He’s kind of intense about people being at work on time. A bit anal, even.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Really? Well, I have a feeling that he’ll look the other way today.”
“I got an invitation in the mail. For me and my wife.” Zack walked into her office and tossed a cream-colored envelope onto her desk.
She grimaced. “Don’t people read the news?”
“Well, I called the charity putting the event on and I explained to them what happened. Of course, they would still like me to come and buy two dinners at four hundred dollars a plate, so my new fiancée is more than welcome.”
“Well, hopefully the deal will be finalized by then,” she said, looking down at the spiteful ring. “And I’ll be off the hook.”
“Good for both of us, but even if you are, you still might like to come. As my friend.”
“Right.” Yes. They were friends. First and foremost, before the sex stuff. At least in his mind. She was his friend, and he was hers, her very best friend. But he was so much more to her than that.
“It’s
