After Forever by Jasinda Wilder

  I came. It was a slow and roiling climax, pushing through me like a mudslide. I gasped, breath caught, and my hands worked my body until I couldn't come anymore. Cade was still going, stroking himself hard and fast, standing over me, eyes hooded, watching me with his head tipped back, lip curled in a snarl.

  I watched him, watched his balls clench and his eyes close, watched his motions go frantic, and then he jerked his fist down his length violently, once, groaning hard. A thick stream of come spat out of him and coated my tits and my belly, and I took his cock from him, leaned forward swiftly and wrapped my mouth around the soft springy head of his cock and sucked as he came again, spurting into my throat, sliding my fist down his length as fast and hard as I could, and he groaned, thrust involuntarily. I stretched my head forward and opened my throat and took the thrust, felt a third spasm shoot down my throat.

  He cried out and pulled free. "Jesus, Eden." He turned and sagged against the opposite wall. "That was crazy. I've never done anything like that."

  "Me, either," I said.

  "I came in here to apologize," he said, "not to--"

  "It wasn't your fault. I shouldn't have done that while you were asleep. I should be the one to apologize."

  He scrubbed his hand through his hair. "I just...I thought I was dreaming. I do that, I have these really intense dreams, so real, like I wake up and I can't figure out if I'm awake and the dream was a dream or if I'm still asleep and the dream was reality...I get so confused, and I thought I'd been dreaming what happened with us--"

  "I know," I said, pivoting on the toilet seat. "I shouldn't have done that to you. I'm sorry." I couldn't look at him, mortified at what he'd watched me do, now that I was out of the grip of the moment.

  "That was kind of...crazy," Cade said, seeming as embarrassed as I was.

  It was strange for us to be embarrassed. We'd seen the worst in each other, and often brought it out. But that, it had been a strange and intimate tableau, and neither of us knew how to deal with it.

  "I've never done anything like that. I've never watched anyone--"

  "I haven't, either," I rushed to admit.

  Silence, heavy and awkward yet again.

  "Why don't you take a shower?" he suggested.

  I grimaced. "God, that would be fucking amazing."

  He turned away. "I'll--I'll put out some clean clothes for you. You can borrow--"

  I cut him off, spared him having to say her name. "Thanks."

  I took a long, hot shower, scrubbed myself raw while I tried to make sense of what my life had become. Things with Cade were getting out of hand. The more we gave in, the more I wanted it, needed it. And last night, I'd started to feel something unfurling in my chest, deep at the root of my heart. Something that simply could not be.

  But I knew simply staying away from Cade wouldn't help. As long as our lives continued in this impossible no-man's land of pain, unable to mourn and unable to move on, unable to help or do anything but wait, we'd keep falling into this. Staying away wouldn't help. We'd tried that over and over again. One of us would break. I'd been close to breaking his door down myself when he texted me while I was at the gym. I'd been on a stationary bike, pedaling for all I was worth, and my phone had gone off. I'd seen his name on the screen, the four little words. I'd left immediately, knowing exactly what would happen and wanting it. But I'd made myself wait to text him back, not wanting to seem eager. And in that time I'd worked myself into anger, resenting him for pushing me away. Well, even anger couldn't stop us. Anger seemed to exacerbate things, if anything, making it that much more intense of a high.

  It really was a drug. The more I got, the more I needed. And I didn't know where the endpoint was. I was afraid I'd reached the event horizon, the point from which I'd never escape the inexorable gravity of needing him.

  After I stepped out of the shower and dried off, I examined myself in mirror. I noted fingerprints bruised into the skin of my hips where he'd gripped me, dark bruises as reminders. I didn't mind the bruises, oddly. I wrapped the towel around my chest and left the bathroom, found Cade sitting at the kitchen table wearing nothing but a pair of shorts, the ones from last night, I was pretty sure. I approached him from behind, and winced as I saw four parallel scratch marks on both shoulders. He heard me, turned around. I gasped; I'd gouged his chest even worse. I hadn't noticed while he was in the bathroom with me.

  "Holy shit, Cade. I didn't realize I'd scratched you that badly."

  He glanced down, making that strange face we make when trying to see something just beneath our chin. "Yeah, you got me pretty good." He looked up at me. "Did I mark you at all?"

  I pulled aside the towel, showing him the bruises on my hips. "A couple of bruises. Nothing that bad," I said, gesturing at the claw marks on his chest.

  He leaned forward, examining the bruises. "Shit, Eden. I'm sorry. I knew I shouldn't have--"

  "It's fine. We've both got marks."

  "Is it both sides?"

  I tugged up the edge of the towel at my other side, showing him the matching bruises. He was getting a good long look at my pussy in the process, but at this stage there was no point in bashfulness. "They'll heal," I said. "I bruise easily, and they always go away in a day or two."

  I watched his eyes flick from the bruises over to my privates, and then he sat back and turned to his sketchpad. "Well, I shouldn't have left marks. I'm sorry."

  I traced a finger down a scratch on his back. "I'm not."

  He slowly swiveled to face me again. "You're not?"

  I shook my head. "I'm trying to make sense of all this. Of you and me. And while I was in the shower, I realized something." I sat down in the chair kitty-corner to his, crossing my legs in some vague and probably stupid attempt at modesty.

  "What's that?" he asked.

  "We keep resisting this, acting like...like each time is an accident. But unless something changes, unless one of us either removes ourselves from the equation completely, or Ever's condition changes, I just don't think we'll be able to stop. We've tried, Cade. I stayed away from you the past month, too, you know. I could've asked you to come over. I almost did. If you hadn't texted me, I would've shown up at some point." I ran my still-damp hair through a wringer of my fingers, and Cade's eyes followed the trickle of water as it sluiced down between my breasts. "I feel like...you're a drug, and I'm addicted. And I don't--I can't even pretend anymore. I can't keep acting like I don't want it."

  "Addicted. That's a good way of putting it." Cade tossed his pencil down on the table, closed the pad, and turned to face me. "So what's gonna change?"

  I shrugged. "I don't know! Maybe nothing." I picked up the pencil he'd put down, toyed with it idly. "Are you going to leave? I mean, are you going to leave Ever? Quit visiting the Home, start over somewhere else?"

  He reared back, shocked. "NO! I can't--I wouldn't--"

  "And neither can I! She's my sister. She's your wife. Neither of us can just...leave. So that means something with her has to change."

  "You're saying just...not...isn't an option. That we're both so weak that we can't quit each other."

  I sighed. "Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I'll admit it. I'm too weak. I don't have that much self-control. You make me feel good, and that...it's the only good thing in my life. Cello...it's part of me. It doesn't provide relief. It gives me...I don't know how to put it...expression, I guess. But that's not the same." I leveled a hard look at him. "Can you stay away? Can you go day to day, see me at the Home, be around me, go about your business without slipping up?"

  He groaned, leaning back in the chair and scrubbing his face. "No," he admitted miserably. "I've tried that." He flung his hand out and tapped an impatient rhythm on the table.

  "Yeah, and how well has that worked?" I put my hand on his. "You either avoid me completely, or if you're around me and trying to act like you don't need this with me as much as I do, then you shut down, barely talking, barely responding. Neither of which works." He sighed and turned away withou
t answering. I pushed at him. "Go take a shower."

  He got up and moved toward the bathroom with the slow shuffle of someone who's lost all will and all direction.

  event horizon; exhaust the demon

  Caden

  I don't know who I am anymore, Ever. I'm a castaway. Lost. Drowning. I love you. That's the only true thing I know, and it's all I have to hold on to. I love you. I'll love you forever. Until the day I die, and I'll love you in whatever world comes after this one.

  Cade

  It was the shortest letter I'd ever written her. I'd sat, struggling, for hours to write her. But everything got stuck, bottled up. Eden had left not long after I took a shower, and I'd spent the rest of the day consumed by her words. Eventually, in an attempt to forget them, I'd decided to write Ever and then visit her. I hoped that visiting her would clear my head, would give me some clarity. But she lay there, same as always, as if she never moved. I knew, intellectually, that the nurses rotated her and did all sorts of things to keep her muscles from atrophying and to keep her from getting bedsores. But to me, she was always there on her back, eyes closed, hair neatly smoothed behind her ears. No change. No change. No brain activity. No signs of waking.

  "I don't know what's happening to me," I whispered to her. "I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how to stop. I love you. I don't want you to think I don't. I love you more than ever. I love you so much it literally wakes me up with my heart aching for you. And I don't want...what's happening. When I'm not here."

  I couldn't bear to say it, even though I didn't really believe she was in there, that she heard me. It was easiest to believe she was asleep.

  "Do you hate me? For letting this happen to you? Jesus, Ev. How can you not? If...when you wake up, I know what'll happen. And that's what I dread the most. But I still can't seem to...to find direction. To stop. To not keep fucking everything up, again and again and again. I know you'll never love me again. After you find out. But if you wake up, at least you'll be alive and I'll know how to live. If you hate me, it'll destroy me, but right now that's better than this. This...nothingness, this emptiness, this hell of stuck-between. It'd be better. Better than you, lying there like that. Forever." My whole body was wracked by a silent sob. "You have to come back, Ev. You have to rescue me. Come save me. God, Jesus, please save me." Was I praying? I didn't know. If I was, it was to Ever. It was a plea, regardless of the object.

  I sat there, hunched forward, unable to cry but unable to sit up from the weight of the grief and the guilt weighing down on me. I forced my eyes open, forced myself to look at Ever. If I loved her like I claimed, why couldn't I stay faithful? Why couldn't I just...be a good person? If I loved her, I wouldn't be doing what I was doing with Eden.

  Had I ever loved Ever? Doubts assailed me, struck me like hail, like lightning. Had I lost her? Had I lost my love for her? Was I hanging on out of stubbornness? Holding on to the knowledge that I'd loved her, even after I'd ruined it? How could I love her and do what I did every time I saw Eden?

  What kind of horrible person was I?

  I clawed at my face, tore at my hair, feeling everything inside me being ripped apart. I'd always had the fact that I loved Ever as the sole focus of my identity. And now I doubted even that.

  I'd lost everyone in my life. Everyone.

  Except Eden.

  And Grams and Gramps. I struck on an idea. Maybe if they came here to Michigan, they'd help me. They'd hate me if they knew what I was caught up in, how I'd failed myself, failed Ever, failed everything I believed in. But they'd help me. They'd...they'd know what to do. Gramps would kick my ass.

  I dug my phone out of my pocket and called their home phone. It rang eight times, and I was about to hang up when someone answered.

  "Hola? I mean...I mean, hello? Monroe ranch. How I help you?"

  "Miguel?" Why was he answering their phone? "Where's Grams or Gramps?"

  He hesitated. "They not here. Senor Monroe, he have a stroke. In the hospital, to Cheyenne."

  "Gramps had a stroke?"

  "Si, senor. Very sorry to tell you."

  "Is he...is he okay? I mean, will he be okay? Why didn't Grams call me?"

  "She have not leave the hospital in many days. Too much upset to call you."

  "What about Uncle Gerry?"

  "He run the ranch. They not want to worry you. He strong, senor Monroe. He be okay. No worry." A voice called in the background. "I tell senora you want her call you. I have to go now. Many potros this season."

  Click.

  My stomach churned. Gramps was in the hospital. No one had even called me. What if he died, too? What if I lost Grams and Gramps? They were often afterthoughts, I knew. I'd been too caught up in my own life to think about them, and now they were going to leave me, too.

  It felt like a mortal blow.

  I had no knowledge of leaving, but somehow I was in my car, and I was driving, driving. I arrived at Eden's dorm, and she was just going down the steps, with a woman who must have been her roommate behind her. Eden saw me, waved at her roommate, and went to the passenger side of my car. She must have seen something on my face, because she didn't hesitate, just got in, closed the door. Sat silent.

  "Song for You" by Alexi Murdoch played, although I also had no memory of plugging my phone in.

  I drove, and Eden rode beside me silently. I heaved a deep breath, feeling my eyes burn. She reached out and took my hand; she wrapped her fingers around mine, clasping hands rather than twining our fingers together.

  "What's wrong?" Her voice was tiny and hesitant.

  "Gramps had a stroke."

  Eden squeezed my hand. "God, Cade. I--is he okay?"

  I shrugged. I felt numb. I knew it would hurt, but right then, I didn't know how to react. "I don't know. They didn't tell me. I called them, to see if they could tell me. One of the hands answered. He told me. Grams hasn't left the hospital. She didn't call me. I don't know how he's doing. I don't...it's too much, Eden. It's too much. I can't lose them, too."

  There was nothing Eden could say, so she said nothing, only held my hand as I drove aimlessly.

  Eventually, as the sun went down and the playlist on my phone started to repeat, Eden spoke up. "You can't drive away from this, Cade. You can't drive forever. Let's go home." I knew she was as aware as I was of the discrepancy in that phrase. It wasn't her home. There was no us. But I knew what she meant, and I knew she was right. So I drove back to my condo and we went inside. "Have you eaten?"

  I shook my head. "No."

  "Since when?"

  I shrugged. "I don't know. This morning? Yesterday?"

  "You need to eat." She went to the kitchen and started rummaging. Evidently she found something to make, because water ran and a pot rattled.

  I found myself on the couch, listless, lacking will or motivation for anything. Eden's presence in the kitchen at least meant that I was here. I hadn't floated away, hadn't simply stopped living. I thought I might, somehow. That I'd sit here and if she left, I'd just...go comatose myself. Vegetative. Like Ever. Joining her. But maybe that wouldn't be so bad.

  My phone rang. "Hello?" I barely recognized my own voice.

  "Caden? God, honey, I'm sorry I didn't tell you." It was Grams. "He's been in the hospital for several days, and I just haven't been able to--to leave him. He's sleeping, and Miguel called to tell me you'd called. I'm so sorry, honey."

  "Is--is he okay?"

  The hesitation spoke louder than a scream. "He'll require professional care, they think."

  "What's that mean?"

  "It means he's going to have to go into a--a home. Assisted living. I can't give him the kind of care he needs. Not by myself."

  "Grams, I don't--"

  "He recognizes me," Grams said, interrupting me for the first time in my entire life. "But that's about it. He can't talk, sweetheart."

  My head drooped, and I almost dropped the phone. "Fucking hell, Grams. How could this happen? He's...he's so strong."

  "He's old,
honey. And he's still fighting. But..."

  "What are you going to do?"

  She didn't answer for a long, long time. I felt something wet drip down my nose. "I'll go with him, I think. There's a nice place in Cheyenne. I couldn't stay in that big old ranch house by myself without him. So...I'll go with him."

  "What can I do, Grams?" My voice was a rasp.

  "Be strong, Caden. You're a Monroe. I know you, sweetheart. I can hear in your voice that you're having a hard time. Don't worry about us. Come see us, if you can. We love you. I love you, Connor, honey."

  "Grams, I'm--"

  "Caden. I meant...I meant Caden."

  I licked away the salty wetness on my lips. "I love you, Grams. He'll be okay. You'll be okay."

  "I know." She sighed. "I have to go, sweetie. I have to be there if he wakes up."

  "Okay. 'Bye." She didn't even respond, just hung up.

  Eden sat on the couch beside me. Put a bowl of something hot into my hands. Macaroni and cheese. I ate without tasting it.

  "He's going into a home. A Home." I shoveled the food into my mouth, more for something to do than anything else. "Grams is going with him."

  "I'm sorry, Cade."

  "Everyone. They all go. They all leave me. Mom left. Dad left. Ever left." I choked, coughed, put the bowl on the coffee table. "Now Gramps. There's no one left. They've all...they're all gone. Gramps barely recognizes Grams. And she...she's--she is him. They've been married for forty years. More? I don't know. If he goes, she goes. And he's going."

  "Hey." She set her bowl down and leaned into me. "I'm still here. I know that's not--"

  "You're here. I--thank you, Eden. For not...for not abandoning me, too."

  She shook her head. "We're all kinds of fucked up, you and I, but we have each other. For as long as it lasts and for what it's worth, we have each other." She reached up and wiped her fingers across my cheek. Wiped away my tears.

  She got up, sat on the floor in front of the shelf of DVDs. After perusing for a few minutes, she put in The Hangover 3. "Nothing like mindless comedy, right?"