Chapter 11

This has been an aching cavern in my chest for eighteen months, as he slowly drifted away with the first throes of his first committed relationship, and a life in the city that didn’t include me. I’ve been losing him slowly and surely, and it’s contributed in part to why I started dating so many men. I was trying to find someone for me, someone that would care about me as much as he always did. I want someone to make me feel the way he does when he’s around: safe, loved, and secure. Like I’m home.

“That’s not true.” Arrick makes to pull me back to him, but I step further away. Slapping his hands away childishly. Immature me peeking out to show face.

“Can you name one time in the last year, or more, that you called me to just talk or to hang out; one time that you have been near me while I was sober, and not in need of being rescued? And I don’t mean the party invites or when we run into each other!” I raise my palms accusingly, draped in the oversized jacket on my slender frame that makes me appear ridiculously small. Arrick frowns, considering my question for a moment and then frowns harder as he tries to recall even one moment from the past year, that hasn’t been a call to collect me drunk, or a time when he wasn’t with Natasha or I had been invited to some group thing. He inclines his head to the side as though really digging for an example, and then sighs with the realization that I’m right.

Even his birthday party at his own home last year was monopolized with guests, and he probably spent all of ten minutes throughout the whole night with me before I’d gone and thrown a stupid, immature, drunken temper tantrum and my drink at Natasha because of it. It ended in the usual tears and arguments, and he made me go home.

“I’m sorry, Sophs, I guess I just never realized I was letting you down, leaving you alone. It’s not easy to juggle you and Tasha when you don’t get on. I can’t have you in the same place without some sort of snide catfight, and she’s with me most of the time.” Arrick slides his hands into his pockets of his black jeans, his gray t-shirt molding to that formidable body as he regards me guiltily. His posture cooling my jets and my fire a little, bringing back that self-pity I despise so much.

“I miss you. I miss us.” I sniff again, heart bursting with genuine sadness overtaking all other emotion. This time I don’t move when he steps forward, catching his jacket so he can tug me closer to him again. He stops me level with his body, a tiny gap between us, leans in again and gazes at me for a long, silent moment.

“I’m still here, still care about you as much as I always did. I just need you to come back to all of us, Sophs. Calm down the reckless behavior and wild partying. Come home, make things right with the people who love you and give me a chance to fix things between us. If you’re not out, going hellcat Leila style, then I promise I’ll have more time for you. I’ll figure things out to make sure I’m here for you. I’ll help you get through all of this if you just let me in. I promise.” Arrick gazes deeply into my eyes, his hazel depths making me calmer like he always does. All doubt, anger, and every other tiny exhausting weight ready to dissipate, and an overwhelming tiredness sets in instead.

“And if Natasha doesn’t like it?” I pout, deflation setting in with the very real chance that Natasha won’t let it happen. The girl has never openly said anything to suggest she wants me out of his life, doesn’t openly act like she does, but I can tell she hates my existence. She changed everything between us.

“No matter what you have told yourself about her, Sophs, you’re wrong! She doesn’t dislike you, she feels for you, and she just wants you to get help. She would never stop me from seeing you. All this stuff about her is in your head, she’s never pressured me about you. She knows what our relationship is.” Arrick wipes the lingering tears from my cheeks with his thumb, pulling my face close to his chest by cupping my jaw. Nestling me against him, so I’m listening to the steady strong thud of his heartbeat, where it’s so easy to let it all go.

“I need help, Arry. I’m so tired all the time. I’m struggling and I want things to get better.” More tears roll freely down my face, but not with any real sense of anything, just tumbling out because they can., I’m completely lost and floundering in life. Utterly hopeless.

“Then I’ll do whatever is needed, Mimmo. The first step will be getting you back in the middle of the people who genuinely love you and will take care of you. Away from these idiots you surround yourself with, who never seem to be there when you’re at your most vulnerable. I’m taking you home with me tonight, and then tomorrow … Home to your family. You need to trust me that it’s the best place to go if you really want to fix things.” He pulls my face to tilt back up to him, so he can study my reaction. I’m just too tired, both physically and emotionally, to argue. I want to stay here like this with him for eternity and go back to how it used to be. I just want him back in my life more permanently, back in that place of smiles and laughter and feeling like my life is everything I want it to be.

“You promise?” I sound fragile and childlike; my voice croaks with emotion, some genuine relief that maybe I’m not going to go on being alone for much longer. It’d been self-engineered when I ran away but going back has proven harder than staying alone. Arrick is taking away the fear and my choice. Things I have been too afraid to attempt myself and too stubborn to even admit I want until now. A part of me swells with a sense of hope.

“I swear by the power of the fist bump.” He grins at me, lightening the moment with his jokey humor, holding out his fist in the old gesture we used to use when making deals. He’s suddenly so young and cute, like the boy who melted my heart and made me trust him so long ago. I bump him back softly without hesitation, curling my fist to match his, relief moving over me as I sigh down the chaos once more. My heart fills with warmth and a sense of complete release.

Scrutinizing him a little harder, I lift my pinkie up between us childishly, chewing on my lip as though to alert him to the serious nature of my gesture. Sophie of old reverts to form when faced with the familiar Arrick of old. I’ve missed this version of him. Immature and carefree, acting like my age is never an issue between us.

“This level of commitment requires a much more important shake.” I smile coyly, hoping this isn’t just a spur of the moment decision and he actually means it. I grin when Arrick latches his pinkie in mine, looking completely serious, and shakes gently. Not forgetting the importance of this deal maker between us for an age of time.

“Pinkie promise is pretty much the most unbreakable bond known to man.” He smiles, that unguarded Hollywood special that he reserves for rare occasions and dazzles all the doubt left from within me away. All signs of anger dissipate between us and just two young kids, like we always were, stand in the dark making pacts. We have done this a million times before, but never with the weight of this particular promise, and never in connection to something so especially important.

“It means neither of us can break our word, on our lives, Arry.” I gaze up at him in wide-eyed trust, knowing that if he says he will make time for me, that he will help me, then he will. Arrick never makes empty promises, never just says what you want to hear. More than anything, I need help to find my way back to some sort of normal life.

“I’ll do anything to get you back to how you were, Mimmo. I’m still your best friend, I’ll always be there when you need me. I love you, kiddo.”

I close my eyes and move back into the circle of his arms, a slight tremor of hope that maybe I can get through this with a little help from the only person who ever seems to be able to find me in the dark. I sigh against him and return to that sweet familiar place that’s more healing than any amount of therapy.

“I love you more.”