“I know. I get it. Just…take the truck.”
She does. I watch her climb up into my truck, hear the engine turn over with a throaty rumble, and then she’s gone.
I go inside, after a while.
It’s all too easy to give in to the exhaustion. I don’t know what time it is, and I don’t even care. For the first time in my life, I give in to lethargy. I collapse on the couch, and even though I can’t fall asleep, I just lie there, consumed by guilt and regret and the ache of Echo leaving.
All my life, I’ve been active, restless, energetic. Up early before school to hit the gym, and then practice after school. Even off-season I was in the gym early in the morning and I’d usually run a few miles in the evening. I was never idle. Sitting around and doing nothing made me crazy, and crazy made me feel useless and lazy and made my body buzz with unused energy.
But now, there’s no more running, no more football. I could find a new therapist, but I don’t see the point. I can walk. The knee will heal.
So I just lie there and pass the hours doing…I don’t know what. I flip through channels, watch reruns and syndicated programming and sports clips. At one point, I even watch old grainy football games from the seventies and eighties on ESPN Classic.
Beyond the drawn blinds of the sliding back door, darkness fades to light, and eventually my eyes close.
* * *
When I wake up, sunlight shines bright and blinding. The TV is off. I sit up slowly, swing my feet to the floor, and scan the living room. I spot my keys on the round table that fills the space between kitchen and living room. I spot her sandals on the floor by the front door, her purse on the kitchen counter.
She’s in my bed. Her jeans, T-shirt, and bra are in a neat pile on top of the dresser, and she’s curled up on the very edge of the bed. The blanket is rumpled low over her hips, and she’s got one hand tucked under her cheek, the other under the pillow. She’s on her left side, facing the doorway, and I’m afforded a mouth-watering view of the fact that she didn’t bother putting on one of my T-shirts.
My hands curl at my sides, and I have to force myself to stay in the doorway rather than going over to the bed. I want to stare at her, want to touch her, want to kiss her. In this moment, that’s the only thing in my mind. Touch her, kiss her, slide into the bed beside her and hold her.
But I see her face, too, not just her breasts, and even in the relaxation of sleep, it’s clear she’s in pain.
I rip my gaze away, move to the bedside and draw the blanket up over her shoulders, more to cover her from my greedy gaze than anything else. But when the blanket touches her shoulder, she makes a cute little noise in the back of her throat, twists on the bed to face the other way, tucking the blanket more tightly around her, her feet shifting under the covers as she seeks a new position.
Her eyelids flutter, and I catch a slivered glimpse of her eyes. “Ben.”
I tug the blanket higher around her. “Sssshhhh.”
“I’m in your bed.”
“It’s fine. Go to sleep.”
“’Kay.” Her eyes flicker and flutter, and then her thick black lashes sweep against her cheek and she’s asleep again, her breathing immediately going deep and even.
I leave her sleeping and hop in the shower, let the scorching hot water ease the knots in my shoulders.
When I leave the bathroom, a towel cinched around my hips, I find her fully awake, lying on her back with the blanket tucked under her arms, scrolling through her newsfeed on Facebook. As I emerge, dripping and hair mussed, she clicks her phone off and sets it aside, her eyes going to me.
“Hi,” I say, moving past the foot of the bed toward my dresser, trying to act casual. Being essentially naked in a room with an essentially naked girl is anything but familiar to me.
She just stares at me, and I can tell she’s hunting for words. “Ben…I drove around for a long, long time, thinking. And…I realized something.”
I glance at her, a pair of underwear gripped in my hand. “What’s that?”
“You think it’s your fault.”
“It is.”
“No, it isn’t, Ben. It’s not. She was an adult. She made her decision. You expressed your concern, you offered to let her stay.”
“I should have insisted. I should have…I don’t know. Made her stay. She had no business driving.”
She sits up higher, bringing the blanket with her. “Ben, she knew the risks. She was an ER nurse for ten years. She handled her share of patients injured in accidents just like hers. It’s not your fault. She made the choice to drive, not you. What else could you have done, physically prevented her from leaving?”
“But if it weren’t for me, she wouldn’t have even been here.”
Her gaze finally wavers, flits away from mine. “That’s the part I’m still having trouble with.” She touches the bed at her side. “Come sit.”
“I’m not dressed,” I protest.
“Me neither.”
So I perch on the edge of the bed and swing my legs up, crossing my legs at the ankles and keeping the towel pinched between my knees.
Echo smirks and then slides over closer to me. “Modest, huh?”
I shrug, blushing. “I guess.”
“It’s cute. It’s not like you haven’t seen me in all my nearly-naked glory already.”
I just shrug again and she sighs. “I just don’t know what to think, Ben. I really don’t. It’s so hard for me to reconcile the idea of you kissing my mom with the fact that she was my mom. I mean, I get that she’s…that she was a beautiful woman. Intellectually, I get that. But she was my mother. But I also know she was…lonely. I guess I’m only realizing that now, thinking about how something like that could happen. I mean, I know Mom, and I know she’s not…I know she wasn’t a cougar. She had class and standards, you know?”
“Wow. Okay.” I can’t help the sarcastic tone.
Echo groans. “God, that came out really judgmental, didn’t it? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just that she was twenty years older than you. Twenty years, Ben. That’s a significant age difference. It’s an entire generation, literally. But like I said, I’m trying to figure out, just for my own understanding, how she would even let herself get into a situation like that. And I realized, like I said, that she was lonely. I never knew my father, and I have no memory of my mom ever going on a date. Not one. Not in my entire life. She was dedicated to me and to work. I mean, maybe she went on dates or whatever while I was at school? I don’t know. Somehow I don’t think so. And I guess that makes me sad, I mean…everybody wants love, and…and sex, right?” She winces. “It’s even harder for me to think about my mom in that context, but she was a woman, and she had to have those needs, right? So for whatever reason she let her guard down with you. I don’t know. I mean, god, I get it. You’re a great guy. You’re easy to talk to, easy to be around, and shit, I’ll be honest…you’re hot as hell. But there just…there had to have been someone more age-appropriate at some point, right?”