106: Scrapbook of Memories

Erin

     I open up one of the lower cabinets, wondering if Bryce has a mixer. I want to make a cake as an early celebration for the bar's grand re-opening tomorrow, and I don't feel like wearing myself out by mixing it with only a spoon.

     Maybe I need to go buy one. I don't even have one at my little house.

     My hands encounter what feels like a large book, tucked far back into the corner.

     "Wha?" I ask aloud. Then I awkwardly lift it. It's heavy and feels like it has too many pages for the binding with the way it bows out. Finally getting the thing out into the open where I can look at it, I see it's a scrapbook.

     "Huh," I say thoughtfully. I used to scrapbook. I had the cutest one for my engagement.

     The book has dust all over it, but I don't try to brush it off, not wanting it to get in the air and make me sneeze. Instead, I stand up and carry it to the dining room table.

     Opening it somewhere in the middle, I see pictures of Bryce, Jesse, and Pam. Whose scrapbook is this? Why was it hidden? I decide to turn back to the beginning, and my jaw drops further when I see a much younger Bryce holding a baby. His hair is past his shoulders, and he looks terrified behind his smile. Maybe I only see that because of what he's told me. He looks strange without the perpetual five o'clock shadow. At the bottom of the same page, I see a tired but happy girl holding Adele. Bryce stands crouched behind her where she sits on the bed at the hospital.

     Ashley. That's Ashley holding a newborn Adele. She looks like a train wreck. A happy train wreck, but still, with those circles under her eyes and her hair messed up. Well, she had just gone through a delivery.

     I take a deep breath and turn the page. More pictures of a baby Adele show up. She was a very pretty baby.

     A sharp breath of surprise comes into me when I see what must be Bryce and Pam's parents holding Adele. Pam looks like their mother. That the new grandparents love their granddaughter to pieces is clearly evident in the picture, and I feel my eyes tear up. I look all over the next few pages and never find a picture of Ashley's parents.

     Ashley is beautiful. She's really really pretty. Something coils up and whimpers inside me while I look at the beautiful woman with the light skin, dark hair, striking green eyes, and full lips. She's SO pretty.

     Several pictures of Bryce and Ashley together have him looking at her and her looking away. He loved her. Look at his eyes. He's tried to tell me he stopped really loving her when she said she wanted to abort Adele. I don't see that in these pictures.

    I've now reached Adele's toddler years. Bryce's hair is shorter but still longer than it is now. I see the picture that Bryce has on the dresser upstairs. Ashley must've taken it…or Pam. I come across another picture of the 'happy couple.' Bryce has his arms playfully and lovingly wrapped around Ashley's shoulders, and he looks like he's mumbling something naughty into her ear. She smiles while looking off into the distance. He looks so happy, and I can easily picture him kissing her cheek once he finishes saying whatever it was he said. At this point, the perpetual five o'clock shadow has shown up.

     I turn back some pages to get a closer look at another picture. He was so very much in love with her. It's all over the place in this book. No wonder it was forgotten about in an unused corner of the kitchen. He never got rid of it. Maybe he forgot about it. Maybe he tucked it back there on purpose because he didn't want to get rid of it but didn't want to see it.

     This whole thing is a testimony of how much he loved her. I wonder who put it together? Ashley? Pam? His mom?

     The book stops when Adele looks about four, and I decide that it must've been Ashley who put the book together.

     "Erin?" I hear and then hear the front door close.

     Bryce! I think in a panic and quickly close the book. By the time I stand up and turn around to head back towards the kitchen, Bryce rounds the corner. His eyes snap to the book on the table, and he blinks in surprise. They stay wide open as he walks up to the table.

     "I…found it," I stammer.

     "Where?" he asks in a raspy voice before he swallows.

     I tell him, and he closes his eyes. "Do you want me to put it back?" I ask, thinking about Adele.

     He doesn't answer me. Instead, he turns around and walks away. I hear him walking up the stairs. I pick up the book, still not sure if he wants Adele to see it and worried she might if I don't take it with me and follow him upstairs.

     When I open the door, I find him sitting on the bed and staring off into space. His head snaps over to me, but then he focuses his gaze on the dusty book in my hands. "Did you have to bring that up here?" he asks with exasperation.

     I explain to him how I wasn't sure if he wanted Adele to accidentally happen across it. He doesn't say anything, turning his head to look at the floor in front of him. I walk over, put the book on the bed, and sit down next to him.

     "I thought I'd thrown that thing away, not that I was really looking for it, but I thought I'd gotten rid of it," he tells me.

     "But it has pictures of your parents with Adele," I point out.

     "I have other copies of those pictures," he replies. After a few moments of silence, he says, "I thought I'd thrown it away. I remember quite clearly chucking that thing in the garbage." He glances sideways at me. "That's Ashley's scrapbook."

     "I figured that out," I say quietly.

     He wipes his face. "I'm sorry I'm freaking out about seeing that thing again. It's like being haunted by a ghost. I threw it away and got shitfaced that night."

     "Maybe you went and took it back out of the trash," I offer.

     "That's the only logical explanation."

     "Um," I say, remembering something else I saw in the book that might lighten the mood, "did Lynne and Desmond date?"

     He chuckles. "Yes. So that's how he got started being with our group of friends. I'd forgotten. When they broke up, he just kept sticking around." He looks at me with a half-smile. "She also dated Jesse for a very short time. And Jesse dated Ginger when she first got here."

     My eyes widen. "Who hasn't dated?"

     "Belinda. It's weird in comparison. Nobody's dated her." He scratches the back of his neck. "Lynne and I dated once in high school."

     "Did you date anyone else in the group?" I ask, wondering.

     "Nah. After Ashley left, I didn't want to make any lasting attachment anywhere."

     We both get quiet again.

     "You loved her very much," I state.

     "What makes you say that?" he asks with his eyebrows scrunched up.

     "The pictures. So many different, candid moments." I reach back behind me and get the book before turning to the page with the picture of him talking in her ear. "Look."

     He cautiously glances at it before standing up and saying, "Get that thing away from me." He paces for a moment before saying earnestly, "I don't love her anymore, Erin! That's gone!"

     "But you told me you'd pretty much stopped loving her when she said she wanted to abort Adele."

     "I did!" he insists and puts his hands in his hair. I put the book back on the bed, and the motion turns another page. Glancing at it, I see Jesse, with much shorter hair, with two or three different girls.

     "That's not what these pictures show," I reply simply, not wanting to really upset Bryce so much as make him see it. I turn the book back to the page with him talking in Ashley's ear.

     "Why are you doing this? Are you trying to trap me into saying something that will only hurt your feelings and start a fight?!" His breathing picks up speed.

     I decide to tell him the absolute truth. "You haven't dealt with it. You keep trying to tell yourself you didn't love her because that's easier to bear than the fact that you did."

     "I definitely don't anymore," he says quickly, probably still thinking I'm trying to trap him.

     "I know that," I say reassuringly and stand up, closing the book. "But it doesn't do any good to lie to yourself and say you didn't."

     "I hate her," he restates adamantly.

     "Now you do, but you didn't before."

     He sighs and closes his eyes. "What do you want me to say, Erin? That I loved her? That I loved her with everything I had yet it wasn't enough so she left me? That I couldn't love her enough to make her want to stay? That I ruined my marriage by working too much? That I could never get her to understand how much she meant to me?!" His arms start shaking as he battles his old demons.
     "At least that would be the truth," I answer quietly.

     "The truth?!" he asks me, and his eyes open wildly. "Yes! Yes, I loved her! I adored her! It killed me when she broke up with me once she found out she was pregnant! When we got back together, I wanted to do anything to keep that from happening again, but it did anyway! Is this what you want to hear?!"

     He stays quiet, waiting for me to answer, so I say, "I don't want to hear it, no, but I want to help you. And you've been lying to yourself." Tears form in my eyes from the anguish on his face.

     "What's the point? What's the point in thinking about all this crap? It's easier and better to ignore it."

     "No," I quietly disagree.

     "Right. Because then I'm 'lying to myself.' Erin, it was only when I started making myself forget about it that I started getting better," he tells me in a calmer way.

     "You weren't getting 'better,' Bryce. You only locked your feelings away instead."

     "So, you're saying that my feelings are locked away therefore how can I possibly love you?" he asks me.

     "Now who's baiting whom?" I ask with a touch of anger. "I know you love me; that's not the issue. What I'm talking about is everything I've heard and seen from you: little things and big like you trying to deny how much you loved her because you don't want to admit how hurt you were."

     "Little things…" he says and puts his hand over his eyes as he leans against the wall. "Little things like memories I don't want to come back up coming back up, set off by the strangest things."

     "They're coming back up because you're letting yourself feel again when before you'd shut everything off."

     "I don't want them!" he says loudly.

     "I know," I say and place a hand on his arm.

     He snatches me to him and holds me tightly, one arm wrapping around my waist and the other moving up into my hair, shaking. His breathing turns ragged as he wrestles with his past. I let him hold me, leaning into him, saying nothing.

     "Will I ever be healed, or will I carry this around with me my entire life?" he asks rhetorically.

     I answer anyway. "That's up to you, I think."

     "I don't want you to think that I don't love you. Like you once said about Sean, I love you more than I ever loved her, and because of that, I'm scared ten times more shitless."

     "Don't be," I say, but I feel a heavy burden on my shoulders. I take a deep breath and say, "But Bryce, don't do that to me. You have to be able to also stand on your own. Don't depend on me to get you out of this. I'm more than happy to help, but I'm not perfect and could let you down."

     "I'm not asking you to be perfect; I'm asking you to never leave me."

     "I have absolutely no intention of ever leaving you, Bryce, but we also don't know what the future holds."

     "Then I'll have to make sure I don't do something to make you want to," he says definitively.

     "No!" I snap, surprising both of us. "That's not the answer! That's nothing but a band-aid solution. Stand. On. Your. Own!" I tell him earnestly. I calm my voice down as I continue, "Just allow me to stand next to you while you do -- but not with you leaning on me."

     He pulls me back to him, and we stand here quietly, swaying back and forth occasionally. I listen as his heart rate calms down and his breathing becomes regular again.

     He breaks the silence. "Can I…stand with my arms wrapped around you just like this? With you having your arms wrapped around me like this?"

     I smile, adoring him for understanding my metaphor. "As long as you don't lean on me while you do it, yes. This is just fine."

     "I can't promise I can completely keep from doing that, but I'll at least put forth an effort. It's just…Erin, I love you so damn much. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. My life. All of it. And it would kill me to lose you. I can't help but say that, but I know it. It scares me."

     I take a deep breath. "What about it scares you most?"

     "The ripped-apart, empty feeling that would make my life a living hell. I never want to feel that because I've felt it to a smaller scale before, and it almost did me in."

     "Bryce…"

     "I know. I know," he interrupts me quickly. "Don't lean on you. I still want you with me." He pauses. "What do you want, Erin?"

     I close my eyes and take more deep breaths, trying to figure that out. "I'm not a hundred percent positive, but I do know that I see you in every picture. Right now, my favorite one is the two of us" Please don't overreact "married with one or two more children."

     He breathes in, pulls my head back, and passionately takes possession of my lips. I guessed he'd react like this, but what I told him is the truth. I've known that ever since I found out I wasn't pregnant. My worry is that my time scale and his don't match.

     "How far away is that?" he asks while kissing my face and neck.

     "Years?" I reply as a question, wondering what he thinks.

     "Years until children, or years until married?" he asks, and his hands start working their magic on my behind.

     "Bryce! Your hands!" I gasp.

     "Because I want you."

     I moan and say, "I can't think."

     "You told me you want us married, and I want to know how far away you're thinking," he reminds me, but his hands don't stop.

     My own breathing sounds loud in my ears as I fight for lucid thought.

     "Next year?" he prompts. He leans down to kiss my neck while my head throws itself back. "Mmm, Erin, I like that idea. I know you don't want to rush into anything, so that would give us time." I see him smile at me through little slits in my eyes. "But you're unable to answer me right now, so I guess I'll have to find out later."
     I'm dimly aware of him throwing the scrapbook across the room before he lays me down on the bed and peels off my clothing. I discover he's also naked when he turns me on my side and lifts one of my legs, bending it at the knee.

     We moan simultaneously when he enters me and starts slowly making love to me in this bizarre position.

     His hands are ever busy as they travel over me, working their spell. I've discovered Bryce is a fast learner, having embraced his ability, as he strokes me. I imagine myself seduced by a mythological creature and captured so it can satisfy its carnal desires upon my body.

     I let out a high-pitched feminine whine when he finally lets me come. He lets out a content sigh as he joins me, pressing as hard into me as his chosen position allows.

     Later, I sense him getting up, putting on some clothes, and going downstairs. I faintly hear Adele's voice. She must be home from school.

     Married by this time next year… ?

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Stock photo credits:
Pixabay:
open book: JJuni
brown/white/blue flowers background: geralt
paper dolls background: PublicDomainPictures
inside curl of wave background: Unsplash
double hearts background: Alexas_Fotos
baby footprint in the sand background: mintchipdesigns

Pictures that didn't make the cut, but I wanted to share them anyway: