My Heart Is Yours

It was around eight when Wednesday put Lily to bed. I was dreading leaving Tallahassee tomorrow morning and not being able to spend all the time in the world with my daughter. Or Wednesday, for that matter. We sat on the same couch a half hour after Lily had gone to sleep. My arm was draped lazily around the back of the couch, nonchalantly wrapped around her. Kind of. I wasn’t really touching her or anything like that, but still. You get the point, yeah? Sweet…

We sat in silence, myself watching Wendy as she sat next to me with her arms folded in her lap and her knees pulled up to her chest. Oh how I wanted to wrap my arms around her and just hold her for the rest of forever. But she seemed so…distant. I didn’t want to fuck anything up anymore than I already had…

“Max, you should probably get back to your bus…” she told me, finally looking up at me. I sighed and leaned toward her, bringing my arm tighter around her shoulders. She tensed a bit, watching me warily.

“I really don’t want to go, though… How am I supposed to leave you two here while I tour and then go back to Vegas?” I asked her, she sighed and turned away from me, staring into her lap again.

“Max, Lily and I have been fine for the last five and a half years. We don’t…you have a responsibility to your band, I understand that…” I sighed at that, frowning down at her. “And besides, if you stayed you’d only be setting yourself up for hurting…trust me. Things were better when you didn’t know about us…”

“No, they weren’t,” I defended, confused as to why she was so suddenly pushing me away. She’d been perfectly fine with me spending the day with her and our daughter getting to know Lily? But now that it was night, I had to leave and never come back or something? That was not fucking cool and that kinda pissed me off in a way. But was there something that was prompting her to do such a thing? There could be… “At least not for me…”

“Max, just trust me on this one. I can’t…” she paused and I saw tears start to trickle down her cheeks. She sighed and wiped angrily at them, frowning up at me. God…those lips of hers were just way too tempting to resist right now… Swallowing my nerves, I leaned forward as she closed her eyes to keep anymore tears from leaking out. Before she could speak again, I had her lips against mine and my arms wrapped tight around her.

She tensed, relaxed, kissed back for a few seconds, and then tensed again. Her hands found their way to my chest and she pushed me forcibly back. I fell back onto the couch, sighing as I tried to get my heart to slow down.

“Not fucking cool, Maxwell,” she hissed at me. She was now standing over me with her hands on her hips and glaring down at me. So…was she not in the same kiss that I was just in? Because there were a lot of fucking fireworks and all that other feminine descriptive shit going on…

“Wendy, I’m sorry but I…”

“Save it, Max.” I thought I saw tears start to show up in her eyes all over again. Great. I was a dick for making her cry… “You should leave. I can’t…” Her hands clenched into fists at her side, and her eyes closed tight again. I sat up and sighed. Again, leaving was not something I looked forward to. “I have…Max, I have a boyfriend, now.” With those five words, my entire world just crashed around me. Crashed and shattered. There went having a chance with Wendy or being able to have a family with her. Like everything should be right now had I not gone and fucked everything up. Fuck. “I’m sorry,” she said, watching me earnestly as I stood and looked down at her.

This could not be happening right now…

“I…” I couldn’t even form words right now. I sighed and ran my hands through my hair, tugging at the ends of it and trying to sort out through everything right now. I was trying hard not to yell or get angry with her…

How the hell could she have Craig tell me to come over today, have me meet my daughter, give me false hope for a chance of a family before pulling it just as quickly out from under me as it had appeared. So she had a boyfriend…it figured, with my horrid luck. I should have figured that, though. That she’d move on was always that itching and taunting thought at the back of my head. Only turns out that it was true… Wendy had moved on. And there I was, fucking random sluts just to try to get her out of my head. Great. I was an idiot…

“Max, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to lead you on or hurt you…” Wendy told me, looking up at me with watery eyes and a worried expression. “I do still want you in Lily’s life…she’d never forgive me if I only let you around her for one day of her life and never let her see you again…” I still had no idea what to say, so I just nodded and sighed. She sighed and wiped at her eyes before wrapping her arms around herself.

“You should go, Max…I ‘m sorry, I shouldn’t have ever had you come here…” she told me before turning away from me, leaving me standing slightly confused behind her. I sighed and ran my hands through my hair again.

“I’m glad you did, Wendy. Don’t blame yourself. We have a day off next week…can I come see her?” I asked, trying to make it seem like I wasn’t completely destroyed and standing on a very thin piece of land. I stared down at the carpet beneath my feet, trying to keep back a flurry of emotions so that I wouldn’t freak Wednesday out or anything like that… She nodded at my question, still keeping her back turned to me.

“Call me before you do and we can work something out. Craig’s got my number…” I sighed as I fought the desperate urge to pull her into my chest and hug her and never let go. The last time that I followed on an urge, I’d ended up having my world shattered. There was no way in hell that I was going to let that happen again…

“Do you love him?” I asked. It was an answer that I needed to a question that I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t want to have to hear from her that she had moved on. I didn’t want to hear period that she had moved on. It was not something that I had ever wanted to face… Something I refused to consider.

She was silent for a few minutes before uttering the one word that I was dreading more than anything. “Yes.”

Again, I felt my world crash around me. I stepped back, frowning and feeling confused. How could she do this to me? How could I let myself expect her not to move on?

“Are you sure?”

“Max! Yes, I am sure. I’m sorry, but I…I’m not in love with you anymore. I’m sorry. Get over me. Forget about me. Trust me, it’s easier this way…” I sighed and shook my head. I didn’t want to believe that. I couldn’t believe that. But there was something that told me that I was going to have to. Because I could never have her anymore after this. And that was what was really killing me right now…

“Wendy, I love you. You aren’t easy to forget, remember that.”

“Good bye, Max…” she said. Damn, she really did not want me around her right now, did she? She didn’t want me to try to prove myself to her…

“Bye, Wendy…”