Lucky Catch by Deborah Coonts

believe him. “You told me you loved me, then you told me you didn’t. One had to be a lie. Which one?”
    “When I said them, I thought they were true.”
    I picked up my fork and poked at the raw fish. If he had a point, I didn’t want to hear it. I chewed on my lip as I thought about how far I really wanted to go with this.
    Teddie waited. He knew me so very well. I’d have to be more careful before I gave a man that kind of advantage again. A little cynicism for self-preservation purposes seemed highly advisable.
    Decision made, I set the fork back on the table, carefully aligning it with the edge of the tray before I looked at Teddie. “Do you know what a broken heart feels like?” When he opened his mouth to speak, I silenced him with a shake of my head. “Let me tell you.” Memories flooded through me as I opened myself, tore down the walls I’d hidden my heart behind. Every fiber of my soul vibrated under the assault. “First, you can’t believe it’s real, you go completely numb. You know your life is shattering—you can feel the shards as they rip through you—but you can’t process it. You can’t believe it’s happening. Your heart dies.” I swallowed hard, fighting the tears that, since Teddie had left, had taken up permanent residence behind my eyes, waiting to burst forth at the first hint of weakness.
    Teddie reached a hand across the table. “Lucky . . .”
    Before he touched me, I jerked my hand out of harm’s way. “Don’t.” I crossed my arms, telegraphing my vulnerability, but I didn’t care. I needed to do this, and he needed to hear it.
    “Unable to feel, your brain takes over. Maybe it plays old tapes, maybe logic kicks in, I don’t know. But reacting is rote.” I paused, reading his expression. For a moment, I thought I saw my pain reflected there. “Remember after you told me you didn’t love me, I took you to my office and cleaned you up—you’d had that horrible fight with your father?”
    His eyebrows snapped into a frown. He remembered.
    “Then I insisted on taking you to the plane and watching you go.” I drew a ragged breath. “I don’t even remember exactly what I did after that. I drove, I know that. But for how long or where I went . . .” I shrugged. “I do remember my father found me at that special place you and I used to go near Red Rock, but the rest of it is gone. If only it had stayed that way.” I looked at him and tried for a sardonic grin. I don’t know if I succeeded—his face remained stoic, passive, yet I could see the raw edges of pain, which made me feel a bit better. “Reality, it sorta sucks, you know?”
    “It doesn’t have to.”
    “No, and it really doesn’t anymore. It sure did, though.” I felt like picking up my knife, but I resisted—holding a sharp object in my hand at this juncture seemed a bit unwise. “You know what the worst part was?”
    Teddie didn’t say anything—he knew a rhetorical question when he heard one, he always had. I liked that about him, still did . . . despite my best efforts.
    “I had to go home. I had to sleep in the bed we had made love in the night before.”
    “One last fuck before I left, I remember.” Hurt resonated in his voice. “I didn’t intend it to be that way.”
    I could tell he meant it, but that didn’t lessen the betrayal. “But the sleeping part wasn’t the worst part—I could take pills that made me sleep the sleep of the dead, no dreams, no memories. No, sleep was a welcome escape, but the waking up part?” I let out a ragged breath. There were no words to describe the pain, or if there were, I couldn’t summon them. “Oh, yeah, the waking up part. First, just as you’re shrugging off sleep, you remember the happiness, the unmitigated joy of the life you thought you had, the love you thought you shared, which brightened every moment, every thought. The warm blanket of joy, wrapping us both in the ecstasy of the present and the promise of the future. Then, you open