I Always Will

Unable to Let Go

Paul found himself sitting in the living room of his house that evening, staring blankly at the TV. A game was on, but he couldn't recall the sport or teams. His conversation with Jared had been playing over and over in his head since he had left the diner, but now he didn't have work to distract him.

Sighing heavily, he stood and walked to the kitchen and pulled out a beer from the fridge. After opening it and taking a long drink, he looked over to his laptop sitting on the coffee table. He used to keep it in the office at the back of the house where Rachel worked, but for obvious reasons, he kept that door shut tight. He hadn't stepped foot in it for a long time and it remained just as it had since before she died.

But right now, his thoughts were turning to Briony for some reason. He could feel the guilt of not keeping in touch start to sift into his heart. After all the promises they had made to each other. He had forgotten all of them and assumed she must be doing well. It wasn't as though Briony had contacted him much in all those years either.

He walked over and sat on the couch, opening the laptop and going to Google. He quickly typed in her name and was surprised to find not a lot there. Just a few links to stories for some literary magazine at the University of Southern California. It seemed she had kept up with writing, for a time at least. Finally got over her fear of letting anyone but him read it.

Right. Of course, she would. He had to remind himself that she had lived an entire life without him and La Push. Obviously a good one if she had married an actor and never came back.

A small tinge of jealousy ran through him for a moment. He wondered if her husband had been waiting at the cabin for her or if he was off somewhere else. Paul did hope that it was a good one - if anyone deserved a good life, it was Briony. But then, she hadn't looked all that happy on the beach. Maybe it wasn't good and that's why she was back.

Paul shook his head, not waiting to go down that route.

Instead, he remembered the ragged notebook that she was always carrying around with her and jotting ideas in. They would often hang out on the beach and she was always writing something, he now recalled, long buried memories of her finally coming back. He made a mental note to go back and read the stories he found on the website.

He then found a link to a Facebook page and clicked on it, finding it was private. But the profile photo was a picture of her and some guy. He figured it must be her husband. The more he studied it, the more he started to recognize him. Hadn't he been in some action flick he liked?

Recalling the name of it, Paul quickly searched it and found the name of the actor - Brandon Peters. Another search of him had his heart sinking.

Shit.

Actor Brandon Peters dead at 27

(Los Angeles) After a nearly year-long battle with brain cancer, actor Brandon Peters died on Dec. 7, at the age of 27, surrounded by friends and family... he leaves behind his parents - film director Jude Peters and famed actress Bridget Laurens - as well as his wife...

Paul sat back on the couch, rubbing his face and unable to read more. He then leaned forward and scrolled down, not reading, but seeing many photos of Briony with him. They looked happy. In every one, they were either smiling at the camera or at each other. The look was familiar. It was how he had looked at Rachel. He had tons of photos that were much the same, all of them now littering the spare bedroom. In one night of slightly drunken rage, he had torn all of them down from the walls and their bedroom, putting them in the room thinking it would help him forget she was gone. But it hadn't.

Suddenly, Briony's demeanor on the beach made sense.

She had come back because her husband had died.

Taking a deep breath, Paul started going through more articles - all of them detailing the fact that Brandon had gone through a long, arduous journey with cancer. Christ. It was bad enough having to lose Rachel so suddenly. He couldn't imagine what it must have been like for Briony to spend a year watching her husband die.