Free Beauty from Surrender by Georgia Cates Page A

twists his body so he's facing me. "Would it be so hard to let me in? Would it be so terrible if you let go of all your pain and found happiness with me?"
    It's what I want—to be happy again—and sleep a whole night without seeing him in my dreams. In my sleeping fantasies, he's cradling my face with his hands and asking me if I want to try to make things work. Then I wake and my heart breaks all over again. It's a vicious cycle and as hard as I try, I can't make it stop.
    I don't say anything—because I can't—and Charlie doesn't stop pleading his case. "Those who can't forget the past are condemned to relive it. That's what's happening to you, and it has to stop. You have to let him go. It's been three months. He's in Australia and you're here. The bastard hasn't even made an attempt to call you." He reaches for my face and his thumb catches the single tear rolling down my cheek. "I want to be the calm in your storm, not the shipwreck that takes you down. That's what he is to you."
    He reaches for my face and leans over to kiss me. I let him because I'm desperate to feel anything besides this pain that consumes me night and day. It's smothering me and I die a little more each day.
    Charlie's lips are soft and his kiss is gentle. There's nothing demanding about it. Or stimulating. And it's at this moment that I'm swallowed up by the fear that I may never find a man who makes me feel the way Jack Henry did.
    The lounge door swings open and PJ breezes into the room. I jerk away, embarrassed at being caught kissing Charlie. He stops and looks surprised. "Sorry. Maybe I should've knocked but I had no idea you two were going to be lip-locked."
    "No problem. We all share this lounge. You don't have to knock." I don't know what else to say.
    He holds out a red rose for me. "You have an admirer."
    I take the rose and bring it to my nose. Being given a bouquet of flowers isn't unusual after a show but I've never been given a single rose before. It seems so intimate. "A fan, I suppose?"
    "I found this dude standing outside the door looking in here just now. I asked him who he was but he didn't say. He just told me to give you the rose and this guitar. Oh, and tell you he enjoyed the show—that you were 'fan-fucking-tastic.'" He puts the case at my feet and the world around me begins to spin way too fast.
    It's my Martin. That can only mean Jack Henry was here. Right outside that door—that cracked door—while Charlie was kissing me.
    I dash off the couch and run down the hallway, calling out for him like a maniac. "Jack Henry! Jack Henry!"
    I have no idea which way to go, but I run toward the auditorium. It's empty other than the cleaning staff, so I run toward the lobby and out to the street where I pray I'll find him standing on the sidewalk.
    It's storming and the raindrops pelting down sting as they hit my face. I reach up to push my wet hair from my eyes and that's when I see him. He's getting into a cab up the street. "Jack Henry!" I shout at the top of my lungs but he doesn't hear me. He's too far away. "Jack Henry!"
    I run toward the car screaming his name and I reach the cab as it's leaving. I slam my hand across the top of the trunk as hard as I can before watching it pull away, taking him out of my life again.
    "Nooo!" I scream so loudly, my vocal cords spasm. I drop to my knees there on the cold, wet concrete. I try to scream, and again, nothing comes out because my breath has been taken from me.
    Please, don't leave. Please, don't be gone out of my life forever.
    The cab moves for a moment but then I see the blurry, glowing red lights through the downpour against my face and heavy lens of tears covering my eyes. The cab's brake lights. The car has stopped, as have I—and then I see the back door open.
    It's my Jack Henry.
    He gets out of the cab and stands in the heavy rain looking back at me. I don't know how—because my body has turned to mush—but I'm off my knees and running toward him. I pummel him against