A Chance at Love (11 page)

“That was perfect,” she said.

“I agree,” I replied and leaned in to kiss her again.

We kissed for a while before lying back down on our backs. As we laid there, she said, “Someday I want flowers. Daisies. And they have to smell
really
good.”

I smiled. “Okay.”

We talked a while longer, and it felt like only ten minutes had passed when my alarm went off on my phone, letting me know it was time to take Emily home. I laughed a little.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

I smiled and leaned on my side after I silenced the alarm. Bringing my hand up to her face, I pushed a loose strand of hair back behind her ear as I took in the smell of her hair once more. “It’s funny how fast time can go by when you want it to last forever, but the last hour of work can feel like an eternity.”

She laughed and nodded. “So true.”

Helping Emily down from the roof, we got in and left. As we were driving down the hillside, Emily’s hand found mine, and a sense of well-being coursed through my body. Holding hands on the way down from The Abby, I felt myself get caught up with the moment.

Pop!

The driver’s side tire suddenly blew out, sending the car flying off the road. We both screamed, and then everything went dark.

O
pening my eyes, I took a few seconds to look around. The door ajar alert on the car door was going off and the headlights were reflecting off the snow-covered rocks that were sticking out of the hillside. We had slid off the road and into the ditch that hugged the hillside. Composing myself, I looked over to Emily to see how she was. My heart jumped a beat as I saw red streaks of blood running down the side of her head.

“Emily!” I shouted as I ripped my seatbelt off and leaped over the armrest to get to her. Worry overtook me as I tapped her cheeks with a hand to get her alert. “Come on!” I shouted. “Emily!”

Her eyebrows furrowed and her eyes opened to reveal those beautiful emerald gems. I fell backward into my seat with a heavy sigh of relief.

“Kyle? Are you okay?” she asked, taking off her seatbelt and moving her head back and forth. Her hand found the blood on the side of her head and she began to weep. “Kyle?”

“Yeah, I’m good. You okay?”

“I’m okay too. Come to me. Please?” She outstretched a hand for me and I moved over toward her, meeting her hand at the armrest. I pulled her in close to my chest and wrapped my arms around her. “We’re okay. I’m here.”

“What time is it?” she asked, lifting her head from my shoulder.

Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out my phone and checked the time. “It’s nine-thirty.”

“My parents are going to flip! I was supposed to be home at nine! I’m going to be in so much trouble, and they won’t let us date, and then you won’t like me anymore because we can’t hang out, and then—”

“Calm down,” I said, cupping her face. “They’ll be understanding, and if they’re not, we’ll figure it out. I’m not just going to settle for not being with you.”

“Maybe they’ll be fine! Let’s call them,” she said nervously.

“We can’t . . .”

“What? Why?” Emily began to panic more.

“No service. It cuts out near the bottom of the hill and comes back once you reach the top of The Abbey.”

She began to sob as she fell back into her seat. Sniffling, she said, “What are we going to do?”

“We have to walk down the rest of the way and then call a tow truck.” Looking over my seat into the back, I said, “I have some blankets. You can stay here and keep warm.”

“I want to stay with you.”

I smiled and brought my hand over to hers. Grasping it, I said, “I want you by my side too. Let’s start down the path.”

We got out and began to walk down the path. The coldness nipped at my toes as the snow crunched beneath our shoes in the otherwise quiet wilderness.

“Lots of pine trees,” Emily said, breaking the silence.

“What?” I looked over to see that the trees we just passed were indeed snow covered pine trees. “How’d you know that?”

She smiled. “Everything makes a sound; you just have to be willing to listen.”

Her perspective was so beautiful. I stopped and listened as I closed my eyes. A breeze pushed through, and I could hear the trees in the distance. Taking her by the hand, I pulled her in close and began to dance with her.

“What are you doing?” she laughed as she went along with me.

“We’re dancing!” I replied.

“We must get down there! My parents!”

“Let’s just enjoy this moment.”

We twirled and danced in the moonlight. She rested her head against my shoulder and I rested mine against the side of her head. It was like a dream as I held her in my arms. If it was possible to never let go, I would have done it. But soon enough, it was time to release from each other and continue down the path. As I took her hand in mine, I smiled. This girl felt like the one. She was everything I ever wanted.

Glancing at my screen as we arrived to the bottom of the hill, I saw the bar of service come through. “Should be able to call them now.”

She nodded and pulled her phone out. Watching with curiosity, I saw her press and hold a speed dial for them.

As it rang, she said, “They’re going to be so mad, Kyle . . .”

I rubbed her shoulder and said, “It was out of our control. I’m sure it’ll be fine. I’m going to call a tow.”

Turning, I stepped away and called a tow company.

When I came back over to Emily, I found her crying. Hurrying up to her, I placed a hand on the arm of her coat and asked, “What is it?”

Sobbing, she said, “They’re mad.” She brought her hands up to her head and ran her fingers through her hair. “This sucks! Ugh!”

“What’d they say?”

“They had already called the police.”

My eyebrows shot up. “Seems a bit overprotective.”

“Story of my life,” she replied. “My mother is on her way out here to get me.”

I clenched my jaw. I had a bad feeling about the situation at hand. “I’ll talk to her when she gets here,” I said, and I wrapped my arms around Emily. She was still crying, and I brought a hand up to brush away her tears. “No matter what, I’m not going to give up on being with you. I don’t care if they don’t want us dating. You’re an adult, and we’ll figure this out.”

She sniffed. “Okay.” She seemed to calm down some and said, “I don’t think my mom is going to do much talking.”

“We’ll see.”

Off in the distance down the country road, I could see a pair of headlights whipping around the corners, heading our direction. “Bet that’s her.”

“Sounds like her van.” Emily pulled away from me and began to wipe her eyes and push her hair out of her face.

I grabbed her hand and pulled her close to me. Bringing my hand up to her cheek, I kissed her.

The van whipped around the corner and pulled off onto the side where we were standing.

I hugged Emily and took in the smell of her hair.

Leaping from the van’s driver side door, Patricia shouted, “Get in the car, Emily!”

Raising my hands as I released Emily, I took a step back. “Whoa.”

“Don’t you
whoa
me!” she snapped back at me.

Looking up the path behind me that led up the hill; I looked back to Patricia and said, “You know we were just up there, right? We didn’t do anything wrong. My tire just popped. We were in a wreck. You should be glad we are both okay.”

“Why’d you take her up there, Kyle?” She lowered an eyebrow as she gave me a suspicious look.

“It’s my favorite spot to just think and relax.”

“Mmmhmm . . . and take advantage of girls. Don’t try to play me for a fool! I grew up in Spokane. I know all about The Abby.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I want your parents’ number. Hopefully they have a shred of morals compared to you, young man.”

“I’m nineteen. They don’t care what I do. I mean they care, but they wouldn’t think anything wrong with what happened here.”

She laughed and nodded. “Makes sense.” She turned and went back to her van. I began to panic as I looked over at Emily. She sat crying in the passenger seat of the van. She looked like a prisoner being hauled back to jail.

“Hey!” I shouted.

Patricia stopped as she opened the van door and looked over at me.

“She’s eighteen years old . . . you’ve gotta let her live her life at some point.”

“You’re a child and have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. You’ve known her for what? An hour?”

“I’ve been talking to her for quite a while longer. You even know that.”

“I meant spending time with her. She’s blind, Kyle. She needs taken care of . . . it’s been a struggle for eighteen years. You have no idea the life we have and the struggles and heartache it took to get to this point.” She climbed into the van and slammed her door shut.

As she pulled around in the gravel just off the road, I saw one more glimpse of Emily. Her eyes were watering and she looked sad. As I watched the taillights leave down the country road that night, I thought about what Patricia had said. I knew she was wrong about Emily. She was capable of having a life, and I prayed as I waited for my tow that Emily knew it.

Not getting home until about eleven, I quietly shut the front door and headed toward my room at the end of the hallway. Passing by my sister’s room, I could hear a faint cry from the other side of the door. Hesitating for a moment as my body cried out in exhaustion, I ignored my own desires and knocked anyway.

The crying stopped, and I could hear footsteps shuffle across the carpet. She cracked it open just enough to talk and said in broken voice, “What do you want?”

“You okay?” I asked, trying to see in.

She opened the door and let her arm drop to her side as she walked back over to her bed. “No!” she cried as she let her body collapse into the pillows and comforter on her bed.

“What happened?” I asked, stepping inside the room and shutting the door.

She lifted her eyes from the pillows and turned on her side to look at me. Wiping her eyes of tears, she shook her head and sniffled. “Tony dumped me! And to make things worse, he told me that the only reason he was with me was because he thought I’d be easy!” She dropped her face back into the pillows and began sobbing again.

My heart broke for my sister, and I came over to the edge of the bed and sat beside her. Placing my hand on her shoulder as she lay on the bed, I said, “I’m glad you did the right thing.”

She started crying harder and then lifted her face without looking at me and said, “But I didn’t.” Then she let out another wail, diving straight back into the pillows.

My blood felt as if it were gasoline and someone had just tossed a match on it. This guy took my sister’s innocence and then tossed her out like fast food. I stayed silent to collect myself before speaking. “I don’t understand why he left you if you . . .”

She sat up. “I told him it was a mistake and I didn’t want to do it again.”

Rubbing my temples in anguish as I leaned over the bed, I shook my head in confusion and said, “You weren’t going to do this, Joanie. You just told me that the other day.”

“I just got caught up in the moment and—”

“I don’t want to talk about it. Please, stop. You’re my sister. It’s already strange enough that we are close as we are.” I stood up and raised my hand to my forehead as I paced her room. “I’m going to kill him. That’s all there is to it, Joanie!”

A smile broke from Joanie’s face. “You’re not going to kill him, Kyle. You, the one who loves puppies and the smells of Bath and Body Works in the mall? You couldn’t even hurt a fly if you wanted to.”

“Hey! Those things don’t matter,” I said, stopping and looking at her with all seriousness as I could feel my adrenaline pumping through me.

“Okay. Whatever. You’re not going to do anything to him. It’s sweet, but it’s not happening.”

Taking a moment to breathe, I realized she was right. I wasn’t. Walking over to the bed, I sat down beside her and sighed. “It just sucks.”

“Yeah . . . hey. You got home awfully late from seeing Emily. How’d that go?”

I pressed my lips tightly together, forming a thin line as flashes of her mother, Patricia, hollering at me flashed through my mind. “Not good.”

Joanie leaned into my face. “Care to elaborate, brother?”

I sat a little straighter and shooed her away from my face. “I’m not going to be able to see Emily again. Not very easily, anyway. There’s no way her parents will let me. My tire popped, and the car slid off the road on the way down from The Abby, and—”

“Oh my goodness. Really?” She looked me over and saw my ear that had been cut. “That explains the cut on your ear.”

“Yeah. We obviously didn’t go over the cliff side of the road, thank goodness, but we were knocked out for a few minutes after the impact. Her mom showed up after we got ahold of her and just went nuts.”

“Wait. It wasn’t your fault. Why would you two get punished for it?”

“Her parents are a little overprotective.”

Joanie nodded. “Can’t blame 'em.”

“Yeah.” I strained to keep my eyes open as a silence filled Joanie’s room. Yawning, I said, “I’d better turn in for the night. Getting late.”

“Me too.” She leaned over and hugged me. “Thanks for the talk, and I’m sorry about Emily.”