If Only We (22 page)

“I suppose it’s part of growing up, unfortunately. Why?”

She picks at her fingernails. “You remember Mindy and Jaclyn, those girls that were taking the riding lessons with me and Paige?” I nod. “Well, they’re part of the popular crowd at school. When Paige and I started hanging out with them, I thought it was cool. Then Paige started to change. She spent all her time with them and barely any with me all summer. Then school started and Paige stopped meeting up with me between classes. Any time I'd talk to her, she was in a rush to get to class and couldn’t talk. Today after last period, I go up to her, Mindy, and Jaclyn in the hallway. Paige just looks at me, like she doesn’t know why I’m standing there, and says, ‘What do you want?’ I say, ‘I wanted to say hi.’ She says, ‘Why?’ I say, ‘Because you’re my best friend.’ Then she laughs.” She sniffles and wipes her nose. “And then she says, ‘Like I would be best friends with you.’ Then they’re all laughing.” She starts to cry again.

I reach out and she puts her arms around me. “I’m sorry,” I whisper into her hair.

“Why are you sorry? You didn’t do anything.”

“I’m sorry that you had to go through something like that. You know what?” I pull back and look her in the eye. “People like Paige don’t deserve to have you as a friend, and you deserve much better than someone like Paige, or Mindy, or Jaclyn. Just because somebody isn't popular doesn’t make them worthless. I’m not popular,” I say, pointing to myself, “and I turned out just fine. I think.” Kaitlin giggles. “Would you look at that. I got you to laugh.” I take her hand in mine. “Trust me. You will make friends that are much better than Paige ever was before she changed. And no matter what, you’ll always have me.” I smile.

She smiles back. “Thanks, Adrienne,” she says, giving me a hug.

~*~

I go back downstairs to the kitchen and find my mom is still sitting at the table. I go to the cupboard and open it up. “Do you need some help with dinner?”

She shakes her head. “No. I’m just going to cook a frozen dinner tonight.”

“Okay,” I say, turning to leave.

“Wait, Adrienne,” she says, standing up. She hesitates, pressing her lips together. “I’m sorry,” she finally says.

I blink a few times. What did she just say? “Huh?”

“I’m sorry. Sorry for how mean I have been lately. I just…ever since I was a little girl I couldn’t wait to have a girl of my own so that she could be a nurse with me. I couldn’t imagine not having that happen. When I found out you didn’t want it, I was upset. At first I was upset about the nursing aspect, but I stayed upset because I was worried for your future.” She sighs. “If I hadn’t been so pushy with my own agenda, you could have pursued the things you enjoyed. I feel like I held you back. Then you wouldn’t be in a time crunch trying to figure out what you want to do. So, I’m also sorry for never giving you the chance to make any decisions on your own.”

I shake my head. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I should have spoken up sooner about how I felt. And I definitely never should have lied about quitting. I should have told you right away. I just didn’t want to disappoint you.”

“Honey,” she says, stepping forward to touch the side of my face, “you could never disappoint me. I am so proud of you, more than you could imagine.” She sighs. “I have a confession.”

“What?”

“I was standing outside the door when you were talking to Kaitlin.” My jaw must have dropped because my mom quickly says, “It wasn’t my intent to eavesdrop, I was just worried for her and wanted to make sure she was okay. When I heard the way you spoke to her, it made me realize how mature you are.” She leans back against the counter. “It shows me the effort you’ve made to make Kaitlin feel like she’s part of the family.” She starts to chuckle. “Especially with your sneaky paint switch.”

My eyes widen. “Oh right. That was kind of out of line.”

“Maybe it was but it sure made a difference, don’t you think? I like to have things just so, but sometimes there's room for some change. It’s not easy though.” She says this with a frown.

“I know. But I promise you that I won't throw away my future.”

“There are a lot of possibilities out there. You’ll find one that suits you.” She smiles. “This whole thing makes me see how much you’ve grown up. It makes me proud that I was able to raise such a wonderful young woman.”

Tears involuntarily well up in my eyes. “I love you, Mom.”

She envelops me in a tight hug and kisses the side of my head. “I love you, too.” She pulls back and wipes my tears away. “And I have to say, Chevy is lucky to have you in his life.” I shyly look down. She tilts my chin up. “You love him, don’t you?” I nod. “He’s a nice young man.”

I smile and bite my lip. “Yeah, he is.”

And I definitely do not want to lose him again.

Chapter Forty-two

Friday evening, September 7
^th

I walk slowly to his door. Halfway up the sidewalk I nearly want to turn around to make a run for it. But running wouldn't change anything. And if I have learned anything this week, it's that change is possible if you put yourself out there.

Even though there are no guarantees.

I pause to take a deep breath, and knock. While I wait for an answer, I take in the surroundings. Everything is exactly as it was a month ago, yet it feels different. I expect to see Noreen but it's Chevy that answers the door. His eyes are wide when he sees it's me.

We stare for a few seconds. I finally say, “Hi.”

“Hi,” he says hesitantly.

That hesitation makes me nervous. So I blurt out, “First off, I’m sorry for avoiding you all week. There’s no sensible excuse for it but there is a reason. And I would be grateful if you would give me a chance to explain.”

He closes his eyes and suddenly chuckles. “As angry as I should be, I just find your little speech too cute to say no to.”

I let out a breath. “Thank you.” I pause. “Do you think we could go somewhere else? Like walk to the park or something?”

He nods. “Sure.” He closes the door and follows me down the sidewalk. “So,” he says. “I am ready when you are.”

“Okay,” I say and let out a huge breath. “Here goes…what happened on Monday between us…”

“Our kiss…” he adds.

“Yes, our kiss. I don’t regret it. In fact, I never want to regret it.”

“But…”

“What?” I look at him.

He turns to me and says, “But…there’s always a ‘but.’ There has to be, otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.” He raises his eyebrows and gives me a slight smirk.

I shake my head. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“So, what is it?”

“I don’t regret the kiss, but I can’t help but wonder what could have been.”

“Could have been…?”

“Like…if things were different, would this still be what it is? Or is it just in my imagination?”

“I’m not following…”

Of course he's not—I’m not making sense. Maybe I should try another way. “Can I ask you something?”

“Certainly.”

“And I want you to be completely honest, no matter what, okay?”

“I promise.”

Taking a deep breath, I ask, “If I would have asked you out at graduation, how would you have reacted?”

“Wait,” he says, touching my arm to stop me. “You were going to ask me out?”
Going
to ask him out…more like
did
…and then didn’t.

I nod, turning away from his gaze. He lets out a breath. He knows how he would have reacted. I brace myself since I already know the answer.

“I probably would have said something to the effect of ‘Let’s be friends.’”

I stay silent a moment. “That's what I thought.” I continue walking.

“Adrienne,” he calls out as he jogs to catch up to me. “You already know I would have only been doing that to protect myself. I was afraid if I were to get into a relationship with you back then, there was a chance it could end in heartache.”

“What makes you think it would end in heartache?”

“Because…” He runs his fingers through his hair. “Because when you finally have something you’ve always wanted, you have something to lose.”

“What do you mean?”

“Remember when I told you how it felt safer to not get into a serious relationship?”

“I remember.”

“Well, before I transferred to Hamilton, I was dating this girl, Lola. We had been dating for four months when she decided out of nowhere to dump me. I was devastated to say the least. I liked her a lot and I could see potential for a long-term relationship. To have it vanish like that,” he snaps his fingers, “was more than my sixteen-year-old heart could bear. It was fortunate that my family moved right after. Not only because it meant getting away from where she was, but also because of you.”

“Because of me? Wait,” I say, holding out my hand. “So, you
did
like me back then?”

He laughs. “Adrienne, I’ve liked you since the moment I laid eyes on you. I always looked forward to seeing you and talking to you. Whenever I couldn’t be around you, it sucked. I wanted to be with you all the time, yet I was afraid to be heartbroken again by someone I cared so deeply about. Hence, the meaningless relationships that led nowhere. Then you made that comment about how you need to make the choice to either say nothing or speak up. Take a risk.” He lets out a long breath. “This summer, after everything that has happened, you have been there for me in ways I never imagined a person could be. I knew that you cared about me the way I did about you. It didn’t seem like such a risk once I knew.”

“That’s why you kissed me, because it didn’t feel like a risk?”

“No. I kissed you because you saved my life.”

I stop, taken aback. “What?”

He looks down at his feet. “That day at the cemetery…you saved my life.”

“How?”

“Do you remember when we found the bottle of vodka in my dad’s office?” I nod. He closes his eyes and says, “My mom handed it off to me to pour down the sink. I intended to do so but, for some reason, I was possessed to keep it. I hid it in my room…and I had it in my jacket pocket when you came. I wanted so much to just take it out and drink it all. Numb the pain. Ease the ache.”

My heart drops into my stomach and encases me in a suspended state. If he had the vodka in his pocket that day…when he told me to leave…and I left…when he was giving up…what else was there for him to do…but to…

He says softly, “Then you came. All I could see was us. You make me feel alive. I wanted to let go of that pain, that ache, and move on…with you in my life.”

I can barely breathe at his admission. Everything I thought I knew, I didn’t. Everything I thought I could see, I couldn’t. Everything I thought was the reason was never the reason. Things were not falling apart because I asked him for something more.

It was because I ran away.

I have been wasting all this time questioning his feelings. If I meant that much to him, why would he turn me down? The question I should have been asking…

If he meant that much to me, why did I run away?

“Adrienne?” Chevy’s voice breaks me out of my trance. I look up at him. “Why does it matter what I would have said then? Just because I might not have accepted at that moment doesn’t mean I’m not accepting right now.” He carefully brushes my cheek with his fingers. He murmurs, “Do you doubt my affection for you?”

I feel a thrill at the wording in his question and shiver. “No,” I whisper. “I don’t.”

“Then, why did you avoid me?”

I look down and bite my lip. “Everything else in my life was going wrong—everything—and then
we
happened and I…well, I panicked. If the rest of my life was falling apart…I was afraid that we would fall apart and I would be left with nothing.”

He reaches for my hand. “Whatever happened to taking a risk?” I stare at his hand in mine, and then back into his eyes. “Do you think it was easy for me to take the risk?” I shake my head no. “Then why does it matter?”

He wants a real answer—an honest answer. I let out a sigh. “Maybe…maybe it doesn’t matter.” Maybe it doesn’t. I was not able to keep John alive but I preserved something important between his family that was not there before. Maybe I am over-thinking. No. I
am
over-thinking. “Not now.”

“Why not?”

If I would have told him no in the cemetery that day when he told me to go away, perhaps all the mistakes that led to that moment could have vanished. Perhaps we could be here in a similar moment entangled in a different kind of predicament that would be easy to overcome. Perhaps we would have kissed and nothing would have tampered with the importance of that moment because nothing else would have mattered anymore. Maybe it was in my control all along. If I would have stood there by his side instead of running away again, I could have helped him. I let my pride get the better of me. We could still be here, in this moment.

We
are
in this moment. Nothing else matters anymore.

I smile and say, “Because we’re here now.”

He smiles. “Are we?”

“Maybe I was just terrified of my heart shattering at the possibility of losing the love of my life.”

He grins. “That makes two of us.” I open my mouth to say something, but he cuts me off with a finger to my lips. “You are right. Here we are.”

I spent years wishing for this. I spent years hoping for this.

And here it is.

I take a step closer to him and, cupping his face, press my lips to his. He wraps his arms around me and, smiling against my lips, whispers, “So, where do we go from here?”

“Now that I’m with you, anywhere.”

Epilogue

One year later

There are days where I imagine fate continuously circling us back to the moments we need to change until we get it right. We keep repeating history while being frozen in space, waiting for it to end so that we can move on. Only, in normal circumstances, we are not aware of it. I'm not one of those normal circumstances. I'm the one that got a true second chance, one where I had to learn from the mistakes rather than roll the dice. Of course, this is just something my imagination conjured up to make sense of that summer.

If it isn’t true, I mean, if fate isn’t real, then our choices have more meaning. They can be powerful tools in guiding ourselves in the right—or wrong—direction. That one wrong choice can lead us into a life of pain and regret. Sometimes I look back to that day I made the wrong choice and visualize what could have happened if I woke up the next day in the present rather than the past. Every time I think about it, I cringe in horror.