“No. You’re the one I love.” Why is he fighting this so bad? I need him to accept it and go to her. “Is this because you don’t love me?”
My throat constricts, that he could even think it, let alone verbalize it. I place my fingers up to my mouth, using every muscle I have to be even keeled in this moment.
“Am I right, you don’t love me?” he pushes past my hand on his chest and comes chest to chest. “I fucking love you, Paige.”
“Are you telling me you don’t have any love for her? That when you saw her, you didn’t think what if? Maybe?” All these questions don’t come from my insecurity, only my need to not be second best the rest of my life. I want to be someone’s number one, not someone’s good for now.
He doesn’t answer and I bite down hard on my lip and close my eyes. Instead, he drops down to his knees on the gravel pavement. “Paige. Please don’t do this. Don’t run from me,” he pleads into my stomach as his hands link behind my back. “Don’t leave me.” The tears break through my barrier.
“I have to.” I back step but he only stays in line with me. “Rob, you need to face your past before I could ever be your future.” I drop to my knees and place my hands on his cheeks so we’re eye level. “I hope to God you come back to me, please believe that. I do love you, so much that I have to allow you to heal. Go to her before I’m too selfish and can’t let you go.”
“I don’t want to; you’re the one I want to be with.” His voice quivers. “I love you,” he whispers.
I close my eyes as water drops spill. “You have no idea what those words mean.” I press my lips to his. We don’t devour each other’s. Instead it’s just a loving press of our love. “Go.”
I unlink his arms from my waist as my eyes catch a bus stopping along the curb. I jog over and sneak through before he can catch me. As the bus drives away, Rob’s head is buried in his hands.
All the shitty things I’ve experienced in my life. This is by far the worst. Watching him hurt only stabs my own heart, but he’s ignored his feeling of abandonment too long. Carly returning is some horrible twist of fate and neither one of us can ignore it. No matter how miserable it makes either of us. My only hope is that this pull we both feel toward one another is strong enough and he’ll be coming back for me. God, I hope so.
I IMAGINE A line zig zagging down my heart as I watch the bus drive away. As hard is it hurts and as much as I fought it, Paige had a point I didn’t want to admit. Carly doesn’t seem to want to give up either, hence a Texas number flashed across my phone on the way here.
Rising to my feet, I inhale a deep breath. If Paige wants me to heal my past, I’m doing it right fucking now because it will only get me back to her faster. So, I fire up a text message to Carly.
Me: You back in Mill River?
Carly: Oh good to hear from you.
Me: yes or no
Carly: yes
Me: 2 hours, meet me there.
Carly: ( :
I wish I had her damn phone to erase the smiley face. What the hell does she think? That she can keep screwing with my life. Fuck her. My fist slams into the steering wheel.
After two hours and my mind racing on what exactly I’m going to say to the girl who deserted me five years ago, I pass the damn Mill River sign with the fucking quaint downtown painting that only irks me. Driving through the gates that use to bring butterflies to my stomach because Carly and I would disappear here for hours in high school. The sun is beginning its descent down past the trees signaling we only have an hour before the park ranger will kick us out.
Driving around to our old spot, another car is parked with the lights off. My stomach twists in knots since I’m certain it’s her. I park right next to it and she hops out. By the time I exit my car, she’s out of hers, running over to me and throwing her arms around my neck.
“I knew you wouldn’t be able to stay away.” Her nose sniffs me like a dog to its owner and I wish having her in my arms didn’t remind me of all those good times. Didn’t force memories of her body in my hands and her hair tickling my skin. The harder I try to forget, the more recollections occur.
“No.” I guide her arms back down to her side.
She juts out her hip and places a pouty expression on her face. “Robbie.” Her shoulders fall and guilt me that I shouldn’t be mean. Remember what we went through, how I killed her father.
“I’m back,” she whispers.
“What do you want me to do, jump for fucking joy?”
I begin to walk the path and her footsteps crunch on the gravel behind me. “Robbie. I want to work this out.” She catches up to me, swinging her arm through mine.
I sidestep her. “I’m with Paige.” My voice loses my conviction and in the instant I understand why Paige wanted me to do this.
“She seems nice, but—”
“But what? You come running so I should just drop her and we can start where we ended?”
She stops walking and her eyes cast down. I fight the regret from talking so meanly to her. When she steps closer and her finger trails down my stomach like she always did, I only get madder. “It’s me. Remember the shooting star? The wish you made.”
“I was fourteen, Carly. Just because I was some insecure freshman who had a crush on you doesn’t mean that some shooting star is what made you want to date me.” I hate how I’ve used that as a crutch these last five years too. That because she kissed me that night I wished for it on the shooting star. She ruined that romantic notion the minute she fled to California.
“It means something. We’re fated, Robbie.”
I trudge down the path.
“Do you have any idea how horrible it was for me after you left?”
“Do you think it was a picnic for me? I mean he was my dad, Robbie. I was responsible for my dad’s death. I couldn’t stay here and see my family’s sad eyes.”
“I took the blame. They had no idea what we were doing in the car. Everyone assumed I drove recklessly.” I fight her excuse. The town wanted to throw me to the wolves and console her. I should have been the one who left, not her, but I stayed because she needed me.
“I felt guilt for that, too.” She moves over to a picnic table, sitting on top of it. “All the nastiness people were spouting about you and you just took it. Never telling the whole story.”
I sit up to join her and she tries to lay her hand on my leg but I swing it away. Her touch doesn’t excite me anymore. There’s only one person who does and she’s not here.
“I wanted us to go through it together, but you just deserted me. You left me to fend for myself. No one stood by my side except for my parents. You changed your number; none of your family talked to me let alone gave me your new number.”
“I’m sorry. I just lost myself and I didn’t know how to come back. My mom’s whimpering at night, Xavier fighting everyone who looked at him the wrong way, and poor Nora, she just kept asking why. I couldn’t handle it.” Her heartfelt words do heal me slightly; they at least diminish the anger.
“Are you?” I tilt my head in her direction. “How could you come back here and just think I’d welcome you back?”
She shrugs her shoulders. “Because I love you and I believe in what we had.”
“What was that, Carly? What did we have?”