Meant to Be (Road Trip Romance Book 5)

by A. K. Evans

  He was Zev.

  That was it.

  And no matter what life threw our way over the years, we were always there for one another.

  So, this made no sense. I just couldn’t believe that he was so disgusted by the fact that we’d slept together that he’d throw away years of friendship.

  Sadly, without any answers to my questions, I spent weeks trying to figure it all out on my own. I never made any progress either.

  Every night, I’d simply do my best to focus my thoughts on something else just so I could get some rest. Despite my best efforts, it rarely worked.

  And that’s when I started to wonder if it was my mind’s way of protecting me.

  Because when I’d finally manage to doze off for a few hours, I’d wake up and it would hit me all over again like a bad dream.

  Nobody willingly goes into a nightmare.

  And that’s what I’d been living in for two months now.

  Zev

  Two Weeks Later

  “I wasn’t going to bring it up, but I can’t hold it in any longer.”

  That came from my mother, Janet.

  It was Saturday afternoon, and I’d come over to my parents’ house to visit them. Ever since Liam died, I found myself coming to visit them more often. I kept telling myself I was doing it for them.

  I was.

  But I think a big part of it was for myself, too.

  It had been two and a half months without my brother. My parents seemed to be doing alright. I had a feeling they’d never fully recover, but somehow, they managed to pick up the pieces of their broken hearts and get on with life.

  “Bring what up?” I asked.

  “Janet, let it go,” my father warned.

  “I’m not letting it go, Ron,” my mother insisted.

  Dad’s warning only served to make me more curious. I looked back and forth between my parents until my gaze finally settled on my mother. “Tell me,” I urged her.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  Confused, my brows pulled together. “What do you mean?”

  I watched as my mother took in a deep breath. After releasing it, she questioned me, “Where is Tillie?”

  The unexpected question threw me. “Now?” I asked.

  Shaking her head, she clarified, “No. Not now. Though, I guess I’d feel better knowing you knew the answer to that. But I mean in general. Tillie has always been around. She was always visiting with either you or Liam. And if not, you two were always talking about her.”

  This conversation was not going to head anywhere good. I’d been trying, and failing, to avoid any thoughts about Tillie. Unfortunately, she was the only thing that was constantly on my mind.

  I’d lived the last two and a half months of my life without her, and it was like I’d lost a limb.

  When I didn’t respond to my mother’s question, she continued, “It’s been two and a half months, Zev. When Liam died, that girl was there for you through it all. From the hospital until the burial. Now, she’s not around. You three were always so close. Is she handling the loss of Liam okay?”

  I closed my eyes, remembering the pain in her face the day she showed up at my house. She was hurting so badly, and I allowed her to suffer through everything alone. I was the most selfish person I knew… on all accounts.

  I knew the kind of woman my mother was. She would not just let this go, so I decided it was time to be honest. “Truthfully, I don’t know,” I replied.

  “You don’t know?” she asked, her shock evident.

  I shook my head.

  “No. I don’t.”

  “Why not?” she pressed for more information.

  Now it was my turn to take in a deep breath. The moment I answered that question, I had no doubt that I was going to be flooded with a million more. It was a sure thing that my father would join in with an opinion, too.

  It was time to face the music. I looked between my parents and finally admitted, “I don’t know how Tillie is handling any of this because I’ve only seen her once since the day of Liam’s funeral.”

  “Once?” my father asked. “It’s been more than two months, Zev.”

  “But you’ve at least talked to her, right?” my mother asked. She might have been asking a question she wanted an answer to, but her tone indicated she was pleading with me to give her the answer she wanted to hear. I hated thinking I was going to disappoint her with what I had to say.

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Zev…” She trailed off. Hearing this upset her.

  My parents always loved Tillie. It was hard not to love her. She was always around when we were kids, and she made her mark on my parents’ hearts… much like she’d done with Liam’s and mine.

  “Son,” my father called from the head of the table. When I looked in his direction, he gave me a look that indicated he meant business before he urged me, “Talk to us. Tell us what’s going on.”

  I sat back in my chair and looked down at my empty plate. It was a wonder I ate anything, let alone finished my meal. My appetite seemed to be nonexistent. But I didn’t want my mother to worry, so I pushed through.

  Taking a deep swallow, I lifted my head and met my mother’s worried gaze. I could feel my emotions getting the better of me as my eyes got wet.

  “Zev, honey, please,” she begged.

  Honey.

  Tillie called me that. I closed my eyes wondering if I could remember the sound of her voice. It pained me to think that I’d forgotten.

  I opened my eyes again and shared, “Liam loved Tillie.”

  “Of course, he did,” my father said. “We all do.”

  I shook my head, looked at my father, and clarified, “No, Dad. Liam loved Tillie in a way that he wanted to marry her one day.”

  My father narrowed his eyes, but didn’t respond.

  My mother did, though. “I don’t understand what that has to do with anything. Why haven’t you seen or spoken to her all this time?”

  “Because I love Tillie the same way Liam did,” I admitted. “And I have since we were kids.”

  Understanding dawned in my mother’s face, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she gave me a minute to prepare myself to share what was next.

  “When I realized what I felt for Tillie, I was going to say something to her. I was going to do it that day. But before I could, Liam told me that he was going to marry her,” I explained. Looking at my parents, it seemed they were eager for more clarification. So, I continued, “He was my big brother. I would have done anything for him.”

  “Even deny yourself the chance at having something you really wanted,” my mother surmised.

  I closed my eyes and dipped my chin.

  It didn’t feel like I wanted Tillie anymore. It felt like need. I needed her in a way I’ve never needed anything else in my life. But I couldn’t have her.

  “You’ve felt this way for years,” my father noted. “Why is Tillie not around now?”

  Sharing this with my parents was not going to be fun, but I wanted them to have the truth. I didn’t want them to think that Tillie was anybody but who they knew her to be.

  “Tillie was there for me through everything with Liam,” I started. “You both already know that. She was there at the hospital when we got the news and in the days that followed. I didn’t have to ask her for anything. She just knew what to do and when. She’s the only reason I got through those few days. But the night of the funeral, after we left here, Tillie took me home. I’d obviously had some drinks here before we left, and I guess I lost my inhibitions. I crossed a line with Tillie I never should have crossed.”

  “Did you hurt her?” my father asked. There was a warning in his tone that indicated I’d better give him the right answer.

  The truth was, I didn’t quite know how to answer that. When I looked at him, I stated, “Physically speaking, no.”

  “You broke her heart,” my mom declared, figuring out the crux of it.

  And my own, I thought.


  “I hate myself for what I’ve done,” I confessed. “To Tillie and to Liam. What kind of man am I that I could betray my brother like that?”

  “You didn’t betray your brother,” my mother assured me.

  I was not going to give her the intimate details of what happened between Tillie and me, so I insisted, “Trust me, Mom. I did.”

  “Zev, look at me,” my father ordered.

  I turned my head in his direction. When he had my full attention, he asked, “Did your brother ever ask Tillie to go out on a date that was something more than just friendship?”

  My father already knew the answer to that question, considering Liam and Tillie never went out on a romantic date. Even still, I humored him and replied, “No.”

  “Why not?”

  I shrugged. “I have no idea,” I started. “I told him when Tillie was in her senior year of high school that he shouldn’t wait to pursue her. She’d just ended things with her boyfriend because the guy was being a jerk to her. I didn’t want to see her getting hurt anymore, so I tried to encourage Liam to go after her. I knew he’d treat her right. A couple years later, well after she’d graduated, I urged him again.”

  “And yet he never followed your advice,” my dad said.

  “No, he didn’t.”

  My dad took a deep breath, indicating to me that he was about to say something important like my mom and I had already done, and leaned forward as he rested his forearms on the table. “When you kids were just that, kids, I can understand making stupid decisions. At fifteen, sixteen, seventeen-years-old, you guys think you have everything figured out. You don’t. But you all grew up. Your brother was thirty years old. He was too young to die, Zev. But he wasn’t too young to know that if there was a woman he wanted to spend his life with, he should have pursued her. I saw your mom, knew I wanted to meet her, and made that happen. After I met her, I knew I wanted to marry her. I made that happen. You don’t mess around with something like love. If your brother really loved Tillie the way he said he did when he was a kid, he would have made it happen between them. He didn’t. I love your brother more than you’ll ever know, but I’m telling you right now, as he grew up, he no longer saw Tillie the way that he did when he was younger. Obviously, they weren’t meant to be.”

  Before I could even begin to process what my father just said to me, my mother chimed in. “It all makes sense now,” she said.

  “What does?” I asked.

  “The reason you’ve not even come close to healing,” she started. “Ever since Liam died, Zev, I’ve watched you. You’ve come here at least once a week, and you know I love seeing you and spending time with you. But do you know what it does to me to see you looking as haunted today as you did the day your brother died? At first, I thought it was just taking you time to cope with the loss of your brother. Now that I know about all of this, I know that’s not what it is. None of us will ever get over losing Liam, but we can’t change the fact that he’s not here. You look so empty right now, and I know part of it is because you miss your brother. The bigger part of it, though, is that you miss Tillie. If you love her, Zev, why won’t you pursue her?”

  I swiped at my eyes hearing my mother’s words. Even though the pain in my throat was almost unbearable, I managed to respond with a husky voice, “It feels wrong. I would never do something like this to my brother.”

  “Zev,” my father called.

  Turning my head in his direction, I replied, “Yeah?”

  “You know how much your brother loved you, right?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “If he were here right now, what do you think Liam would say about your relationship with Tillie the way it is now? Would he like knowing that the two people he loved most in the world weren’t even speaking with each other?”

  Liam would be pissed at me for cutting Tillie out the way that I did. I was pissed at myself for doing it. I just didn’t think I could be around her, knowing what happened between us, and not want her.

  “What would he say if he found out his brother went after the woman he wanted for himself?” I countered.

  “Tillie wasn’t Liam’s,” my dad started. “He never tried to make her his. And he had plenty of time to do it.”

  I understood where my father was coming from. It drove me crazy every day that my brother was letting her get away, especially when Tillie would call me about another failed date.

  “Zev, honey, I get why you feel the way that you do, and I love your loyalty to your brother, but don’t do this to yourself,” my mother pleaded with me. “As much as you loved Liam, he loved you the same. He wouldn’t want this for you. He’d want you to be happy.”

  At her words, I couldn’t hold back any longer. I pushed the chair back from the table and hunched my torso over my legs. My elbows were resting on my thighs and my fingers were interlaced behind my neck.

  A tear fell from each eye.

  Seconds later, my mom was beside me with one hand wrapped around my wrist and the other resting on the middle of my back. “Come here,” she said in a soft, comforting voice as she gave a gentle tug on my wrist.

  My arms went around my mom, and I finally let go. “I miss him so much,” I wept. “There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about him.”

  Holding me tight, my mom’s strained voice replied, “That’s a good thing, Zev. I’d never want you to forget about him. Your father and I miss him and think about him every day, too. But we need to keep moving forward. Liam wouldn’t want any of us to stay stuck where you are right now.”

  There was nothing quite like your mother’s embrace when you felt like your world had ended. I couldn’t say I felt a hundred percent better, but it was good to know I had her to rely on.

  When I pulled back, I wiped my eyes and rasped, “Thank you.”

  “You don’t have to thank me,” she noted. “We’ll always be here for you. I just hope Tillie has someone who was there for her through all of this.”

  At my mother’s words, I felt sick. Because I knew that Tillie didn’t have anyone there for her. Mr. and Mrs. Fisher had moved several hours away a few years ago, so Tillie didn’t even have her parents nearby to comfort her the same way I had mine.

  “That look tells us that you might have made a mistake with how you treated her throughout this,” my dad remarked.

  I shook my head, feeling disappointed and angry at myself. “I’m such an ass,” I muttered.

  “Yeah,” my dad agreed. “But I know Tillie Fisher. She’ll forgive you.”

  I held his gaze for a moment before I looked away and announced, “I don’t mean to eat and run, but I think I need to go.”

  “Go, Zev,” my mom urged me. “Make yourself happy. And make Tillie happy. You both deserve it.”

  With that, I said goodbye to my parents and left.

  When I got outside, I sat in my truck for all of five seconds before I backed out of the driveway and drove to Tillie’s house.

  Just over ten minutes later, I pulled up in front of her place. Suddenly, I didn’t feel so confident. It had been two months since I last saw her, and that last time did not end well. With all the time that had passed, I didn’t know how she would react to seeing me again. Of course, my father believed that Tillie would forgive me, but I wasn’t convinced I even deserved her forgiveness for treating her the way that I did.

  Even still, I had to try.

  In fact, I’d try every day for the rest of my life to prove to her just how important she was to me and how sorry I was for hurting her.

  With a renewed sense of determination, I hopped out of my truck and walked up to her front door. When she didn’t answer after more than a minute, I decided to use the key Tillie had given me years ago. Maybe when she saw me standing in her house she’d ask for it back, but for now, I was going to use it.

  After unlocking the door, I pushed it open and my stomach sank.

  Other than a few pieces of Tillie’s furniture, there was nothing left
.

  She was gone.

  Tillie was gone.

  My chest tightened, my heart felt like it was in my throat.

  My best friend left. I knew I was responsible for that.

  Guilt and regret consumed me all over again. She suffered for more than two months without having the two people she believed she could always depend on there for her.

  I pulled out my phone and brought her name up on the display, but something stopped me from pressing my finger to it.

  If I was going to hear her voice for the first time in all these weeks, I wanted to do it in person.

  So, I dropped my phone back into my pocket and looked around Tillie’s empty house.

  What had I done to her? What had I done to us?

  Reality smacked me right in the face, and I couldn’t control the twisting in my stomach. Knowing what was going to happen next and unable to stop it, I ran to the bathroom, bent over the toilet, and emptied my stomach.

  I had to find Tillie.

  I had to bring her home.

  Tillie

  Exhausted would have been too tame of a word to describe how I felt. Drained, empty, and hollow didn’t seem to do the trick either. It was likely because I was a combination of all of those things, and one wouldn’t suffice.

  On the professional front, everything had been going great for me. My store had a steady flow of traffic throughout the week, and the weekends brought in even more traffic.

  I’d been using my time off when Meli was watching the store for me to try and get ahead on actually making my ceramics and painting them more than I already was. Since the weekdays were a little slower, it usually gave me a bit of free time to get even more painting done.

  It seemed to me that everything was taking off for me all at once. The sales at the store were at an all-time high and the online sales from my website had skyrocketed. Since moving to Sedona, I’d started working on new pieces that captured the beauty of Arizona. While the typical notion was that it was the desert, I don’t think many people realized just how breathtaking so many parts of the state were.