IMAGINE US
BY:
JAXSON KIDMAN
Contents
Foreword
Imagine Us
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilogue
Hey darlin’
About the Author
Foreword
From the soul of worldwide bestselling author Jaxson Kidman comes the story that isn’t a second but rather the one chance they never truly had… until now…
We walked together back to the party.
At the last second, I stopped and pulled at her hand.
"Hey,” I whispered.
“Hey,” she said.
“Thanks for running away with me,” I said. Elena laughed. “Anytime, Adam. Anytime.” I let her go. My heart ached. I leaned against a tree. A thought came to me as I watched her walk to Chad and he put his arm around her and pulled her in for a kiss. Elena was never going to be mine. I put my head back and looked to the stars.
Written by Jaxson Kidman
* * *
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Imagine Us
Imagine watching the woman you love live out her dream love story... without you.
Standing on the sidelines, swallowing pain and pride, watching her fall more and more in love. Knowing each second she’s with him is a chance for her to completely forget about us.
That’s okay. I’m everything wrong. I would only hurt her. Break her heart.
Now imagine a knock at the door and it’s her. She’s crying. He cheated on her. She needs someone. She says she needs me.
I have to fight this. I can’t let her fall for me the way I’ve fallen for her. I’m going to crush her worse than he did.
Imagine her wanting a kiss. Begging with her eyes. I’m a strong man... but she’s... even stronger.
One kiss.
Two hearts.
Three words...
Prologue
Somewhere the Road Begins
ADAM
(then)
I was sick and tired of graduation parties. Like any of us really did anything to graduate. At that point, it was merely just about showing up, not getting into too much trouble, going through the bullshit motions to get the hell out of high school and do whatever life had waiting for us. The preppies and rich kids already had their lives planned out. Future doctors, lawyers, accountants, going to walk the same prestigious hallways as their parents once did. A lot of us were jealous over that, but I wasn’t. Who the hell wanted to live a life where it was all planned out? Where every fucking step was determined? Sure, the money and all that was a nice comfort. Never needing to worry about a meal or having enough to enjoy a hobby or two.
But that wasn’t my life.
I wasn’t meant for that kind of shit.
“Yo, A, brother, you in on this?”
I stood in the corner of the yard, where the old chain link fence was held together with zip ties and a prayer. A rotted apple tree hung over my head, somehow still standing after years of being beaten up by thunderstorms in the summer and heavy snow in the winter.
I had been stupidly counting rocks that made up a narrow dirt alley behind Elena’s house.
Elena.
Fuck.
Tonight was not the night to start thinking anything crazy.
Yet it was there.
She was there.
Right behind me, in the house. Her mother trying to be the ultra cool mom, hosting the graduation party, making sure everyone was there, would stay, and let everyone do what they wanted without recourse.
I didn’t need to turn around either to look up and see the single window of her bedroom. My footsteps were all over the room. My fingerprints on the sheets. A wild, teenage heart making me do crazy things like slamming my face into her pillow to smell her shampoo.
Or hearing the shower running in the bathroom next to the kitchen. Knowing she was in there after we’d all spent the day at Tasha’s pool. The old door with the crooked, brass knob, that never fully shut. Meaning it never locked. Knowing that with one push of my hand, the door would open and I could see…
“Are you fucking alive or what?”
I turned and shook my shoulder, knocking Brad’s hand away.
“What the hell?”
“I’m asking you something,” he said. “You in?”
He opened his other hand and I saw what he had. I didn’t even bother asking what it was. I really didn’t care. Inside the house, down in the basement, they were all hanging out, shotgunning beers with the keys that started their used cars. Telling the same five good stories, laughing as though it just happened yesterday. Their arms around their girlfriends, claiming them, too stupid to realize that now it was all over, keeping that claim was going to be harder than ever.
Trust me, I felt it.
“Here,” Brad said. “Finish my drink.”
“Thanks, man,” I said.
I took a drink, washing down what he had saved for me.
I stuck the red cup into the crook of a branch on the apple tree and I touched a rusted post on the chain link fence.
“Man, you’re fucking killing me tonight,” Brad said. “We’re all over at the fire. Just chilling. Stevie said he’s breaking out his guitar. I think Bobby brought his guitar too. We should all jam out. Remember how we were going to start a band last year?”
He laughed.
I didn’t laugh at all.
“You’re not even listening to me,” he said. “You’re all fucking lost right now, Adam. Again. You’ll never learn.”
I looked over my shoulder. “Go away.”
Brad lifted his middle finger and backed away.
I was alone again.
I tried to count the rocks in the alley, but they started to move. No matter how much I blinked, they were like waves in the ocean.
The ocean.
I could see her clear as day.
Elena with her arms open, running through the sand. Her footprints left behind as she raced to the water. Stopping the moment a wave wrapped around her ankles. Letting out a loud scream and hugging her chest, turning to look at me. Me standing there with puppy dog eyes, fucking drooling. Her yelling how cold the water was and that she needed to stay covered so nobody could see her… you know, cutting glass…
I gritted my teeth and waited for the memory to fade.
“Adam?”
I turned, and Elena stood a few feet away.
“Hey,” I said. “Elena.”
Her name was the sweetest thing that ever slipped off my tongue.
“What are you doing?”
“Just
… you know. My own thing.”
She giggled. She bit her bottom lip. She stepped toward me. Her eyes were big, glossy, that wild green color that forced my heart to dip like the first drop of a roller coaster.
She put her hand to the tree and let out a breath. “I think I’m drunk.”
“I think everyone is.”
“That’s good.”
“It is?”
“I guess. Whatever. Everyone is having fun.”
“Nice,” I said. I blinked hard, wishing I hadn’t taken that stuff from Brad.
“My mother was asking about you,” Elena said. “About… us…”
“Us?” I asked. “And me? What about me?”
“She loves you.”
“Loves me?”
“You know what I mean,” she said and giggled again. She punched my arm. “Don’t be gross when I say that. You know half the guys here have a thing for her. It’s creepy as fuck.”
I smiled. “I know. They’re horrible people.”
“Oh, shut up. Like you haven’t thought it yourself.”
“Me? Never.”
Maybe once or twice, but nothing like… you know… not the way I think about you, Elena…
“Are all guys liars?”
“Who else is a liar?” I asked.
“Nobody,” Elena said, turning her head.
She swallowed hard and tucked her hair behind her ear. That was her sign that something was wrong with her and Chad. He did something stupid. He lied. Said something. Hurt her.
The usual.
“You can talk to me,” I said. I touched her arm. “It’s going to be okay, Elena. All this high school bullshit is done now.”
She looked at me. “Then do something, Adam. Do something right now. Show me it’s going to be okay.”
Without hesitation, I moved in and pressed my lips to hers. A quick kiss. A stolen kiss. An innocent kiss with guilty intentions behind it.
I pulled away and whispered, “Fuck.”
Elena’s eyes were wider than before. She reached up and touched her bottom lip.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m all fucked up right now. I’m going to go.”
I wasn’t sure if she called my name or not. I jumped the old fence and launched myself at the rocks. I hit them, stumbled, but kept myself from looking too much like a fool.
Then I started to run.
Feeling super high, my eyes unable to focus, picturing everything Elena. What we could have been. What we should have been. Convincing myself that it didn’t matter now because it was all over.
Somewhere the dirt alley ended.
Somewhere the actual road began.
Somewhere a car was coming down the street.
And the driver didn’t see me.
The only thing I really felt as I hit the windshield of the car was how much I loved Elena.
1
All in All
ADAM
(a little while later)
I sat in the beaten-up pickup truck and rubbed my right shoulder. I stretched it out and sucked in a deep breath, feeling a tight, stinging pain that was no longer worth talking about. If I did, everyone would have an opinion, a thought, or a story about their own pain that I honestly didn’t want to hear.
My passenger was a white, to-go container from the Butter Kiss Diner, inside it a half-eaten turkey-club and cold, soggy fries. I sat there and watched the rest of the crew work their way out of the diner, reaching for their phones, cigarettes, and car keys.
When it was clear, I got back out of my truck and walked to check the back door. It was locked, as expected. On a whim, I unlocked it and went back inside. The lingering smell of grease and cleaning products hung low in the air, punching me in the nose as I walked through the kitchen to a side door that led to a set of creaky steps to the apartment above the diner. It stunk of dust and mothballs, the amber shag carpet an ode to the decade when the place was renovated last. Cardboard boxes with ripped flaps were scattered randomly across the floor. It looked like someone was moving out.
That had been the case for a long time.
I took a few deep breaths and that was it for me.
I left the apartment and went down to the diner to double check everything that had already been done the right way. The tables were cleaned, stocked for tomorrow morning. The counters shined as though they hadn’t been used in months. All the coffeemakers turned off. The grill turned off and cleaned perfectly.
Pain surged through my shoulder again and my neck twitched.
We were finally on the other side of a brutal winter that left me behind on bills, another testament to the cliché small town diner struggling to stay open. The pain in my shoulder kicked up with the weather. That left me fitting right in with the regulars who sat at the counter and drank coffee like it was water, insisting they could predict the weather - and politics - based on what body part ached.
At least I had a decent story.
Getting hit by a car.
More so, a hit and run.
Now that’s one hell of a story.
I locked up the back door and walked to my truck.
I made a quick pit stop to drop off the container of food, leaving it in a spot where only one other person could find it.
After that, it was time to go home.
Where I could stand on the deck and drink a cold beer and look at the lake. Watch the water move with the breeze and study the sandy and rocky shores, watching ghosts that nobody could see but me. Where I could hear conversations and secrets being spilled, and many of those only spoken inside my heart and mind.
Worst case, if things got boring enough, there was always the local bar. Or I could call May. She was born in April and had a fire about her that threatened me. Which was what I needed every now and again. No strings attached. A woman who could handle her whiskey, handle me, and didn’t make it awkward the following morning when we ate breakfast and hugged for a goodbye that could last days, weeks, or even months.
All in all, it wasn’t a bad deal. Or a bad life.
As I drove toward the house that I called home, I spotted the car first.
Then my eyes looked straight ahead as I saw a thin, wispy trail of smoke rise into the air and dissipate.
I stopped the truck and blinked, needing to make the ghost go away.
Only this wasn’t a ghost.
She was sitting on the second step of my porch, her knees knocking together, smoking a cigarette.
Last time I talked to her, she told me she would never talk to me again.
I said fine. If anything, just to spare my own heart after years of watching her love someone else.
She turned her head, biting the nail of her thumb, the cigarette burning away.
I hated that she smoked. And I knew why she did.
Her eyes finally met mine as I stepped out of my truck.
She offered a weak smile.
Tears then fell from her eyes.
2
Little Marks in the Wall
ELENA
(a little while earlier)
I sat in the last booth in the little stainless steel, shiny bright diner, a newspaper next to me, folded up, untouched. I bit my lip as I stared at a cup of coffee, not wanting it, but the waitress brought it to me anyway. She was a new girl - Amy. She had messy curls and bags under her eyes, maybe too young to look so tired. My eyes refused to leave her as I watched her walk through the diner, checking on people, before going to the counter to do the same. When she put the coffeepot back, she gripped the edge of the counter and stretched her back, her head falling backwards.
Those were the moments when I really wondered what she could be thinking about.
It wasn’t my business to know, but in some way, I considered it my job.
To my left was an old leather-bound notebook, and in my bag was my laptop. I was supposed to be sitting there typing another chunk of my next book. The story had lost its wheels ten pages into it. But those first ten pages were
good enough that my agent and publisher demanded more. Trying to build an entire novel off the first ten pages of a wild teenage kiss was not the easiest thing to do. It was my own fault for writing while a little tipsy. And it was my own fault for hitting the send button while a little tipsy.
Now I was stuck.
My eyes moved to the newspaper. Folded at the real estate section. A couple of apartments circled. But they weren’t for me. While living the life of a struggling writer, I still took the time to make use of a real estate license my mother and Chad all but forced me to get. That was, of course, before my mother went off the deep end in her life, putting the words midlife crisis to the ultimate test, all the while Chad chased his dream of playing baseball until there was nothing left but dust on a pitcher’s mound in some small town, with about a hundred people watching. Now he sold insurance, wearing a tie with the same sense of pride as when he used to wear his baseball uniform. As for my mother, she was somewhere on a beach, living simple and small, forever talking about advancing her nursing education (whatever that really meant), battling demons I wanted nothing to do with.
When I saw a woman step through the diner door, her hair pulled back in a messy bun, a black bag hung on her shoulder, looking almost as weary as Amy the waitress, I took the chance as I stood up and gave a wave. She looked at me and reluctantly waved back. I lifted the newspaper and smiled.
She put a hand out as if to say oh, yeah, sorry! and came rushing toward me.
For some reason we skipped a casual handshake and went in for a hug. We were total strangers other than talking on the phone when she called me to say she needed an apartment as soon as possible.
“So nice to meet you,” I said. “Erin, right?”
“Elena?” she asked.
“That’s me,” I said.
“Erin and Elena,” she said. “That won’t confuse anyone.”
“Only if we plan on causing trouble,” I said.
“My days of trouble are over,” Erin said. “So far over. I’m ready to settle on a couch with a crossword puzzle and watch the news. At six.”
“That sounds like heaven,” I said.
“No it doesn’t,” she said. “Are we staying or leaving?”
I looked at the table and then at her. “Well, I found a few apartments we can look at. I know when we first talked, you made it sound urgent. I was just wondering if there was anything you were looking for specifically?”
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