by AnonYMous
“No, I don’t love him.” There. It was out. I closed my eyes and waited.
I heard Shaun pull in a ragged breath. I opened my eyes, but I would not—could not—let myself hope. “You never answered my question. What happened between you and Amanda?”
“She wasn’t you.”
“She wasn’t. . . . ? Oh, God, Shaun.” Finally, his words sank in. I started shaking. Not from cold, but from feelings so strong I couldn’t contain them. I put my hands on his cheeks. “I love you, Shaun. It just took me a hell of a long time to figure it out.”
He snaked his hands up through the arm slits in my poncho, gripped my upper arms, and shook me—not hard, not hurtfully, but with great feeling. His eyes closed and he whispered, “It sure as hell did.”
“By the time I got Ronnie out of my system, you were involved with Amanda.”
“She was my way of getting on with my life, but in the end I knew it wouldn’t work. You know that first night we went out?”
“Yeah.”
“I talked Stevie into letting me be your date.”
“You did? Did Stevie even look for Ronnie?”
“He found him.”
“Oh.”
“I wanted you the first moment I saw you, but I really had to talk Stevie into letting me take Ronnie’s place. He said you wouldn’t go with us.”
“I didn’t want to.”
“I noticed.”
“I was attracted to you, too, Shaun, but I couldn’t allow myself to acknowledge it.”
“It doesn’t matter now.” Shaun tugged me toward him.
Slowly, his lips inched toward mine. I thought I’d die with anticipation. Finally, our lips met, and the feelings sizzling through me were far greater than I could have imagined. I wrapped my arms around his neck, wiggling closer—until all that separated us was far too many layers of clothing.
Three months later we married. A year later, to the day, our son was born.
Each and every day I am thankful for the love I’ve found with Shaun—a love in which I’m free to pursue my own dreams, as I live my life beside my best friend. THE END
A Snapshot of Love
CAPTURE THE MOMENT
We met due to a freak mishap . . . and seized the opportunity to mend our lives
The photograph startled me—the one that was on top when I slid the stack out of the protective envelope from the lab. The little girl in the picture sat in a wheelchair, her arms as thin as pencils and her legs shriveled and dangling, lifeless. But her smile—her smile reached out and grabbed my heart, a smile as radiant as one on any seven-year-old who didn’t have a care in the world.
I held the snapshot for a second longer until it dawned on me that these weren’t my photographs. I leafed through the stack and realized that none of them were mine. I checked the inside flap of the envelope; yes, that was my name written there. A simple mistake, I thought. The photo lab switched envelopes. I pulled my coat back over my shoulders and glanced at the clock. The Fotorama was still open, and I had just enough time to get back there before it closed.
The girl at the counter looked up at me as I set the packet of pictures down in front of her next to the punk rock magazine she was reading.
“Can I help you?” She snapped a wad of pink gum and swiped at the nose ring that looped through her left nostril.
“These pictures aren’t mine. I think someone made a mistake.”
The teenager scooped up the photos, and I noticed her well-gnawed, purple fingernails as she leafed through them. She picked up the envelope and flipped open the flap. “You Belinda Marx?”
I nodded.
“Then these are your pictures. What’s the problem?”
As I explained what I suspected had happened, she snapped a bubble at me and scratched her head.
“Well, it looks like someone at the lab made a mistake. You’ll have to contact them directly.” She picked up a tarnished, silver watch pendant that hung around her neck and glanced at it. “But they’re closed now. You’ll have to catch ’em tomorrow.” She looked back at her magazine and turned the page, obviously ending our conversation.
When I got home, I looked again at the haunting picture of the little girl with the dazzling smile. I tossed the packet of pictures onto my sofa and was slipping my coat off my shoulders when my doorbell rang.
I peered out my security peephole into the eyes of a strange man. Tall and attractive, he seemed somehow familiar to me. But I didn’t open the door.
“Yes? Can I help you?” I called out loud enough for him to hear through the thick wood.
“I hope so.” He held up a photo in front of the peephole. I squinted to see that it was a picture of my brother and his dog, which I’d snapped out in my driveway in front of my new car.
“You have my pictures,” I said, and opened the door as far as the safety chain would allow. From this vantage point, I got a better view of him. He was even more attractive than the fisheye lens of the peephole had indicated. He stood a half foot taller than Eric, with dark, close-cropped curls and piercing eyes. A sickening taste washed into my mouth at the thought of my ex-fiancé, but I swallowed it back. My eyes traveled back to the man’s face. And his smile.
“How did you find me?” I asked as I noticed him pull his coat tighter and snuggle deeper into his collar to ward off the chill. I could see his breath fog as he exhaled.
“My brother-in-law works at the Department of Motor Vehicles, and he ran your license plate for me—from the car in the picture.” His lower lip trembled in the cold. “You wouldn’t happen to have gotten my pictures, did you?”
“I did.” I paused for a moment, then slid the chain latch loose. “Come on in. I’ll get them for you.”
Letting the stranger in went against my usual caution—especially since I had been living alone ever since Eric and I had broken up and he moved out. I’d caught him in our own bed with his secretary. Bile rose in my throat again at the thought of my fiancé on top of another woman between our satin sheets, but I pressed it back. I was getting a little better at not letting Eric’s betrayal affect every decision I made, even though I knew that his actions had soured me on men and relationships. My feelings went beyond being apprehensive about strangers. I’d vowed to myself that I would never let another man into my life.
“By the way, I’m Aaron Castillo, and you can’t know what a sinking sensation I felt when I saw your photos in place of mine when I picked them up from the lab.”
I looked over my shoulder at him. Something about the way he said it struck a humorous chord in me. “Were mine that bad?”
“I didn’t mean that . . . it’s just that mine were test shots that I’d done for a spread I’m working on for Challenges magazine.” He rimmed his lower lip with his tongue. Its fleshy sensuality caught my attention for a moment. “I’m a freelance photographer,” he continued, “and I almost died when I thought that I’d lost them.”
I remembered the haunting picture of the little girl. “I have to admit that I wondered for a moment if these would be the last pictures some family would have of their little girl—”
Aaron laughed. “Of Ginny? No. She’s here for the long haul.” His lips dissolved into the now familiar smile. His good humor was contagious, and I dropped my guard another notch.
“Is . . . is she your daughter?”
“My niece. And don’t let the wheelchair fool you; she’s as big a ham as they come.”
I handed Aaron’s envelope to him at the same time as he held out mine to me. Our fingertips brushed and a flash of static electricity crackled through the air.
He chuckled at the spark and tilted his head in an endearing way. “I know we’ve just met, but would you by any chance like to come out for coffee with me?”
The picture of my ex-fiancé slashed through my mind and I shook my head. “Sorry, I don’t think so.”
“Oh,” he said as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Is it because of your boyfriend . . . or
is it your husband?” He started to raise the photograph of my brother, but before I realized who he was talking about, my eyes snapped to his. How does he know about Eric? I wondered for a split second.
“Oh, no.” I smiled. “That’s my brother.” I looked away from him. “There is no boyfriend or husband,” I said, almost to myself.
He nodded and grinned wider. “Then you have no reason to decline my offer of a simple cup of coffee. So how about it?”
“I . . . I don’t think so.”
But I’d paused several seconds while I mulled it over in my mind, and Aaron picked up on it. His smile was too bright for someone who’d just been shot down. He extended his hand for me to shake it.
“Well, it was nice meeting you,” he said. When he clasped my hand in his, it was surprisingly warm for having been out in the cold weather such a short time ago. And he held onto mine a little longer than was necessary for a proper handshake. “If you change your mind about the coffee—and you will—give me a call.” He reached into his coat pocket and handed me a business card. He has some nerve, I thought, but his smile was disarming. All I could do was nod as he left.
The man was devastatingly handsome, but I had no intention of starting another relationship so soon after my breakup with Eric. I put Aaron and his young niece out of my mind, knowing that it was best to just get on with my life the way it now was—without a man in it to mess things up.
It wasn’t until the following Sunday that I thought of him again. I was picking up around the house and fluffing the throw pillows on the couch when I stuck my hand down between the cushions and pulled out a film negative. I held it up to the light and realized it was a shot of Ginny in her wheelchair. I knew I should return it.
I found Aaron’s business card, which I’d stuffed into the coffee table drawer, and I dialed the number. He answered on the third ring.
“I don’t know if you remember me, Mr. Castillo,” I began. “This is Belinda—”
“—Marx. Of course I remember you. I’m glad you’ve reconsidered my invitation for coffee.”
“Well, no, I haven’t. But I found one of your negatives that must have slipped out of the envelope, and—”
He laughed. “Oh, right. The old ‘I have something of yours and if you ever want to see it in one piece again. . . .”
“No, this was an honest mistake.” But his laughter was contagious, and I found myself chuckling with him.
“Actually, I hadn’t missed it yet, but I would have. Thanks for not tossing it out.” His voice grew serious. “But I would like to buy you that coffee just as a thank you, if that’s okay with you.”
I thought about Eric and the same pain again flooded my heart. But I held a photograph negative in my hand that belonged to Aaron Castillo. I had to return it to him. Meeting him on neutral ground seemed like the best solution. I breathed in a lungful of oxygen. “Okay.”
“Great!” His voice held certainty, and I got the feeling that he had known I was going to agree. “How about we meet at Maddie’s Coffee House tomorrow at five thirty? And we don’t have to call it a date—just a thank-you coffee.” I found myself smiling against my will.
The next day, Maddie’s was crowded with Monday’s after work crowd. I glanced around the shop and noticed that Aaron hadn’t yet arrived. I found a table near the front window and sat watching passersby on the sidewalk.
When Aaron still hadn’t shown up by six o’clock, I shook my head and grunted to myself. The thought crossed my mind that all men are, at the very least, undependable. I gathered my coat and purse and walked out the door. If his negative was that unimportant to him, it was no skin off my nose. Still, I felt miffed that another man had shown the same lack of respect for me that Eric had toward the end of our relationship.
By seven o’clock that evening, I’d fixed myself a light supper and found myself letting Aaron personify every bad relationship I’d ever had with a man in my life. I held the negative of Ginny up to the overhead kitchen light. Her face again mesmerized me. The more that I looked, the more I saw Aaron’s features in hers. I smacked my lips together and tossed the scrap of celluloid into the wastebasket. I grabbed a paperback novel I’d been reading and headed for my bed. When my eyelids got heavy, I let myself drift off.
I was awakened suddenly by the sound of someone pounding on my front door. When I glanced at the clock and noticed it was past midnight, I got angry. My first thought was that it was Eric at the door because he used to come in late sometimes and, having forgotten his key, would pound on the door for me to let him in. I stomped to the living room and leaned toward the peephole, practicing what nasty thing I could say to him before refusing to let him in. He was out of my life now, and I owed him nothing. He has no right, I thought.
I felt my eyebrows knit together in a frown as I moved to look through the peephole. I stepped back, startled to see that it was Aaron standing on my steps. His hair was messy and his tie was loose around his collar.
“Do you know what time it is?” I grumbled through the door in a sleep covered drone.
I could see him run his hand through his tight curls. His arms looked strong, his fingers expressive and tapered. For a split second I wondered how it would feel to have those hands touch me, hold me. A second later, I squeezed my eyes shut, disgusted that the thought had crossed my mind at all. I didn’t want to have any feelings or thoughts about Aaron Castillo—or about any other man, for that matter.
“Can I . . . can I come in?”
“If you’ve come for your negative, forget it. I threw it out since it didn’t seem important enough for you not to break our . . . appointment . . . this afternoon.”
I could hear his loud sigh clear through the door. “I . . . look . . . I can explain if you’ll just open the door.”
His voice sounded husky and odd, but all I could think about was the way that Eric had treated me. I didn’t want to open myself up for more of the same heartache with Aaron, no matter how good looking he was. I saw his eyes bolt open when he realized what I’d said.
“You—you threw it out?” he said, standing up straighter on my step. “Oh, no. I need that negative.” Desperation rang through his voice and it seemed odd that his take on the negative had changed since the day before.
“Please, Belinda. Tell me that you didn’t destroy the film.” The pleading in his voice was poignant and plaintive, and it made me think of the little girl in the photo. The negative did belong to him, and I had no right to keep it from him.
“Wait,” I sighed. “I’ll see if I can dig it out of the trash.”
I walked to the kitchen and located the plastic scrap under a half-eaten TV dinner. I pulled it out, wiped it off, and moved back to the front door. I opened the door as far as the chain latch would allow and handed the negative to Aaron. When I tried to close the door again, he stuck his foot in the way.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “You’ve gotten what you came for. Now, I’d like to get back to bed.” He didn’t seem to realize how miffed I was that he’d stood me up. Of course, he didn’t know that he’d actually done me a favor by pointing out how similar he was to Eric. He only wanted his dumb negative back.
“Thanks, Belinda.” He held the negative up to the light in my living room. “Look, I’m sorry that I didn’t come to Maddie’s this afternoon.”
Hmm, I thought. Maybe he does realize that he stood me up. But Eric had been profuse in his apologies every time he had hurt me, too. It had never stopped him from hurting me again.
“Would you please let me come in?”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
His sigh was loud and painful. “Please. I really, really need to talk to someone. . . .”
“You could have talked to me at Maddie’s when you asked to meet me and then didn’t show.”
He paused for a long moment, then cleared his throat. “Belinda, she went into cardiac arrest this afternoon.” His voice was a whisper and I hardly heard what he said.
“We almost lost her.”
My mouth dropped open as I slipped the chain to the end of the latch. “What?”
He stepped inside the house and I saw what a physical wreck he was. His clothes were a mess and deep, gray smudges circled his dark eyes. They looked eerie against his tawny skin. “The doctors brought her back, but the prognosis isn’t good. I never thought that she’d ever let her physical condition get her down.” He rubbed his damp eyes. “I guess I didn’t want to believe that she even had physical limitations beyond not being able to walk.”
“Ginny? Your niece?” was all I could say.
He nodded. “She’s in intensive care right now. I stayed with my sister—Ginny’s mom—through the evening. I even gave blood, just in case.”
I placed my hand on Aaron’s arm and he cupped his larger one over it. “I’m really sorry, Belinda. I tried to get your phone number from Information, but it’s unlisted.”
I sighed in agreement. When Eric left, I changed my number and requested that the phone company not publish it. I didn’t want Eric bothering me anymore. I looked at the man standing before me, shuddering in an emotional pain I could barely understand. The difference between Eric and Aaron suddenly struck me. Here was a man who was going through a family emergency and still thought about a casual date that he’d made with a near stranger. And he’d tried to reach me to explain.
Aaron sank down onto the couch and I sat next to him. “Look, I’ll be on my way in a minute. Just let me catch my breath and collect myself.”
But I could tell by the look on his face that he was haunted by Ginny’s medical emergency, so I offered to make a pot of coffee and let him stay for a while. As we sipped the hot brew, Aaron’s face went from expressionless to deeply pained. I knew that he was thinking about his niece but was unable to talk about her without choking up.
So I picked up the conversation and talked about other things to take his mind off of Ginny. I told him about my job and my family and my hobbies. But when I ran out of safe topics, I found myself slipping into a discussion of my relationship with Eric. I’d never voiced the pain that my ex boyfriend had caused me. I’d never wanted anyone to know how deeply his actions had hurt me.
