Years of Summer: Lily's Story

by Bethanie Armstrong

I had known this all along, there were just things that kept cropping up and there was no reason to deny it anymore. Dave was my future and now all I had to do was claim it.

  Chapter 15

  I had decided about Dave. He came to pick me and Sunshine up that Friday morning, because he had been doing that since I started my Kindergarten student teaching. We were at the same school. It was fun to ride to “work” with him. I could see that happening in the future. That day was absolutely beautiful, it was around seventy degrees at the beginning of the day, but all of the news channels were talking about the monumental snow storm we were supposed to get that day. Of course my mom and Dave’s mom went into Alabama snow mode. They went to the store to get bread and milk and peanut butter. For some reason that was the norm when anyone in Alabama heard the word snow, but this snowstorm was different. They said to expect snow in the range of feet instead of inches.

  It was rather exciting; Alabama had never seen that much snow before, at least not in my lifetime. We were all waiting with anticipation. If it held true they would close the schools early today. Dave had already ok’d it with his parents and my parents since he was taking me too my student teaching, and would have to drop me off first before coming home, that if it was too bad for him to get back out on the road he was going to sleep on our couch.

  Our parents had become friends again since they were friends in high school. It was rather weird, but they had the best time together. Hallie and Hannah and Ally had become really good friends and they were now full-fledged members of Alpha Delta Pi. They had their initiation ceremony the week before. I gave Ally my ADPi lavaliere and chain when she came home that weekend, and Mom and Dad and Sam’s mom and dad told them to immediately come home after their last class unless the roads were bad. They came back early because UNA had closed campus that Friday morning in reaction to the coming snowstorm.

  Dave and I still had to go to school and be there like regular teachers until they decided to close school. Of course that’s what we would be doing when we did start teaching full time anyway. I secretly hoped that the roads would be too bad for Dave to go home so we could spend more time together. I had to talk to him. I had to tell him of my decision since I was the determining factor for us.

  He stayed around like he said he would. He was better to me than I believed I deserved, but he never gave up on me and I was so thankful for that. I never had any hysterical fits again, but the lasting effects were panic attacks. I still had those occasionally. I had one the first day I started in the Kindergarten class. Mrs. Graylee was fantastic. She watched me get up and she saw the need to leave, written all over my face.

  We agreed by letter that when I needed to get up and leave (she never knew what for) I would just do it and if the children asked questions, she answered by saying, “Ms. Aldridge had to take her dog out.” That was the truth because when I felt the need to leave I went right out the side door, next to her room, and sat on the steps until I could calm down and come back in. The great part about it was that Dave still had his pager and if I needed him he would be able to leave his classroom and come help me, luckily I never was that bad off.

  We made it to the school that morning and the call had come down the pike. Schools were going to close at noon. I signed in and took my pass and Dave did the same. Sunshine even had a pass and I had to sign her in too. All the schedules were re-arranged because every grade had to eat lunch before school let out. The day became hectic and I started feeling panicky, because I was worried all the kids would not get home in time and I was supposed to be teaching that day. Luckily it was at the beginning of the day and all I had to do was walk out. Mrs. Graylee saw me and she did the morning routine as I walked out the door. For some reason Dave was down on the kindergarten hall, his classroom he did his student teaching in was on the third grade hall.

  He saw me leave out of my classroom. “Lily, are you okay?” He caught up to me. He saw the expression on my face. “No, you’re not okay.” He walked out with me and didn’t do anything but sit there and let Sunshine work. “It’s a little too hectic this morning isn’t it.” I just nodded my head. “It’s pretty neat though, all of the kids are excited. They are going to get a half snow day at least. Lily, I have a confession; I’m hoping that the roads are too bad for me to go home after I drop you off this afternoon.”

  I started laughing. “I hope they are too, I really want you to be able to stay.” I looked up from Sunshine and felt calm enough to go back in and Dave had his great smile across his face.

  He offered his hand to help me up. I took it hoping I would get my time with him later, because I knew this could be his school that he taught at full-time. I didn’t want to ruin that for him. He walked me back to my room and headed back to third grade hall. I watched him stop by the lunchroom, I assumed he ended up down on kindergarten hall because he needed to get something from the lunchroom, probably lunch count sheets.

  Kindergarten hall and the lunch room were both on the same hall. I walked back into the classroom and sat down at the front of the class to begin their morning welcome. I fell right into it and it was like nothing had happened that morning. I loved teaching kindergarten it was so much fun. The kids’ eager little faces looking at you as if you held the knowledge of the world in the palm of your hands.

  Lunch time for kindergarten started at 10:00 and normally it starts at 10:30. I wasn’t hungry, so I just sat down and guided Sunshine under the lunch table. She laid down on her mat under the table and seemed content as could be. After lunch, the rest of the day went by quickly. We did math and daily reading and then the bell rang to go home. We had to sit with our class until the last child was called to go home. That was about 12:15.

  Dave came down to meet me, as usual, and evidently Mrs. Graylee’s curiosity had taken the best of her. “Ms. Aldridge, I’m going to be nosy. Are you and Mr. Jameson married?” Dave turned fifty different shades of red and I’m sure I did too.

  “No, ma’am. We’re not married, we’re just very close.”

  Mrs. Graylee had a sense of humor and she joked, but she couldn’t have been more right. “Well if y’all aren’t married then you need to be.” She looked at me and laughed. “There are several single girls here that would like to pick him up and take him home.”

  Dave and I busted out laughing right along with Mrs. Graylee. “You two have a great spring break. Ms. Aldridge we will see you the Monday after next.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I’ll be here.” Something stuck with me after Mrs. Graylee said that about the single women there. Dave walked me too his truck and helped me get in and put Sunshine next to me. When he climbed in I had to get him. “So just how many single women are trying to get their hands on you?”

  He laughed. “None that I know of.” He had to get me back. “Why, are you jealous?”

  “Maybe. They might have some competition on their hands.” I said that as serious as I could and he didn’t say anything else on the way home.

  While driving down the road you could see snow piling up already. It was starting. I began getting excited, because it started sticking to the roads and it amazed me how quickly the temperature bottomed out.

  It dropped from seventy to thirty in a matter of four hours. That had to have been a record. Dave put his truck in four-wheel drive so it would handle better and we slowly made it to my house. I was glad to see Ally already home and Sam had made it home too. Mom and Dad had come home because of schools letting out early too. They worked at the high school. Dad was a coach and Algebra teacher and mom was an English teacher. Dave walked me inside and then turned to leave. Mom stopped him. “Your mom called, she wants you to stay put here. You’re sleeping on our couch tonight.”

  I almost wanted to scream I was so happy. Mom had started a fire in the fireplace and I went and made popcorn for me and Dave and Ally and then Ally made us hot cocoa. Dave stayed in the den. I wasn’t sure why. I walked back into the den with bowls of popcorn for us. Dave had taken Sunshine’s wo
rk gear off so now she was in family dog mode and she lay in front of the fireplace and had fallen asleep. She looked so peaceful and content lying there. Ally turned on the TV and of course the weather was the huge news story for today. All the channels were talking about the snow. The main weather person for our area said it could be as deep as three feet in the morning. I so did not believe that.

  Suddenly, Dave took my hand. “Could you come outside with me a minute?”

  “Okay, what’s wrong?” He didn’t answer, he just led me outside. He put his big coat on me so I would stay warm and took me down to his truck. He put me in and went to the other side and turned it on so we would have heat. He stared at me. “Dave would you please tell me what’s going on?”

  “Actually Lily, I would prefer you tell me what’s going on. The way you said that on the way home from school sounded like you were serious, and when your mom said my mom told me to stay here, you seemed ecstatic.”

  “Well I was ecstatic, because I really needed to talk to you and I was afraid I wouldn’t get the chance for a few days. Do you remember what you said to me back in January, the day I started back to school?”

  “Yeah, I wanted to know if you could still honestly call me just your best friend and I wanted you to decide why or why not because I left the decision up to you.”

  “Wow, you’ve got a good memory. I bet you thought I had forgotten about that didn’t you?”

  “Actually yes, I thought you had forgotten.”

  “Well I didn’t. After you threw that in my lap, it really made me think about who you were to me, so I started a journal. Well actually it’s full of letters I wrote to myself about certain things, certain situations that I had been involved in over the past couple of years that involved you.”

  He gave me this questioning look. “What are they about, Lily?”

  “Would you like to read them, because it would be easier, and I think you would understand my thought process better if you did?”

  “Okay, I’ll read them.”

  “They’re up in my room. Can we go back in?”

  “Yeah. Let me get my bag.”

  “You packed?”

  “Mom told me too just in case, and I really don’t want to come back out in the cold tonight.”

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  He helped me out of his truck and we walked back up the deck stairs and into the house. Sunshine was still asleep in front of the fireplace. He took his bag and dropped it in my rocking chair in the corner of my room. I pulled out my notebook. He came and sat on my bed with me.

  “There are about ten letters in there. Five of them will really stand out to you; especially the last one and I hope one of them doesn’t hurt your feelings. It’s about Brianna.”

  “Oh . . . Okay.” He read the title. “Letters to My Future, By Lily Grace Aldridge. I like the title.”

  He was hesitant about reading them; I guess he thought it was like my diary or something. “Dave, please read them.”

  “Okay.” He began reading. It took him a little while to read through them all. I could tell when he came to the five I told him about, except when he came to the last one, he just held the notebook open and stared at the page for a while and then he turned to the next page and saw it was blank. He turned back to the last written page. He finally looked up from the notebook to me. “Lily, why is there nothing about Jace in here except that little bit at the beginning.”

  “Dave read the title again and then think back to what I said to you about our pasts that day at the Botanical Gardens.”

  He didn’t have to read the title again, he simply quoted it. “Letters to My Future, and that day at the Botanical Gardens you said, ‘the past is exactly that, the past. It should never make its way into your future’.”

  “Dave if you understood that at all you know why Jace is not mentioned anymore in those letters. I was never meant to have a future with him or he would still be here. I realized what he was to me and it was nothing like what you are to me, you even said it yourself that day you pulled me off that rock.” He flinched as I brought that picture back into his mind.

  “Explain that please. What did I say to you? I don’t remember what you’re talking about.”

  “Okay, you never said it directly, but you said it in everything you said to me that day while we sat there on the ground. You were trying to comfort me, which I very much appreciate, but Dave, Jace lied to me, okay; maybe not intentionally, but still. Everything he ever did was for himself, not for me. You even told me that when you said, ‘It was you Lily, all along’. Then you asked me if I thought he had no right to be happy and I disagreed with you, because everyone deserves to be happy . . . but never at the cost of another person.

  He even told me at the beginning that he tried to stay away from me. I honestly wished he had just kept it as a friend thing, because it would not have been near as hard, but he allowed me to love him, which if he ever did love me to begin with, knowing what he did—I still don’t understand how he knew—then he never would let it get as far as he did. Dave one of the things he always said to me was ‘I hope you have no regrets’, tell me he didn’t know anything.”

  Dave gently took my hand, caressing the back of it with his thumb. “I can’t tell you that because you’re right; he knew something was going to happen to him, but how do you know he didn’t love you?”

  “Dave he might have thought that, but you know the old saying, ‘if you love someone set them free’ he never did that.” I took his other hand and we sat there holding each others' hands. I have three very serious questions for you and I want honest answers, complete honesty. Do you promise?”

  “You may not like my answers.”

  “I don’t care. Like your answers or not, complete honesty.”

  “Okay, you have my word.”

  “Okay, the day you pulled me off that rock . . .”

  He flinched again. “Will you please stop saying that, I would rather forget that image.”

  “Okay, that day, you asked me if I would deny someone happiness, no matter what it cost me. You weren’t talking about me, were you? Remember, complete honesty.”

  He looked at me shocked, and then answered. “Yes and no.”

  “Explain that please.”

  “Yes, because I know the type of person you are, and if you knew Jace was dying you would have given him anything he asked for, whether it hurt you or not. I believe you would have done that for anyone.”

  “Including you?”

  “Including me.”

  “Good, now answer the rest of it.”

  “No, because I have always wanted to be a part of your life from the day I met you. Then I saw how happy you were with Jace and I decided to let it be just friends between us, as long as I had a part in your life somewhere.”

  “So in essence, you gave up your happiness for me.”

  “That sounds like I was all noble, that is not what I was. I started dating Brianna, was that noble of me?”

  “Dave, you’re human, every one of us wants to feel needed and loved. So you started dating Brianna, why is that so bad?”

  At that point Dave stood up, he was mad. “Because I fell for her and according to your letter in this notebook, she never meant it to go anywhere.”

  “Which brings me to my next question. Why did you fall for Brianna?”

  “You’re going to think I am so shallow.”

  “I bet I won’t, try me. I told you I have been thinking a lot about many things. Don’t forget, complete honesty.”

  “I know . . . Okay . . . I wanted someone to help me forget about you.”

  “Did it work?”

  “For a while, then I felt like I had betrayed you and that’s when things started getting rocky between me and Brianna.”

  “Dave, I was with Jace, how could you have betrayed me?”

  Dave actually became really angry. He semi-yelled, not at me, but if Jace had been sitting there Dave would have punched him. “By no
t stopping him when I could have!”

  Finally, that was what I was looking for.

  “You knew, didn’t you? Jace had told you he wasn’t going to be there for me, didn’t he, but you didn’t stop him because you knew what it would do to me if I knew the truth, because it had already gone too far. That is why you came to me after Brianna. You wanted to tell me the truth then, but couldn’t, so you opted for an ‘I need a friend’ talk, right? Dave that honestly never made any sense to me. By the way you’re a good actor though. I never would have guessed you knew anything.”

  “Lily, don’t. What I did was wrong. I should have told you everything I knew.”

  “And risk me thinking you were just jealous of Jace. What happened was best, Dave. I wouldn’t have believed you if you tried to tell me. Have you ever thought about that?”

  He gave me a shocked look again. He had calmed down. “No I hadn’t thought of that.” I walked over to him and took his hands and brought him back to sit on my bed. Tears started coming into my eyes. Sunshine walked into my room and jumped on my bed and came and laid her head in my lap.

  “Lil, are you upset?”

  “A little. Dave, I have one more question to ask you and I’m not sure I want the answer, but I’ll take that risk. I have told you who I feel like you are, and no, I cannot honestly call you, just my best friend. You’re not just my rescuer either, you’re so much more. But my question is what am I to you? Because after everything you have just read and everything we have just discussed, it might cause you to question your answers. I have to take Sunshine out please sit here and think about everything before you answer me.”

  I walked out of my room as tears flowed down my cheeks, because I was sure he had changed his mind, but it’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, right? I know it’s a cliché, but it was very true.

  I pulled my large fluffy coat out of the coat closet in our hallway and took Sunshine out. It is going to be hard, having him here tonight, or at least I thought. The snow was coming down harder and harder. It had stuck to the driveway and the sidewalks and the yard. There were about two inches on the ground already. Sunshine ran out into the yard and I followed her. She looked at me confused. She had never seen this cold white stuff falling out of the sky before and she was trying to catch it. She was funny to watch. When she was through I just kind of stood in the yard. It was peaceful and beautiful, but cold, kind of the way I felt at that moment.