Until Then (Cornerstone Book 2)

by Noorman, Krista

  “Nice to meet you, Michelle.” Ben continued to stare at her.

  Michelle shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Why Magnolia?” she asked Maggie.

  “Oh, that’s just what Ben calls me sometimes.” Maggie had the same smile on her face she always got when she talked about him.

  “It’s a high school thing,” he added in a patronizing tone. “Guess you had to be there.”

  Ben finally turned his attention to Maggie when she began handing him things.

  Maggie hugged Michelle, then grabbed her last couple bags. “Merry Christmas. See you next month.”

  “Merry Christmas. Call me if you need me.” She watched Maggie exit the room with a bag over each arm.

  Ben looked back over his shoulder. “Bye, Michelle.”

  Michelle was more sure than ever that Ben was no good for Maggie. But how could she tell her without breaking her heart? Or worse, without losing her friendship?

  After Maggie’s departure, there was only one person left to see before she headed off to Chicago. Knowing she would be back and see her friends again in a month gave her some comfort. But Sean … this might be the last time she ever saw him. She didn’t know what to do with that or with the guilt and sadness that still weighed heavy on her heart. Sean might not blame her for his leaving, but she couldn’t help but feel responsible.

  As she finished packing the last of her clothes in her suitcase, there came a soft knocking on her already wide open door.

  She glanced up at Sean’s smiling face. Her heart leapt.

  “Hey.” He took a couple steps toward her.

  “Hey.” Her sadness was impossible to hide.

  “So, I’m about to head out.” He tilted his head toward the hallway, then took another step.

  She softly chewed on the corner of her lip.

  Another step. “And I wanted to say—”

  She launched herself forward and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Don’t say it. Please, don’t say it.”

  His arms enfolded her, and he kissed the top of her head. “I’m gonna miss you so much.” He leaned back and looked at her, his arms still locked around her. “I was thinking … we both live in Chicago. Maybe we can see each other while you’re home on break.”

  “Yes!” She knew she was smiling like a lovestruck fool, but she didn’t care. “Yes! That is the best idea ever!” She squeezed him tightly, which elicited his wonderful laugh. When she pulled back and looked at him again, the right side of his mouth curved up a little. He smiled at her in a way that seemed reserved just for her.

  She smiled sweetly in return.

  He gazed into her eyes, adoration swimming in a sea of blue, and her heart soared. Emotions she had never experienced welled up inside her. Emotions she thought might be the closest thing to love she had ever felt in her life.

  He leaned closer, the warmth of his breath caressing her face. Their noses brushed, and her lips parted.

  “Until then,” he whispered.

  “Until then,” she whispered back as his lips softly met hers.

  7

  “You miss me, don’t you?” Sean asked at the start of every phone conversation.

  “You know the answer to that,” she always replied.

  “How’s Michigan?”

  “It would be better if you were here. How’s Northwestern?”

  “It’s great. Very different than Cornerstone, but I like it.”

  They talked about classes, new people he had met, the lovely campus in Evanston, and her recent choice to major in psychology. He liked his new roommates. She liked having only one roommate. Not that she didn’t miss Emma, but the extra space was nice. He liked being close to home. She wished he was closer to her.

  Their plans to get together over winter break had been thwarted by his parents, who did not approve of Michelle. They never came right out and said it in so many words, but she knew they had probably figured out she was the one he had been with. She understood. She had ruined their son’s plans. If she were them, she probably wouldn’t have let him spend time with the likes of her either. Even if she had found Jesus along the way.

  “We’ll see each other,” Sean said on the phone one day.

  “There’s always Spring Break.”

  “What? You don’t have plans to go to Florida with the girls for Spring Break?” He chuckled.

  “You are my Spring Break plans,” she responded sweetly.

  “Mmm. I like the sound of that.”

  Long distance calls weren’t cheap, especially three-hour-long conversations. So when they couldn’t afford to talk on the phone, they wrote letters to each other. Michelle looked forward to her daily walks to the mail room. Every other day, there was a card or letter from Sean. She had never been much of a writer, but she found herself scribbling page after page of the happenings around campus and the things she was learning in her classes and in chapel. Sometimes their letters crossed in the mail, because she was too anxious to wait for his next one before she sent hers.

  With every letter, they opened up to each other about what had happened between them and how they felt about the whole thing.

  “When I came home to Chicago, I was angry at myself for being so weak when it came to you and not standing strong in my beliefs. And I questioned everything and went through the long list of what ifs. I wondered if I had done the right thing, leaving Grand Rapids and transferring to Northwestern. I still wonder that. Because I miss you. I hate being so far away from you.”

  When he said things like this, her heart melted.

  “I wonder a lot, too,” she wrote. “I wish you had transferred somewhere closer so we could see each other, because I miss you. It’s totally my fault all of this happened, and I don’t think I can say sorry enough. I care so much about you, Sean. I wish things had turned out differently.”

  The next correspondence from Sean was a card with a sweet sentiment about never having regrets and always seeing the good in every situation. He filled the blank side of the card with words of his own.

  “You know I do not blame you for what happened. I take full responsibility for my part in it. If I could go back and do it all over again, I’m not sure I would change a thing, because I don’t regret you. Not one bit. And I don’t question what came after. I stand by my decision to go to the dean. I will never question that, because I know it was the right thing to do. I can’t help but regret leaving you, though.”

  Michelle read the card probably a hundred times over the next few days. She went to Meijer one-hour photo, made a copy of a picture Maggie had taken of the two of them, and sent it off to him with a simple note. “I don’t regret you either.”

  In the following week’s letter, Sean declared he was coming to visit on a very special day that was all about hearts and flowers.

  Michelle immediately marked her calendar with a giant red heart over February the fourteenth.

  But the night before, she returned to the room to find a note from Maggie telling her Sean had called to let her know he wasn’t coming after all. She called him back, but there was no answer.

  A belated Valentine card arrived a few days later. “Michelle, I’m so sorry I didn’t make it over to see you. I hope you had a good Valentine’s Day. I was thinking about you every moment.” Above the i in her name, he had drawn a little heart, which brought a smile to her face.

  Over the next two months, the frequency of Sean’s letters began to dwindle. Michelle continued to write him every few days, letting him know what was happening and how much she missed him. His letters were brief. He had a big course load and was playing some intramural basketball, which took up more of his time. She understood, but she found herself hating the walk to the mail room, because she didn’t know whether she would be happy at the sight of a letter or crushed when the mailbox was empty again.

  “I’m sure you’re busy,” she wrote one night. “I know classes can be time-consuming and difficult, but I hate not hearing from you. I want to know how you ar
e and what’s going on there. I tried calling, but you’re never there. The silence on your end is making me feel like something is wrong.”

  Two weeks later came Sean’s reply. She practically yanked the door off the little mailbox when she saw his return address. The small envelope was torn open in a matter of moments. She was anxious for his words.

  “I’m sorry I haven’t written lately. I’ve been really busy. Classes are killing me, but I’m loving intramurals. Hope life at Cornerstone is treating you well. Sean.”

  She leaned back against the wall of mailboxes and stared at the single sheet of paper. That’s it? She flipped the paper over hoping for more, but that was definitely all he had written. Tears stung her eyes, and she walked as fast as she could back to her dorm room before she completely lost it. She burst through the door, wadded up his note, and tossed it at the picture of the two of them she had framed on her desk. The tears came then and didn’t stop. She climbed into her bed and cried herself to sleep.

  One of her arms felt colder than the other. It was so cold that it stung, like touching an ice cube or snow, and her eyes flew open. Maggie stood over her holding a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream in one hand and two spoons in the other.

  Michelle sat up and rubbed her puffy eyes.

  “I saw Sean’s letter on the floor. Are you OK?”

  “That was no letter,” Michelle declared. “That was a brush off.”

  Maggie climbed onto the bed and sat cross-legged facing her. “I’ve got the remedy.” She handed Michelle one of the spoons, and they dug into the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough.

  “I just don’t get it.” Michelle spoke with the spoon in her mouth. “I thought things were so good between us. I thought this was going somewhere.”

  “Guys suck!” Maggie exclaimed.

  “They really do.” Michelle took another very large scoop of ice cream and gobbled it down, then looked at Maggie. “Maybe he met someone.”

  “Don’t think like that.”

  “I can’t help it. It’s the only thing that makes any sense.”

  Maggie held out the pint of ice cream again.

  Michelle laughed a little and took another scoop. “This was a good idea.”

  Maggie nodded as she devoured her own scoop.

  “Should I write him back?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Because there are a lot of things I’d like to say to him right about now.”

  “Maybe you should take a day or two and think about it.”

  “What I really wanna do is grab that phone and call him.” Michelle nodded her head in the direction of the telephone. “I want answers.”

  “You should. You deserve to know what’s going on.”

  “I do deserve that. I’m gonna do it.” She climbed off the bed and lifted the phone to her ear, dialing Sean’s number while taking deep breaths in and out.

  It rang several times before an answering machine picked up.

  She dropped the phone onto the base, and plopped down in the desk chair. “Machine.”

  “I’m sorry, Chelle.”

  “I wish I could talk to him face to face. I just wanna know what happened.”

  On a bright, shiny May afternoon, Michelle walked along the sidewalk next to Simon. The breeze blew warm against her face, and the birds chirped as they darted between tree branches. Summer was on its way, yet her mood remained as somber as a midwinter’s day.

  “You’re not you lately, Chelle,” Simon told her. “Where’s that smile I love so much?”

  She gave him a weak smile.

  “That was pitiful.” He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into him. “Smile! It’s a beautiful day. And you’re with me.”

  She did smile at that.

  “There’s my girl.” He kissed her on the top of the head and kept his arm around her as they walked, leading them in the direction of the mail room.

  Michelle’s love affair with the mailbox was a thing of the past. There had been no more letters from Sean, and she never wrote him back. If he wasn’t man enough to be honest with her and admit it was over, then he wasn’t worth it after all. It broke her heart, but she was trying to move past it.

  She walked to her box and opened it. Empty. Of course.

  Simon had three pieces of mail. A large, cream-colored envelope with an Evanston, Illinois return address caught her eye.

  “What’s that?” She pointed at it.

  He slid his finger under the seal and opened the flap, removing a thick card with fancy calligraphy from within. He read aloud, “The pleasure of your company is requested at the wedding of Lindsay Marie Bishop and Sean Aaron Davis on the fourteenth of June …” His voice trailed off. “What the?”

  Michelle thought she was having an out-of-body experience. Did he just read that right? Sean was getting married? Her body sank to the floor as her heart sank to the depths of despair. This girl, Lindsay, was obviously the reason he had stopped writing. Tears sprung to her eyes, and she was visibly trembling.

  Simon dropped to the floor next to her and wrapped her up in his arms. “I’m so sorry, Chelle. I know how much you cared about him.”

  She pushed against his chest and scrambled to her feet, brushing the tears from her cheeks. “I’m fine. I’ve known it was over for a while now. It’s no big deal.” Her instinct was to push the pain aside as she always had when her dad left her. “I’ll talk to you later.” Her feet carried her quickly from the building. Simon called out her name, but she ignored him and made a beeline for the gym. She grabbed a basketball and proceeded to sink it over and over through the hoop, hoping it would help take her mind off the pain and heartbreak. It didn’t. The more shots she took, the more it reminded her of Sean and his scholarship and all that had happened between them.

  “This really sucks, God,” she mumbled to herself. “Thanks a lot.”

  8

  While this day was filled with plenty of pomp, Michelle found herself unhappy with the circumstances. She had worked hard for four years to get to graduation, and here she stood with degree in hand, yet uncertainty clouded her future. She was supposed to have a plan by the time she earned her degree. Things were supposed to fall into place now. So why did she feel no closer to any real direction than when she first arrived on campus?

  She truly believed God had led her to Cornerstone, but there had been many times when she felt completely lost. Everyone around her seemed to know exactly where they were headed, but Michelle bounced back and forth between majors. By the end of freshman year, she settled on psychology, but before junior year, her major had changed to business, then back again. Her grandparents became concerned that she was taking unnecessary classes and urged her to pick one thing.

  “Just get any degree,” they had said. “You can always do something different than your chosen major, but having a degree will help you get a job.”

  In the end, she settled on psychology, but she had no idea what to do with it.

  She knew God had a plan, but it eluded her.

  As “Pomp and Circumstance” played, she walked arm in arm down the aisle with Maggie.

  “We did it,” Maggie whispered. “I’m so proud of us.”

  “Me, too.”

  They filtered out into the foyer of Calvary Church with the rest of the graduates to wait for their families. Michelle watched as the last of those in gowns exited, those with last names in the W’s.

  Simon’s eyes met hers and he raised his degree high in the air as he maneuvered through the crowd to get to her.

  “Congratulations!” he cried, as he scooped her up and swung her around.

  She laughed.

  “Can you believe it? We actually graduated.” He flipped open the cover of his degree and showed her.

  “I know. They gave us actual degrees, and now what? We just go out into the world? What were they thinking?”

  “I think they’ve made a huge mistake. In your case anyway.” He winked.

  “Hey!” She pu
nched him playfully on the arm.

  “Congratulations, Maggie.” Simon glanced over at her.

  Maggie smirked. “Thanks. You, too.” Her eyes scanned the room, no doubt looking for her family and … “Ben!” she exclaimed.

  Ben pushed through the crowds to get to her, wrapped his arms around her waist, and kissed her firmly on the lips. “Congratulations, honey.”

  Maggie beamed with happiness.

  Michelle felt like gagging.

  Simon looked annoyed. He hugged Michelle again. “I’m gonna go find my family, OK?”

  “OK.”

  “I’ll catch up with you in a bit.”

  Michelle watched him walk away, then turned back to Maggie and Ben.

  Watching them over the past eight months had been difficult. In the fall, Ben began to call almost every day and started showing up at their apartment often. Maggie would return home from seeing him with this blissful, dreamy look on her face. By Christmas, they were officially a couple.

  It was difficult not to be jealous, not to want what Maggie had — a happy family life, a budding photography career, and happily ever after with the guy she had always loved.

  Michelle wondered if she would ever have any of it.

  Her family life had only become more complicated over the past couple years when, out of the blue, her father called to inform her that he had remarried and his new wife was pregnant. She suddenly had a step-mother and a baby sister on the way. That baby sister, Ava, was now a year old, and they had still never met. Michelle wasn’t sure why her dad had bothered to tell her since he made no effort to include her in his new life.

  The news of Dad’s marriage seemed to trigger something in her mother. Louise had never dated after the divorce, which always made Michelle wonder if her mom hoped for a reconciliation someday. But when Robert married, it seemed to give her the nudge she needed to get back out there. She started dating a man from work, Marvin, who had been interested in her over the years.