Guarded Dreams

by L. J. Evans

  “I don’t give up that easily on the things that I want. I don’t think you do either.”

  I’d been forced to give up the Coast Guard. I wasn’t going to be forced to give her up, too. I’d be damned before I let that happen.

  “But…things change. People change. Look at both of us. Four years and we’re completely different,” she said quietly.

  I nodded. We were different. I wasn’t convinced that it was completely different. If it was completely, then I didn’t think our bodies and minds would have still called to each other the same way they had when we’d met in a house on a sandy shore. I didn’t have the words to convince her, though. I would just have to show her. It was going to take time. I’d just have to hope that she stuck with me for the duration.

  We spent a few more minutes strolling through the museum, but I didn’t have an interest in any more of it. She seemed to sense that, and she finally stopped me, dragging her feet to a halt.

  “Eli,” she said. I looked down at her in response. “Take me back to the hotel.”

  What could I say to that? Our bodies demanded their own relief, their own satisfaction, after weeks apart. I took her back like she requested. I removed her dress while she removed my T-shirt, and we were finally able to touch skin to skin once more. I was able to find that safe harbor in the woman I loved.

  ♫ ♫ ♫

  The sun hadn’t risen when I dropped her off at Juilliard. I had to pack and head to the airport for my flight across the country. I handed her a small package that I’d tucked into my duffle. It was wrapped in paper covered in cats because that was all my mom had had.

  “What’s this?” she asked.

  “Your graduation gift—in case I can’t make it back,” I told her. She started to pull the ribbon, but I stopped her. “No. Keep it. Until graduation. That way, if I’m here, we can do it together, and if I’m not, it will be like I’m here, anyway.”

  Both our throats worked on the tears we were both trying not to shed. It was going to be a long time before my emotions weren’t raw and unsettled.

  I pulled the gift from her hands. “Maybe I should give it to Brady. Can I trust you to not open it?” I teased.

  Her lips curled up, but the dent didn’t appear on the side. “I’m completely trustworthy.”

  “With gifts? I don’t know this about you. I kind of think you’ll have a hard time keeping your hands off of it.”

  “You can demand daily pictures of it, if you like.”

  “You can always open it and then rewrap it. How will I know that you haven’t?”

  She dug in her purse, coming up with a Sharpie. “Hand it over, Doodles.”

  My heart clenched at the name, but I did her bidding. She drew a curved line with squiggles and hearts and shapes all over the sides. “There. It’ll be almost impossible for me to match those back up if I do unwrap it. Satisfied?”

  I kissed her as I pushed the present back into her hand.

  “I love you,” she whispered as she pulled away, trying to leave. I wasn’t ready. I grabbed her hand to stop her.

  “Again.”

  She smiled. “I love you.”

  I pulled her close, kissing her lips as if I was trying to memorize them, as if I could keep them with me. “I love you more.”

  I let her go, and she left. She stopped at the door and looked back at me as if she was trying to memorize me too, and then she went in. I moved, going toward the waiting Lyft and a journey that I was taking for both of us.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Ava

  GIRL

  “Won't you stop your cryin'?

  I know that you're tryin'

  Everything's gonna be okay

  Baby girl, don't you hang your head low…

  Everyone's gonna be okay.”

  —Performed by Maren Morris

  —Written by Kurstin / Morris / Aarons

  Eli got the job in California as we’d both suspected he would. Stan’s recommendation and Eli’s background making him a perfect fit for a company that worked on a daily basis with the Coast Guard.

  The new job was a blessing, but it was also hard on Eli, being so close to, but not one of, the unit. Shifting into the civilian role that he’d never wanted. He called me a lot, trying to stay positive, but I heard the ache in him. He didn’t hide it from me, because I’d asked him not to. He left it out there, but he also didn’t dwell on it. It wasn’t his way. He dealt with loss by moving forward, and I loved that about him, even if it meant he was now a continent away from me.

  He liked to tease me about how much better his pay was now. That he’d be able to splurge on nights at The Carlyle more often. I let him tease, because it was a way for him to accept his new life—his new role—even if I didn’t care an iota about the money. I only cared if he was happy.

  In an attempt to help his mood, I took the gift he’d given to me everywhere, goading him about opening it, but also so that he could see that it was still with me where I wished he was. May slowly crept away with me sending him pictures of the present and me at the coffee shop, in the studio, and in class. I even sent one of the present and me on the rooftop where all of us went to celebrate having survived jury exams.

  The week of graduation, I packed almost all my things and shipped them to Rockport. It was a strange feeling, sending things away from a life that I’d had for three years, sending them toward a life that was hazy and unclear. The few things I had left in the dorms, I’d take with me on the plane back to Texas with Jenna and Colby.

  The day before we graduated, Brady and I sent the album to Nick Jackson. While we waited to hear back, I told Brady the decision I’d made. I didn’t want to do the recording with him. I didn’t want to be a part of the deal.

  “Why?” he asked, although he didn’t sound surprised.

  “For all the reasons I told you. And more. It isn’t my dream anymore.”

  I didn’t tell him what my new dream was. I hadn’t told anyone. It was something that had wiggled into my head, finally, through the songs I’d written. This dream had everything to do with family.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked.

  “Go back to Rockport. Probably work at the bar. Definitely write more songs for some guy I know who’s going to take the world by storm.”

  “You could take the world by storm with me. Think of all the places we’d be able to travel to together. All the stadiums we’d perform in with everyone singing your songs, throwing bras at you.” He was teasing and yet also serious.

  “I hope I wouldn’t get bras thrown at me.”

  “Babe, you’d totally have bras thrown at you.”

  I pushed his shoulder.

  “I just think that I never understood, when I was dreaming of being a country star, what it would really mean. What it would really look like,” I told him honestly. “I don’t want that, Brady. I love singing onstage. I love interacting with a crowd. I just don’t love it enough to give up every other thing in my life that means something to me.”

  “Eli.”

  “Not just Eli. But, yes, him too.”

  “Your dreams have changed…” His voice faded away as he nodded his understanding.

  “I just wish I’d known it earlier.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t. Then you wouldn’t have come to Juilliard, I wouldn’t have met you, and I wouldn’t have platinum-charting songs at my disposal.”

  “Think of the money I could have saved on tuition,” I joked.

  “Psh. Money-schmuny. You’re going to be raking it in with me singing your songs.”

  “Your ego knows no limits,” I said, and it made me think about Andy from the Salty Dog and what he’d said, so many years ago, to me about somebody putting me in my place.

  The truth was, I’d needed to put myself in my place. I’d needed to understand what I really valued in my life. It definitely wasn’t giving away all my days to some schedule that
someone made for me. Giving away my freedom. I’d done that for too long under my dad’s command. I needed to be able to sail my own ship.

  It wasn’t even two hours later that Nick called us. He wanted Brady. He wanted the album. He wanted the songs. He had some ideas of things to change and was working on a duet partner for the couple songs that really needed it. Brady needed to sign papers. I needed to sign papers.

  Brady and I danced around like fools, screaming and dancing on the sofa. It was happening. My songs were going to be out in the world. They were going to be touching people’s lives. That made my heart surge with happiness. For Brady and for me.

  It was a huge moment in my life, and I wanted to share it with the people I loved. Eli came first to my mind. I knew he was in meetings for an upcoming emergency simulation, but I texted him. Jenna and Colby were on their way to NYC. They were on the plane, airplane mode on, but I texted them, too. I knew they would all be happy for me. For us.

  Brady and I and the folks who’d worked on the album went out to celebrate. I was dizzy with happiness, and Brady was smiling because everything he’d wanted was coming together at the same time he was graduating. Success. We’d done it.

  When Jenna and Colby’s plane landed, they joined us at the bar. Jenna hugged me closely, and I think I surprised her when I hugged her tightly back in a way I’d never done in all our years together. Tall, lanky Colby hesitated before hugging me, but I pulled him close, startling him. It felt good to hug people that I loved. And I started to feel like maybe my new dream wasn’t that far off. That maybe I already had the starts of a family. That maybe it had been there all along. That maybe I did know what loving relationships should look like.

  We bought champagne and followed it with shots. There was a euphoria in the air that was contagious. We were all smiling. My phone rang at about eight o’clock. Eli. I stepped away from the table and the noise. It was only five o’clock on the west coast—way earlier than he normally called me—but I knew he’d gotten my text.

  I was still smiling when I answered.

  “Hey,” he said. “I’m so happy for you. For Brady. But are you sure? Really sure that you don’t want to do this with him?”

  God, I missed him. I wished he was next to me, celebrating with me. I wished that our lives weren’t still so far apart.

  “Yes,” I said with confidence in my voice. It was the first time in a couple months that I felt this confident about my decision. I wouldn’t have regrets. I wasn’t giving it up because of my father. I was giving it up for me and the things I wanted now.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “You ask that a lot.”

  “You avoid answering it a lot.”

  “It isn’t me.”

  “You and the stage will always be one, Ava.”

  “Yes. Just like you and the sea.” I heard his intake of breath even over the phone. The loss of the Coast Guard was still painful to him. What did it say that it wasn’t hurting me at all to turn down the record deal? That I only felt happy and no sense of loss? It meant that I really had changed. That I really didn’t need or want that as my life anymore. To him, I said, “We can still have those parts of us. It just doesn’t have to be the center of our whole world.”

  He was quiet for a long time and then said, “So, you’re going back to Rockport.”

  “Yes.”

  “I feel like I need the present to have some AI built into it,” Eli said, drawing me back to the noise of the bar.

  “Why?”

  “You’re out on the town, drinking. I need something to protect you.”

  “I’m not drunk, but even if I was, Jenna’s here. I have protection.”

  “I bet you’re smiling with that dent in your cheek.”

  “What dent?”

  “When you smile, you have this little dent on one side. It’s super sexy. The guys will be all over you, and I don’t think Jenna or the present is big enough to ward them off.”

  “You mean a dimple? I don’t have a dimple.”

  “It’s not a dimple. Just one side of your smile is deeper than the other.”

  “No one has ever said that to me before.”

  “No one has memorized you like I have before.”

  I didn’t know how to respond to that. “Aaaavvvvaaaa!” Brady called to me, demanding my attention back at the bar.

  “I gotta go before Brady does something stupid,” I told him.

  “Ava?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Again.”

  My heart flipped. “I love you,” I responded.

  “I love you more.”

  That made my whole soul happy. That he was still asking me to say the words that we both felt. That no matter what, we still hadn’t given up on the possibility of us.

  When Brady and I got back to the dorm room after leaving Jenna and Colby at their hotel, I picked up the mail for the last time. Tomorrow, Brady would be leaving with his family, and I’d booked a room at the same hotel as Jenna. The dorms were no more for us—the dorm we’d lived in for two years together. That dragged at my heartstrings in a different way. Brady and I were good together. A small part of me was afraid that Brady and I would never have songs like we did now because we weren’t going to be next to each other every day, building off each other.

  There were video chats and Google share. We’d make it work, but it wouldn’t be the same. My eyes suddenly welled at the thought, sad for the first time that day.

  I handed Brady his mail, and he saw the tears I was holding back.

  He hugged me, and I let him.

  “I’m gonna miss you, but I’ll be damned if I give up having your songs. You’re not getting away from me that easily.”

  “They may want you to have different songs for your next album,” I told him truthfully.

  “No. They won’t, Ava. Your songs are going to be the reason they make a fortune.”

  Having Brady believe in me with such ferocity, the same ferocity that Jenna and Eli both believed in me with, returned the joy to my day.

  “I gotta hit the hay, sleep off some of this drunk before I stumble up the steps at graduation tomorrow and some douche films it and it’s the first thing that is online after they announce the record,” Brady said. His slur from earlier was gone, and I was pretty sure he wasn’t drunk anymore, but I loved that he was still Brady, still thinking of his career and not letting anything get in the way.

  “See you in the morning, egomaniac,” I said as we both walked to our rooms.

  “Sexaholic is better,” he teased.

  “You’re both. It’s why the ladies will be drooling after you.”

  “Sure you don’t want to experience it at least one time before you let me go?” he teased, nodding his head toward his room.

  I shut my door in his face, and he chuckled on the other side.

  I changed, washed my face, and then sat on my bed with the few things that were addressed to me from the mailbox. There was one letter without a return address. I tore it open.

  It was a letter written in the neat, tilted slant that was my father’s. My breath left my body. My stupid, foolish heart leaped momentarily, hoping that he’d written as a step to repairing whatever we’d lost while I’d grown up.

  Ava,

  I heard you’re graduating. I want to say congratulations, but you and I both know that it would be false. I never wanted you at that school. I never wanted you chasing foolish dreams like your mother did.

  I heard that you have no plans for after graduation. Is this really what you wanted? To spend so much of your grandparents’ money only to have it amount to nothing?

  My anger surged. He’d spent more of their money before I’d taken control of the trust than I had at Juilliard. That he thought the time and money I’d spent had amounted to nothing had me wanting to call him and throw the record deal Brady and I had made in his face.

  Except, it wasn’t my deal—
just the song rights. I crumpled up the letter, not wanting to read any more, letting the hurt that was my father course through me, and wanting to find solace from that hurt.

  I reached for my phone and called Eli’s number. It rang three times before going to his voicemail, his voice, even on the recording, easing my pain slightly. It reminded me that I had love and acceptance—something my father had never given me. I didn’t need it from a man who’d been my father by DNA only. I didn’t need it from someone who’d always seen the worst in me when I’d done nothing to deserve it.

  I picked up the letter, pressing it flat and reading the rest.

  I’m mailing this letter because I need you to know that you can’t come home. I’ve moved on. I have a life now that isn’t surrounded with taking care of you. I’ve met a woman who is everything you and your mother were not. Someone who’s happy to be here by my side, supporting me.

  Neither of us would welcome having to look after someone who threw away everything that was given to her to chase after a dream that will never come true.

  I do wish that you find something in your life that will tether you to reality. That will allow you to, somehow, eek out a successful life.

  Someday, I hope you see that what I did for you was my duty and that what you did in return was the complete opposite of that.

  Sincerely,

  Your father

  His words burnt their way through my heart. I felt nothing but sadness for the woman he’d found. The woman who would never be enough, because I doubted my father knew how to be satisfied with anything in his life.

  That he thought he’d done his duty by me made me want to scream. His duty would simply have been to love me, to guard my trust fund until I could use it for my dreams. Instead, he’d shown only disgust. Instead, he’d spent my future on his own life. After his lawsuit had failed, he’d made it clear that he felt the money belonged to him. That it was just an oversight on my grandparents’ behalf that they hadn’t changed their will to include their wife’s husband.

  That bitterness over the money was what had fueled his dislike of me. It may have been his loss of my mother as well. I hoped that he’d loved her. I hoped that she’d had that from him before he’d turned vicious and cruel, but I wasn’t sure. I’d never be sure of the truth.