Still Love You

by Allie Everhart

  I go out to the living room and see Silas sitting on the couch. He gets up when he sees me.

  "What are you still doing here?" I ask. "You were supposed to leave an hour ago."

  "I'm waiting for your parents to get home. I didn't want you here alone."

  "I'm fine. Just go." I walk quickly to my room but feel him behind me.

  "Willow, wait." He holds my arm.

  I hear the garage door opening. "That's them. You need to go."

  "Are you going to call me later?"

  My back is to him as I shake my head.

  He comes around in front of me. "Willow, I'm sorry I didn't tell you. But don't shut me out. I want to be here for you."

  "I don't need you," I mutter.

  "Don't say that. It's not true."

  He's right. It's a lie. I do need him. Now more than ever. But right now, I don't trust him. And I don't trust myself around him. When he's close to me like this, I want to touch him and kiss him and tell him I love him. But that's just leading him on. Making him think we have a future together. Like Trent said, I need to make a decision about Silas. I can't keep this going if I know it's eventually going to end.

  I need time to think. To sort things out and figure out what I'm going to do. About Silas. About school. About my future. The plan I made is over. Done. Gone. And that has me in a state of panic.

  Silas wraps his arms around me and pulls me into his chest. I don't even try to resist because it's what I need and what I want. But I shouldn't let him do it. Not until I make a decision about him.

  He strokes my hair and whispers, "I love you." We hear my parents walking in the door as he slowly backs away. "Call me later." He softly kisses my forehead and then leaves.

  My dad says something to Silas but I can't make out his words. I go into my room and hear my mom behind me.

  "Honey, I'm sorry. But we just couldn't tell you."

  I turn and see her standing at the door with tears in her eyes and my anger toward her suddenly fades away.

  "Please don't be mad at us," she says. "We thought we were doing the right thing."

  "Mom." I go up to her and hug her. "I'm not mad at you. I just wish you'd told me because I want to help."

  "I know you do." She takes me over to the bed to sit down. "But your father and I didn't want you worrying about this. It's our responsibility, not yours."

  My mom looks exhausted, with dark circles and bags under her eyes. She's probably not sleeping well because she's stressed and tired from having to work at that new job while also managing the farm. I never really noticed how tired she looked until now. How did I not notice this before? I see her every day.

  "Willow." My dad appears at my door. He, too, looks exhausted but not as bad as my mom.

  My dad has always been good at covering up whatever is bothering him. When something bad happens, he's always the rock of our family. He's steady and calm and one of those people who can convince you things will be okay, even when they're not. Silas is that way too. It was one of the reasons I was drawn to him, even when we were kids. I've always been anxious and high-strung and he's always been relaxed and laid-back. That's why I crave being around him. We balance each other out.

  "Let's go talk in the other room," my dad says.

  The three of us go to the living room and sit down. My parents sit on one end of the couch and I sit on the other. My dad has his arm around my mom and she's holding his hand. Just seeing them together like that makes me feel better. Sometimes stressful situations tear people apart, but my parents are still as strong as ever. And that makes me feel better. More secure. Like maybe we can get through this.

  "Do you want to ask us questions?" my dad asks. "Or should I just start from the beginning?"

  "How did this happen?"

  He looks at my mom, then back at me. "It started a year ago, after your mom had surgery."

  Last year, my mom had back surgery. She had back pain for years, but my parents try to avoid going to doctors, choosing to rely on alternative treatments, like chiropractors or massage therapy or herbal remedies. None of those treatments worked so my mom had to have surgery.

  "Our insurance didn't cover all the medical costs," he says. "The hospital bill wiped us out. It cleared out our savings and we had to take money out of the business. That put us behind on our bills. Then material costs went up at the farm, labor costs went up, sales went down and..." He continues to list all the things that led us to this point.

  It sounds like everything happened at once and they just couldn't keep up. And they didn't have enough money in savings to cover their bills. They give a lot of their money away to charity or families who need it. It's great that they do that but I wish they'd saved more of it for when something like this happens. In fact, it angers me that they didn't. They own a business that's unpredictable. A bad storm or insects or disease could wipe out their entire crop at any time, so they should always be prepared. They should've saved more of their money, putting some away for medical expenses and other emergencies.

  This is why I am the way I am. Always worried about the future, always planning ahead. It's because my parents aren't that way and it drives me crazy. When I was twelve I watched a show on TV about farmers and it showed all these farm families living in poverty because some plant disease wiped out their crop that year. It totally freaked me out. I thought for sure that would happen to us. I told my parents about it that night at dinner and they told me to relax and stop worrying. I was so mad they didn't take it seriously that I left the table and ran off to my room. For weeks, I had nightmares that we were one of those homeless families without any food to eat. My parents refused to take my concerns seriously and that's when I went into my obsessive planning stage, which I'm still in.

  Now my nightmares have come true. My parents didn't plan for this and now we'll lose the farm and maybe the house. We'll be just like those families on TV.

  "Are you selling the house?" I ask.

  "We hope it won't come to that," my mom says.

  "You don't know if you'll have to sell the house? How could you not know that?" I'm yelling because I'm angry. I'm angry they didn't plan better and that they still don't seem to have a plan. "Haven't you run the numbers? Calculated how much money you need to save the business? Run different scenarios?" I shoot up from the couch. "How do you plan to fix this if you don't have the information to make the right decisions?"

  "Ron already ran the numbers," my mom says. Ron is their accountant but he looks like a stoned-out hippie from the Sixties so I have zero confidence in him. "We've gone over everything with him but we're waiting to see how we do this summer. So far, sales are up and my job is bringing in enough extra income to cover the household expenses."

  I throw my hands up. "Ron is an idiot! You need a real accountant. You can't trust some hippie friend of yours to save the business."

  "Hey," my dad says in a stern tone. "Don't talk that way about Ron. He graduated with honors from UC-Berkeley. He may not dress in suits, but that doesn't mean he's not intelligent."

  "If he was so great, then how did you get to this point? He should've seen it coming! He should've had a plan in place!"

  "Honey, it's not his fault." My mom reaches for me but I step back.

  "What's his plan? What does he think we should do?"

  "Let your mom and I worry about that," my dad says. "This isn't for you to worry about."

  "Are you kidding me? Of course I'm worried about it! I'm completely panicked! We're selling the house, we have no money, and I have to drop out of school!"

  My dad stands up. "You are NOT dropping out of school."

  "There's no way I'm going back to school, knowing how much we need the money."

  "Which is why we didn't want you to know," my dad says. "We knew you would react this way. But we are still your parents and you are going to school, even if we have to drag you there and drop you off."

  "Why would you do that? You need that money and you need it now! It
's an emergency. College can wait."

  "If you wait, you may never go back."

  "You know that's not true. If I want to do something, I do it."

  "Yes, but not if we can't afford it. If we use your college money, we may not be able to replace it."

  "Then I'll get a scholarship or financial aid. I'll find a way. But you're taking that money."

  My parents look at each other, frustration on their faces. My dad turns back to me. "I think we've talked enough for now. Silas asked me to tell you to call him when we're done, so go ahead."

  "I can't. I um...I broke up with Silas."

  "Willow, no," my mom says. "You can't blame Silas for this."

  "He lied to me, Mom. He kept this from me when he knew I'd want to be told."

  My dad comes up in front of me. "Listen to me. Silas has done a lot for us and you need to thank him for that, not punish him. He's been working on the farm since the day he got back into town. When Diane told him what was going on, he was at our doorstep, practically begging me to let him help. He refused to take any money. He's been working for free this entire time."

  I swallow hard. "I know. But he still should've told me."

  "He wanted to, many times, but I told him not to. I told him it was my job to tell you, not his, and he respected that. He's given up a lot to help us, Willow. He even dropped two of his summer classes so he could work for us. We're damn lucky to have him. He gets twice as much done as my other employees and he won't accept a dime. So don't you dare punish him for this. He did as I asked and kept quiet."

  "I don't want to talk about this. I'll be in my room." I turn and walk down the hall, feeling my parents' eyes on me. I know they're mad at me for breaking up with Silas but it's not their decision.

  When I'm back in my room, I check my phone and see some texts from Silas, asking me how I'm doing and telling me to call him. But instead, I lie on my bed and end up falling asleep. I don't wake up until I hear my mom knocking on my door.

  "Come in," I say, sitting up.

  My mom walks over and sits next to me on the bed. "We're having dinner soon."

  "Okay. I'll be there in a few minutes." I check my phone and see more texts from Silas.

  "Are you going to call him?" my mom asks.

  "I'm not ready to."

  "Willow, you're being unreasonable. He did what your father asked. If it had been up to Silas, he would've told you."

  "He didn't have to listen to Dad."

  "No, but the fact that he did shows that he's respectful of your father and me, and that says a lot about his character."

  "But he wasn't respectful of me. Are you saying that doesn't matter?"

  "Willow, you know Silas respects you. Stop trying to make him the villain here. He begged us to tell you about this every day since you got back. This hasn't been easy on him. In fact, just last week he told your father he couldn't keep this a secret any longer."

  That explains his behavior. All last week Silas kept giving my dad these looks but I didn't know what they meant. And then I'd catch him talking to my dad, looking really serious, but as soon as I approached him, he'd smile and act like everything's fine. So I guess he really did want to tell me but wasn't willing to do so without my dad's approval, which still makes me angry. His loyalty should be to me, not my dad.

  "It's not just that," I say.

  "Not what?"

  "It's not just the fact that Silas didn't tell me. That's not the only reason I broke up with him."

  "What's the other reason?"

  I pause, my eyes tearing up. "I just...I don't want to hurt him again. I don't know if I see a future with Silas, and if I don't, then I need to let him go. For good this time."

  "Willow." My mom rubs my arm. "What have I always told you?"

  "To go with my heart. But that's not good enough for me. I can't be with him just because I..." I look down.

  "Love him?" she asks softly.

  I don't answer.

  "Honey, that's enough of a reason to be with him. Love doesn't come along very often, and if you let it go, you may not find it again."

  "That all sounds good when you say it, but it doesn't always work that way in real life. Silas and I may love each other, but the fact remains that we still want different things in life. If we stay together, one of us will have to give up what we want."

  "Willow." She moves my hair behind my shoulder. "No matter who you end up with, you'll have to make sacrifices. That's part of being in a relationship."

  "But this is more than a few sacrifices. Being with Silas means changing where I live and what I want to do." I pause. "I guess that's not true anymore. I have no idea what I'm going to do now."

  "You're still going to college," she says in the same stern tone my dad used earlier. "If we can't afford Camsburg, you'll go to school somewhere else, but you're not quitting college."

  So she's finally admitting that I may not be going back to Camsburg. I knew it was a possibility, but hearing her say it made it a thousand times more real. This is really happening. I'm not going back to Camsburg in the fall. I've wanted to go there since I was a kid, and I did. I made it happen. And I have friends there. Best friends. But now it's over. It's all ending.

  Tears fall before I can stop them.

  My mom hugs me. "I'm sorry, honey. I know this is hard. Your father and I hate disappointing you like this and we'll do everything possible to try to keep you at Camsburg."

  "It's not going to happen. It's way too expensive."

  "You can always take out loans. I don't like the idea of you taking on all that debt but it may be our only option."

  "You have to do it, Mom. You have to use the money to save your business and the house."

  She nods. "It hasn't come to that yet, but if things get worse, then yes, we may need to borrow from your college fund to pay our bills."

  I'm glad she's finally agreeing to it, but also sad, because it means I need to find a new college and won't see my friends anymore.

  She sits back. "Let's go have dinner. And then you need to go talk to Silas."

  We go to the kitchen and I set the table while my dad tells us some funny story he heard on the news. He's acting like our problems don't exist. Trying to keep my mind off them. My mom is doing the same, laughing at his story in an attempt to keep the mood light.

  My parents are much better at dealing with setbacks and uncertainty than I am. They always believe things will work out. So does Silas.

  But me? I need more than a belief. I need proof that things will work out. And since I don't have that, I'm left feeling confused. Lost. Unsure how to move forward.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Silas

  I've texted and called her at least twenty times since I left and haven't heard a word from her. By now, her parents have talked to her and explained that they basically ordered me not to tell her, but Willow will still say I should've told her. I'm angry with her parents for putting me in that position. They knew she'd find out eventually so why hide it from her?

  My phone dings with a text. It's from Willow, asking me to come outside. It's ten o'clock. I'm surprised she's here this late.

  I go downstairs. My mom and Martin see me and both look at me like they're afraid to say anything. When I got home earlier I was on edge and snapped at them when they asked me what I wanted for dinner. I ended up skipping dinner and listening to music in my room, falling asleep for a couple hours.

  "Sorry for earlier," I say as I pass by my mom and Martin.

  "Where are you going?" my mom asks.

  "I'm not sure," I answer, because I'm not. I don't know if Willow wants to talk here or go somewhere. I don't know why she wants to see me. Does she just want to talk or is she going to try to break up with me again?

  When I get outside, she's standing by my truck, wearing denim shorts, a white tank top, and flip flops that show off her bright pink toes. She looks adorable, but also hot. Her tank top fits tight against her body and when my eyes lower
, I can see the outline of her navel ring.

  "Can we go somewhere?" she asks, bringing my eyes back to her face. Her eyes look puffy, like she's been crying.

  "Where do you want to go?"

  "Anywhere but the farm."

  I walk over to my truck and she steps aside as I open the door. It's the driver's side door, so she looks confused when I lift her up into the truck and set her down on the seat.

  "I'm driving? I don't feel like driving."

  "You're not driving. Now scoot over."

  She's staring at me, surprised that I'm ordering her around like this. She probably thought I'd let her take the lead, but I can't be that way with her. Not now. Whenever she feels like things are out of control, she needs someone to step in and take over. It makes her feel safe and calms her down.

  "Where are we going?" she asks as I take off down the street.

  "To get some dinner. I haven't eaten since this morning and I'm starving. Did you eat already?"

  "Just a few bites of pasta. I wasn't hungry."

  We ride in silence during the ten-minute drive to the restaurant. I'm not ready to get into whatever she wants to tell me and she doesn't seem to be either. We'll get some food, then find a quiet place to talk.

  The restaurant I take her to is a local fast food place that's open until midnight. You order at the window and eat outside. Willow and I used to go here a lot back in high school. Tonight the place is empty, probably because it's cool and breezy and people don't want to sit outside. I park, then go around to Willow's side, open the door and lift her out.

  "Why do you keep doing that?" she asks as I set her down.

  I ignore her question. It's part of my take-charge approach, as is my taking her hand and walking her to the order window.

  Larry's working tonight. He's the owner; an old fat guy with thinning gray hair and a ketchup-stained t-shirt. He always pretends to be grumpy, but he's actually a nice guy.

  "We'll have two number threes, one with everything, the other with one squirt of mustard, two squirts of ketchup, four—"