He shook his head. "It's not about blame. It's about dealing with the issues in our lives so we can move on. God's not going to let us move forward until we learn what he wants us to learn. We can run away from one situation, but the issue will only surface in another. I think that's what's happening with us."
"You mean with me?" she asked. She was beginning to feel a tinge of anger.
Nate tightened his hold on her. "No, I mean us. We're in this together, CeCe. What you do affects me, and what I do affects you."
"But you think it's my problem to fix? Don't deny it, Nate. I know you do."
He nodded solemnly. "You brought Eric into our relationship, and you have to ask him to leave. He's only here because you brought him here."
CeCe gave an unladylike snort. "You make this sound like a party and Eric is a guest."
"I hadn't thought of it that way, but maybe you're right. Do you want him here, CeCe? I asked you before if there was somebody else, and you said no, but maybe you do have some feelings for Eric. Maybe the reason for all of your anger is that you still care for him."
CeCe pulled out of his embrace and glared at him. "How can you say that after everything that man did to me?" she asked, her voice tight. She was making a conscious effort to keep her emotions in check and her voice low, but she found it difficult to do so. "How could you think I'd feel anything but hatred toward him?"
CeCe folded her arms around her waist, her back ramrod straight. Nate just stared silently at her. "Hate is a very strong word," he said slowly. "How can you hate him and love me? You know as well as I do that hate and love can't occupy the same vessel."
She didn't move, and she didn't answer.
He sighed deeply. Then he tilted her face up and placed a soft kiss on her forehead, taking care not to touch her anyplace else. "I do love you," he said. Then he walked down the steps and to his car. He didn't turn around, so he didn't see the tears that fell from her eyes as he backed out of her driveway.
* * *
CeCe would have been happy to cry herself to sleep, but she was not that blessed. After her tears subsided, she was wide awake and more heartsick than she'd ever been before. Her life seemed to be falling apart around her, and she knew it was her own fault. The past was catching up with her. The past she'd tried so hard to escape.
Nate was right. She hadn't been able to admit it to him, but he had been absolutely right. She was giving Eric too much power in her life, and she knew the time had come for it to stop, just as she knew what she had to do in order to make it stop.
She also knew she owed Nate an explanation—and an apology. She loved this man, but she didn't deserve him. He'd been nothing but open with her, and what had she given him in return? Half-truths. She should have told him the full story about Eric—she knew that now—but she'd been so ashamed. And, she admitted, she'd been afraid of Nate's reaction when he heard her shameful story. Would his eyes still look at her with love, or would they mirror the disappointment she saw in her parents' eyes?
CeCe wasn't sure, but she needed to find out. She couldn't torture herself with what-ifs, and she couldn't continue to hide herself from Nate. She might have been able to continue her charade if he hadn't gone to Alabama with her and seen the ugliest part of her. She might have been able to hide if she hadn't seen the vulnerability in his eyes when he'd kissed her goodnight and sadly told her that he loved her. She might have been able to continue along the path of least resistance if she hadn't known that Nate was questioning her love for him.
She glanced at the clock on her nightstand, the fluorescent numbers screaming the early morning time to her. It was too early to call Nate, she knew, but she had to make the call while she still had the courage. She picked up the handset and dialed.
"Hello," he answered in a wide-awake voice. Her heart ached because she knew she was the reason he couldn't sleep.
"I know it's early, Nate." She pushed the words out quickly, still not sure if her courage would abandon her. "But we need to talk."
"OK, let's talk."
"Not on the phone. Can you meet me for lunch around noon at Woodruff Park?"
"Sure I can meet you."
CeCe expelled the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. She'd deliberately chosen the place they'd eaten their first lunch together because she wanted to go back to the familiar. She'd known during that lunch that Nate could touch her heart in a way that no man had ever touched it before, or would again. It was fitting that Woodruff Park also be the place where she confirmed for him that her heart belonged to him as well.
"I'll see you then," she said. "And Nate, I do love you."
Chapter 16
CeCe arrived at Woodruff Park about fifteen minutes before she was scheduled to meet Nate. She'd gone in to work early and was prepared to stay late in order to take whatever time was necessary to work out her problems with him. Their relationship was too important to let a ghost from her past tear them apart.
It was a warm, cloudless day, and the park was crowded with downtown workers taking advantage of the extended warm weather of late fall. As she sat down on a vacant bench in the midst of the horde, she wished she had chosen a place that would have provided them more privacy. She should have gone for practicality instead of sentimentality.
"Hi."
CeCe looked up, surprised to see Nate standing before her but happy he'd decided to arrive early, too. That was a good sign, wasn't it? She smiled at him, his probing eyes reminding her of their first visit here. Then his look had made her cautious. Now it made her feel safe. And loved. "Hi," she said.
His lips curved in a slight smile. "Do you want to get something to eat and bring it back here?"
Standing, she nodded, though she hadn't given a thought to food. Then she almost burst into tears when he enclosed her hand in his and gave it a little squeeze. Lord, why did you send this man to me? Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined him.
Beyond what you can ask or think, a soft voice said. Those are the plans I have for you.
CeCe looked up at Nate and smiled again, knowing he could see the tears in her eyes. "I do love you, Nate, even if sometimes it doesn't seem that way." She pressed her free hand to his cleanshaven face. "I don't know how or why God saw fit to send you to me, but I'm so very glad he did."
Nate covered the hand on his face with his free one. "We're already becoming one," he said softly, his loving emotions clear in his eyes. "You're stealing my lines." He smiled and then pressed a kiss against her forehead. He pulled back and looked down into her eyes. "I think I'd rather talk than eat. How about you?"
She nodded. "I'd rather talk too, but I don't think I picked the best place for serious conversation." They both looked around, taking in their busy surroundings.
"What time do you have to get back to work?" he asked.
"I'm pretty flexible. I went in early, and I'm prepared to stay late."
"Good." He squeezed her hand again. "I know the perfect place, but we'll have to drive."
She followed him without question. They went back to Genesis House, where they got Nate's car. They didn't talk much during the drive, but CeCe didn't mind. Nate still held her hand and periodically gave it an affectionate squeeze. He was encouraging her, she knew, and that consideration strengthened her belief that all would be well between them.
CeCe wasn't sure of their destination until they reached Highway 78. She knew then they were going back to Stone Mountain Park, to Nate's spot there. She couldn't think of a more appropriate place. He'd brought her here the first time they'd been at odds.
He led her to the same area, his spot littered now with the brown and gold leaves of autumn, slipped off his light denim jacket, sat, and pulled her to sit down next to him on the jacket. "I love you," he whispered. "More than you know."
She believed him because she loved him the same way. "Nate, I don't have any unresolved feelings for Eric. You have to believe me."
He squeezed her shoulders. "How can you be sure?"
&nb
sp; "Oh, I'm sure all right. All my feelings for Eric are definitely resolved." She was positive her disdain for the man was clear in her voice.
"You know, people say love and hate are two sides of the same coin," Nate said, gently massaging her shoulder. "I think that connection is especially true for us as Christians. I know you well enough to know that you don't hate Eric, not in the sense of wanting him to die or anything like that."
At those words, she shot him a glare that suggested maybe he didn't know her as well as he thought, but even as she glared at him, she recognized the truth in his words. She didn't want anything to happen to Eric. The thought brought rumblings of sadness in her—which surprised her.
Nate ignored her glare and continued talking. "So I have to conclude that your hate, or your so-called hate, must have its roots somewhere else. I know you loved him at one time, CeCe, or you thought you did. Maybe a part of you still does."
She shook her head. "Maybe I don't want anything to happen to him, but I can assure you that I don't have any loving feelings for him." When Nate would have contradicted her, she stopped him by pressing her hand against his chest. "I need to tell you the truth about Eric and me. I think that once you hear the whole story, you'll see why Eric is still so much a part of my life, and you'll know that it has nothing to do with any loving feelings I still harbor for him."
"OK," he said. "I'm listening."
She sighed deeply and felt fear build within her. Lord, she prayed, give me the courage to tell this story. Help me to get past the shame. "Eric and I practically grew up together," she began, looking away from Nate and off toward the mountain. "I think I developed a crush on him in first grade, if you can believe that." She gave a self-deprecating laugh, to which Nate responded with a soft squeeze of her shoulder. "Well, my crush didn't go away as most crushes did. Instead, it grew and grew and grew. By the time I was in high school, I was practicing writing my name as Cecelia Bradshaw. Mrs. Eric Bradshaw. Eric and Cecelia Bradshaw. I was undaunted by the fact that Eric never looked at me as anything more than a friend. I think he told me that he was falling in love with Yolanda—that's the woman he married—even before he told her." She still remembered the pain she'd felt the day he'd shared his joy with her and thought she'd done an admirable job of hiding her feelings.
"Yolanda was a big deal because she wasn't part of our group. Eric and I were both active in the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship group when we first went off to college, but Eric stopped coming after he started seeing Yolanda. Of course, we were all worried about him. Anyway, Yolanda broke his heart, as we knew she would. When Eric told me about it, I encouraged him to come back to the group, but he said he was too ashamed. So we started having Bible study together."
She shook her head at the memory of how naive she'd been and the easy prey she'd made for the enemy. "This is when I went crazy. I just knew that everything that was happening between Eric and me was a sign from God that we were meant to be together. I don't know how it happened, but before long I was avoiding the other members of our group just as Eric was. Now that I look back, I can see why. You see, deep down inside I knew that Eric was lonely for Yolanda, not lonely for God. But all I wanted to see was that he was with me. I had wanted him with me for so long."
She paused. Reliving this part of her past was harder than she'd imagined it would be. Nate must have understood, because he didn't say anything. He just waited patiently for her to start again. If he had spoken, she wasn't sure she would have been able to continue.
"Anyway, one thing led to another, and one night after our one-on-one Bible study, Eric told me he thought I was pretty." She turned her lips downward in regret. "You would have thought he told me I was Miss America or something. It was as though he was finally seeing me as a woman. I was ecstatic. Then he started telling me how different I was from Yolanda and how he'd been crazy not to see that before. I was eating this up, of course, because I knew he was right."
She stopped again and took some time to pluck a blade of grass. This was the hard part. "Then one night I told him. I don't know how I told him or why I told him, but I told him that I loved him. He was surprised, I could tell, but he kissed me and told me that he loved me, too." Her happiness at that moment had been unlimited but, unfortunately, short-lived.
"After that, our Bible study sessions turned into kissing sessions. When our feelings began to get physically intense, we started talking about marriage. Once we started talking about marriage, it became easy to go beyond the kissing. He was going to be my husband, after all, I told myself. We were already married in our hearts." She laughed at herself again, laughter that substituted for the tears she refused to shed. Oh, how she'd deceived herself back then! "We were together during the summer after Eric graduated, but like summers have to, ours ended and Eric went off to med school. We planned for me to visit him for the Howard-Morehouse football game and for him to visit me at Thanksgiving, and then we'd both go home for Christmas. We had it all planned. But when I went to visit him for the Howard-Morehouse game, I could tell things had changed. I didn't want to see it, but I did. And for the first time I was the initiator in our physical relationship. I don't know, I just felt that I had to be close to him." She'd been a very foolish girl, she knew now.
"Anyway, I went back home telling myself everything was OK. I learned I was pregnant about a week before Thanksgiving. I should have been devastated, but all I could think was that now Eric and I would get married sooner. It had been Eric's idea to wait until I graduated to get married. That should have told me something." As she looked back, she realized she'd had more than one signal, or sign, that she should end the relationship, including the conscience she had often battled. Unfortunately, she'd ignored them all.
"Eric came home for Thanksgiving as planned. Before I could tell him I was pregnant, he told me that he and Yolanda had reconciled. Apparently, she'd had second thoughts, and to prove herself to him, she'd taken a job in D.C. so they could work out their problems."
Nate pressed his lips against her hair, and she accepted the comfort he offered. "Now I was devastated. Talk about your world crashing down around you. Mine did. I couldn't say anything, and when I finally did, it wasn't what Eric wanted to hear. He didn't come right out and say it, but he hinted that our only alternative was abortion. That was when I hit rock bottom. It was as though my whole life flashed in front of me, at least the last couple of years. I felt ashamed and worthless and stupid. Eric left, upset. I concentrated on making it until the next time I saw him. Of course, I convinced myself all the while we were apart that Eric would come to his senses and realize that he loved me and not Yolanda. But it was not to be." CeCe took comfort in the soft brush of Nate's fingers on her neck.
"Eric didn't have to tell me he didn't love me the next time he saw me, because I could read it in his eyes. He told me anyway, of course, and then he told me that he and Yolanda were getting married in the summer. They were going to announce it at Christmas. I knew then that I'd just been a substitute for Yolanda. That hurt. Really hurt. Eric had been my friend for a long time, and then he'd used me that way. I was hurt and I was angry. And since I was hurt, I wanted to hurt him back."
She paused again. Everything she had admitted up to this point was bad enough, but what was yet to come was even worse. She breathed deeply, then continued, "So I told Eric that I would tell Yolanda I was pregnant." Nate's fingers stopped briefly, then started again. CeCe waited for him to ask the question she knew was on his mind, and when he didn't, she answered him anyway. "That got to him, of course. He had to hide the truth from Yolanda. One thing led to another and—"
CeCe stopped. She couldn't say it. She covered her face with her hands. If only she had walked away as soon as she'd seen that Eric didn't love her. If only she'd acknowledged the signs she'd seen while she was in D.C. If only, if only, if only. She shook her head sadly. But she hadn't, and things had spiraled way out of control.
"CeCe?" Nate's question was soft, nonthreatening, a
nd most important, noncondemning. "CeCe," he said her name again. "It's all right. You've told me, and we'll work though it."
CeCe managed a nod. After a few more seconds she lifted her head. She knew Nate thought he knew the rest of the story, but he didn't. She had to tell him. He had to know. She took another deep breath and told herself life would not end if he walked away. She'd never really thought she'd get married and live happily ever after. She'd been content to live a single life, and she could become content again. She had a wonderful son, and that was enough.
"You haven't heard all of it yet." At the question in his eyes, she nodded. Lord, please help me to make it through this part. "I had planned to tell Yolanda I was pregnant, expecting that she'd refuse to marry Eric and then he'd do the right thing and marry me. Except it didn't quite work out that way." CeCe remembered it as if it had happened yesterday.
"Why do you want me, CeCe?" Eric had asked her, oh so calmly. "I don't want you and I don't love you. I've never loved you. You were just there. I'm sorry, but that's the truth."
How could he have stood there and said those words to her so carelessly when she'd been carrying his child? What kind of monster had he been to treat her with such cruelty?
"CeCe?" Nate's tender voice brought her out of her thoughts.
"Well," she continued, willing herself to tell him all of it, "Eric told me that he didn't want me and he didn't love me, had never loved me."
Nate reached for her to pull her close, she knew, but she couldn't accept his comfort right now. She used her hands to ward him off, and thank God, he followed her lead. Just thinking about the way Eric had used her made her feel dirty. Five years later, she still felt dirty. She couldn't bear to have Nate touch her when she felt this way.
After a long while, it seemed to her, the pain of the past went back to that place where it lived, and she was able to speak again. She turned pleading eyes to Nate, willing him to understand what she was about to tell him. "I was so hurt, Nate. I had loved Eric so much, and now I was so hurt. All I wanted to do was hurt him back. So I said the first thing that came to my mind. I told him that if he didn't give me twenty thousand dollars, I was going to tell Yolanda everything."
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