Six Reasons

by Randileigh Kennedy

  “That’s not exactly what happens,” I muttered quietly with a smirk.

  “Or you could give me a chance,” he continued. “A real chance. Maybe get to know me? I don’t know why you’re so closed off, Megan. It’s like you’re afraid to have a real meaningful connection with anyone. I’m not even going to ask you why you’re like that. Maybe you’ve been burned before, or someone really hurt you.”

  “It’s not about that,” I replied, shaking my head. “I just, I don’t know… I probably have my parents to blame for some of that. They didn’t exactly have an ideal relationship, and I know that probably made me a little bit cynical. But it’s not just relationships. I freak out about any kind of commitment. It’s like in fifth grade, all of my school friends were getting perms, right? And I really wanted one too because their hair looked so pretty with all those curls. But then I just kept thinking, what if four days from now I don’t want curls anymore? So I panicked. I never got a perm.”

  “What?” he responded with an amused grin. “Do you have a more male-friendly version of that story? Maybe something sports related? I don’t get what you’re saying, it’s just hair.”

  “Sorry,” I said with a nervous laugh. “I’m just trying to say that I feel the same way when I’m around a guy. You know, it seems like a good idea, but then four days later I’m not sure what I’m doing. I’m sorry, I start rambling when I’m nervous.”

  “Why are you nervous?” he asked, motioning me to sit down on the bench. He slowly opened his cooler, still keeping his eyes directly on me.

  “Because I’m terrified of you,” I replied quietly. “I mean, why me? Everything has gone terribly wrong so far. The first night I met you I was a complete train wreck, and then the other night you left, and I just… I just don’t know why I’m here.”

  Without warning he leaned down towards me, looked me in the eyes, and lingered for a moment. His lips were a breath away from mine, and I so badly wanted to press mine against his, but I felt frozen in his stare.

  “I will change your mind, Megan McGowen,” he whispered, finally pressing his warm lips against mine. They were soft and perfect and I felt a tingling surge throughout my body. He slowly pulled away and I wanted to speak, but I had no words. As his face moved back from mine, he looked directly at me with genuine, sincere eyes. “You terrify me too,” he said with a whisper.

  CHAPTER 11

  I sat on the wooden bench in complete, giddy silence as Ben unpacked the food he brought. He sat down next to me and set a plate on my lap.

  “So we have breakfast sandwiches, fruit, cinnamon rolls, and more coffee,” he said with a slight shrug. “Please don’t tell me you’re a vegan or something. There’s a lot of bacon on that,” he said, pointing to my breakfast sandwich.

  “Perfect,” I replied with a slight laugh. I took a bite of the sandwich, surprised it was still warm.

  “So you said you work in healthcare, right? Are you a chef too? How did you do all of this?”

  “Are you asking me personal questions? Because you can’t take this back you know. I mean, this is really happening. There is no turning back,” he teased¸ raising up his hands.

  “Go ahead, I give in. Give me your life story,” I said with a smirk.

  “Even if it’s dramatic and depressing? Because then you’re going to feel bad for me, and then you’ll be in way too deep. And you’ll never be able to walk away from this. You’ll be invested, and you won’t be able to hold back your intense feelings for me. This is way more serious than a bad perm, Megan. I just want to warn you of that now before you find me charming and irresistible once I start talking.”

  “Oh stop,” I said laughing. “Fine, we can get to know each other. But no expectations, alright? We’re just hanging out. I don’t fall in love. So that’s not happening, just so we’re clear on that.”

  “I don’t do love either, I get it. That’s never been my forte. But the falling? That’s the best part,” he replied, studying my face.

  “I believe falling, by definition, results in an abrupt, hard landing. No thank you,” I answered honestly.

  “Understood,” he said nodding his head. “I absolutely will not fall for you until you give me permission, so I at least have warning of the abrupt landing, thereby making it less abrupt. I got it.”

  “So your dramatic depressing life, let’s hear about it,” I said, changing the subject while finishing my sandwich. I could see soft tinges of orange in the distance between the mountains. It looked like the edge of the earth was about to catch fire.

  “Well, I’m twenty-seven. Probably too old to live with a roommate, Greyson, as you know. I have a degree in business finance, but I’ve taken a bit of a career detour as a hospice nurse. Yes, I said nurse. I hear that’s a very ‘manly’ word amongst female sample groups. We can get into that later,” he said as I shot him an amused grin. “And twice a year I get a rejection letter on my grant proposal to try and expand my sports program into hospitals across the country. That’s always a nice reminder that my life’s goals are on track,” he said sarcastically. “So this,” he said, motioning around to the dim lit scenery in front of us, “this is the best part of my day.”

  “So why don’t you change all that?” I asked curiously. Ben seemed pretty smart, so his sarcasm confused me.

  “Reasons beyond my control,” he said softly. Slices of orange and purple slowly crept over the mountain ridges as the sun began to rise. “So I do this every day. Just to remind myself that there’s a point to all of this. A reason to still get up every day. It’s the most beautiful thing I get to see. And somehow that makes me feel hopeful. And then you…” he said quietly, pausing.

  I looked at him with sincere eyes, listening to his words. He seemed so vulnerable in that moment.

  “Well, you made me feel like that the moment I first saw you. Hopeful. Like there was something else beautiful about the world I hadn’t noticed before.”

  His eyes locked on mine, and a surge of warmth traveled through my body even though we weren’t touching.

  “Sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt my embarrassing babbling conversation here, but we only have about ninety seconds.” He quickly stood up from the bench and walked back to his SUV. He pulled a large blanket out of the backseat and spread it out over the hood of his vehicle. “Come on,” he said, motioning me over to him.

  As I walked over to his car, he picked me up and sat me on the hood. “Lay back with your head on the windshield,” he said, climbing next to me. “This is the best part.”

  As we laid there, parallel to the horizon, the sun finally slid it’s golden edge over the mountain top. Streaks of color shot across the sky, and glistening strands of light shot out across the lake in the distance. I’m sure I’d seen a thousand sunrises in my time, probably more before going to bed rather than after I’d woken up, but this was by far the most magnificent sunrise in my memory. It looked different somehow, laying with my feet up to the edge of it, as if my soles would catch fire. I slid over a few inches until my body was up against Ben’s. He felt warm and comforting, and for some reason I thought of Steve; the way our bodies fit together. I shook those thoughts from my mind, unsure of why they even appeared in my head at this moment. Hues of color continued to illuminate the landscape in front of us. I felt Ben’s hand slowly grasp mine.

  “What are the tally marks for?” I asked softly.

  “Borrowed time,” he said hesitantly. “My mom has cancer. She had it for awhile when I was a kid, and I spent a lot of my youth in and out of hospitals. But then she went into remission and we thought that was it, until it wasn’t. Six years ago, the doctor told me she wouldn’t make it through an operation. I had started coming up here around that time just to think. To clear my head. Not only did she make it through that operation, but she actually started getting better. Until about two years ago anyway. The cancer came back, real aggressive. It was spreading. The doctors told me she may only have a couple of months. But every year on the d
ate I was first told I would lose her, I make another mark. It’s another year they were wrong. Another year I got to spend with her, I don’t know.”

  “So that’s what inspired you to go into hospice care? To help people?” I asked sincerely.

  “I wish I could say that. But it’s far more self-serving, really.” He hesitated, and I wasn’t sure it was something he wanted to talk about. “My dad passed away when I was twenty, so she’s all I had. A couple years ago she was supposed to go into a center, to live. Or a place to die I guess. It really ate at me, so I quit my job at the investment firm I had worked at since college and I got my nursing certificate. I knew she would’ve never allowed me to make that kind of irrational decision, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t know how else to be with her without being able to help her. So for the last year or so, I’ve been her night nurse. She has no idea. She sleeps through it obviously, when she’s not having seizures, but even then she’s too out of sorts to know I’m there. So maybe that sounds pointless, I don’t know. But I read to her while she’s sleeping. She has this old poetry book my dad used to read to her. And then sometimes I just sit there for hours, holding her hands. And then occasionally, I just have a night where I completely fall apart. I touch her skin and it feels cold and then I just cry for awhile. And I get angry that I’m being robbed of a life with her. That she’ll never get to disapprove of the girl I’ve chosen as my wife, or she’ll never get to tell me how I should be raising my kids. Honestly it pisses me off, that I spend hours and hours with her and I can’t make her better.”

  A small, slow tear slid down my cheek.

  “And then I wonder what the point is. All of it. But then I leave her, and I come here. And there’s still beauty and the world hasn’t stopped for everyone else just because someone in my world is days away from a standstill. It doesn’t mean I understand anything better after coming here. But it’s enough to get me to the next day. Enough for me to hope for just one more notch on the bench.”

  Warm tears continued to fall down my cheeks. I wasn’t an emotional person, but the passion in his words resonated with me. I was in awe that one simple sunrise, an event that occurred every single day, could be enough to subdue the pain he felt.

  “I am so sorry, I didn’t mean for this to turn into a therapy session,” he said sweetly, helping me up to a sitting position. His hand still held onto mine, and I knew I didn’t want him to let go of it. He lifted his other hand and gently wiped the tears off my face.

  “I had no idea,” I said sincerely.

  “Too heavy for second date conversation, right?” he said with a slight smile. “But I just wanted you to know what happened Saturday night. She stopped breathing, and we had a scare. But…”

  I slowly put a hand on his face, touching his lips with my fingers.

  “You’ve changed my mind about you,” I said quietly. “I don’t feel so terrified.”

  Ben pressed his lips against mine and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. He pulled the blanket on the hood up around us until we were engulfed in it. As his warm lips caressed my face, only one simple thought entered my mind: without a doubt, I was falling. Yet for some reason, I had no regard for the ground below me.

  CHAPTER 12

  “Pedicure emergency, stat,” I said into the phone as I walked out of my office at five p.m. “Mallory, this is serious. Can you and Addie meet me at the salon by my work? Ten minutes?”

  “Geez, Meg, what’s going on?” Mallory asked. “This isn’t about a guy, is it? What happened to our seventy-two hour rule? I’m not listening to you gush about a guy you’ve known less than three days, Meg. You’re over them in less than a week’s time. I’m sure this will pass.”

  Although Ben and I just had our first real date on Saturday, technically we kissed the week before. So this totally qualified as a valid conversation.

  “It’s about Ben. Ten minutes Mallory, I’m getting a row of chairs at the salon. Please grab Addie and get down here,” I said urgently.

  “Ben? I told you Meg, any guy but him. Pick anyone else, please. What did you do?” she said anxiously. Ben was her boyfriend’s roommate, and his best friend, so I understood her concern. “We’re on our way,” Mallory said reluctantly into the phone.

  I walked into our favorite nail place and was thankful to find three chairs next to each other. Mallory and Addie arrived just a few minutes later.

  “Where’s your car?” Mallory asked as she walked in, taking a seat next to me. “Did you walk here from work?”

  “It’s only a couple of blocks,” I said with a shrug. “Besides, my car is still at home. I had a date this morning, and we were running a little behind so he just dropped me off at work.” I smiled as I said it, and I felt like I was glowing.

  “What’s wrong with your eyes, Meg?” Addie asked, sitting on the other side of me. “Oh my gosh, you have googly eyes. They’re all happy and ridiculous looking. You’re smitten,” she said, pointing her finger at my face.

  “Hence the emergency,” I replied, throwing up my hands. “I don’t want to like this guy, obviously. You know that’s not my style. But there’s just something about him,” I said dreamily.

  “He is the wrong guy for you Meg,” Mallory said sincerely. “He might be moving to Europe soon. Then what?”

  “What?” I asked, taken aback by her comment. Ben had never mentioned Europe, or moving at all for that matter.

  “He runs this soccer program at the hospital,” Mallory began.

  “Right, I know that. I went with him the other night. It’s a really amazing program,” I gushed.

  “Well he’s been trying to get a grant to expand the program nationally. Possibly internationally, actually,” Mallory explained.

  “But he gets rejected all the time. He told me,” I interjected.

  “Well, there’s going to come a day when he gets it, Meg. He’ll actually be finding out any day now. Greyson mentioned it to me the other day. He thinks he has a real good shot at it this time around,” Mallory said, leaning back into her spa chair.

  “I had no idea,” I said quietly.

  “He’s had a really tough life, Meg. It would be the best thing to ever happen to him. He has so much going on right now. The whole situation with his mom - it’s not good. He’s just in a pretty transitional place right now. It’s like he’s ready to crash or fly at any given moment. He’s an amazing guy, Meg,” Mallory said sincerely. “But his world is on the verge of being turned upside down, good or bad. I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”

  “Nah, I don’t get hurt,” I said confidently. “I’ll be fine. I don’t know what I was thinking. You’re right, Mal. I’ll probably be over him in a week anyway.” That was usually true. Unfortunately, the more I thought about my feelings for Ben, the less I wanted to just let them go.

  “Are we still going camping on Friday?” Addie asked, changing the subject. “Or are you bailing on us?”

  “No, I’m still in. Camping sounds great. Of course Ben can’t go since he’ll have to work. So I guess I’ll just ride up with Steve. Oh no, Steve,” I said, frantically rummaging through my purse, looking for my phone. “I cancelled on him this morning for our run. I was supposed to call him as soon as I left work so we could make plans to run later.”

  “So go for a run with him tonight,” Mallory interjected. “Since your boyfriend will be at work and all.” Mallory had a smile on her face, and I knew she was amused at her use of the word ‘boyfriend,’ since it wasn’t a word usually associated with me. I wondered if she said it to further scare me off from my feelings about Ben. Once titles were thrown in, I usually bolted.

  “Go for a run tonight after a fresh pedicure? No way,” I responded, shaking my head. “Besides, I need to go to bed early tonight. I have another date at six in the morning.” I wanted to hold back my smile so I could still appear nonchalant about the whole thing, but I just couldn’t. It radiated through me, and I felt giddy like I was fifteen all over again.

&nbs
p; I called Steve’s phone but it just went straight to his voicemail, so I didn’t leave a message. I could call him later about it.

  “You don’t think Steve will care, right? If I cancel on him again for tomorrow morning?” I asked Mallory and Addie for their approval. “I’m not trying to blow him off or anything, but he can just run on his own without me this week, right? That’s not a big deal.”

  “Meg, the half marathon is in two weeks. He’s only running this because of you. You should make time for him,” Mallory said with a genuine tone in her voice.

  “And you probably shouldn’t tell him you’re cancelling on him for a guy,” Addie chimed in. “I mean, I still don’t understand your whole relationship with Steve, or whatever happened with you guys in the past. But that night at the grand opening, neither one of you seemed to handle the whole ‘dating other people’ thing very well.”

  “The only thing I couldn’t handle was too much champagne on an empty stomach,” I replied. “That’s all that was.” I shook my head in complete denial that the events of that night meant anything more. “Steve is my best friend, we’ve been that way since high school. That’s a long bond. So we’re just protective of each other, that’s all.”

  Mallory and Addie exchanged looks, and I knew they always thought there was more to my relationship with Steve. But that simply wasn’t true.

  After our pedicures we agreed to go out for a bite to eat at a cantina nearby. We didn’t bring up Ben or Steve the rest of the night, and I was really grateful about that. We mostly talked about Addie’s wedding plans and Mallory’s ideas for her bakery business, especially now since the bakery was sharing space with her boyfriend’s catering business. She had to revise her business goals a bit for that change of plans, but her dedication was amazing.