Let You Go: a heart-wrenching second chance romance story that will make you believe in true love

by Jaxson Kidman

  The fire crackled next to us.

  We faced each other.

  “The name?” she asked.

  “The kiss,” I said.

  “Foster…”

  “That’s not my real name,” I said with a wink.

  Rose sighed. “Fine.”

  I touched her sides. I inched forward. She put her head back to look up at me. I liked being taller than her. I also liked this moment. This exact moment. The pond. The moonlight. The fire. The woods. The quietness. Just talking to Rose was easy. Which was interesting to me. For the first time in way too long, I had my guard down a little.

  Seconds ticked by and I was missing my cue.

  Our noses touched again, just like before.

  Her lips were slightly parted.

  If I kissed her… damn.

  My lips were a millimeter from hers.

  Instead of kissing her, I said, “Kingsley.”

  “What?” she asked.

  I stepped back and winked.

  I pointed to the fire. “Enjoy the fire, Rose.”

  I walked away, leaving her hanging by a thin thread.

  I couldn’t help myself though.

  A girl like Rose didn’t deserve a bribed kiss. Maybe the setting had been right, but not the reason. Plus, that stupid damn game. Six minutes with Rose?

  “Nah,” I whispered as I walked through the woods.

  I looked back once and saw her standing next to the fire, hugging herself.

  I wondered what she was thinking.

  Probably thinking she’d dodged a bullet with me. Which was true.

  But in my head…

  Six minutes with Rose would probably lead to forever.

  6

  Catch a Kiss, Break a Heart

  Rose

  My toes tingled. And it wasn’t from the cool air. The tingling feeling wasn’t just in my toes. It was… everywhere. I’d never had that feeling before. Ever in my life.

  “Kingsley?” I whispered as I turned my head to look at the pond.

  That was Foster’s real name? He went from being Kingsley to Foster? Because he was a foster kid. So the rumors about that were true. I’d heard that he had no mother. That his father was a bad guy. I didn’t know what had happened to his mother though.

  Was it like what had happened to mine?

  My father was a good guy though. He always made sure me and Vivian were taken care of.

  I whipped my head around and looked to the woods. I couldn’t see anything though. Foster was definitely gone. Probably doing what he said he was going to do. Walk by everyone playing that game, nodding, giving them a smirk, letting them all assume that he and I had done stuff in the woods.

  And then what? I was supposed to do the same? So people didn’t think I was a prude or something? It was all so ridiculous, but it made sense. It was how survival went sometimes as a teenager. I wondered how many stories that floated around school weren’t true.

  I hated that Foster let me go. Right there at the fire. It was just us. We were just talking. Anything he said to me, I would never tell. The fact that he apologized about my mother. Not that he did anything to hurt her, or cause what happened to happen. But just the fact that he knew and cared. And I remembered the day I met him. I had been sitting on the back steps, crying. It had been Vivian’s turn to have a bad day. We started sharing a bed after Mom died. We decided to make a plan to help Dad out. We would take turns being sad. It was her day to be sad, but I was feeling really upset. And angry. I sat on the steps and saw Foster walking by. He had his hood pulled up and was staring down at his own feet. Then his head popped up and he stripped the hood back.

  I had been crying. My hair had blown across my face, so I wasn’t sure if he knew I was crying. Dad told me and Vivian that the wind was Mom brushing her hands against our faces. I didn’t like that. Maybe it was supposed to make us feel better, but it felt like a cruel joke.

  Foster just stared at me for a minute and then walked away.

  Now he had walked away again.

  I watched the fire start to slowly die. It kind of seemed like a waste to build the fire, only to let it die so quickly.

  Why did he walk away?

  I wasn’t going to pick on him for his name. Kingsley was a cool name.

  When the fire became nothing but glowing embers, I decided to go back to the party.

  Walking through the patch of woods alone was a little scary. My mind suddenly thought of every scary movie I had ever seen. This was the perfect setup, wasn’t it? A bunch of teenagers partying, their minds dazed by cheap booze and the idea of sex, and then here comes the killer to slice them all up.

  I looked over my shoulder and I was officially swallowed up by the trees and the darkness. But the fear quickly passed as I wasn’t walking through some massive forest. In a matter of a minute I could see the house. The large back deck, the party, the noise, music, laughter, the glow of the hot tub as it changed from a neon green to a neon blue.

  With my hands in my pockets as the cool air wrapped around me, I got to the bottom step of the deck and someone saw me. It was some guy and he quickly gave out a quick whistle.

  “Look at her,” he said. “Barely able to walk.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Look at me.”

  “Fucking Foster,” someone else said. “Hey, how about you join us in here?”

  “Can’t,” I said. I felt uneasy. These guys hadn’t looked at me all night, but now, because they assumed I’d… you know… with Foster, I was suddenly cool. Wanted. Needed.

  “You can do anything you want,” the first guy said. “We’ll make room for you.”

  “Do you know where Foster went?” I asked.

  “Oh, shit,” the second guy said. “She wants seconds.”

  “I got dibs on thirds,” the first guy called out.

  He and the second guy reached across the hot tub at each other and slapped hands together. They started laughing and dancing.

  I curled my lip.

  Boys were idiots.

  And that’s what all these people were. Boys. Girls. They had no idea what they were doing or why they were doing it.

  It wasn’t worth my time to keep talking to them. They were drunk. They had a one track mind.

  Stupid boys.

  I walked up to the second level of the deck to find that the game had already broken up. Either everyone got bored, or everyone had scattered to do whatever during their minutes.

  That’s when I saw Vivian sitting on some guy’s lap, kissing him. His hand started to climb her body as I approached. Yes, I was that sister as I cleared my throat to get their attention.

  Vivian broke the kiss and looked at me. “Hey. Rose. What…”

  “Where’s Foster?”

  “Foster?” the guy Vivian had been kissing said. “Why? Thought you two had had your fun.”

  “So much fun,” I said.

  “Really?” Vivian asked. “Good for you. Oh, wow. You…”

  “Did you see him?”

  “Uh, yeah,” Vivian said. “A few minutes ago. Heading back into the party.”

  “There are plenty of bedrooms upstairs,” the guy said. “Feel free to get a little more comfortable for round two.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. “Viv, we’re leaving soon.”

  “Excuse me?” she asked.

  “Okay. I’m leaving soon. I’ll find a way out of here.”

  Vivian started to climb off the guy’s lap. Anger in her eyes. I put my hand out to stop her. I wasn’t going to argue with her. I wasn’t going to back down. There was no way I was spending the night in this house.

  Unless…

  I bit my lip and looked toward the party.

  If I could find Foster again. We could keep talking. If he wasn’t like the other idiot guys at this party, we could hang out all night. I could get some sleep without worrying about some drunk moron trying to lick my face.

  “You said he went back to the party?” I asked. “Foster?�
��

  “Yeah,” the guy said. “Go inside, Rose.”

  He grabbed Vivian and she let out a playful yell. She plopped back down on the guy’s lap and they picked up where they left off.

  I set my sights on the house.

  When I entered the house, there were a hundred directions I could go in. I started in the kitchen and bounced my way through people, asking if anyone had seen Foster. Most people ignored me. A few gave directions. I ended up under the main stairs in the house where there was an almost secret hallway. It made me roll my eyes that people with money did stupid crap like this.

  Beyond the stairs was another wing of the house.

  I stepped down into what looked like a massive den type room.

  It was a deep red color with black leather furniture. It had a smell to it. Like unlit cigars and really expensive cologne.

  I looked around and didn’t see anything.

  Okay, to be honest, I was on the hunt for Foster for one reason.

  I wanted to kiss him. I wanted him to kiss me.

  I should have kept him out there at the fire next to the pond, talking and flirting. That’s what it was, right? We were flirting. Feeling each other out. I let my mind get in the way, afraid he was going to force himself on me, but that wasn’t Foster.

  Plus, I had to be fair. We made a deal. He told me his real name and I owed him a kiss.

  I smiled and felt the heat rush to my cheeks.

  If I was going to be at some random party and start kissing some guy, I wanted it to be Foster.

  So I had to find him.

  I walked through the den, eyeing a pool table, dart board, a massive television mounted on the wall. There was another door and I opened it. Shocker, it was yet another bathroom. How many bathrooms does this place have?

  I shut the door, turned, and at the opposite end of the room there was one more door.

  When I opened that door, I did so to the sound of a sighing groan. My eyes got the nice treat of seeing Foster sitting on the edge of a large bed with some girl.

  She had one hand on the bed, the other hand on his leg.

  He had a hand to her face, gently touching her cheek, kissing her with a passion that made me hot with anger and sear with jealousy.

  That could have been me.

  That should have been me.

  A second later, the kiss broke and they both looked at me.

  The girl didn’t know who I was. She raised her eyebrow, obviously annoyed that I’d broken up the make out session.

  Foster tilted his head. “Rose? You okay?”

  “Sorry,” I whispered.

  I pulled the door shut and backed away.

  My heart felt shattered, but that was stupid, right? Why would it be shattered? I wasn’t dating Foster. I’d only run into him a handful of times. Damn, I hadn’t even recognized him when he was in the bathroom. I called him bathroom boy.

  Yet there I was, ready to break down in tears.

  This would become the first of many times that Foster confused my heart and brought me to tears.

  I hugged myself as I ran out the back door of the den. Right next to the pool table. It led to the deck and I went to the left until I found a set of steps and charged down them.

  The crap part of tonight was that Vivian had been my ride. She was drinking, which meant that she wouldn’t be leaving. Which was the smart thing to do. She had already covered her ass by telling Dad she was sleeping over at Meg’s house. Of course, Meg was somewhere at the party. As for me, I said I was tagging along with Vivian and then would walk over to Dani’s house to spend the night. There was always a moment when Dad would stare at us, maybe knowing we were lying, but he never put up a fight. Maybe he just held out hope that all of his long, annoying Dad talks would pay off.

  Well, they were paying off…

  Vivian was curled up in the arms of some guy, leading to who knows where.

  And I was almost in a full run through the front yard of the house.

  I could navigate my way home.

  “Rose!” a voice called out. “Hey! Rose!”

  It was Foster.

  I waved a hand without turning back.

  I made it to the road, which felt like a ten mile run.

  I paused and looked left to right.

  Okay, fine, I had no clue which direction to go in.

  “Rose,” Foster’s voice said again, now very close.

  He was right next to me a second later. Grabbing me. Turning me around.

  “What?” I snapped.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m walking home. Screw this stupid party.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Let me go. Go back to your girlfriend.”

  Foster grinned. Stupid, cocky boy grin. “Really?”

  “What?”

  “You’re jealous,” he said.

  “No I’m not.”

  “Right. You’re not. You saw me kissing another girl. And you’re pissed. At yourself.”

  “Don’t be so full of yourself,” I said.

  “Oh, I’m not. Believe me, Rose. I’m not. That’s what this is. You wanted to kiss me. You wanted me to kiss you. Yet you let fear get in the way. You let everyone else's thoughts get in the way.”

  “So you just go and kiss the next girl you see?”

  “No. I went back to the game.”

  “The game… it was broken up…”

  “Yeah,” Foster said. “I snatched up the bottle and threw it. Said it was a stupid fucking idea. Then I walked away. To be alone. And she followed.”

  “She? You don’t know her name, do you?”

  Foster shrugged his shoulders. “What’s it to you?”

  “You’re like the rest of them,” I said. “A stupid boy. A loser.”

  Foster laughed. “Yeah. I’m the loser.”

  “You know what? Fuck you, Kingsley.”

  His nostrils flared and he stepped toward me.

  It was just me and him.

  Maybe I had pushed too…

  His hands grabbed my arms. He towered over me. “Don’t ever call me that in front of anyone. Ever.”

  “What’s it to you?” I asked, mocking him.

  Foster grinned again. “You’re wild, Rose. Whether you realize it or not. And I like wild.”

  He inched down and at the last second, he kissed my cheek.

  Not my lips.

  He started walking.

  My mouth fell open and I slowly turned.

  “Where are you going?” I called out.

  “Home,” Foster said. “These parties are lame.”

  I just stood there and watched as he walked away. I thought he was just going to keep walking, but somewhere along the road, the red flash of brake lights came on. I squinted and swore that Foster got into the passenger seat of the car.

  The car then drove away.

  He was gone, again.

  I reached up and touched my cheek.

  My heart raced.

  I couldn’t figure out what had just happened.

  The crazy part?

  Whatever had just happened… I liked it.

  7

  Concrete Showdown

  Foster

  I walked by the front of the house and casually looked to my right. It had been the fourth time I’d walked by that day. Maybe part of me felt bad for bailing on the party the other night. I knew Rose wanted me to kiss her, but I didn’t want to hurt her. She had no idea why I left the party. That a car had been parked out front for twenty minutes, waiting for the perfect time to let me know that it was time to go.

  Life wasn’t always what it seemed.

  I felt watched, followed, and I felt everything building around me.

  Something was going to give, and soon.

  I looked down and kept walking.

  My mind was muddled and distracted. Too much going on at once.

  So much at once that I didn’t stop walking until I smashed right into someone.

&nb
sp; It caught me so off guard, I jumped back, looked forward, and saw Rose falling to her butt.

  She was standing with her father and her sister, Vivian.

  They didn’t have a driveway, so they parked in the parking lot right next to their house.

  “Oh, shit,” I called out.

  I hurried and dropped to one knee and reached for Rose’s hand.

  “Rose. Are you okay? I’m so sorry.”

  She was as surprised as me.

  She looked up to her father.

  That’s when I turned my head.

  On one knee, holding his daughter’s hand. After I had plowed into her.

  “I’m really sorry,” I said to her father.

  “You drunk?” he asked.

  “What? No.”

  “Help my daughter up,” he ordered.

  I carefully got to my feet and helped Rose up.

  Her father touched her back. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. Her face was bright red. “I’m fine. I’m okay.”

  “Jeez, Foster,” Vivian said. “Maybe you should go play football. Tackling someone like that.”

  “I didn’t tackle anyone,” I said. “I didn’t mean…”

  “Rose, Vivian, go inside,” their father said.

  “What?” Rose asked.

  “Dad, don’t break them up,” Vivian said. “He’s been stalking the house, looking for her.”

  “What?” I called out. “I haven’t been…”

  “I’ve seen him,” he said.

  I was taller than him, but he was thicker. Not so much muscle, but he had some strength. The cracks of his hands were charcoal black from working on cars all day. And his fingers were huge. Like fingers on steroids.

  I took my chances and looked at Rose real quick, right before she walked away with Vivian. The two quickly smashed shoulders together and started to whisper. Maybe they thought I was about to get my ass handed to me.

  Hell, maybe they were right.

  “Mr. Browmanin,” I said.

  “Foster,” he said. “Call me Frank.”

  “Right. Frank.”

  “How many times are you going to walk by my house?”

  “Until I saw Rose.”