Memory of You (A Misty Cove Love Story)

by Lavelle, Dori

  As I was about to pull the curtains closed again, deciding to head off to bed, a pickup truck pulled up on the opposite side of the road. I caught my breath when I saw Bryce step out and cross the street, headed for my cottage. He was wearing jeans and a black t-shirt. His steps were just as I remembered them, graceful and controlled. The twinkling lights made the edges of his hair glow as if a halo hovered above his head.

  My throat tightened as I backed away from the window, wiping away my tears. For a few heartbeats, I paced around the room, not knowing what to do. What was he doing here?

  The doorbell rang before I could figure out the answer.

  I opened the door with shaking hands. If he came here looking for an argument, I was too weak and emotional for one.

  “Hi,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm even though inside I was a mess, my heart beating out of control, my head dizzy from the sight of him.

  He didn’t even smile, simply gazed at me with his intense eyes. “I’m assuming you’re spending Christmas alone?” His voice was firm and devoid of emotion.

  I bit my lip and nodded. Why did I feel guilty for being alone? “No,” I lied. “I’m…”

  “Come with me.” His voice had a finality to it that told me he was not going to take no for an answer. Those were the exact words he’d said the night he had proposed to me. Only they had been swathed in love then.

  Without thinking, I grabbed a cream cardigan from the back of the door and pulled it over my black tank top. Good thing I hadn’t changed out of my jeans. I slipped on a pair of sandals before heading out the door. I wanted to ask him where he was taking me, but my mouth was too dry and my throat too tight to allow me to speak.

  By the time I locked the cottage, Bryce was already inside his truck behind the wheel.

  I hesitated briefly at the passenger’s door before opening it. But I did.

  As I clicked my seat belt into place, I found the courage to talk. “Where are we going?”

  Why would he still want to be in my presence after I had told him I knew about him cheating on me. If I’d cheated on someone, I’d be uncomfortable about seeing them. Another thing I couldn’t wrap my head around was why he looked so angry when it was him who had destroyed us, not me. He made me feel as if I was still the bad guy.

  “You’re spending Christmas with me,” he said, glancing at me before starting the truck.

  “Why would you… why are you doing this? I’m fine spending Christmas alone.”

  He didn’t respond for a moment as he slid out of the parking space. He gazed ahead but I could see the twitch at the side of his jaw. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse.

  “You seem to forget one thing,” he said. “You and I were friends before we were anything else.”

  Friends. That was what we had been, and was one of the reasons it had shattered me to discover he had betrayed me. I had been more than a fiancéee to him. We were bound in more ways than one. We had been friends since we were kids, first lovers in high school, college sweethearts, and eventually an engaged couple. I had believed that the foundation of our friendship would strengthen our romantic relationship. But I had been wrong.

  Anger roiled inside the pit of my stomach as I watched him. “Bryce, it was you who forgot that.”

  “Sure,” he said pithily and I had to swallow my anger.

  I wanted to scream bloody murder, but I couldn’t help being touched that after everything that had happened, he cared enough to want to spend Christmas with me.

  There was nothing more between us. We had grown and changed in different ways, but maybe tonight we could try and be friends again or something close to it. Even though I didn’t know how we would get past the pain.

  “Thanks… for doing this,” I said, because it seemed the right thing to do. Arguing at Christmas didn’t seem right.

  “I’m not doing it for you.” His words were edged with steel. “Gran would not want you to be alone tonight. I’m doing it for her.”

  Bryce had always called my grandmother Gran because she’d insisted on it. He had been a part of the family.

  I swallowed the lump inside my throat. I had no idea how to think or feel anymore as I turned my head to gaze out the window. “I don’t understand why you’re angry, Bryce. You hurt me and yet you’re the one acting like an ass.”

  “No, Jade, you are the one who hurt me.” He paused. “But I don’t want to talk about that right now. Do me a favor will you, and keep the past out of this for tonight.”

  I didn’t respond as I watched the cars blur by, tears burning the backs of my eyes. How would we get through Christmas with so much bitterness between us?

  We arrived at his cottage ten minutes later.

  It was just as I had remembered it. The Christmas lights that lined the edge of the roof sparkled, like they had years ago.

  As we walked up the porch, I caught sight of a glittery-silver snowflake through the window and fresh tears came to my eyes. It had been our thing. Despite the warm December weather, Bryce and I had always decorated his parents’ cottage with winter wonderland decorations to give us the feel of Christmas in a snowy place. He had also done the same to the cottage he had rented for us the night he had proposed.

  “I don’t know if I want to do this.” My voice wavered. It would bring back so many memories of the past, of what I had lost so long ago, what I had missed during my marriage to Milton.

  “Too late. Merry Christmas, Jade.” He opened the door—which was adorned with a silver tinsel wreath—and waved me inside.

  I stood inside the doorway, my gaze taking in the candles and the fake snowflakes on the coffee table. It came to rest at the 3D silver tinsel Christmas tree in the center of the spacious room. I couldn’t even remember how many times I had seen that Christmas tree.

  Being here, seeing all the decorations that I had once helped to hang, having him close by made me feel as if I’d gone back in time.

  “Are you trying to punish me?” I asked as he closed the door behind me. “You knew how much I loved this.” I waved a hand at all the decorations.

  “I’m not.” He laid a hand on my back and I almost jumped from the shock of his touch. “This is the only kind of Christmas I know. I decorate like this every year.”

  The cottage was larger than Gran’s, and to me it had always felt like a second home. It had belonged to Bryce’s parents until his father died from a heart attack and his mother followed six months later, committing suicide. Bryce was sixteen at the time. The deaths of his parents, especially the suicide, had rocked Misty Cove because even through her grief, no one ever thought Reece Colman would kill herself. But things like that always came by surprise. It was Gran who had taken over the responsibility of being there for Bryce, like a biological grandmother would do. When I had left him at the altar, she had wept for both of us. She had urged me to talk to him, to forgive him. But in the end she had given up and told me it was my life, and that I could make the decisions I found were right for me.

  I walked around the living room, my fingers brushing over snowflakes that hung from the ceiling, the chain link garland, and the icicles. Even with sadness and confusion surrounding us, it was still beautiful, still magical.

  “I didn’t do any cooking. We have to order in.”

  His mother used to be an amazing cook, and her meat pies and cinnamon cookies had been the hit of the town. Bryce, on the other hand, could burn a pot of boiling water.

  “I’m relieved about that.” I laughed, remembering his attempt to bake bread which turned out to be a brick.

  “Go ahead, laugh.” The ice in his voice melted. “You’re not much better of a cook.”

  “At least my food is still somewhat edible.” He was right. Cooking had never been my thing either. Luckily, Milton had preferred to eat the hired chef’s gourmet meals rather than mine, which he never made a secret of hating.

  “Look, Jade,” Bryce came to stand close to me but not enough to touch. “I’m sorry about what I sai
d earlier… that I’m just doing this for Gran. I’m doing this because no one deserves to be alone for Christmas. I thought tonight we could leave the past behind and try to be friends.”

  “I’d appreciate that.” With those words, in the moment, I felt like I was standing in front of the old Bryce again, the man I had loved so much and wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Not the man who had given my heart its first cut.

  Chapter Eight

  While we waited for the food to arrive, Bryce’s phone rang and he excused himself to answer it. As I sat on the couch staring at the blank TV and listening to the sound of his muted voice in one of the rooms, I couldn’t help wondering who he was talking to. Was it a woman? A friend of his? Luke Burkes, maybe? Luke had been his best friend for years.

  His voice got louder moments before he ended the call and appeared in the living room. He looked unsettled and wouldn’t meet my eyes. He busied himself with opening a Christmas Carols CD and sliding it into the player. Jingle Bells filled the room, but I couldn’t enjoy it as my stomach was in knots that became tighter by the second.

  What I’d heard before he hung up ran around in my head and made me feel dizzy.

  “I love you too.” Those were the words that came out of his mouth. He loved someone, and that person was not me. Even though I was the one who had walked away, who had given him up, it stung to hear him say that to someone else.

  What was with me? We had been apart for years, and I did get married to someone else. But why did he invite me to his place when he was in a relationship? Did he really just want friendship from me? Somehow it didn’t feel enough.

  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, forcing myself to not think about him with another woman.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “Do you want something to drink?”

  I opened my eyes and nodded with a tight smile. I would not ask him about his relationships. I had no right.

  He went to the kitchen and returned with two glasses of white wine. He handed me one and sipped his while gazing out the window.

  “I’ll… I’ll go sit on the porch, wait for the food to arrive.” I stood. I needed to be alone, to accept my new reality.

  He didn’t respond, so I walked out, almost breaking the stem of my glass with my grip. I lowered myself onto one of the white rocking chairs, freshly painted to hide its old age and wear.

  I closed my eyes and enjoyed the feel of the breeze on my face and hair. Moments later, I heard him come outside but I didn’t open my eyes.

  “You know what hurts the most?” he asked.

  I gazed up to meet his eyes. He was holding his glass and leaning against the doorframe.

  “What?” My voice sounded foreign to my ears.

  “The fact that you would believe that I was capable of cheating on you. How could you even think that?”

  I retorted with a pain-laced voice. “I didn’t think it, Bryce. I saw you.” I inhaled sharply, filling my lungs with the air that would soon be released, polluted with my anger and disappointment. “I saw you having sex with Marybeth… the night, the night before our wedding.”

  He was quiet for a long time and then he started to laugh, so hard the liquid in his glass sloshed. Then he stopped and shook his head. “I never had sex with any woman when we were together.” He paused. “I didn’t need to. I had you.”

  I felt a tingle race down my spine but I ignored it. Why did he feel the need to lie to me? We weren’t even a couple anymore.

  “I saw you, in your bed.” With the infamous snake tattoo at the back of her neck, Marybeth had been unmistakable. Their clothes had been tangled on the floor at the foot of the bed just as their bodies were under the covers. “Why would I lie about something like that? The only person who is lying is you. Frankly I don’t understand why. It’s not as if—”

  He came to stand in front of me, his gaze pining me to the rocking chair. “Jade, I’m going to repeat what I said. The person you saw that night was not me.”

  “I don’t know how I could have been mistaken.” I tried to suppress my frustration. “If you’re going to continue denying this, maybe it’s not a good idea for me to be here, after all.” I stood up and pushed past him into the house. I placed my glass on a claw-footed table and grabbed my cardigan. After everything that had happened, it was wishful thinking that we would get through dinner without bringing up the past. There were too many emotions floating between us for them not to be addressed.

  “Look, Bryce, thank you for inviting me over. It means a lot. But we both know it won’t work. We can’t undo the things we’ve done or take back the words we’ve said. Maybe we should continue keeping out of each other’s ways. It would be best for both of us. Merry Christmas.”

  I hurried down the steps and didn’t look back. I didn’t want him to see the tears flooding my eyes.

  It was when I stepped out of the gate that I remembered he had driven me. I would not ask for him to give me a ride back home. It wasn’t a long walk. Fresh air would do me good, anyway.

  I only took a few steps away from the gate, headed in the direction of the Memorial Gardens, when a hand grabbed my forearm and halted me. He spun me to face him. We stood there, too close, his breath on my face, and then he took a step back.

  “I didn’t want to talk about the past tonight,” he said. “I don’t know why I brought it up. But now I think we have to talk it out, clear the air before moving on… separately. Let’s talk over dinner. I can’t eat all that food alone.”

  ***

  The first fifteen minutes of dinner were spent in silence. We sat side by side on the couch instead of the dining table, and I had turned on the TV to a station that was playing a children's Christmas movie, a good distraction from the elephant in the room.

  The food was delicious just as I had remembered it. I ate the grilled hake and roasted potatoes because when Gran and I ordered the Christmas platter from Deep Grill it was always what I went for first. But this time I couldn't enjoy the food as much as I wanted to. I felt so tense and dreaded the clearing-the-air-conversation I would be having with Bryce.

  Finally, I put my plate down and switched off the TV. I turned to him. “I'm ready to talk.”

  “Good, so am I. Allow me to start.” He wiped his mouth with a napkin. “For all it’s worth, you were the love of my life, the girl I wanted to have babies with and grow old together with. You were it for me. You’re all I ever wanted.”

  I ran a hand through my hair. My heart was beating so fast at the words he had spoken, releasing conflicting emotions. He seemed so sincere, so honest. “I'm sorry. I don't understand. I…” I closed my eyes and tried to remember the scene from that night. I saw him with her again, and it was just as painful to swallow the betrayal.

  He shifted and scooted closer, placed an arm around my shoulders. The touch electrified my insides. “Could you have been mistaken? Could it have been someone else?” He paused and then removed his arm. He turned me by the knees so I was facing him, looking into his eyes. “Do you remember the exact time it was, that you think you saw me?”

  “Around nine, I think,” I said, confused.

  A triumphant smile spread across his face. “I wasn't even home. I left at seven. I was at Luke's the whole night with some of the other guys. I made it home close to midnight.”

  “What? But I…” Had I really seen a clear picture of him? I realized that I didn't even see his face, only the side of it and his hair. “Was anyone else at your place that night?”

  “Who had my spare key…” Bryce slapped his forehead and then pulled his phone from his pocket. Before I could ask who he was calling, he raised his hand to halt me. “Marcus,” he said into the phone. “Question, remember the night before my wedding?” He paused. “Yes, to Jade? Do you remember where you were around nine, before you met up with us at Luke’s?”

  I tapped my foot as I waited for him to end the call. I tried to stop but it had a life of its own.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thou
ght. I’ll call you later. I have something to straighten out.” He hung up and pinched the bridge of his nose. Then he looked at me. “The person you saw that night with Marybeth was not me. It was Marcus, my brother…stepbrother. I never had a chance to tell you he was in town because he showed up that same day.”

  I shook my head as fireworks of confusion exploded inside my head. “Your brother? You’ve never mentioned you had—”

  “I did, shortly after my father died. Don’t you remember?”

  The mist inside my mind lifted and I remembered the day he told me. I’d come to his house and found his mother crying. At first I’d thought she was still grieving her husband’s death. He later told me that she had found out about his father’s infidelity and that it had resulted in a pregnancy. Bryce was only a year older than his half-brother. Bryce had also been furious at his late father and had refused to discuss the issue of his half-brother further. Jade had no idea that they had been in touch since then.

  “Yes, yes I remember.” I covered my mouth with both my hands and shame washed over me when the weight of my mistake settled on my heart. “You didn’t cheat on me?” A memory from that night pushed its way into my thoughts and solidified the fact that Bryce had not been unfaithful. Among the tangled clothes at the foot of the bed was a pair of dirty, cutoff jeans. Bryce would never wear jeans like that. He was a clean-jeans kind of guy.

  “No, it was Marc. I’m sorry I never told you we were in touch. My mom gave me his phone number before she died. I was taking it slow… trying to separate him from what my father did. Then I told him I was getting married. I never thought he would show up.” He leaned back and sighed. “And I never expected him to be so messed up. He’s a total party animal.”

  “I’m glad you found each other.” From his tone of voice, I could tell that no matter how different they were, Bryce was happy to have started a relationship with his brother.

  “So am I. But who would have thought he’d end up messing up our lives.”

  “It’s my fault. I jumped to conclusions. How could I have been so wrong?” I buried my head into my hands. Tears were flowing now, unhindered as I realized that I had made the biggest mistake, a mistake that had caused me the rest of my life with the man I loved. I looked up again and met his eyes. “I’m so sorry, Bryce. I don’t know what to say.”