“I don’t know what happened exactly,” I told her. “I couldn’t handle last night, there was so much going on. Being in that house, being so close to him and his family, the memories that hit me like a train. And then watching his football game, our homecoming game, I thought I was never going to breathe again.”
Jen didn’t say anything, just kept following as I tried to explain my feelings.
“I always thought he had known about my dad; that he had just chosen not to come. That he didn’t care about me anymore.”
At that Jen gave a soft laugh. “I know I haven’t seen him in years, but it is obvious, Rosie, that he never stopped caring.”
I turned to my friend, the girl I trusted as much as I trusted myself. “What do you mean?” I asked, begging for some clarity because I couldn’t find any on my own.
“The way he was looking at you last night, it’s as if you are still the only thing in the room. The only thing in his entire world. I wish a guy would look at me with such devotion.”
I wanted to say something to her, but the moment I opened my mouth the doors to the banquet hall opened. Granny’s guests started to come into the hall, setting presents down on the table and making sure that everything looked perfect. Which, if I did say so myself, it did. And Granny deserved it, so I was happy to give her the party that she wanted.
I continued fussing with things, making sure to be front and center in case the guests needed anything. It looked like the whole town had showed up for Granny. Within a half hour, I had started to get so busy with the party that I almost forgot all about Alex, until I felt the air change around me. It was as if it became charged with electricity and I knew before I even turned to the door that Alex was walking through it.
I turned toward the door and saw that he was looking around the room, hungrily. His eyes stopped roaming when he saw me standing there near the bar, a wine bottle in my hand. The air was sucked from me and with a shaking hand I handed another server the bottle while I took off toward the kitchen.
While we had dated I hadn’t known how spectacular Alex really was. It was as if he was just mine, just plain best friend Alex. But now that he wasn’t mine, now that he’d let me go, he felt like so much more.
“You just have to get through the party. He’s leaving tomorrow. After tonight you will probably not see him again for years,” Jen assured me. She was trying to get me to breathe, to calm down, but Alex had taken all of the air from the room.
Still, I nodded, accepting the small bit of comfort she was giving me. But I already knew that once he left again he was going to take another piece of me with him, no matter how hard I tried to fight it.
Chapter 11
Alex
I hadn’t stopped thinking about her kiss, her skin, all night. I even dreamt of her, each time waking with a start that the bed next to me was empty. The dreams felt so real, like she was right there next to me under the sheets. Just as she used to be when she would sneak over to my house in the middle of the night. I lived for those nights when she would be tucked safely in my arms, her naked body pressed against mine, until the daylight broke and she dressed and crept back out of the window and to her own home.
The feeling of not having her there made me feel irritable the next day. It felt as if there was a grey cloud hanging over my head despite the bright sunshine of the last of the summer days.
“What’s got you all twisted today?” Granny asked as the family skittered about getting ready for the party.
“Nothing,” I answered sullenly. I felt like such a teenager again and it was messing with my mind.
“Well something has got you cranky so you might as well tell me what it is.”
I sighed, she was giving me that look that told me she wasn’t going to let me off of the hook at all so I should just spill my thoughts. Granny was great at making people spill.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me about her dad? I should have been there for her, I would have been there for her.”
“Well, you were off doing your own thing and you seemed so angry at her. She didn’t need any more hurt so we thought it was just best for you both if you stayed away.”
“But I didn’t want to stay away,” I answered.
“Then I guess you shouldn’t have left her.”
With that thought, Granny got up from her chair and went to her bedroom to finish getting ready, leaving me to sit and think about what she’d just said. Maybe I shouldn’t have left.
Maybe she was right, maybe I shouldn’t have left Rosie behind, but we’d had a deal and she didn’t come for me. She was supposed to come and she didn’t. She just disappeared into the air of home. The more I thought about it the more I felt myself brooding and frustrated with the situation. Why was it my fault that we had ended? Why was I to blame? We had a plan and she broke it.
By the time I made it to the party I was in a worse mood than before. Still I watched for her, from the moment I walked into the banquet hall and was surrounded by people I’d known my whole life, asking questions and wanting pictures. She would slip from my field of vision every once in a while but I would find her again easily. I’d always been able to find her.
I needed to talk to her. My anger was bubbling too hot inside of me and I needed to get it out. I wasn’t going to leave until I said what I needed to say, until I got it off my chest. I felt antsy, pent-up, like how I felt before I stepped onto the turf in a big game. Rosie was anything but a game but the anxious way my heart was beating was very much the same.
Once the streamers started to fall and the party-goers said goodbye, I found myself alone in the banquet hall. The last person there and I was waiting for Rosie, I wasn’t going to leave until I got my words out.
“Oh, I thought everyone had left,” she said when she came back out from the kitchen.
“I needed to talk to you. I can’t leave until I say what I need to say.”
I stepped forward toward her and saw her body stiffen, unsure of what I needed to say, of what she was going to hear.
“We had a plan,” I finally blurted out. “You were supposed to fly in, I bought you the ticket and everything. You didn’t even call me to tell me you weren’t going to be on the flight. In fact, I didn’t get a call from you for days. If you weren’t going to come to be with me then you should have said something, not left me waiting in the airport, flowers in hand, waiting for the girl that never came!”
My voice had risen and I wasn’t shouting yet but I was finally letting my frustration that I felt all those years ago slip out.
“I’m sorry, you’re right, I should have called.” There were tears lodged in her voice as she spoke and she refused to look me in the eye. I didn’t say all of that to make her cry and I didn’t even want her apology anymore, I wanted an explanation. I wanted to know why she ripped out my heart and didn’t say a word until it was too late.
“Don’t apologize.” I shook my head. “Just tell me why. Tell me why you didn’t want to come, why you didn’t want to be with me. Tell me and I won’t bother you again.” I realized I needed the answer, if I was ever going to move on with my life.
But she didn’t answer right away, just looked at me and swallowed hard, trying to find the words.
“I should have called but I didn’t know how. I didn’t know what to say, where to begin. It was breaking my heart too and I didn’t know how to handle it all.”
“You could have just told me. We were so close, Rosie, you could have just told me that you didn’t want to be with me anymore.”
Rosie swiped at her cheeks and looked at me puzzled. “What are you talking about?”
“If you didn’t want to move to the city and be with me you could have told me. I would have understood. Anything would have been better than being stood up by my girlfriend, the person I thought I was going to spend my life with.”
“Is that what you’ve thought for all of these years? That I didn’t want to be with you?”
“What else was ther
e to think?”
Her hands rubbed at her temples as if she was strained with exhaustion. “Alex, that’s not why I didn’t come. I thought for sure you knew. Then again, you didn’t even know my dad had died so you couldn’t have known.” She was speaking to herself more than to me and I gave her a moment for her thoughts to catch up with her.
“Alex, the day before I was supposed to come to you, my dad was diagnosed with cancer. He was terminal, just a matter of months to live. I was devastated, confused, and scared. I didn’t know what to do except try to be there for my mom and my dad. I tried to call you a million times but the words always stalled on my tongue. By the time I finally was able to call you to tell you, you stopped answering me. I tried a few times but you never answered me. I figured that you’d moved on, that your small town girlfriend wasn’t good enough for the football star anymore.”
At this point she was crying, tears of confession streaming down her cheeks. With long, purposeful strides I went to her and without hesitation I pulled her tightly against my body. She shook with years of tears built up inside of her and I held her as she fell apart. I patted at her long hair, murmuring that I was sorry, that everything was going to be ok, over and over again in her ear.
“I’ve thought for all of these years that you just didn’t want me anymore.”
I pulled her back so that she could look into my eyes and see their seriousness that was burning in them.
“I’ve always wanted you, since that first day after you came home from camp all the way up until last night when I kissed you in the driveway.”
She sniffled. “And now?”
Chapter 12
Rosie
My breath was stolen from me when he pressed his lips against mine right there in the banquet hall. I couldn’t believe that he had thought I hadn’t wanted to be with him, that that’s why I didn’t make the plane ride to live with him. It all made sense. He had been so angry at me for not coming, for the fact that he thought I blew him off. And since no one ever told him the truth, what else was he supposed to think?
But right there, in the middle of the floor where empty tables surrounded us, littered with half eaten food and empty glasses, the rug was faded and worn beneath our feet, and his body was pressed so tightly against mine, everything made sense.
In that moment it was as if no time had ever passed between us. The way he smelled, the way his lips moved against mine, it all felt so familiar, yet for far too long was something I had been longing for. I didn’t want to think about what was going to happen tomorrow when he got back on a plane and once again flew away from me. For just once in the past years I didn’t want to care about the future and what was bound to happen. I only wanted to think in the moment and right there, in that moment, I wanted Alex. That was all I wanted.
“Do you want to come to my house?” I asked.
His eyes darkened with need and grabbed my hand, pulling me outside toward his truck. I didn’t want to let my mind talk me out of what my body needed so deeply. Instead of giving my mind even an inch of space, I slid over to him where I kissed his neck, listening to his sharp intake of breath as I hit the spots he loved the most. By the time he pulled into my driveway I could feel my own throbbing between my legs and I was sure that once I undid his zipper I would find him just as eager and waiting as I was.
He pulled me across the seat of the truck and carried me toward the backdoor of my house, my legs wrapped around him, not willing to let go even for a moment. If this was all I’d ever have of Alex again, if this was the last time, I wasn’t going to give him space to even breathe.
With one hand around my waist, he used the other to open the screen door, the back of the house leading directly to my bedroom. It amazed me that he was doing all of this from memory as he hadn’t stopped kissing me, licking at my lips, he was finding his way to my bedroom just from what had been burned into his memory.
The moment he got us in my room I wiggled out of his arm, my feet touching the floor and shut the door behind him. He came back for me again but instead I pushed him up against the wall. I had no idea where this aggressive need was coming from, I’d never been like that before, but I felt like an animal with him. Like I needed to touch him, to feel him all over me, just to breath. Unzipping his jeans I dropped in front of him, craving the taste of him.
I knew he wanted me just as badly as I wanted him. His breathing alternated from sighing to heavy and staggered as he whispered my name in the dark of my room. I wanted to please him, I was desperate to and if I hadn’t needed him so badly inside of me then I would have continued to please him that way all night. Instead I stood from where I was kneeling in front of him and grabbed him by the hand.
I undressed in the dark but suddenly he snapped on my bedside lamp.
“I’ve been dreaming about you for five years,” he said. “I want to see every inch of you.”
Obeying, I continued to undress in the dark while he sat on my bed and watched me, his eyes taking in every inch of my body. He took me by the hand and pulled me to the bed where he lay me down on my back, his body crushing on top of me. I felt him slip inside and it was my turn to let my breathing give away my pleasure. He filled me, completely, in every sense of the word. My body, my soul, felt fuller than it had since the day that he left.
Our bodies quickly found our rhythm again as if there hadn’t been a moment of time between us. We started off sweet and passionate, our hands touching every inch of each other, remembering the perfect feel of each other’s skin and the way we fit together. But as the pleasure grew so did the urgency, going faster, harder, tearing at one another because we couldn’t get enough.
It didn’t take long before I could feel my body start to quake beneath him and I knew he was pushing me to my edge. But I didn’t want to let my body fall over, not yet. So instead I pushed against his body and moved on top of him. I wanted to see him, to watch the rise and fall of his chest, watch his eye close as he came close himself. But he didn’t close his eyes, not once. Instead they stared intensely into mine, and I stared right back into his.
The intimacy was almost too much and when he ran his fingers along my spine, that touch sent my body spiraling. Hard and fast I felt my body let go and I was left shaking on top of him, the quake of my body sending him into his own ecstasy. It could not have been more perfect to have pushed each other over that edge of perfection, together.
I lay next to him, his arms wrapped so tightly around me it was as if we thought the closer we were, the more likely we could squeeze the past away.
When I finally found the words, I realized I hadn’t really spoken since the banquet hall. I had been so intent on letting my body lead my heart that I hadn’t realized how exposed I had left myself. I pulled a blanket around my body.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, genuine concern in his voice.
“What happens now?” My voice came out a whisper, afraid to shatter the silence, the safety of the bubble that lay in the room with us. But now that my mind was back I realized what I had just done. I had let myself fall deeply into Alex again and I was sure that was a mistake that was going to leave my heart in pieces once more.
“What do you mean what happens now?” Alex sat up and looked down at me, concern etched in his eyes.
“I mean, was this just a hook-up? Just a fling from the past because you’re back home? Will I never hear from you again?” The questions, the words, were tumbling from my mouth but he stopped them all with a kiss.
“Rosie, I’ve spent the last five years with a broken heart. No girl has ever come close to comparing to you. I’ve never stopped loving you and I hate that we wasted so much time apart, misunderstanding what had happened between us.”
I hated that too. We could have been together, found a way, this whole time.
“But that’s the past and there’s nothing we can do about it. What we can do is change the future,” he said.
I was almost afraid to ask but I needed to. “What fu
ture do you see?”
My heart was racing just as it had been when he walked through those banquet hall doors, out of my past and back into my present just one day ago.
“I don’t see a future without you. Whatever we have to do, we’ll make it work.”
Tears slipped from my eyes and he kissed them away. I wrapped my arms around his neck and let my whole body give in to him again. I realized that was all I’d ever been hoping for, Alex as my future.
Epilogue
Alex
I didn’t leave home right away and had decided to extend my trip by a few days. I had just found Rosie again, just had her back in my arms, I wasn’t quite willing to let her go immediately. If it had been my choice I wouldn’t have let her go ever, but eventually my team needed me back and I had to board a plane once again, and take my life away from hers.
This time though, I knew that she wouldn’t be following me there. In the years I’d been gone, the years we’d wasted, she had set up a whole life with her spectacular horse farm and the need to take care of her mom. I couldn’t possibly ask her to drop it all, and drop the only family she had left, just to follow my football dreams. Eventually those days would come to an end and then what would she be left with? She needed to stay home and I needed to go, it was going to be complicated but I was determined to find a way to make it work.
Catching Love Page 4
