Maybe this is what we both needed.
Space. Time. Distance.
The rain lets up a little as I make it to the high brass doors that lead into the Palm South University Credit Union, and I pause under the overhang to remove my jacket and shake off the water as best I can. Wiping my feet on the mat, I take a deep breath, pull my shoulders back, and push through the door.
The downtown branch is much nicer than the one on campus, mahogany wood desks lining the left side of the main space, while private offices span out to my right. There’s a hall in the back that a group of women walk down as soon as I enter, and directly in front of me are seven teller windows, the brass and wood making up their stations playing well with the warm burgundy carpet.
“Good afternoon, sir,” a young man greets me from his place by the door. “How can we help you today?”
Holding my soaked rain jacket away from me as much as I can, I pull the binder full of paperwork from inside my suit jacket, relieved to see it’s still dry. “I have a meeting with Mrs. Jarwolowski.”
“Inquiring about a small business loan?” he asks.
My stomach somersaults when I answer, “Yes, sir.”
With a beaming smile, the young man leads me to the small waiting area stretched out in front of the glass-window offices, letting me know Mrs. Jarwolowski will be with me soon. He takes my jacket and hangs it on the rack near the door, and I take a seat, smoothing my clammy hands over my slacks.
I’ve never been more prepared for anything in my life, and yet I’m so nervous I think I might actually shit myself.
I barely studied for tests at Palm South, depending on my skill set and good luck to get me by most of the time. I never cared much about getting A’s. I just wanted to pass and get my degree — which I did by the hair of my chin.
But this…
This loan is the difference between a pipe dream and a reality. It’s the difference between being jobless and being an entrepreneur. It’s the difference of being a struggling graphic designer with a major lack of experience and being the CEO and Owner of my own business.
This loan isn’t just money.
It’s everything.
When I left the gym after what happened with Giselle, I couldn’t shake myself from the thoughts assaulting me — not just about Erin, but about what would come next for me. I wondered if what Giselle had said, what Erin had agreed with, could ever be true.
So, I started crunching numbers.
The more research I did, the more ideas started flowing. Before I knew it, I had Word doc after Word doc of a business plan — rough in nature, but fleshing out slowly and surely. I stayed up every night until well into the early morning, passion flowing out of me like sunlight. It was just after midnight about a week after the gym incident when the realization dawned on me.
I wanted it.
I wanted my own business.
I wanted it so bad I could taste it, see it, feel it.
What started as a let’s just see what this could be like quickly turned into me making an exit plan from my job and a business plan for Pennington Personal Fitness, LLC.
And now, I couldn’t stop until I had it.
The binder in my hand is heavy and weighted with dreams and numbers that I hope will add up to whatever this bank needs to trust me with their money, to trust I can pay them back and succeed. I tap my thumb against it, knee bouncing as I wait.
My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I fish it out, swallowing hard when I see Erin’s name.
Erin: Hi.
I blow out a breath.
Hi I type back.
Erin: I miss you.
I close my eyes on another long sigh.
Me: I miss you so much it hurts.
Erin: Come over tonight.
My stomach ties up in knots, because as much as I want to see her — need to see her — I have no idea what shape I’ll be in tonight. I might be high on life and celebrating, or I might be a depressed mess who realizes he quit his job before having a steady plan in place. I have savings to get me through for a while, but it’s not much, and if I don’t get this loan…
“Bear?”
I look up from the blinking cursor on my phone, still having not answered Erin, and find a young woman staring at me.
She’s petite, slim, dressed in a creamy pink blouse and beige dress slacks that hug her long legs all the way down to her nude high heels. She looks familiar, and I tilt my head, trying to place her.
It isn’t until she pushes the rose-gold framed glasses up her nose and smiles that I realize.
“Oh, my God, it is you, isn’t it?” she asks, adjusting her purse on her shoulder. She takes a tentative step toward me as I stare at her in disbelief.
It can’t be her…
It can’t be the same bright green eyes I stared into so many nights, the same plump, rosy pink lips I kissed more times than I can count. That jet black hair, it can’t be the same that was once shaded a shocking violet, that I once bunched in my fists between the sheets.
But when she takes another step, I know without a doubt that it is.
“It’s me…” she says shyly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Shawna.”
I nearly drop the binder of papers from my lap as I shuffle to stand, fumbling with the folder until I have it secured under my arm. Then I just stand there, looking at the girl I used to have such deep feelings for it nearly killed me.
Almost as much as the way we broke up.
Her brows fold together, bottom lip disappearing between her teeth as her eyes flick between mine. The last time we talked, she told me she couldn’t stand up to her parents, that she couldn’t claim me as her boyfriend because I was black and her parents were old-fashioned.
The memory makes my jaw clench.
“I… I’m sorry,” she says, shaking her head and already turning to leave. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m going.”
“Wait.”
She stops, turning over her shoulder.
I sigh, swallowing. “How are you?”
I see the relief swell through her, her shoulders releasing a bit of tension as she turns to face me again. “I’m well. I was just dropping off a deposit for my boss,” she says, tapping her purse. “And I’m certainly happy I ran into you.”
A tight smile is about all I have to give.
“Are you waiting to see someone?”
“I’m inquiring about a small business loan,” I answer.
Her eyes light up at that, smile wide and glowing. “Really? What kind of business?”
“Personal training and nutrition.”
“Wow,” she breathes. “That’s… that’s actually quite perfect for you, isn’t it?”
My heart surges with the assessment, because it does feel perfect. It feels right.
But I still can’t move, can’t do much other than answer her questions as I stare at the ghost I never thought I’d see again.
Shawna’s mouth pulls to the side as she motions to the chair next to the one I was seated in. “Mind if I join you for just a few minutes? I’m not exactly in a rush to get back to the office.”
I blink out of my daze, nodding and gesturing to the chair for her to sit. I wait until she does before I take the seat next to her, rigid and uncomfortable and yet I’m glad she stayed.
“So,” she says, balancing her purse in her lap with a wide smile angled at me. “Starting your own business, huh?”
“Hopefully.” I tap the binder. “We’ll see if I make the cut.”
“They’d be crazy not to offer you a loan. I’ve got to say, though, after hearing Skyler won second place in that tournament in Vegas, I’m kind of surprised you’re not asking her for the loan.”
I sigh. “Well, to be honest, she’s my backup plan. But that’s her money, you know? She’s about to graduate, and I know she’s got her own dreams to go after.” I pause, sniffing. “I want to do this on my own.”
“You will,” Shawna assures me.
/>
A silence falls between us, her looking at me and me looking at the binder in my hands.
“Clinton, I am so sorry for what I did to you.”
I close my eyes on a breath. “It’s—”
“Not okay,” she finishes for me. “I could sit here and give you every excuse in the world, repeat all the ones I did when everything happened… tell you my family is old-fashioned, that they were my money source, that I was scared, that I needed time, but the truth is that what I did to you, the way I behaved, the way my parents behaved… it was racist. Plain and simple. And I’m sorry. I’m sorry I treated you that way, that I hurt you like that, that I was too blinded by what I thought was okay to see what was really right and what was so blatantly wrong.”
I finally meet her gaze, and finding such sincerity there makes my chest ache. “Thank you.”
She nods. “I know I can never go back and undo what happened, but running into you today… well, maybe it was the universe giving me one last chance to make amends. The right way.”
“What if I would have cursed at you and spit on your shoes?”
“I would have gladly taken the lashing,” she says with a smirk. “Although, I would have been pissed about the shoes. These are Michael Kors.”
I smile, relaxing a little more in my seat.
“So, other than opening a business, how are you?” Shawna asks.
“Good,” I lie. She must see right through it, because she arches a brow that makes me chuckle in surrender. “Or well, I was good… until about two weeks ago when everything blew to smithereens.”
“What did you do?”
“How do you know it was me who did something?”
She just gives me a pointed look, which makes me laugh again.
I run a hand over my fade, but don’t reply to her question. The truth is, I don’t know Shawna Ballentine anymore. I don’t trust her the way I once did. And while it was nice to hear her apologize, what’s going on between me and Erin, between me and myself… it’s not for her to be a part of.
My phone lights up where I dropped it on top of my folder, and Erin’s name fills the screen. I curse, thumbing open the text I had yet to respond to. She sent through a question mark after the text asking me to come over, and I shake my head, knowing I probably gave her a heart attack by not responding right away.
See you at seven. I’ll bring dinner.
She replies with a little heart emoji, and then I tuck my phone away again.
And find Shawna grinning at me.
“What?” I ask.
“You and Erin Xanders, huh?”
Though my skin is dark enough not to show it, I blush. “Yes.”
She shakes her head, sitting back and folding her arms. “It’s about damn time.”
I arch a brow.
“I always knew it would be you two in the end,” she says. “I’m so happy you finally figured it out.”
I want to laugh, but the gesture gets cut short when her words hit me square in the chest with the force of a tow truck.
I always knew it would be you two in the end.
She’s not the first to say it to me, not the first to see it, to know it.
And I knew it, too.
I knew it all along — from the first time I really talked to her on that bench on campus, when she saw what no one else saw and offered to help me when no one else even knew I needed a hand.
From the first time I danced with her, silly and uncoordinated.
From the first time I tasted her lips, even as drunk as I was.
From the first time I woke up next to her, even though she kicked me out in a panic.
I knew.
“Bear?” Shawna asks when I sit there for far too long, but I can’t help it.
It’s all hitting me.
It doesn’t matter that she’s friends with Gavin, that he’s back, that he may have other intentions than the innocent ones he’s painted for her. Who cares if he texts her, or if he even tries to make a move?
Because just like I did with Giselle, Erin would turn him down.
She loves me.
As unyieldingly as I love her.
I want to kick myself for being so stupid, for fighting with her, for letting my stubborn pride and jealousy threaten the one thing in this world that I truly love.
“Mr. Pennington?” a soft voice calls from one of the glass offices, and I blink, standing abruptly.
An older woman with long silver hair and a youthful smile strides over to me, shaking my hand as Shawna stands to join us.
“I’m Mrs. Jarwolowski,” she says. “Sorry about the wait.”
“It’s no problem at all,” I assure her, and then I turn back to Shawna, who watches me with a warm, genuine smile so different from the one she used to hold for me, but familiar all the same. “It was really nice running into you,” I say. And I mean it.
“You, too. Take care of yourself, Bear.”
I smile and nod, and then Shawna makes her way to the front door, and I follow Mrs. Jarwoloski back to her office where I plead my case for Pennington Personal Training, LLC.
All the while, I make an even more important plan for this evening.
YOU KNOW WHEN YOU say a word so many times, it stops making sense?
The first time you say fork, you think of the shiny metal instrument you eat with. You say it again, and the same happens. But say it out loud, over and over, twenty times in a row, and suddenly you’re wondering if it’s a real word, wondering what words even are and who decided what sounds and syllables equate to a definition. And what of a definition? Isn’t it just more strange sounds forming strange words that we have somehow come to agree mean a certain something?
It’s enough to make my head spin, and it has been — for two long weeks, I’ve done nothing but stew and steam and boil over thinking about one stupid word.
Dropped.
Dropped, like a football meant for a receiver, a touchdown opportunity lost. Dropped, like a slippery wine glass, crashing to the floor and shattering. Dropped, like a façade, someone finally admitting what they’ve truly desired all along.
Or dropped, like the charges against Landon Turner and the three other men who raped me.
I’ve been through enough trauma in my life to know how the grieving process goes. I fully expected the anger, the denial, the painful sadness and despair. I knew I’d cycle through it all, and I have been, every waking moment since Candice called to tell me the news.
I heard her voice replaying in my nightmares, little snippets of jargon and disappointing phrases nestled between sincere apologies.
Due to lack of evidence…
If we’d have had a rape kit…
Their word against yours…
They had multiple witness testimonials…
There were videos and pictures taken that night that dispute our claimed timeline…
Clinton was your only witness…
Without evidence we can’t…
It’s all blurry. All of it. Even after formally meeting with Candice upon my return and going over it more thoroughly in person, all the details are lost behind the one bold statement I can’t fully process.
The charges against Landon and his brothers have been dropped.
They won’t go to trial. They won’t have to answer for what they did to me. They won’t have so much as a pencil smudge on their permanent record.
They’re free to go.
They’re free to live their lives.
They’re free to keep working at their jobs and dating their girlfriends — who likely don’t even know what they’ve been accused of.
They’re free.
It is the most jagged pill I have ever had to swallow.
I know I don’t look much better than I feel when Herb calls from downstairs to let me know Clinton has arrived. I light a few candles and pull a fresh bottle of wine from the fridge, lining up two glasses on the counter and uncorking the bottle to let it breathe.
Jes
s is spending the evening with Ashlei — likely trying to convince her that it’s time to tell Brandon what she discovered during our trip. The poor girl is so scared of his reaction that she’s taken four more tests since we returned home, all with the same result.
With Jess out of the condo, I have it all to myself, and I’m finally ready to see Clinton and tell him what happened.
Three firm knocks signal that he’s at the door, and when I open it, my tongue turns to sandpaper at what I see. He looks just as devastated as me, bags under his bloodshot eyes and shoulders sagging. Suddenly, all the fighting, all the silence after and the space I thought I needed from him to process feel like the most pointless, stupid waste of time.
My bottom lip wobbles, and that’s all it takes for Bear to rush through the threshold and crush me into his arms.
“I’m here,” he whispers into my hair, and I nod vigorously, clutching him tight as I reluctantly give in to emotion.
I don’t want to cry over them, over what they did to me — not anymore.
But I can’t deny that this hurts.
Clinton holds me until I give him the cue that I’m ready to go inside, and when I do, he takes my hand and guides me. Soft jazz plays from the small speaker in our kitchen, and that along with the candles set a soothing scene.
He drops the bag of food he brought on the kitchen counter, ignoring it as he pulls me over to the couch. He sinks down first, then guides me into his lap, holding me once more.
“I’m sorry,” I breathe.
“Stop,” he says, kissing my forehead. “It’s me who should be sorry.”
“I don’t have to see him anymore if it’s going to hurt you. Gavin,” I clarify. “I care about him, but I care about you more.”
“I’m not threatened by him.”
I lean back at that, arching a brow.
“Contrary to how I acted,” Bear adds with a sheepish smirk. “I was wrong. I trust you, and while I hate that Gavin ever got the pleasure of being with you, I know you’re mine now, and I also know he’s an important friend to you. I’m sorry I put you in that position and acted like a child.”
My brows fold together, and I shake my head in wonder. “You’ve really grown a lot in the time I’ve known you, Clinton Pennington.”
Greek: A New Adult College Romance (Palm South University Book 7) Page 26
