Easy Reunion

by Jerald, Tracey

  My lips part because while I know what he’s saying is true about what happened with Pop-pop, I know he’s asking me more. The question is whether or not the forgiveness he’s seeking will be as generously offered as I did for my family.

  And I just don’t know. Not yet.

  “I think that depends on the transgression,” I whisper, lost in the swirling depths of hope and torment before he ducks his head so I can no longer see his face.

  “So, quilts work?” he asks in an attempt to distract me.

  “I think it was more the hug that came with it since Pop-pop brought them to Connecticut himself.”

  Ry slips on a pair of sunglasses. “Good to know. Kelsey, I’d like to ta—”

  Deciding to move us away from what appears to be a combustible conversation, I rudely interrupt, “What about your family? I know your sister is here.”

  Ry’s smile is bittersweet. “Yes, Lisa’s here. She was teaching in Georgia, not too far from our family. She had a full life—great job, engaged to be married, planning her wedding, when she found out her college sweetheart was cheating on her.”

  “Ouch.” I wince in empathy. Poor Lisa. But in my mind’s eye, I think of the beautiful woman I ran into at Cafe Du Monde. “She looks like she’s happy here though?”

  “Yeah, she is. When it first happened, she was broken up into a million pieces. Mom and Dad offered for her to go home to Skidaway, but she’s almost twenty-nine. She couldn’t face the idea of that. So, I offered her a new start here. That was a few years ago.”

  “Is she working?” I vaguely remember from that embarrassing interlude something about classes, but I can’t recall clearly.

  Ry shakes his head. “She was, but she stopped at the end of the last school year. Now, she’s getting her masters in Psychology. She’s a certified teacher but wants to become a guidance counselor. She does some volunteer work as part of her course of study.” He lets out a short bark of a laugh. “I wonder what Mom and Dad are going to think when they realize Lisa plans on staying down here and not moving back to Georgia when she’s through with school.”

  I gnaw on my lower lip. “Speaking from experience, I think they’ll be shocked and hurt but do everything in the world to cover it up.”

  “Is that what happened with your grandparents?” I nod. Ry reaches over and rubs his hand over the top of mine in comfort? Empathy? Just because he wanted to touch me? I don’t know. “When?”

  “When what?” I ask blankly because with the way his thumb is moving back and forth slowly over the top of my wrist, I’m feeling brain cells leak from my head and water the earth beneath us. It’s going to be brilliant grass, I think wildly when he squeezes my hand before letting it go.

  “When did you tell them you weren’t coming home?” Ry asks me more succinctly.

  I turn my head to avoid looking at him. I focus on a couple of Frisbee players, then a girl flying a kite with her father behind her. I shake my head, not wanting to answer.

  “Kels?” There’s concern laced with worry in his voice. I’m not going to be able to put off answering him. But for some reason, I don’t want to because what I’m about to say is going to hurt us both, taking us from the idyllic peace we’ve enjoyed today into something much darker.

  Our past.

  He reaches over to touch my hand, but I pull away. Taking a deep breath, I blurt it out. “I told them seconds after I hugged them goodbye before I pulled out of the driveway. It was the day after our high school graduation that I left Savannah. I told them I was never coming back to the city that had caused me so much pain. And until the reunion a few weeks ago, it was a vow I kept. I’d never once been back.”

  Chapter 17

  Kelsey

  His sharply indrawn breath seems to still everything in Audubon Park. I feel just like I did that day at graduation—like all the eyes are on me. The Frisbee players seem to have stopped; the little girl with the kite is avidly watching.

  And I know Ry’s staring. I can feel it even if I’m not returning the look in kind. Then I hear laughter, lots of laughter. And flashes of memories make me begin to shake.

  Oh, my God! She’s running. I’m surprised the stage isn’t collapsing.

  Who knew a monster could run that fast?

  It’s called ambling by a beast, you moron.

  Jesus, do you see the way that fat’s jiggling? I wonder if she ends up with bruises.

  Flashes of the comments that were flung at me along with the jeering laughter as I ran off stage at our high school graduation race through my head. It’s too much. I push myself to my feet. “I thought I could…with you. I’d give just about anything to be able to…God!”

  I don’t make it a step before a hand wraps around my ankle. The next thing I know, I’m flailing backward helplessly, windmilling my arms. Shit, this is going to hurt. Tears prick my eyes as I think about how embarrassed I’m going to be. So be it. It’s not like I’ve never been humiliated in front of this man before.

  Instead, I find myself caught in a strong pair of arms. “Where were you going?” Ry’s voice is guttural.

  I twist and turn in his arms. “Away. I can’t hurt you, but I can’t… I’m not ready…”

  “Then tell me that, damnit. I’ll back off. But don’t run away from me. Not when I don’t know if it will be another fifteen years before I can find you again to say I’m sorry.” His voice sounds broken. “And I am, Kelsey. So, so sorry.” Ry lays me down on the blanket, and I hazard a look up at him. Fear, determination, and something I can’t quite name chase each other across his face. He aligns his long, lean body against mine. My heartbeat picks up in anticipation.

  Only Ry’s been able to do this—take me from seeking the clouds to flat on my back in the span of a heartbeat. I’m not sure I want to understand why.

  “What are you doing?” I whisper. My hands grip his shoulders as he leans over me, intent in his every movement.

  “This,” he murmurs. His head lowers down, his lips fitting to mine. His broad shoulders block out the sun more effectively than the trees above us. I let out a gasp before wrapping my arms around his neck and pulling him closer.

  Can salvation and forgiveness be exchanged in a kiss? Does a perfect day wipe out the pain etched in my memory of a horrific one? No, but maybe it demonstrates life isn’t always going to disappoint me. I’ve been so on guard protecting myself from the past I suffered, the scars in my mind and heart, I’m scared to allow myself the reward being offered to me.

  As Ry’s lips whisper over my face and down the side of my neck, I rake my nails through his thick hair. “It’s never been like this,” I gasp. My limited experience before Ry wasn’t altogether unsatisfying, but it never made my head spin. A kiss never made me forget the world turning around me at a million miles an hour and coming to a sudden halt. It never had the power to sweep my legs out from under me when I was already weightless.

  It never stopped the ache I live with in my head and my heart.

  “You make me need, Kels,” his voice rasps in my ear, sending shivers down my spine. “You make me wish.”

  “For what?” My lips trace the shell of his ear. I let out a small gasp at his next words.

  “For a moment in time where I could make you forget the pain I caused you.” Brushing my hair away from my face, he mutters more to himself, “To not be terrified to show you the man I am.”

  He rolls until I’m lying on top of him. Even as I brace my elbows on either side of his head, he wraps his arms around my back, holding me in place. “I would have you lie on me like this forever if I could,” he says tenderly.

  A cloud of doubt passes through my mind. “I wouldn’t have been able to years ago.” I start to push up and away, but his arms tighten.

  “I want you to hear me. I went to that reunion looking for you.” At my dubious look, he tightens his arms and continues. “I spent the entire plane ride preparing myself for how I was going to handle meeting your husband, hearing about your kids.” A
t my shocked gasp, he groans. “Yeah. So, don’t for a minute doubt I didn’t think of you as a woman who would be desirable and sexual before I found out who you were. I guess I’m just damned lucky some man hasn’t been able to win your heart. Or have they generally been idiots who can’t see past their noses?” He uses his to brush against mine, setting off sparks between us.

  My fingers begin to trace his brows above his sunglasses. Even as I’m absentmindedly stroking him, my mind wonders if I’m not stronger for the agony of what I lived through. Otherwise, would I appreciate the simple perfection of a moment like this as something to be cherished? “I refuse to comment either way,” I declare resolutely.

  Ry’s shoulders arch off the ground, he laughs so hard. “I think that is your answer.”

  “Maybe. At least that’s been my experience.”

  He jackknifes us both up into a sitting position. “You haven’t had good relationships?” The note of concern starts picking away at the next lock on the next door of my heart.

  Damn him.

  I decide to lay the reality of what high school did to my social expectations on the table. It’s past time.

  “Relationships imply I gave people a chance, Ry,” I say softly. “I was reminded recently I wasn’t exactly open to that.”

  “Why?” The question is torn from him. It scrapes the walls of my heart to listen to the brittle sound of his voice. “How could no one see the remarkable beauty you were?”

  Unable to believe the words coming out of his mouth, I reach over and pluck his sunglasses away. His blue eyes hold as many demons, if not possibly more than mine. They’re also pulling me under with the same unnamed emotion my heart began to fall for years ago. Shaking my head, I pull myself back from the brink before I know everything. I remind myself there’s no happily ever after in words unspoken.

  Instead, I lay my hands on his chest and tell him bluntly, “I am the collective of everything said or done to me. Like everyone else who’s ever contemplated a relationship, there’s been miscommunication and misunderstandings. I wouldn’t blame either party.” Though I didn’t try that hard. “Things just didn’t work out.”

  “‘At the end of it all, I want the simplicity of a man who will be willing to sit on our front porch holding my hand,’” Ry quotes me to me softly.

  I rear back as if I’ve been struck. “You remember that?” I wrote those words in an essay about my vision of love during our creative writing class. Ry wrote a short story inspired by his parents, he told me. I’m terrified right now. Ry’s trying to prove to me he wasn’t joking. Back then, he did like me, care for me, and maybe found me beautiful.

  And he still slid a knife into my heart.

  Moving his fingers behind my ears, he tugs my glasses off. Now, neither of us are hiding. And neither of us is capable of escaping. “I remember everything.” His fingers trace down my cheekbones until they grip my chin. “And I know that what you just told me was either to protect yourself or me.”

  “What makes you think you know me so well?” I demand angrily, struggling to put some distance between us, but his words still me.

  “Because with every relationship I’ve had, my mind replays every mistake I made with you, so I can never get close enough to make it stick.”

  I initially swallow the words that maybe neither of us would be so broken, so unable to be with someone if it hadn’t been for the crushing blow he dealt me because that’s not the truth—well, not the whole truth. Then I decide to hell with it. Yanking myself out of his arms, I fall back a few feet away and wrap my arms around myself. My voice is trembling when I bite out, “Is that what this is? Do you figure if you can have a ‘normal’ relationship with me, you’ll be able to move on with your life? Because if that’s the case, then I’ll save you the hassle. Go forth, do good things, don’t be an asshole. It will be great for whoever is worthy enough to end up in your perfect world.”

  Ry shoves to his knees and squares off against me. “Is that what you think this is?” he demands.

  “What else could it be? No one wanted to be seen with me back then. Now? I guess it’s okay based on what I look like. I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing.” Wearily, I run my hand through my hair.

  “And what about you?” Ry’s words slap at me. “What did you come to that reunion for if not…”

  “To shove it down their goddamned throats!” I yell as I shove myself to my feet. “I had every damn right to shove it down every one of your throats that I wasn’t some broken, defeated, ugly monster. And—”

  “And all you managed to do was show me you weren’t ugly,” Ry says coolly.

  Staggered, I step back as if he slapped me. The wedge of my shoe sinks into the soft grass. I feel the tickle of it around my ankles as I begin to back away.

  “Jesus, Kels, I didn’t mean…” He scrubs his hand up and down his face.

  “I think, Rierson, the problem is you very much did mean,” I whisper tragically before I turn and walk briskly toward the park entrance.

  I ignore his repeated attempts to get me to stop by calling my name.

  After all, when you’re barely hanging on, you can’t stop to answer questions.

  Chapter 18

  Kelsey

  I spend the next week locked away. After I burst into the house with tears leaking out from behind my sunglasses, Angel’s “What the hell?” did little to soothe my ragged emotions. Nor did her “Do I have to kill him?” This might have been funny if it weren’t for the fact I knew she was serious, and at almost six months pregnant, she shouldn’t be threatening bodily harm.

  “I’m never going to escape what I was,” I sobbed briefly before rushing away to find the one place I could seek solace and resolve all my problems.

  My writing.

  I threw myself back into the story I thought I had plenty of time to complete before I received a call that put an enormous burden on my shoulders. One I gladly accepted by the time I hung up the call. My publisher contacted me to ask if it would be possible to move up the due date of my manuscript by over a month since another author who I’m friendly with had been in an almost life-threatening automobile accident. I assured them it would be no problem at all before immediately asking what kind of help the family needed.

  As for the book, Pilar’s struggles were almost resolved; she would emerge stronger but still not overall triumphant. In this installment, Pilar decides to try out for the swim team only to be told that she’ll be kicked off if she’s more than five pounds overweight. She’s secretively and dangerously running laps around the cul-de-sac she lives on with trash bags strapped to her chest by duct tape to attempt to drop weight.

  Throughout the book—and with Angel’s expertise as a dietician—I demonstrate the effects of malnutrition and dehydration. Pilar passes out in the water, almost drowning, during tryouts.

  When questioned, she tries to deny it until the doctor talks to her privately. “I went through the same situation, Pilar. I feel your agony. But true happiness is found in what you accomplish for yourself, not because someone else decrees you don’t fit a perfect mold.” Dr. O’Hara lays her hand across Pilar’s compassionately. Pilar yanks her hand back.

  “Do you? Then why haven’t you stepped in when they’ve touched me? Shoved me? I’d have rather drowned than let this go on.”

  Suddenly Pilar feels another presence in the room. And there he is.

  After typing the word “mold,” the growling in my stomach makes me wonder if there are any Jell-O cups in the house. Stretching, I shove away from my desk and open the door to something even better.

  The sound of a blender.

  “Aren’t you both supposed to be working today?” I tease Angel and Darin.

  “She lives,” he cries. I shake my head in rueful acknowledgment over the fact I may have been here, but I haven’t exactly been present since my date in the park.

  “And for the record, you’ve been in the cave a week.” Angel’s voice holds more tha
n a touch of amusement. “I hope whatever torment wave you were riding was productive.”

  “It’d better be.” I quickly tell them about the call I got from my publisher.

  “Oh, how horrible!”

  “So, that deadline I wasn’t under? I have four days to turn in the book for editing,” I say grimly before taking a sip of a power smoothie Darin slides in front of me.

  “Well, I have the perfect way to celebrate when you’re done,” Angel announces.

  “Oh, what’s that?” I take another slurp of berry deliciousness that I know has all kinds of good things buried inside.

  “How do you feel about coming down to talk to the kids at Morgan’s about your experience?” Angel names her boss who runs the center she volunteers at. Most of the boys and girls there have suffered through some emotional devastation, whether that be the trauma of homelessness, drug-addicted parents, physical abuse, or even school bullying. “It might help them to know there’s a path other than gangs, drugs…”

  “Sex,” Darin pipes in.

  Angel nods. “That too. I found out today one of our juniors, Melissa, is pregnant for the second time. We’ll do all we can, but…” Her voice trails off, telling its own tale.

  There’s only so many lives they can touch.

  I tap my fingers against the counter. “Let me call Jim with an update on the book and see if maybe he can get some of my books shipped down here to give away. But how about I come in at the end of the week? Get the lay of the land, meet a few kids. That gives me plenty of time to finish, and then I can figure out what I want to say.” And how I want to say it.

  Angel jumps out of her chair and runs toward me, her stomach bouncing like one of the balls Darin used to dribble on the court. “Jesus, hold on to my niece if you’re going to move like that!” I joke right before she slams into me.

  “You won’t regret this,” she promises me.

  “I’ve never regretted anything with you,” I murmur. Giving her one more tight squeeze, I pick up my drink. “It’s time for me to make a quick call and head back to work.”