by Jana David
Ian
The way I saw it, I had two options: One, turn around, take the back door out and forget I saw him, or option number two, I could be the rational, responsible adult—which, let's be honest, was a role Darcy had never played well—and try to right the wrongs.
So I wrote him the note on a piece of paper I borrowed from the shop owner.
We ended up at a small restaurant around the corner from the record shop. The first thing I ordered was a whiskey, even though it was barely five o'clock. The alcohol helped to get over the initial awkwardness.
I tried really hard not to expect anything from this meeting. Most of all, I wanted to see this as a fresh start. It had been five years, after all.
“So...how are things with you?” Darcy was nursing his own whiskey.
I shrugged, a little unsure of where to start. “Alright, I guess. What do you want to hear?”
“Everything”, Darcy simply said. “Everything that happened since the last time we saw each other.”
“A lot has happened.”
“How about we start with the basics?”
So we did. We took turns sharing stories. It was strange to see my best friend, someone I'd grown up with, changed in so many ways. Of course he was still Darcy, but a more reserved, less impulsive grown-up version.
We were both quiet for a moment, each lost in our own thoughts.
“You know”, I said, breaking the silence, “I was always jealous of you.” Up until this point, we'd kept the conversation light, I was well aware that I was venturing into dangerous territory, but I felt like it had to be said. At this point, there was not much of a friendship left to destroy. I had nothing to lose.
Darcy set down his glass, raising his eyebrows in surprise. “You, jealous of me? Why?”
“People just always seemed to gravitate towards you. They call it charisma, I guess. People just always liked you more than they liked me.”
Darcy let out a quiet laugh. “Funny you would say that”, he said, “because I was always jealous of you growing up.”
“Really?” Now I was surprised.
“Well, yeah”, he admitted. “You had such an amazing family, while mine totally sucked.”
“My family isn't always perfect”, I said, even though compared to his, mine did probably seem like the picture-perfect family always seen on TV.
“And I was jealous of you for having such a strong bond with Al.” I said in return.
“What?” A hint of uncertainty rang in Darcy's voice, as if he was trying to figure out where I was going with this. I wasn't here to rip open old wounds, though.
“Well, you guys almost seemed to be able to read each other's thoughts. I felt left out sometimes. And then, when I saw her again...I want you to know that I didn't plan on stealing her away from you. It just happened. I guess I'd always had a thing for her, but I wasn't prepared to fall in love with her the way I did that summer on the beach. I know, I should have told you from the beginning, but I'm going to be honest and tell you that I tried to keep those two parts of my life—you and Allie—separate for as long as possible. I was scared that you would steal her away from me if I brought you together again.”
“Which wasn't entirely an unjustified fear”, Darcy reminded me. He had a point, but I wasn't going to dwell on it.
“Still”, I went on, “I was kind of an arse about it.”
I looked over at him, and I saw his lip twitch a tiny bit. “I wasn't any better”, he said. “I tried to convince you—and myself—that I didn't care that you and Al were together, but it did bother me. Actually, it bothered me a great deal. And I felt betrayed when you told me you guys were dating, after that pact we'd made, even though I had no right to be upset about it, since technically, I was the one who'd kissed her and broken the pact first.
“Yeah, can we go back to that for a second”, I interrupted him. “When exactly did that kiss happen. And why did I never find out about it?”
Darcy had the good graces to look a little embarrassed. “That's a long story”, he reluctantly said.
“I've got time”, I replied, just to tease him a little. Some things were better left untold.
Over the next four hours, neither of us mentioned Allie again. We talked about other things, newer things, the future.
Allie
The wind pulled strands of my hair from the loose braid I had put it in this morning. I didn't care. I had my eyes closed, face angled towards the fresh breeze that was coming from the sea.
All I could hear was the rushing of the waves as they hit the shore. Sitting like this, with my eyes closed, I could almost imagine I was the only human being on earth.
I still loved the ocean. I still had a passion for it. However, earning a living studying it's workings hadn't been for me. I never went back to university. Not even to study a different subject. Did I regret it? Not really.
Life had let me down a different path. One I would have never thought I would take, but here I was.
I'd always lived in bigger cities—some bigger than others. Now I lived in a small coastal town with barely two hundred inhabitants. Everybody knew each other, and the average age hovered somewhere around 70.
Still, I felt at home here. More than I'd ever felt at home anywhere else.
I worked at the small bakery which belonged to Tim and Nancy, a married couple who'd been the proud owners of 'Millers Bakery' for nearly fifty years. And they weren't quitting any time soon. They would both probably work until they dropped dead. They loved their job and the community they served.
A lot of people asked me how I could tolerate living in a place like this. “At your age”, Nancy would often say, “All I could think of was getting out of this town to see the world. You need to be around people your age, not us old folks.”
Whenever she said things like that, I just smiled. Maybe some day I'd leave. But this place had given me something no other place could give me, and that was a sense of peace within myself. There was a lot I still needed to figure out. About life. About my future. And the best place to do this was here.
I tried not to think about what had been too often. The wounds weren't fresh any more, but that didn't mean they didn't still hurt from time to time.
I sometimes liked to imagine where life had let them. I hoped they were happy, with whatever they were doing. I liked to imagine they were.
Copyright © by Jana David, 2016
All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, events and incidents are a product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.