No Regrets (No Regrets #1)

by Aimee Noalane

  Hey, I thought for sure you guys would have come down last weekend since it was my mother’s birthday and all, but I guess your mom might not want to travel right now. I get it though. Anyway, since you guys didn’t come, my mom and I went on a shopping trip in Toronto for her birthday. I got a bunch of new stuff. You should see my new Rolling Stone t-shirt. Yes, I know, I already have one. But that one’s old and it’s all worn out, I needed another one, you could totally see my bra through the old tank top. I don’t get why you never told me this before, by the way.

  Oh, and I got you your X-Mas gift too. It’s not quite ready yet but you’ll see it’s awesome.

  See Oliver, we can be friends. I can do this, I’m getting better at it, I promise. Please write back to me, I miss you and you’re so important to me. Don’t give up on our friendship okay?

  Abby

  xxx

  It was when I read her last lines that it finally dawned on me that Abby wasn’t reading my replies.

  If she isn’t reading them, then where the hell are they going?

  Drifted Bond

  Abbygail

  “Abby?” my mother called from the entrance door. “Are you sure you’re not feeling well enough to come with me? It’s just breakfast, and if you don’t want to eat, it’s fine with me.”

  I shook my head even though she couldn’t see me, and walked out of my room to see her out. “I’m sorry, Mom. I know you really wanted me to come and meet your friend, but I’m honestly not feeling all that hot.”

  “You don’t look that bad to me. When’s the last time you said you threw up? It’s pretty weird that I haven’t heard you.”

  I shrugged. “Considering your room is on the opposite side of the house, it’s not weird at all. And I don’t know what time it was, checking the clock wasn’t really one of my priorities, Mom”

  I could tell she was disappointed that I would staying home alone on Christmas morning, and faking an illness was the only way I knew she would agree without her fighting me. She really wanted me to join her and her friends; it was the third time she had asked me since we woke up. I didn’t want to go. I found the idea of slouching on my couch way more appealing than having a Christmas brunch at Rington’s Bed and Breakfast.

  “I know you’re worried about me, but I promise I’ll be fine at home. I’m actually kind of feeling a little bit better already. I just don’t think I should risk going, and then end up puking my guts at the restaurant. Plus, I wouldn’t mind some sleep. My upset stomach kept me awake all night.”

  “Fine.”

  “I’m willing to make you a deal, though. If after my nap I feel better and you aren’t home yet, I’ll bake you cookies. Did you have any preferences?” I asked as she put her coat on.

  She eyed me suspiciously.

  Maybe the cookie thing was a bit much…

  “I’ve been craving your Triple Chocolate delights for months. You know the cookies Oliver loves. They have the melted chocolate in the middle. You remember, right?”

  She wasn’t doing it on purpose. I knew that. But the sound of Oliver’s name inflicted much more pain than anyone could possibly imagine. It bothered me that I was still without news from him, and my faking an illness and wanting to stay home was for that exact reason.

  If there was one moment where I hoped I would hear anything from him, Christmas was it. It was our holiday; the one we always spent as a family. Unfortunately, he didn’t come home, and the last thing I felt like doing was putting on a fake smile, and pretending I was okay. I wasn’t okay. I was far from it, actually. And while I understood why they wouldn’t make the trip, it didn’t make it hurt any less. Hope was a strong feeling, and where Oliver was concerned, mine was dying slowly.

  As the weeks had turned into months, I began to wonder if Oliver was just ignoring my attempts to make things right because he was still mad at me, or if maybe our friendship really was over.

  I grabbed my head and massaged my temples at my last thought.

  “Are you sure you’re going to be sick again? I can stay home if you’d prefer.”

  I sighed. “No. I’m fine, Mom. It’s just a headache. I’ll grab a couple of Tylenols and go lie down as soon as you leave.”

  “Okay. Call me if you need anything.” She blew me a kiss and stepped out the door.

  I exhaled loudly at the sight of the empty loveseat. Watching ‘Home Alone’ with my best friend was our yearly tradition, and even though it felt wrong to do it without him, it also felt wrong not to do it at all. I grabbed my favorite comforter and my box of Froot Loops, popped in the DVD, and sat on my friend-less couch. I was about twenty minutes into the movie when I heard the first set of knocking at my door.

  “Go away!” I grumbled to no one but myself. I was finally getting to the moment where Kevin would realize that his family left for their trip without him, and I didn’t feel like getting up.

  When the sound of the doorbell interrupted the movie a second time, I pressed pause and went to see who my intruder was. I looked out of the side window and saw Sophia standing outside my house looking like a stuffed teddy bear with her oversized pink winter suit.

  “Hello?” I said as I opened the door.

  “Merry Christmas, Abbygail,” she shouted

  “Thanks, Sophia. You too.” I pretended to smile. “Um, what can I do for you?”

  Sophia was a sweet kid, but she made a habit of crossing the street and paying me a visit every time she got bored. At first, I thought it was cute, after a while, it kind of became tiresome. “I wanted to know if you wanted to come and play outside with me and Chase?”

  I looked over Sophia’s shoulder and sure enough her brother was standing right behind her watching me with his sexy smirk. When I realized that his eyes were directed at the middle section of my body and not my face, I looked down at my worn out sweatpants and tank top, and rolled my eyes.

  You have got to be kidding me.

  I crossed my arms over my chest, and waited to see how long it would take for him to realize that I’d noticed him staring at my boobs. It took less than ten seconds, and when he looked up, I cocked my head to the side.

  “So, Abby, do you want to come out or not?” Sophia asked interrupting my staring competition with her brother.

  I looked over at my living room couch and then back to my next-door neighbors standing in front of me expectantly.

  The hell with it! Macaulay Culkin isn’t going anywhere, he can wait an hour.

  “Sure, Sophia, I’ll get dressed and join you outside. Go knock on Cole’s door. He might want to join us.”

  She squealed at the idea as if it was the best thing she had ever heard in her entire life, and ran outside.

  “I’m sorry about the staring,” he said as soon as his sister disappeared.

  “Of course you are,” I answered sarcastically. I stretched out for my winter boots. “So, aren’t you a missing a couple of pieces of clothing to play in the snow?”

  “Do I look like a guy that wants to play outside? My mom kicked us out. Apparently we have too much energy for her to cook and clean before our guests come over tonight,” he complained. “She says she can’t focus or whatever. And just before you ask, Sophia’s the overly excited one.”

  “Of course she is,” I mocked, once more.

  Chase was the complete opposite of Oliver. He was sweet, but there was a pretentious side to him that people, especially my friends, didn’t really like. Since he was a year older than we were, we didn’t see him all that much. He had his own group of friends, and they were mostly basketball teammates. To be honest, they were pretty rowdy, and Chase wasn’t any different. Ever since he’d moved into Oliver’s house from his hometown in Kingston, they hadn’t lost a game, and their success fueled their pride.

  I didn’t know Chase all that well. I saw him when he would take over his sister’s care, and that was about the extent of our encounters. Once in a while he would ask me to stick around and watch one of Sophia’s TV show with them
, so I would. But he and I rarely talked. My reasons to stay were mostly because I needed to take my mind off every other crappy aspect of my life. I would be lying if I said that sitting in Oliver’s house didn’t feel comforting to me.

  Being around Chase made me nervous, though, and somehow I think he knew. He was obviously cute, with his short sandy blond hair, light hazel eyes and sporty look, but I wasn’t attracted to him… well I was–kind of. But I definitely wasn’t interested in him in that way. My heart belonged to the guy that had moved into a time zone different than mine.

  My feelings for Oliver hadn’t changed.

  I still felt his lips on mine every time I shut my eyes, I still dreamed of him every time I fell asleep and his football jersey was still my favorite PJ.

  I shut the door behind us and breathed in the cold air. The ground was covered in white snow, and as I watched Cole and Sophia run around, I couldn’t help feeling the hollowness inside my heart. Both reminded me of Oliver and me, attacking each other with their slushy snowballs.

  “Hey, what’s up with you? Are you okay?”

  I wiped the tear threatening to roll down my cheek. “Yeah. I’m fine. Do you want to join them?”

  “No,” he laughed. “If I have to play outside, I’ll be building a snowman. I’m not the cat and mouse kind of person.”

  I frowned, wondering how he could not get that running around in the snow was one of the best perks of winter. Or maybe that was just an Oliver and Abbygail thing...

  “So, what do you say? Are you joining me or not?”

  “Sure.”

  Any distraction is a good distraction.

  We were mounting up the head of the snowman when Cole and Sophia decided to finally stop teasing each other and give us a hand. Unfortunately, whatever assistance they were trying to give, ended up being worse than if they hadn’t helped at all. Everything kept falling over, so I sent them out back to pick up some sticks and stones for the body parts.

  As I bent over trying to fix the middle body, I felt Chase coming from behind. I turned to face him just in time to see the huge lump of snow hovering over my head.

  “Don’t you dare.” I warned.

  He smiled at me evilly. “It’s cute how you seem to believe that warning me will actually prevent me from doing this.”

  I tried to move away but I wasn’t quick enough. Chase dropped everything he was holding on top of my head, and roared at the surprised expression on my face.

  “Absolutely perfect,” he mocked

  I cocked my eyebrow at his teasing and charged at him, making him fall to the ground at the impact of our bodies. The fact that he wasn't expecting the hit was hilarious. I laughed so hard I could barely breathe. Unfortunately, my power over him didn’t last very long. Within an instant I found myself on my back with him straddling me. He pushed away a lump of wet hair away from my face and I shivered.

  “Cold?” he asked without taking his piercing gaze away from mine.

  I shook my head and we both remained still. We stared at each other until we heard his mother call them inside for lunch.

  “I really like your smile, Abbygail Evens,” Chase whispered into my ear. “You should definitely do it more often.”

  I was sure he was about to kiss me. Part of me wanted him to so that I’d know how it felt to be kissed by someone who wasn’t Oliver, but the other part felt relieved when he stepped off and called his sister to go back home.

  What the hell just happened?

  My ass was numb and wet, yet I was unable to will myself to move. Chase turned around as he crossed the street, and smiled at my frozen body.

  “Later, Abby.”

  It took me a second to process a reply. “Why later?”

  “Because you and your mom are coming over for dinner.”

  I frowned. “We are?”

  He didn’t reply. He simply winked and walked inside his house.

  I was being watched. I felt it in the heavy silence. The wind kicked up, briskly blowing the cold against my wet face. It was raging so hard I could hear the wrestling branches of the willow tree all the way to the front of the house.

  Chills ran up my spine.

  I tried to shelter the sting by turning my head against the headwind, and that’s when I saw him with his back to me. I stood as he started to walk away. Something inside me told me I should be trying to get his attention.

  “Oliver?” I whispered. I squinted my eyes in order to get a better view

  Impossible. I have to be hallucinating. Why would Oliver come all the way here and not come to the house?

  I shook my head.

  Abs, maybe you really are coming down with something.

  I ignored the screaming voice inside my head. I ignored the pain in my gut, and even though every bone in my body was urging me to call after the unknown silhouette, I didn’t. I just watched him walk away from me, focusing on the sound of his footsteps as he increased the distance between us.

  Oliver

  “So let me get this straight,” Kayden said. We were sitting on the couch in my room playing Madden on my PlayStation. “You just stood there watching her, and did nothing?”

  “What was I supposed to do?”

  “I don’t know, go up to her and say something.”

  “Really? Like what?”

  “Well by this point I’d say anything would have worked. But ‘hi’ and ‘how are you’, could have been a damn good start. Even a ‘why the hell was this guy straddling your body,’ would have worked.”

  My mother hadn’t been able to take any time off work for the holidays, but she really wanted to go back home for Christmas, so we went, even though it cost her a ridiculous amount of money for just a few days. It was a brief trip. We arrived late on the twenty-third, spent the night and the following day with my Aunt Hailey that lived in the town next to Carrington. Then, on Christmas morning, before catching our flight back to BC, my mother had plans for us to have lunch with Jenna.

  I was really looking forward to seeing Abby, but then her mother told us Abby had been sick all night and that she wanted to stay home. I don’t know if I felt worried or aggravated by her lack of showing up, but I left the bed and breakfast and walked home with every intention of knocking on her door myself.

  I was expecting her to be sitting on the couch watching ‘Home Alone’, all the while hoping that I would show up. I wasn’t expecting to see her laughing and smiling with people that weren't me.

  I watched as she wrestled with the guy our age that I didn’t know. I watched as he sat over her body, so close to her beautiful face, and whispered something that made her smile. I would have given anything to see the color of her eyes, needing to know exactly what she was feeling, but I froze because jealousy ate me up from the inside. I turned around because I hated it. I left because I felt replaced.

  “I think he was going to kiss her.”

  Kayden started to laugh.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Your face, dude. Seriously, you’re hilarious.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Okay. I have this idea that I’ve wanted to run by you for a while, and now seems like perfect timing.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “How about you just let her go?”

  “Let her go? Why the hell would I do that?”

  “Oliver, I mean come on. She lives all the way across the country. You won’t call her, you won’t write to her, and when you see her, you can’t even mount up the courage to go talk to her. Maybe this is just a sign that the both of you should just move on with your own lives.”

  I frowned at him.

  “And if I listen to what you’ve been complaining about ever since you came back, she looks like she’s doing exactly that.”

  I stood, walked over to my night table and grabbed the Christmas gift from Abby. It was the most thoughtful thing she could have ever gotten me: a digital camera, filled with pictures. She wrote on the card she sent with the gift that everyone
had passed around the camera, and anyone in school who wanted to pose, ended up with a picture on the camera. There were many pictures of her. I could tell that some of them were taken while she was posing, but the ones where she wasn’t, were the most perfect ones.

  I searched for my favorite one. It was a close up of Abby’s face at the pond. Her crystal blue eyes told me how sad she was, but it was the most beautiful picture of her I had ever seen.

  I handed my camera to my idiot friend. “Kayden, I’d like you to meet Abbygail Evens.”

  He let go of the remote and took the camera out of my hands. I watched his face as he looked at Abby’s picture. His stunned expression was enough for me to know what he thought, but I decided to ask anyway.

  “So?”

  “Shit Ol, she’s fucking gorgeous.”

  “I know. Now please tell me, do you still think I should let her go?

  He looked at me, unable to formulate a logic response.

  “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

  “Oliver?” my mom yelled. “I’m home.”

  I stepped out from my room to greet her from her day at work. “How was your day?”

  “Long. Did you cook the pasta like I asked?”

  “Yes. It’s in the oven and it should be ready in about ten minutes. Hey, Mom, can Kayden stay over for dinner?”

  “Sure. Hi Kayden.”

  “Hi, Mrs. Evens.”

  “Oh, Oliver, I picked up the mail. Here, Abby sent you another letter.”

  Fuck.

  December 25 2009

  I’m not going to say hi.

  I’m not even going to ask you how you are.

  Because guess what? I don’t care. But do you know what I do care about?

  Us.

  But apparently, I’m the only one... so here’s the deal. I’m fucking pissed at you Oliver.

  YOU CAME FOR X-MAS?!

  You flew all the way across the country for two days, but couldn’t find the time to come and see me. How could you?