If Only We

by Jessica Sankiewicz

  I smile and bite my lip. “Yeah, he is.”

  And I definitely do not want to lose him again.

  Chapter Forty-two

  Friday evening, September 7th

  I walk slowly to his door. Halfway up the sidewalk I nearly want to turn around to make a run for it. But running wouldn't change anything. And if I have learned anything this week, it's that change is possible if you put yourself out there.

  Even though there are no guarantees.

  I pause to take a deep breath, and knock. While I wait for an answer, I take in the surroundings. Everything is exactly as it was a month ago, yet it feels different. I expect to see Noreen but it's Chevy that answers the door. His eyes are wide when he sees it's me.

  We stare for a few seconds. I finally say, “Hi.”

  “Hi,” he says hesitantly.

  That hesitation makes me nervous. So I blurt out, “First off, I’m sorry for avoiding you all week. There’s no sensible excuse for it but there is a reason. And I would be grateful if you would give me a chance to explain.”

  He closes his eyes and suddenly chuckles. “As angry as I should be, I just find your little speech too cute to say no to.”

  I let out a breath. “Thank you.” I pause. “Do you think we could go somewhere else? Like walk to the park or something?”

  He nods. “Sure.” He closes the door and follows me down the sidewalk. “So,” he says. “I am ready when you are.”

  “Okay,” I say and let out a huge breath. “Here goes…what happened on Monday between us…”

  “Our kiss…” he adds.

  “Yes, our kiss. I don’t regret it. In fact, I never want to regret it.”

  “But…”

  “What?” I look at him.

  He turns to me and says, “But…there’s always a ‘but.’ There has to be, otherwise we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.” He raises his eyebrows and gives me a slight smirk.

  I shake my head. “Yeah, you’re right.”

  “So, what is it?”

  “I don’t regret the kiss, but I can’t help but wonder what could have been.”

  “Could have been…?”

  “Like…if things were different, would this still be what it is? Or is it just in my imagination?”

  “I’m not following…”

  Of course he's not—I’m not making sense. Maybe I should try another way. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Certainly.”

  “And I want you to be completely honest, no matter what, okay?”

  “I promise.”

  Taking a deep breath, I ask, “If I would have asked you out at graduation, how would you have reacted?”

  “Wait,” he says, touching my arm to stop me. “You were going to ask me out?” Going to ask him out…more like did…and then didn’t.

  I nod, turning away from his gaze. He lets out a breath. He knows how he would have reacted. I brace myself since I already know the answer.

  “I probably would have said something to the effect of ‘Let’s be friends.’”

  I stay silent a moment. “That's what I thought.” I continue walking.

  “Adrienne,” he calls out as he jogs to catch up to me. “You already know I would have only been doing that to protect myself. I was afraid if I were to get into a relationship with you back then, there was a chance it could end in heartache.”

  “What makes you think it would end in heartache?”

  “Because…” He runs his fingers through his hair. “Because when you finally have something you’ve always wanted, you have something to lose.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Remember when I told you how it felt safer to not get into a serious relationship?”

  “I remember.”

  “Well, before I transferred to Hamilton, I was dating this girl, Lola. We had been dating for four months when she decided out of nowhere to dump me. I was devastated to say the least. I liked her a lot and I could see potential for a long-term relationship. To have it vanish like that,” he snaps his fingers, “was more than my sixteen-year-old heart could bear. It was fortunate that my family moved right after. Not only because it meant getting away from where she was, but also because of you.”

  “Because of me? Wait,” I say, holding out my hand. “So, you did like me back then?”

  He laughs. “Adrienne, I’ve liked you since the moment I laid eyes on you. I always looked forward to seeing you and talking to you. Whenever I couldn’t be around you, it sucked. I wanted to be with you all the time, yet I was afraid to be heartbroken again by someone I cared so deeply about. Hence, the meaningless relationships that led nowhere. Then you made that comment about how you need to make the choice to either say nothing or speak up. Take a risk.” He lets out a long breath. “This summer, after everything that has happened, you have been there for me in ways I never imagined a person could be. I knew that you cared about me the way I did about you. It didn’t seem like such a risk once I knew.”

  “That’s why you kissed me, because it didn’t feel like a risk?”

  “No. I kissed you because you saved my life.”

  I stop, taken aback. “What?”

  He looks down at his feet. “That day at the cemetery…you saved my life.”

  “How?”

  “Do you remember when we found the bottle of vodka in my dad’s office?” I nod. He closes his eyes and says, “My mom handed it off to me to pour down the sink. I intended to do so but, for some reason, I was possessed to keep it. I hid it in my room…and I had it in my jacket pocket when you came. I wanted so much to just take it out and drink it all. Numb the pain. Ease the ache.”

  My heart drops into my stomach and encases me in a suspended state. If he had the vodka in his pocket that day…when he told me to leave…and I left…when he was giving up…what else was there for him to do…but to…

  He says softly, “Then you came. All I could see was us. You make me feel alive. I wanted to let go of that pain, that ache, and move on…with you in my life.”

  I can barely breathe at his admission. Everything I thought I knew, I didn’t. Everything I thought I could see, I couldn’t. Everything I thought was the reason was never the reason. Things were not falling apart because I asked him for something more.

  It was because I ran away.

  I have been wasting all this time questioning his feelings. If I meant that much to him, why would he turn me down? The question I should have been asking…

  If he meant that much to me, why did I run away?

  “Adrienne?” Chevy’s voice breaks me out of my trance. I look up at him. “Why does it matter what I would have said then? Just because I might not have accepted at that moment doesn’t mean I’m not accepting right now.” He carefully brushes my cheek with his fingers. He murmurs, “Do you doubt my affection for you?”

  I feel a thrill at the wording in his question and shiver. “No,” I whisper. “I don’t.”

  “Then, why did you avoid me?”

  I look down and bite my lip. “Everything else in my life was going wrong—everything—and then we happened and I…well, I panicked. If the rest of my life was falling apart…I was afraid that we would fall apart and I would be left with nothing.”

  He reaches for my hand. “Whatever happened to taking a risk?” I stare at his hand in mine, and then back into his eyes. “Do you think it was easy for me to take the risk?” I shake my head no. “Then why does it matter?”

  He wants a real answer—an honest answer. I let out a sigh. “Maybe…maybe it doesn’t matter.” Maybe it doesn’t. I was not able to keep John alive but I preserved something important between his family that was not there before. Maybe I am over-thinking. No. I am over-thinking. “Not now.”

  “Why not?”

  If I would have told him no in the cemetery that day when he told me to go away, perhaps all the mistakes that led to that moment could have vanished. Perhaps we could be here in a similar moment entangle
d in a different kind of predicament that would be easy to overcome. Perhaps we would have kissed and nothing would have tampered with the importance of that moment because nothing else would have mattered anymore. Maybe it was in my control all along. If I would have stood there by his side instead of running away again, I could have helped him. I let my pride get the better of me. We could still be here, in this moment.

  We are in this moment. Nothing else matters anymore.

  I smile and say, “Because we’re here now.”

  He smiles. “Are we?”

  “Maybe I was just terrified of my heart shattering at the possibility of losing the love of my life.”

  He grins. “That makes two of us.” I open my mouth to say something, but he cuts me off with a finger to my lips. “You are right. Here we are.”

  I spent years wishing for this. I spent years hoping for this.

  And here it is.

  I take a step closer to him and, cupping his face, press my lips to his. He wraps his arms around me and, smiling against my lips, whispers, “So, where do we go from here?”

  “Now that I’m with you, anywhere.”

  Epilogue

  One year later

  There are days where I imagine fate continuously circling us back to the moments we need to change until we get it right. We keep repeating history while being frozen in space, waiting for it to end so that we can move on. Only, in normal circumstances, we are not aware of it. I'm not one of those normal circumstances. I'm the one that got a true second chance, one where I had to learn from the mistakes rather than roll the dice. Of course, this is just something my imagination conjured up to make sense of that summer.

  If it isn’t true, I mean, if fate isn’t real, then our choices have more meaning. They can be powerful tools in guiding ourselves in the right—or wrong—direction. That one wrong choice can lead us into a life of pain and regret. Sometimes I look back to that day I made the wrong choice and visualize what could have happened if I woke up the next day in the present rather than the past. Every time I think about it, I cringe in horror.

  I don’t know why I was offered that second chance, and I doubt I will ever get another one. Which leads me to believe it was not just a second chance but also a way to gain new perspective for the future. It has caused me to learn how to decide my path when I reach a fork in the road. Not all of our decisions will lead to positive results. Some may end the same no matter which one we take. It’s like how people always say that you can’t control others, but you can control yourself.

  That is what it boils down to: You can only control yourself.

  It's not easy to face the facts but it's part of life. My mom still wishes I was a nurse, but she has learned to live with my choice. Kaitlin still wishes she hadn’t lost her best friend, but she made new friends. My dad still works a lot, but he has been making more of an effort to be part of my life. Chevy still struggles with the idea of alcoholism being a problem for him down the road, but he has a reason not to let it take over.

  I didn’t have the greatest start with my career, but a lot has changed since then. I not only went back to Hidden Treasures with my headbands but also asked for a job, which Mary Ann was more than happy to give me. I may not have sold enough of my creations to make a living, but I learned a lot from the experience and gained confidence in my abilities. I'm even considering majoring in business now that I'm in college.

  Not everything in life is going to be perfect. Until we can accept that, we will never truly learn how to live. We can pull through the bad times and come out renewed, ready for the next challenge. Life is what we make of it.

  You just need to be there.

  ###

  Acknowledgements

  First of all, a huge thank-you to every single person who believed in me and supported me through this whole thing. Thank you Mom, Dad, and Matt for always being there. I love you! Thank you Rebecca for putting up with me (time and again), cheering me on, and being a great friend. Thank you Steph for being such a super awesome since Kindergarten friend for these (more than) two decades. Thank you Marie for being such an amazing support, designing my cover, formatting, and all the advice (and laughs).

  Thank you to Susan Kaye Quinn for your critique that helped immensely in focusing my first five pages to where they needed to be. A humongous thank you to my beta readers: Angie, Lan, Marie, and Molli. You guys really helped me bring out the heart of the story. Thanks so much Stephanie for editing and spreading the word. Thanks also to Cindy C. Bennett for formatting this book for print. Thank you Angie, Jenny, Lan, Marie, Molli, and Sarah for all your kind words and encouragement over the years. I always look forward to hearing from all of you! Thank you to every blogger and author that assisted in sharing the cover and hosting me on your blog and in other places. And thank you to everyone I’ve “met” online that has ever left a comment or stopped by my blog even once.

  And finally…an ENORMOUS thank you to every single one of you who bought If Only We! This means YOU!

  If I forgot anyone, please forgive me. You know my brain is sometimes all over the place and I didn’t mean to…and that I love you dearly!

  About the Author

  Jessica is the 28-year-old author of IF ONLY WE, a YA contemporary coming out in October 2013. You can often find her either reading or marathon watching TV on DVD, her favorites being Castle and Veronica Mars. She frequently mismatches her clothes and giggles uncontrollably. She knows almost every Billy Joel song by heart. She collects books and toys, and she has an intense love of cats and lemurs. Currently in the midst of her quarter-life-crisis, she is still takin’ names and getting very close to reaching an epiphany.