“Hi, Sam,” I said with a coy smile. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
His eyes looked worn and tired and he was packing some major bags under them. He’d clearly been crying.
“Come in, come in,” I said as I got out of the way. “Have a seat.”
He took a seat in the arm chair closest to the door. His body was rigid and tense, and I could see him clenching his jaw.
“You okay, Sam?” I asked. “Want something to drink? Beer? Wine? Water?”
He glanced up at me with the saddest eyes I’d ever seen and said nothing. It didn’t seem like he knew what to say or where to begin, or maybe he just didn’t have the energy to talk.
“Beer it is,” I said as I scampered off to the kitchen to grab the last of the pale ale. “Here you go.”
Sam took the cold, uncapped bottle from my hand and chugged it all in one go.
I took a seat across from him on the sofa, hands folded in my lap, and waited for him to speak. He looked so sweet sitting there like some brokenhearted little bird. I just wanted to hold him in my arms and tell him everything was going to be okay. I knew he deserved better than Ayla, but I had no idea how I could convince him of that.
“God, what a royal fuck up today was,” he said as he finally broke the silence.
“I know, right?” I replied.
“What were you trying to tell me earlier today?” he asked. His eyes honed in on mine, and I couldn’t escape the intensity of his gaze even if I tried. “When you asked me something off the record?”
“Um,” I stammered. “I was just asking if you thought you were making the right decision.”
“Yeah, that,” he said. “Why’d you ask that?”
I hesitated.
“Did you know something I didn’t know?” he asked. “Did you know about Bennett and Ayla?”
“Oh, God, no, Sam,” I said as I placed my hand out. “I knew nothing. It was just as shocking for me as it was for you. I mean, I knew they had dated, but I didn’t know they still had feelings for each other. I didn’t know he was going to stand up and object to your marriage.”
Sam’s shoulders shrunk as he slumped down in the chair.
“People like Bennett and Ayla,” I said. “They’re users. They used us, Sam. We deserve better than that because we are not those kinds of people.”
Sam looked back up at me as he listened intently.
“You especially. You are one of the most genuine people I’ve ever known,” I said.
“What did Ayla say when you asked her those interview questions,” he asked. He was apparently still stuck on her.
“Oh, um, well…” I hesitated. “Do you want the truth?”
He nodded.
“She had a hard time answering them, Sam,” I said as I cringed. I waited for his tears to start falling, but they never came. “She actually kicked everyone out of the room and asked me if she was making a mistake. She said she could always divorce you if she was making the wrong decision.”
His face twisted into an appalled, sickened reaction.
“And what did you say?” he asked.
“I didn’t really have a chance to respond. Her mom came busting through the door talking about how happy you were,” I said.
“Huh,” Sam said as he stared down at the carpet. “How about that for timing.”
“So when you asked me off record if I thought I was making the right decision, you were really just referring to the fact that Ayla didn’t want to marry me,” he added.
“I guess,” I replied.
“It had nothing to do with you still having feelings for me or anything?” He glanced over at me with questioning eyes, and I saw a completely different side of him emerge. “I guess as much as you’ve been bumping into me the last few months, I didn’t know if you were trying to pull something.”
I didn’t know what to say. I opened my mouth, but no response came out.
“That’s what I thought,” he said. He hardly gave me enough time to even think about my answer.
“Can I be totally honest with you?” I said. “When I found out you were engaged to Ayla Giovanni and so soon after our relationship ended, something in me changed. Something in me woke up.”
“Why?” he asked. “Because you always want what you don’t have?”
“No,” I said. “Maybe. I don’t know. I guess it made me look at you in a different light. That and I always thought we’d end up together.”
“Me too,” he said. His face was all sorts of pissed off, and I couldn’t tell what exactly he was upset about.
When I looked over at Sam, I no longer saw his sloped wrestler shoulders or his flaky scalp or his thinning, mousy brown hair. I no longer saw his imperfect smile or that his ears stuck out just a little too much.
Maybe I had grown up in that past year. Maybe I’d finally started to realize that people’s insides and outsides don’t always tend to match.
“It’s not too late,” I said to Sam.
“Not too late for what?” he huffed.
“For us to see if we can make this work again,” I proposed. “You’re single. I’m single. We had something good once. We can get it again, right?”
Sam sat quietly in the chair, gripping the arms tight. He started rubbing his palms nervously against the sides before standing up. I was sure he was going to walk to the door and leave and I’d never see him again.
To my surprise, he headed over towards the sofa and took a seat right next to me. He stared ahead as he scratched the side of his head and cleared his throat. It was almost like he had something important to tell me.
“Olivia,” he began, though it didn’t sound good. “Look. You were my first real girlfriend. The first woman I ever loved.”
“Oh, okay,” I said as I sunk back into the cushion. I was about to get some sort of rejection speech, I could feel it.
“I have never stopped loving you,” he said.
I sat back up, suddenly tuned back in, and turned to face him. His eyes shifted nervously at mine as he clutched his hands together.
He took a deep breath, and I braced myself for what was to come next. It was either going to be really good or really bad.
“I’m not ready to be in another relationship right now,” he said.
My heart fell deep into my chest.
“But,” he continued. “It doesn’t mean that I’m not open to the idea of maybe trying to figure out if there’s something we can salvage here.”
My eyes lit up, and I couldn’t hide the smile that was spreading across my lips.
“Is that something you’d be willing to work with?” he asked, eyebrows raised.
I nodded vigorously and had to keep myself from throwing my arms happily around him.
“I want to take things slow,” he said. “I rushed things with Ayla, and look how that turned out. You and I had our own issues. I want to start slow and fresh.”
“I think that sounds perfect,” I said with a grin.
He shifted closer towards me and reached out to take one of my hands in his.
“Like I said, I never stopped loving you,” he admitted as he looked me deeply in the eyes. “Even when I proposed to Ayla, there was a part of me that wished it was you standing there.”
“Really?!” I asked.
“Ayla was a fantasy,” he said. “I didn’t have a future with her. I was just fooling myself to think that she and I had anything in common. Looking back, we probably looked so silly together.”
“Don’t say that,” I said as I swatted his arm. “That’s not true.”
“No,” he laughed, revealing his imperfect smile. “She was totally out of my league.”
“Bennett was out of my league, too,” I lamented.
“No,” Sam insisted. “Olivia, you’re beautiful.”
I blushed.
“Do you know how much makeup Ayla has to wear just to get out of the house? Do you know how m
uch time it takes for her to look that way?” He laughed. “Have you ever seen her without makeup?”
“No,” I replied.
“She’s just as ordinary as anyone else,” he said. “But you… You have an inner beauty that Ayla can’t even hold a flame to. And it shows on the outside.”
“You’re being too kind,” I said to him. “I was not a nice person to you. I hurt you. I was selfish. I—”
“Olivia,” he said as he squeezed my hand. “Nobody’s perfect. The fact that you didn’t want to see me get hurt today means the world to me. You tried to do the right thing. You tried to warn me not to marry her, and it wasn’t for your own self-serving purposes.”
“I guess you’re right,” I said. I wanted to pat myself on the back. I really was growing up.
“Not a lot of people would’ve done what you did,” he said. “And the fact that you reached out to me tonight, in spite of the way I’ve treated you every time I’ve seen you lately, showed me that you really do care.”
“I know I didn’t always put you first in our relationship,” I said. “But that was the old me. I’ll never do that to you again, Sam.”
He flashed a quick smile and leaned in towards me. I could still smell his cologne from earlier that day as it wafted off of his warm skin. Some sort of magnetic pull was happening between us, and within seconds I found my lips on his. Thankfully, he kissed me back that time.
His kiss was sweet, tender, and almost timid in nature. He meant what he said about not rushing things. He didn’t linger. He didn’t place his hands on me. But I could feel the love that still remained between us. It was a love that had never fully gone away.
My future wasn’t with Bennett. It never was. And I wasn’t even sure about my future with Sam. But in the same day that I thought I’d lost all hope, I gained it all back, and then some.
CHAPTER 27: AYLA
“You ready, kiddo?” my dad asked as he linked his arm out towards me.
We stood in the back of the church, me in a gown so tight it almost sucked the life out of me and my father in a suit and tie that perfectly coordinated with my flowers.
“You okay?” he asked. He must have noticed I wasn’t myself.
The walk to the altar suddenly felt like a death sentence as I peer up through my veil towards a smiling Sam. If he only knew the conversation I’d just had with Olivia moments before.
As the Wedding March began to play and our guests stood up and turned, all eyes were on me. I plastered on the biggest T.V. news anchor smile I could muster and fought the hot tears forming in my eyes. I refused to let my guard down. I was going through with this. It was too late to back out now.
As my father gave me away and placed my hands into Sam’s, I couldn’t help but notice how happy he was. He and my mom had been this happy once, he had told me. My mom was the love of his life until she passed from cancer when I was eight.
I wished more than anything in the world that she was there with me in person on my wedding day. I wondered what kind of advice she would’ve given me. She was so worldly and adventurous, or so I’d always been told. I didn’t remember her much. All I had were pictures of her and a closet full of her clothes. I knew she was pretty—no, not just pretty. She was drop dead gorgeous. I knew I had her eyes, her mouth, and her long legs.
Julianne and I were close, but she always had such high expectations for me. Everything had to be perfect all the time and we never talked about feelings. She was an overachiever in the biggest way, and I suppose it trickled down to me as I grew up with her as my mother figure.
I looked over at Sam, and I could tell he could sense the anxiety pouring out of my every fiber. He mouthed the words “I love you”, but I couldn’t say them back without getting teary, so I said nothing at all. I lowered my eyes and stared down at the ground, at his shoes. I couldn’t even look at him.
He squeezed my hand as if to tell me everything was going to be okay, but that only made things worse. I felt it in the pit of my stomach. I knew I was making a mistake. We had rushed things. We should have waited another year. I shouldn’t have gotten so caught up in weddings and babies and diamond rings.
I shouldn’t have ended things so soon with Bennett. I was wild about him. We had a fire and ice relationship. It only lasted a few short months, but it was magical. Every day was different and every date ended with fireworks. We could hardly keep our hands off each other, but for the life of us, we could never get on the same page.
Sometimes he ran cold while I ran hot, and vice versa, and for whatever reason, neither one of us trusted each other. I think we were both insecure, but it was nothing that we couldn’t have fixed had we ever tried.
Instead, I broke up with him on a whim, thinking he’d fight to get me back. He didn’t. He didn’t even send a single flower or text or anything. At my lowest point after our breakup, I’d gone out to the bars by myself.
That was the night I met Sam. He seemed easy and obtainable. He was low-hanging fruit. Most of the guys I tended to go for were afraid to even approach me, so I always had to approach them. Sam was definitely approachable.
Once I got to know Sam, I couldn’t believe how sweet he was. He was different from anyone else I’d ever dated. I knew he was special and that I’d be stupid to let him go. He waited on me hand and foot. He was drama-free and straightforward. I never had to read between the lines with him, and being together felt good.
Then Bennett moved into my building. Seeing him while I was with Sam gave me a rush. I loved shoving my happy little relationship in his face and showing him what he was missing out on. It gave me great pleasure and satisfaction to watch him eat his heart out, but I guess I got a little carried away.
Before I knew it, Sam had proposed to me, and I couldn’t say no. My family was crazy about him. He fit in so well. He was so kind, and I knew he’d make an amazing husband.
I could hear the pastor speaking, but it all sounded like Greek to me. I couldn’t focus on his words. I couldn’t focus on the beautiful ceremony taking place. All I could do was close my eyes and pretend I was marrying Bennett.
I knew then and there that I wanted a relationship with fire and spark and passion, even if it wasn’t always perfect.
I forced myself to look up at Sam and flash him a smile. I didn’t want to hurt him. I loved him, but I wasn’t in love with him. I had no business marrying him. He deserved a nice, boring girl. Not someone like me who thrived on attention. The past year had been great, but it had also bored me to death. I couldn’t imagine a lifetime of that.
As the pastor asked our guests if anyone objected to our marriage, I squeezed my eyes tight and hoped and prayed for a miracle. I knew it wouldn’t happen. Those sorts of things never happened, and especially not when you wanted them to.
I heard gasps from the pews and the creaking and shifting of people moving around in their seats. I turned my head and looked out, only to see Bennett standing in the sixth row.
“Who invited him here?” I yelled,
My words sounded angry, but on the inside I was relieved. It was nothing short of the miracle I’d just prayed for.
“What’s going on?” Sam asked me. I couldn’t answer him. Not there. Not then.
Next to Bennett was Olivia, the girl who worked for my mom. She had a lot of nerve bringing him there, especially when I’d recently told her about how we’d once dated.
“Get him out of here!” I heard my father snarl. Within seconds, two security guards headed towards him to escort him out of the church.
Bennett and I locked eyes, and it was like we both knew.
My hand loosened from Sam’s and I ran after him. I didn’t even think about it. I just did it. I probably looked silly, running down the aisle in a poufy white dress after the man who had just objected to my wedding. I was going to have a lot of explaining to do, but I didn’t care.
“Bennett!” I yelled after him as I saw him slip around the corner.
He spun around, and his expression softened when he saw me.
“Ayla,” he said as he walked towards me. He slipped his hands around my waist.
“What are you doing here?” I asked him.
“I came with a date,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t expect to stand up at your wedding. Something just came over me.”
I was secretly glad he did what he did, but I didn’t want him to know that. Not yet anyway.
“Why did you do that?” I asked him.
“Because I still love you,” he replied.
He leaned over and softly kissed my lips, and it only confirmed what I’d been feeling. I still loved him too. I wanted to be with him and only him.
“I missed you so much, Ayla,” Bennett continued. “This last year has been the worst year of my life.”
“Yeah, but you moved on,” I replied. “You’re dating that girl from my mom’s work.”
“She’s not you,” he said. “No one could ever be you.”
He leaned in and kissed me again. His hands traveled down my hips and pulled me closer.
“Do you still love me?” Bennett asked. “Be honest.”
I paused for a second before responding with a simple, “Yes.”
“It killed me seeing you with him,” Bennett said. “Watching you day in and day out. Watching someone else steal my happiness. Our happiness.”
“I couldn’t trust you, Bennett,” I said. “You couldn’t trust me. That’s why I ended things.”
“I’m a changed man,” Bennett replied. “On my father’s grave.”
“I want to believe you,” I replied.
I leaned into him and rested my head on his shoulder as he rubbed my back and held me tight. I’d missed this so much.
“Believe me,” he said as he pushed me away and cupped my face in his strong hands. “I want you back, Ayla. I will do anything. I love you. I can’t imagine spending my life with anyone else but you.”
“Why did you have to wait until now?” I whined. “Why are you doing this today of all days?”
“I had to stop you from making the biggest mistake of your life,” he said. “I knew you didn’t belong with him. He’s not good enough for you, Ayla. No one is. But I’m going to try to be if you let me. I promise you that.”
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