The Color of a Promise (The Color of Heaven Series Book 11)

by Julianne MacLean

  She moved past me to get into her seat and then slid the door closed.

  “Bye, Jack,” she said, stretching her arm out the open window.

  Her face was dazzling to me in that moment as I reveled in the sensation of her soft lips on my cheek. I couldn’t speak. All I could do was back away from the curb and wave as she buckled her seat belt.

  Her parents came out of the house and got into the van. They started up the engine, and again, I wished desperately that they weren’t leaving. I could already feel a hole in my heart, because I was going to miss Millicent terribly, and her family, too.

  “We’ll see you soon, Jack,” Dr. Davenport said, leaning across the seat to speak to me out the passenger side window. “Take care of yourself.”

  Then they drove off.

  o0o

  That night in the hospital in Germany, I fell asleep remembering that special good-bye, followed by horror ten hours later when my mother hung up the telephone in our kitchen and turned to me. Her face was white as a sheet.

  “What is it?” I asked, dread exploding like fire in my belly. “What’s wrong?”

  My mother moved slowly toward me and pulled a chair out to sit down at the kitchen table. She took both my hands in hers. “I have very bad news, Jack. There was a plane crash in Arizona.”

  My whole body went numb as I stared at her, not quite able to understand what she was trying to tell me.

  “I’m so sorry.” Her voice trembled, and her cheeks turned red. “Millicent won’t be coming home.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because her family was on that plane. They all died.”

  My heart beat like a hammer in my chest, and my blood churned thunderously in my ears. No, that wasn’t possible.

  “What do you mean? Why did the plane crash?”

  She shook her head and pressed her fist to her mouth to stifle a sob. “I don’t know. They’re looking into it, but they think it was something mechanical. The plane caught fire and there was an explosion as they were landing. I’m sure we’ll know more soon. We’ll have to watch the news. I’m so sorry.”

  She reached forward to pull me into her arms. I shut my eyes, willing the words to be false. It wasn’t true, I told myself. Millicent couldn’t have been on that plane. She couldn’t be dead. She was supposed to come home in two weeks. We’d promised each other that we would finish the clubhouse together.

  “She was such a good girl,” my mother said, rubbing her hand up and down my back. “They were a wonderful family. It’s very tragic. I’m so sorry, Jack.”

  They were a perfect family, and I loved everything about them.

  Tears spilled out of my eyes, and I clutched at my mother’s shirt. “No!” I cried. “She was my best friend. I loved her.”

  My mother wept, too. “She was very special. And wherever she is right now, I’m sure she’s watching over you, like a guardian angel. She’ll always be with you, Jack.”

  I cried even harder.

  As I lay in the hospital bed staring up at the ceiling, I couldn’t help but wonder if my childhood friend had somehow been with me on that road in Afghanistan. Maybe she was responsible for the miracle that saved me.

  Squeezing my eyes shut against the relentless pain, I told myself that if I ever met Millicent again in Heaven, I would be sure to thank her, and tell her how much I’d missed her.

  PART II

  Chapter Eleven

  Meg Andrews

  2007

  Growing up, I never had much luck in the romance department and looking back on it, I don’t know why I was in such a hurry to figure it all out. If only I had known that matters of the heart usually resolve themselves when the time is right. It just requires patience and the ability to follow your gut and listen to your intuition.

  That was something I didn’t know in my younger days, however, which is a bit surprising, considering I had an off-the-charts IQ. But nothing was easy back then when I was struggling to navigate my way through adolescence and the complicated politics of high school. Add to that my struggles with anxiety—a feeling of always needing to rush through things to get them done—and maybe because of that, it makes sense that I didn’t have it all together.

  Without a doubt, I was one of the nerdy girls—with braces, acne, straight A’s and glasses. But the summer after graduation, just before I moved into residence at Princeton with a full academic scholarship, I decided I’d had enough of the life I was living, being reined in, and it was time for a fresh start. I went a little wild and got highlights in my hair. I watched What Not To Wear on TLC and figured out how to dress better. The braces finally came off, and I got contact lenses.

  Being blond and pretty, for the first time in my life, boosted my confidence as I moved in at Princeton, but it wasn’t easy to live up to the way I looked, because deep down, I was still a nerd at heart, anxious a lot of the time and definitely not one of the cool, laid-back girls.

  I was brainy and uptight about my studies. Loud music in the dorm made me cranky and confrontational on a Friday night, and I often found myself storming out of my room to ask the offender to lower the volume. As a result, I spent most Friday nights in the library, because I could never be content with any grade less than an A.

  That’s not to say that the idea of going out wasn’t a constant temptation. The girls on my floor were always trying to convince me to ditch the books and go out with them to parties or clubs. Occasionally I did, because I knew the importance of life experience outside of the classroom. I didn’t want to be one of those “book-smart” people who had no idea how to survive in the real world.

  And that’s how I met Kyle—in the “real world” of college parties. He was impossibly handsome and popular, and didn’t give a fig about his grades. A grade of C- was just fine with him.

  Basically, he was the kind of guy I never imagined I would ever date.

  As it turned out, I learned more from Kyle that year than I’d learned in any other year in my life, up to that point, so I can’t regret it, no matter how disastrous it turned out to be.

  o0o

  I’d never had a boyfriend in high school, and maybe that’s why I was so easily seduced by Kyle—although that sounds like something out of a steamy romance novel. Maybe “insecure” more accurately describes the kind of person I was when I met Kyle at a dorm party during my third year.

  I’ll be honest and confess that I’d had too many beers that night. When he flirted with me, I was flattered, reckless, and uncharacteristically wild—and having been such a good girl all my life, I wanted to let loose, forget the worries for once, and have an adventure.

  Kyle had dark hair and a muscular build, and I was bowled over by the power of my attraction to him. He also lived in a frat house, which all sounds terribly cliché, and sadly, it was. I’m not proud of it, but there it is. The fact that a guy like that wanted me was astounding. How was it possible that the geeky girl from Boise, Idaho had snagged one of the hottest guys at Princeton? I was privately high-fiving myself for weeks. That’s how geeky I was.

  Needless to say, while I fell head over heels in lust for the first time in my life, and actually started acting like a wild college girl, my grades went straight down the toilet—which wasn’t a good thing for a female student trying to prove herself in the male-dominated mechanical engineering class. Before Kyle, I’d had no problem with that. I had the highest grades, well above all the guys.

  But after six months of parties and pretending to be something I wasn’t, I had reached the end of the school year, barely hanging on to a B- average.

  Heading into exams, I was completely stressed out.

  That’s when I came to my senses. It happened one night when Kyle dragged me out with his friends, and they all got drunk and wanted to tip over a mail box. I tried to talk them out of it because it was a federal offense, which only made them think it more hilarious. As I watched them do it, I could only shake my head. It was as if I had suddenly woken up from a deep sl
umber and realized I was in a place I didn’t belong, hanging around with a bunch of idiots.

  So there I stood the next morning, forty-eight hours before my first exam, outside the frat house, taking a deep breath and preparing myself to go inside and break up with my boyfriend.

  o0o

  Truth be told, I always hated the inside of that house. It was dirty and smelled disgusting because the guys never said no to a party, and they seemed to have no idea how to put away garbage afterwards, clean a shower, or make a bed, let alone strip a bed and wash the sheets.

  I had texted Kyle, so I knew he was there. He was in his room “studying,” he said, but when I climbed the creaky staircase and knocked on his door, I found him lying on his bed with his earbuds in, drumsticks in hand, beating a tune on the air.

  I walked in, and he pulled the buds out of his ears and sat up. “What’s up?”

  My stomach turned over with dread.

  I didn’t want to make a big deal out of this. I just wanted it to be over so that I could get my head back in the game and study for exams without any distractions. Besides, I didn’t think Kyle would care that much. He and I had had our share of fights and disagreements over the past few months, and lately he always seemed to be annoyed with me—criticizing everything I said and did—so I felt as if I were doing us both a favor.

  “Listen…” I said, closing the door behind me and standing on the braided rug at the foot of his bed. The room reeked. I glanced around and spotted a pizza wrapper in the garbage can. He must have worked up an appetite the night before while tipping over the mail box.

  The smell, mixed with the stench of stale beer in the dorm, was sickening. All I wanted in that moment was to be done with this, because we had nothing in common. I wasn’t the blond party girl that Kyle thought I was. I wanted to get back to being the real me.

  I cleared my throat and got straight to the point. “I don’t know how to say this…but I think we both know this hasn’t been working out lately. We’ve been getting on each other’s nerves, and with exams coming up…”

  Kyle frowned and sat up straighter on the bed. “What are you talking about? You haven’t been getting on my nerves.”

  I hadn’t? Then why did he always talk to me like I was stupid? No matter what I said or did.

  I shifted testily on my feet and adjusted my backpack on my shoulder, and tried to speak lightly. “I just think we need to take a break. We both need to focus on exams.”

  Kyle swung his legs to the floor and sat on the edge of the bed, his hands curling tightly around the mattress. “Are you saying you want to break up?”

  His expression was one of shock and disbelief, which made sense, considering he once told me he’d never been dumped. He’d always been the one to do the dumping.

  Part of me was surprised he hadn’t done it to me already, considering how critical he had become.

  “Yes,” I replied flatly.

  Maybe I should have come up with a gentler way of putting it, or given him some hope for the future, even though I knew I wouldn’t want to get back together with him, ever. Sure…it had been exciting at first, but now that the novelty had worn off, all I could see in front of me was a ridiculously great-looking guy who didn’t care about school or responsibilities, or learning anything remotely academic. All that mattered to Kyle was the next party.

  That wasn’t the life I wanted.

  Slowly, he stood up and approached me. For some reason, instinct compelled me to take a few steps back until I bumped into the door.

  He frowned and shook his head at me. “I don’t think you know what you’re saying.”

  “I do,” I insisted, feeling pressured to take it back.

  He stared at me long and hard without saying a word. I felt trapped up against the door and my heart began to pummel my ribcage. There was something menacing about him that morning, and I couldn’t say I’d been blind to it before. I’d always suspected some cruelty was there, simmering beneath the surface of his charm, but I’d chosen to ignore it because I was having fun most of the time, when he was charming.

  Today, however, I felt uneasy. Swallowing hard, I wasn’t sure what to expect from him. A muscle at his jaw twitched and a vein pulsed above his left eyebrow. He almost looked as if he might wrap his hands around my neck and choke me.

  I glared at him, as if daring him to try something, praying he would step back.

  Finally, he scoffed and turned away. I let out a deep breath as he flopped onto the bed and stuffed the earbuds into his ears again.

  “You were a bore anyway,” he said callously, closing his eyes and drumming the air. “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t,” I replied. “Have a good life.”

  Knowing he hadn’t heard me because his music was so loud in his ears, I quickly turned, whipped the door open and hurried out into the corridor, where I smelled marijuana on the air, coming from one of the other bedrooms.

  What was I doing there? How could I have thought this was where I was meant to be?

  Dashing down the stairs, I reached the ground floor and ran outside to the street, not stopping until I made it to the sidewalk.

  I didn’t look back at the frat house as I walked briskly back to my dorm. Part of me was afraid Kyle might be watching me from the window. I certainly didn’t want him to think I was harboring any regrets about breaking up with him, because if someone turned back the clock, I would do it again in a heartbeat.

  My only regret was that for a few, irretrievable months, I’d lost sight of what mattered to me most—my studies, and the career I so desperately wanted.

  Chapter Twelve

  That night, I sat at the desk in my room, studying with intense focus. The material, which I’d been ignoring all semester, covered fundamental laws of thermodynamics, waves and optics. I had to write this exam in less than thirty-six hours. At this point, every minute counted.

  Coffee was a necessity. By 11:00 p.m., I was draining my third cup, staring into the empty bottom and wondering if I should make another. My logical brain weighed the pros and cons of that option. If I drank another, I probably wouldn’t be able to fall asleep until dawn, and I knew the dangers of sleep deprivation to the human mind. I certainly didn’t want to arrive at my exam with the shakes or an inability to focus. Sleep was important, so I tossed the cup into the trash can and reached for my water bottle instead.

  A knock sounded at my door. Feeling slightly perturbed at the interruption, I rose from my desk to answer it.

  As soon as I opened the door, my stomach dropped.

  There stood Kyle, with red, puffy eyes, smelling of whisky. He was swaying on his feet, and I knew immediately that he was completely plastered.

  “Meg,” he sobbed, running a hand through his tousled, greasy hair and staggering to the side. “I’m sorry for what I said. You’re the best, most beautiful girl I’ve ever known. You’re not a bore.”

  At that moment, two doors swung open across the hall, and my neighbors leaned out to peer at me with annoyance. I couldn’t blame them. It was exam week. No one had much patience for noisy drama in the hallway.

  “Sorry,” I said to them. “We’ll be quiet.” I grabbed Kyle by the wrist and pulled him into my room, shutting the door behind us. “People are trying to study.”

  He staggered toward my bed and fell face first onto it. For a few dire seconds I simply stared, worrying that he was going to pass out there for the entire night, and feeling positively enraged that he had come here, drunk, when we both had exams to study for. All I wanted to do was grab him by the jacket, drag him back outside, and tell him to go home and sober up. Study, for pity’s sake! But I was not that heartless. I had to at least make an effort not to crush him completely.

  Kyle rolled over and sat up on the edge of my bed. He clasped his hands together in his lap, looked up at me, then tears began to stream down his cheeks.

  “I’m so sorry. Whatever I did, I won’t do it ag
ain. I’ll be better. I promise. Just tell me what it was.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong,” I found myself saying, knowing that I couldn’t be truthful with him right now. He wasn’t in any state to discuss the nitty-gritty of our relationship, or what had been lacking. I couldn’t tell him that I’d grown out of the “party-party” dynamic that was such a big part of who he was.

  What I needed to do was talk him off the ledge and convince him that he should go home and focus on studying for his exams.

  “I must have done something wrong,” he said, grabbing fistfuls of my shirt in his hands, pulling me toward him and pressing his cheek up against my belly, “or you wouldn’t have broken up with me.”

  I didn’t know what to say. He was completely different from the person he had been in the frat house earlier when he called me a bore.

  All I could do was take hold of him and pull him to his feet. It wasn’t easy. He was almost a dead weight.

  He stared into my eyes with a muddled expression. I doubted he could even see straight. Then he drew me into his drunken embrace and slobbered in my ear. I smelled the heavy odor of booze on his breath, and it disgusted me.

  “Please, don’t end it, Meg. I can’t live without you. You’re the most amazing girl I’ve ever known. You’re so smart,” he argued, running his hands clumsily over my hair, kissing my forehead. “And you’re so beautiful.”

  “I’m not so beautiful right now,” I said, hoping to lighten the mood so I could just get rid of him. “I haven’t brushed my teeth or washed my hair. I’m in study mode.”

  “That’s what makes you so beautiful,” he said, still stroking my head and face. “You’re so brilliant.”

  Oh, God. I was certain he wouldn’t remember any of this in the morning, so what was the point of this conversation when these were such important, precious hours? I couldn’t let them go to waste. I had a whole semester of material to catch up on.

  So I did what I had to do. I cupped Kyle’s face in my hands and spoke firmly. “I didn’t mean it,” I said. “We don’t have to break up. I just need some quiet time to study. That’s all.”