The Fear of Letting Go

by Sarra Cannon

  I hold back my laughter. “Do you think?” I twirl around and fluff the ruffles. “You don't think it's too orange?”

  He scratches his cheek. “It's a little more colorful than what I was expecting,” he says. “But you'll look beautiful no matter what you wear.”

  I can't hold it back any longer. He actually thinks I'm serious, and I can tell it's killing him. I laugh and hold the skirt out from my body. “I'm kidding, Preston. Would you honestly let me buy this and wear it to the party?”

  He lets out a long breath and laughs. “Thank God,” he says. “That dress is hideous.”

  “Isn't it?” I say turning again. “It's probably been in someone's closet since the eighties and they finally brought it up here to try and sell. I look like a pumpkin.”

  “The sexiest pumpkin I ever saw,” he says, his eyes dancing with laughter.

  “Okay, if you think I look sexy in this dress, you've got it worse than I thought,” I say.

  “Oh, I've got it bad,” he says, raising an eyebrow.

  My stomach flutters and I inhale. The tension between us is delicious and warm, and all I can think about is the way the muscles in his back rippled against my hands as he hovered over me last night.

  “There's more,” I say, breathless.

  “I can't wait,” he says. “Please tell me they aren't all as bad as this one.”

  “Worse,” I say as I lift the skirt and run back to the dressing room.

  Chapter Thirty

  Preston

  Each time Jenna comes out of the dressing room, she reaches a new level of hideous.

  By the fifth dress—a terrible shiny gold skirt with a black sequined shirt—we are laughing so hard my stomach hurts. “That's the one,” I say, doubled over in the recliner. “All you need is a tiara and some bright pink lipstick and you will be perfect.”

  “I was thinking more like a top-hat and some really long gold earrings,” she says. She holds her hand over her mouth and nearly collapses from laughter.

  “Wait, I think I saw a black top-hat.” I stand and walk over to the men's section. There's a dusty black top-hat sitting on the head of a mannequin wearing a powder blue tuxedo. I take it from the unfortunate guy's head and walk back to Jenna.

  Her cheeks are flushed and her blue eyes are lit up. I move close and place the hat on her head. She tilts her chin up, and I'm struck by her beauty. By her ability to be so free and joyful. I know there are demons in her past, but that's part of what makes her so beautiful to me. She hasn't let her past rob her of joy, and the more I get to know her, the more I realize just how strong she truly is.

  “I need a picture,” I say.

  She poses for me and I snap a few shots on my cell phone.

  She wraps her arms around my waist and pulls me close. “Thank you for bringing me here,” she says. “It means a lot to me.”

  “I just want to be with you. Nothing else matters.”

  I claim her lips and her arms tighten around me. The hat falls to the floor behind her, but we don't stop to pick it up. Her gold skirt makes whispered swishing sounds as she presses against me, and I would love nothing more than to rip this ugly dress from her body and take her again right here. If it wasn't for Miss Jolene in the next room, I probably would.

  “I still need to find a dress,” she says, her voice low and sexy and breathless.

  I press my forehead to hers. “What? Something better than this?” I say. “Not possible.”

  She smiles and makes the sweetest little moan of a sound in her throat. “It is the best one so far,” she says. “But I don't want to make the other women at the dinner too jealous. I'll already be on the arm of the hottest guy there.”

  Jenna pulls away and nods back toward the blue tuxedo.

  “You should try that on,” she says. “It looks just about your size.”

  She smiles and disappears into the racks of ladies dresses. I turn and study the powder blue tux. I laugh and shake my head. My mother would have a heart-attack. But then again, why should Jenna have all the fun?

  As she searches through the rest of the dresses, I take a stroll through the aisles of men's clothing. I expect everything to be equally as terrible as most of what Jenna has just spent the last hour parading in front of me, but I'm surprised to see some nice clothes in here. A pair of Guess jeans drapes over a cheap metal hanger and I reach for the price tag, turning it over between my fingers. Fifteen bucks? Damn. They hardly look worn.

  Guilt nags at me. How many pairs of hundred-dollar jeans have I just tossed in the trash after only wearing them a few times? A couple of times a year, my mom used to make me go through my closet and throw some old clothes in a bag to donate to charity, but I never really considered that people would pay for used clothes. I honestly have never given two thoughts to the prices on the clothes I buy, but watching Jenna now, seriously looking through the racks for something nice enough to wear to this dinner, I realize how stupid I was to buy her that expensive dress.

  I've been so caught up in my own world, complaining about dating women who only want me for my money, never realizing how much I've let my money define me. How much I've taken it for granted. It makes me wonder how many people I've offended by offering to pay for things in the past. I usually think nothing of it to pick up the tab at bars with my friends or out at dinner. I always figured it was expected of me, but now, after hearing Jenna out, I'm wondering if it makes me seem like a jerk who's always throwing his wealth in people's faces. I never considered it would make people feel like I was saying I'm somehow better than they are.

  I think back on all the parties I've thrown in the past couple of years. All the reckless spending, when there are so many out there who are less fortunate. No wonder my sister Penny is always on our mother to spend more of her charity dollars here in Fairhope instead of sending the money overseas.

  And no wonder every girl I've gone out with only cares about money. I have flaunted it so much in the past three years of college, I've let it become the single most important aspect of my character.

  But how can I change? The thought of giving most of my money to charity like Penny, makes me feel sick to my stomach. I like being able to buy whatever I want, whenever I want. I like having nice cars and cutting edge technology. Does that make me a bad person? At this point, I honestly don't even know.

  Once you start to realize how much less everyone around you has, it makes everything about loving money feel wrong and greedy. But at the same time, I can't imagine giving it up.

  Maybe I should take a small page out of Penny's book and spend some time living a more simple life. How hard could that really be? If it makes me appreciate the money, instead of taking it for granted, wouldn't that be a step in the right direction, at least?

  I browse the small section of men's suits. There has to be something here that will fit. I had planned to wear my tailored black Versace suit to the dinner, but there's no rule saying I can't wear something new. Or, new-to-me. I take a few things off the rack and head back to the one small men's dressing room in the back of the store.

  The first few suits are awful. The pants are too long or the material is way too scratchy. But the third option isn't half-bad. It's dark grey and a quick check of the label shows a designer I don't recognize. The price tag reads fifty dollars. I adjust the collar of a plain white dress shirt and stand back from the mirror. It's not too bad, really.

  When I come out of the dressing room, Jenna is standing in front of the three-way mirror in a knee-length black dress that takes my breath away. It's simple and unadorned, but fits her like it was made for her body.

  “What do you think of this one?” she asks. She is staring at herself, turning at various angles to get a better look at the dress. She hasn't noticed what I'm wearing yet.

  “It's perfect,” I say, breathless. The back dips low enough that her tattoos become a show-piece, better than any jewelry she could have found to go with it. I want to run my fingertips across the roses t
he way I did last night.

  She finally glances over, then does a double-take. Her lips part and then slowly curl into a smile. “Did you find that here?” she asks.

  “Yeah. What do you think?” I join her at the mirror and in my eyes, we look like the perfect couple.

  “It's fantastic,” she says. “We look good together.”

  I slip my hands around her waist, running them over her hips and pressing my body against her back. I rest my chin on her head and smile at our reflection in the mirror. I have wanted her for months, and it's hard to believe I finally managed to break through her resolve. I'm falling for her faster than I ever could have expected, and in this moment, I want to tell her how much she means to me. But the relationship is still so fragile, I'm afraid to push her.

  “Are you going to buy the suit?” she asks.

  “I think I am,” I say. “It will be my first thrift-store purchase. I'm kind of proud of that.”

  “You should be,” she says with a smile. “You can finally get a taste for how the other half lives.”

  She spins around and puts her arms through mine. I kiss her again, our bodies rocking slowly, as if music is playing. I want this moment to last forever. As long as it's just the two of us, alone in our cocoon, nothing can keep us apart. But I can't shake the nagging suspicion that the demons of her past are never too far behind.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Jenna

  Outside, I hear Preston's car drive away, his headlights shining briefly through the gauzy curtains of my front window. He skipped his family's weekly brunch to spend the day with me, but agreed to meet back at their house for dinner. I don't envy the conversation he's bound to have with them about me. If he even decides to tell them about our relationship yet. Either way, they're going to find out next weekend at the dinner.

  I grab a beer from the fridge and walk out to the small balcony just off the living room of my one bedroom apartment.

  I light a cigarette and watch as the smoke is lifted away by the wind. It's eerily peaceful, considering the furious storms that passed through here earlier this week. Inside, there's a different kind of storm brewing in my heart.

  We had agreed to keep things light, but here I am now, falling in love with him. Fate brought us together, and even though I never used to believe in that sort of thing, this feels right.

  But as much as I want to be with him, I worry how much longer we can keep this up without our differences pulling us apart. I'm terrified I'll go to this charity dinner with him and he'll see me standing there beside the girls who really belong, and realize how much I don't.

  Everything has come so easily for him, is he really going to be willing to work on us when things get hard? When the storms of my past roll over me like they did when that gift arrived?

  Nothing has come easy for me. I had to fight my way through life from that first newborn squeeze through the birth canal. How could a guy like Preston ever understand me?

  And yet, I've seen a side of him that's so beautiful and unexpected. He's a natural leader, but it's more than that. The night of the tornado he could have easily gone back home with his mother, to the safety of their giant mansion, with its decked out storm shelter—probably equipped with a generator that could power half the town and a full suite of games, dvds, and more food than his family could eat in a year—and left the search to us normal folks.

  But he didn't. Preston hadn't even hesitated to help. He didn't worry for two seconds about his own safety. He trudged right alongside me in the mud, his mind focused on finding that little girl. And if it wasn't for him, we might not have found her at all.

  He was a hero.

  And last night at the restaurant, he stood up for me. He listened to every word I said on the beach, without running for the hills when I told him how messed up my family is. And, oh God, the way he made love to me still makes me shiver.

  So far, he's made all the right moves. It feels too good to be true.

  The deeper we go, the more I start looking over my shoulder for lightning to strike.

  I smash my cigarette into the ashtRob and go back inside. I wash my hands and get a stack of delicate papers from the hall closet. I set my workstation up on my kitchen table and turn the radio on. I need to think. I need to get my hands dirty and focus on the details of the folding and cutting. I need to get my mind off the worries and just meditate. Try to find a way to believe in the good things that are happening between us.

  I open a plastic bag full of brightly colored strips of paper, and begin folding them in half, dabbing a tiny dot of glue on one end to hold them in place. The work is repetitious, but I fall into a peaceful trance as I go through the motions. Fold. Glue. Fold. Glue. When I have a collection of petals, I arranged them on a square piece of cardboard I've painted a dark gRob.

  I create delicate flowers in a variety of colors, folding and arranging the paper until a scene begins to form on the page. I let my mind go blank and fill my lungs with deep, deliberate breaths. After an hour, the beating of my heart has stilled and the demons have slipped away into the shadows.

  But thoughts of Preston are still there. How easy it has been to open up to him. How much more we have in common than I ever thought possible.

  A tear forms on my eyelash and I blink, letting it run down my cheek as I stare at the scene I've created. A farmhouse made entirely of blue paper takes up a large portion of the left side of the page. A field of bright paper flowers adorns the stretch of farmland to the right. In the center of the field, stands a little girl, her hair in messy blond pigtails. She's wearing a red dress that's slightly too big for her scrawny frame. Her small face is lifted toward a stormy sky, but she has one hand delicately placed on top of a flower petal. It has taken me four hours to create this piece, and it was only after I'd finished that I realized I hadn't created a scene with the little Powell girl at all.

  The girl in the field is me.

  The scene is a perfect reflection of how I feel. A child standing her ground amidst the storm, trying to see the beautiful things in life. Trying to find the joyful things that hold her feet to this earth.

  With a black marker, I sign the lower right corner with my initials—JAL—and on the back, I give the piece a title.

  Storm Coming.

  I tack this latest creation on the shelf in my bedroom and crawl into bed, thinking it's funny how fate does what it wants sometimes, despite our best efforts to deny it. Like the petals of the flower in my picture, the wind carries us where we are meant to be.

  I just hope the storm waits just a little longer before it descends on us. I'm not ready to let him go just yet.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Jenna

  “Help me with the zipper?” I ask.

  “I would help, but it will take me ten minutes to get out of this chair,” Penny says with a laugh. She rubs her hand across her pregnant belly and smiles.

  Leigh Anne stands and comes over to zip the back of my black dress. “I love this dress, is it new?”

  I smile, thinking about our romantic trip to Jolene's. I never would have imagined there could be such a thing as romantic thrift-store shopping, but I had the best time.

  “I found it at Jolene's,” I say. I bite my lower lip and turn to her. It feels awkward to talk about Preston with her since she dated him for so long in high school, but it feels wrong not to confide in my best friend. Plus, Penny is his twin sister. She probably doesn't want to hear me get all gushy about her brother. “Is it weird if I talk about Preston? Because it feels weird.”

  “Don't look at me,” Penny says. “I haven't seen Preston this happy in so long, I can't even remember. You can talk about him all you want to, as long as you don't go into detail about your sex life.”

  Leigh Anne laughs and shakes her head. “Seriously, Jenna. I have no problem with it at all,” she says. “I'm happy you're giving him a chance. You are both my friends, and I want you to be happy.”

  She sits back down on my b
ed and picks up a piece of one of the butterfly projects I've been working on lately. She turns it over in her hands, studying it. “This is really beautiful, by the way,” she says. “You made this completely from scratch?”

  I slip on a dangly black earring and nod, watching her in the mirror. “Yeah. I made the paper myself, which took days since I needed so many different colors and weights,” I says. “But I think it's turning out really pretty so far.”

  “It's unbelievable,” Penny says. “Hand me one of those. They are so delicate and beautiful. You should sell these.”

  I shake my head and wrinkle my nose. “I can't imagine anyone would pay for those little things.”

  “I think you'd be surprised,” she says. Leigh Anne takes one of the fifty or so I've made so far out of the box and hands one to her. “I bet you could find hundreds of parents who would love something like this for their little girl's rooms. I know I would.”

  “Seriously?” I ask. “I'll make some for the baby's room if you want. What color?”

  “I'll pay you for them,” she says. “We've decorated the room in lavender and white and gRob, but have kept it very simple. A cluster of butterflies on the wall above the crib would be gorgeous, don't you think?”

  “I think it would be perfect,” I say. “Maybe I'll stop by your place this week and take a look at the colors so I can match them.”

  “Anyway, you were saying something about Preston?” Penny asks.

  My cheeks warm at the thought. “He did the sweetest thing for me,” I say. “I told him I was uncomfortable with him buying me an expensive dress for this dinner, so he had Jolene open her store for us last weekend so we could have the place all to ourselves. We had such an amazing time. I never knew how much fun he could be.”