Still Love You

by Allie Everhart

  Silas is smiling at me because I've entered my super excited mode, in which I get an idea and get overly enthusiastic about it and want to try it right away. This doesn't happen very often, but it's happened enough that Silas knows the signs.

  "Are you going to race home right now and get to work?" His arm goes around my waist and he slides me over on the bench until I'm right next to him.

  "No. I need to pick more berries. But tonight I'm going to start making a list of ideas."

  "You don't want to hang out with me tonight?" He gives me a kiss, and then another.

  "We'll still hang out. Let's come back here later tonight. We'll bring some snacks and make the list together, then when it's dark we'll..." I kiss him in a way that implies what we'll be doing later. He kisses me back, pulling me closer.

  "Hey, you two." I hear my dad's voice behind me and back away from Silas. "No kissing at work."

  "Sorry about that," Silas says, grabbing a candy bar from his lunch sack.

  "Yeah, sorry, Dad." I pick up my sandwich.

  He chuckles. "If it were your mother and me, we'd go sneak back behind the shed to kiss."

  Silas snickers under his breath.

  "Dad, I was just telling Silas we should sell beauty products that would be themed to match what we grow, like a cucumber lotion or mint soap."

  My dad looks at Silas. Silas gives him a sideways glance and does a quick head shake.

  "What's going on with you two?" I ask Silas.

  "Nothing." He continues eating his lunch.

  "Anyway," I continue, "there would be a small initial investment at first, but I'll run some numbers before we do this so we can see how long it'll take to get a return on investment."

  "Willow, why don't we hold off on that," my dad says. "We have a lot going on right now. This is our busiest time of the year."

  "Which is why the timing is perfect. We need to be selling these products now, when people are already lining up to buy stuff from us."

  "Let me think about it before you do anything."

  "Okay, but I don't know what there is to think about. I'm home all summer so I could make everything. You wouldn't have to pay labor costs. You'd just pay for the ingredients, containers, and labels."

  "I'll let you two finish your lunch." He fakes a stern Dad face. "And remember, no more kissing."

  "Got it," I say in a serious tone. When he's gone, I say to Silas, "If he only knew what we've done on this farm."

  "He didn't ban sex. Just kissing."

  "Yeah, I think the no sex rule is a given."

  He nudges me and lowers his voice. "Hurry up and finish your lunch so we can go behind the shed."

  I laugh. "My dad was just kidding. We don't have to go hide behind the shed to kiss."

  "I don't think he was kidding. He probably doesn't want us making out in front of the other workers."

  I look over at the men sitting at the other tables, eating their lunches. They could've been watching us but I doubt it. Most of them are too busy checking their phones.

  "But if you don't want to kiss me," Silas says, "we could just sit here until our break is over."

  "I'm done," I say, setting my sandwich aside. "Let's go."

  "You're not going to finish that?" He points to my half-eaten sandwich.

  "No. I'm full."

  He snatches it up and eats it in one big bite.

  "I don't know how you eat so much."

  He finishes chewing, then leans over to me and says in sexy voice, "I'm a big boy."

  He is a big boy, in all the right places, and he's making me want to do more than just kiss. But that'll have to wait until later.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Willow

  After dinner, Silas and I return to the farm and I make my list of ideas while Silas sits next to me, patiently waiting for me to finish but also offering up a few of his own ideas. By the time we're done, we can't keep our hands off each other. Clothes get ripped off, strewn all over the truck, and we do it. Twice. And then we go home.

  That pattern repeats for the rest of the week. I'm sure our parents know what we're doing every night but they don't say anything. We usually get back so late that they're asleep by the time we get home.

  It's now Saturday and I'm exhausted. Between working at the farm and getting everything ready for that vendor fair, it's been a tiring week. The fair was on Wednesday and I sold a little over half of my inventory, which I didn't think was great, but Diane only sold a third of what she brought and most of the other vendors sold even less than that. So I guess in comparison, my booth was a success. My mom brought the remaining products to the farmers' market today. If it sells out, I'm going to make more for next week.

  It's after ten when I finally roll out of bed. I throw a sweatshirt over my tank and make my way to the kitchen. I take a box of cereal from the cupboard and the soy milk from the fridge. The doorbell rings as I'm pouring my cereal.

  It can't be Silas. He's at class, and even if he wasn't, he'd just come in. He wouldn't ring the bell.

  I open the door and see Trent there in a faded red polo shirt and khaki shorts, a baseball cap covering his short dark hair.

  "Hey," he says. "Can I come in?"

  "Yeah." I step aside. "What are you doing here?"

  "I wanted to talk to you for a minute."

  He walks in and I close the door. "About what?"

  "Can we sit down?"

  "Sure. Go wait in the living room. I'll put some shorts on." I'm in my skimpy pajama shorts so I go to my room and throw on my cut-off denim shorts. I don't bother putting on a bra because my oversized sweatshirt covers me up.

  I return to the living room and plop down on the couch. "So what do you want to talk about?"

  "Silas." Trent's tone is serious. His expression is too. He's never serious.

  "What about him?" I curl my feet under me on the couch.

  "You need to stop dating him."

  I raise my brows. "That's why you came over here? To tell me not to date him?" I sigh. "I don't know why you hate me so much, Trent, but this needs to end. I'm dating Silas, and we don't need your approval or your blessing. So just leave."

  "I don't hate you. I just don't want you dating Silas."

  "Why? Because you have someone better for him?"

  "Anyone would be better than..." His voice trails off.

  "Than ME? Is that what you said? Anyone would be better than me?" I huff. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

  "It means you're leading him on. Getting his hopes up. You're going to destroy him and you don't even seem to care."

  A dull pain rattles my chest because part of me feels like he's right. Hurting Silas is a lingering fear I've had ever since he came back into my life and I can't seem to make it go away.

  "I'm not going to hurt him," I say.

  "Oh, really? So what happens at the end of August? What happens when you go back to school? Are you going to ignore him? Stop talking to him like you did last time?"

  "No. And this is none of your business so you need to leave. I'm not listening to this."

  "I'm not leaving until I've said what I need to say."

  "Then hurry up and say it and get out."

  "I was the one Silas talked to after you broke off the engagement. And I talked to him after he left. I actually answered his calls the past two years, unlike you." He glares at me and that dull ache in my chest becomes a sharp pain.

  "Yeah, I should've talked to him. I told him I was sorry for that."

  "Sorry's not good enough. You owed him an explanation, telling him why you wouldn't even give your relationship a chance. Why you were in love with him one day and hated him the next."

  "I didn't hate him. Stop making assumptions. You don't know what went on."

  "Silas told me everything, so actually I do know. He said he went over there that day to take you to dinner. You were going to plan your backpacking trip. He had maps of Europe and the two of you were going to plot it out that nig
ht. It was his dream to backpack through Europe with you and it was finally happening."

  I swallow past the lump in my throat.

  "He was so freaking excited," Trent says. "I even made fun of him for it. But he didn't care. At that point he was so damn happy that you agreed to marry him that nothing could bring him off that high. At least I didn't think anything could. Until you did. When you told him it was over and gave him the ring back, he hit rock bottom. I'd never seen him that bad. We went out to a park and he burned the maps and almost tossed out the ring. I took it from him and told him I'd give it back when he calmed down. I knew he'd want it later. I mean, shit, he spent months making the damn thing."

  Tears are now spilling down my cheeks and I don't wipe them away because I don't want Trent to notice. But he's looking right at me so I know he sees them.

  "Why are you telling me this?" I ask. "I don't need to hear this. It's the past."

  "And the past has a way of repeating itself."

  "It won't. I promise."

  He rolls his eyes. "Your promises are worthless. You promised Silas you'd marry him, then a week later, you broke up with him."

  "I wasn't ready. I was only 17."

  "Then you shouldn't have said yes. You shouldn't have got his hopes up."

  "You're right. I shouldn't have agreed to marry him, but I can't go back and change it."

  "But you CAN change what's going on now. You need to end this before you destroy him again."

  "I'm not going to hurt him."

  "That's bullshit and you're lying to yourself if you can't admit that."

  "It's different this time. We're older and we've had two years to think about this."

  "You spent the last two years contemplating a future with Silas?" He lets out a harsh laugh. "Yeah, right. Were you thinking about him when you were fucking half the football team?"

  "What?" I jump up from the couch. "I never did that!"

  "That's not what I heard."

  "From who? Is Brian going around telling people that?"

  "Brian said you slept with him then moved on to some other guys on the team."

  "I was with Brian. That's it. No one else on the team. And I was only with Brian one time."

  "You were with other guys at our high school."

  "Yeah, and you were with just about every girl, but it's different for me? Because I'm a girl? And what about Silas? Do you really think he wasn't with anyone else the past two years?"

  Trent doesn't answer.

  "So you know he was with other girls and yet I'm the villain here? Do I need to remind you that I wasn't dating Silas during that time? He was halfway around the world. I didn't think I'd ever see him again!"

  "Exactly. So for you to say you've been thinking about this for two years is a lie. That's all you do, Willow, is lie. You lie to Silas, you lie to me, you lie to yourself."

  "I'm not lying! I've thought about Silas every single day since we broke up. Was I thinking about our future together? No, because I didn't think I'd see him again. But I still thought about him! I haven't even had a boyfriend the past two years because I expected every guy I dated to live up to Silas and none of them could." I pause to take a calming breath because I'm about to explode. "You need to stay out of this, Trent. Right now, you're the one hurting Silas by telling me to break up with him. He's happy and so am I."

  "For now. But what happens at the end of summer?"

  "I'll go back to college and Silas and I will continue dating. I'll come home on the weekends and see him, or he can come see me."

  "Camsburg is over three hours away. You're really going to come home every weekend? And then what? What happens after you graduate? You told Silas he didn't fit in your plan. So did your plan change?"

  "I'm not talking to you about this. This is between Silas and me."

  "Silas is too blind to see what you're doing to him. If I don't intervene, he'll fuck up his life again and you'll go on as if nothing happened."

  "What do you mean when you say he fucked up his life? After we broke up, he went backpacking in Europe. That's what he wanted to do."

  "Yeah, but after that, he was going to come back here and work all summer to earn money for school and to save up for an apartment. In the fall he was supposed to start college. He'd already registered."

  "Wait...what?" I sit down again, that lump in my throat getting bigger. "Why didn't he tell me that?"

  "He was going to. The night you broke up with him. It was supposed to be a surprise. He was going to go over the trip stuff with you and then he was going to tell you the other stuff." Trent takes his baseball cap off and runs his hand through his hair as he sighs. "He did it all for you, Willow. He wanted you to have a good life and to always have whatever you needed. He didn't want you two having to struggle after you got married. He wanted to show you that he was responsible and would take care of you. But all his plans fell apart when you told him it was over. He cancelled his registration for fall classes and took off for Europe and didn't come back until now."

  I drop my head and rub my eyes, thinking about what Trent said. Going to college? Working all summer? That wasn't the Silas I knew back then. He was a free spirit. Sometimes he took odd jobs for extra money, or made jewelry for his mom to sell, but he never had a regular steady job. He didn't want one, at least that's what he told me. He also told me he had no interest in ever going to college. But now that I think about it, he hadn't said those things in the months leading up to his proposal. So maybe that whole time, all those months, he was planning for our future and I didn't even know it.

  "He's starting to get back on track now," Trent says. "He's taking classes in the fall and he's starting to think about his career. And I don't want you coming in and ruining it like you did last time. It's not fair to him, Willow. You can't just use him for the summer, then toss him aside."

  "I'm not doing that," I whisper. But am I? I love Silas and I want to be with him, but if I don't see a future with us, then what am I doing? Just using him? "I want a future with him," I think to myself, then realize I said it out loud.

  "Do you want it enough to change the future you've already laid out for yourself? Because I know you, Willow, and I know how freaking rigid you are. You decide to do something and you do it. You don't let anything stand in the way. Not even Silas."

  "That's not true. I just need time to think and make some decisions."

  "You need to make your decision now. If you're breaking up with Silas, you can't wait until August or sometime next fall. You can't keep stringing him along."

  "I'm not breaking up with him. I love him."

  "You said you loved him before, and you still broke up with him."

  He's right. So what am I doing? Am I just repeating the past? Is this going to end the same way it did last time? Back then, I panicked, thinking we'd never get what we wanted in life if we stayed together. We wanted such different things back then, but now? I feel like things have changed. We're more grown up. But what if the summer ends and I panic again? I can't do that to Silas. Like Trent said, I need to make a decision. Either I stay with Silas with the idea that we're going to have a future together, or I let him go.

  Trent gets up from his chair. "Just end this. Let him move on with his life. You've done enough damage."

  His words and his tone set me off and I shoot up from the couch. "You don't know anything about Silas and me. Maybe you did in the past but you don't now. So stay the hell out of our relationship. Stop badmouthing me to Silas and stop trying to set him up with other girls. Silas and I are together. Deal with it." I point to the door. "Now get out of my house."

  "I'm not giving up on this, Willow. I'm not letting Silas fuck up his life because of you. I sat back and watched it happen before, but I'm not doing it again. And I'm not letting you use him all summer, then dump his ass in the fall. He doesn't deserve to be treated that way, especially after all the shit he's doing for your family." He storms off toward the door.

  I run afte
r him. "Trent, wait. What are you talking about? What's he doing for my family?"

  "Shit." Trent sighs and closes his eyes.

  "What? What does that mean?"

  He opens his eyes. "I wasn't supposed to tell you this but what the hell? Maybe knowing this will get you to finally let Silas go."

  "Knowing what? What did Silas do?"

  "He's working for your dad all summer for free."

  "What? No. That's not right. My dad pays him. He's not working for free."

  "Willow, I'm not making this up. He's not getting paid. Before you got back from college, Silas was working sixteen hour days, seven days a week. All for free. He got back to town early May and was signed up to take three classes this summer. But he dropped two so he could help your dad."

  "I don't understand. Why would Silas drop his classes to work on the farm for free? And why wouldn't my dad pay him?"

  Trent sighs again and looks me in the eye. "Because they're losing the farm. If your parents can't find a way to pay off their debt, they're going to have to sell the farm."

  "What debt? They don't have debt."

  "I don't know all the details. I only know that Silas is doing anything and everything to keep your parents from having to sell it. That's why he dropped his classes and why he's working for free."

  "And why we hardly have any guys working for us," I say quietly to myself.

  It's all making sense. Why we have so few workers. Why our fridge is empty. Why the cash jar hasn't been filled. Why my mom got a job.

  "I have to go," Trent says, opening the door.

  "Why did they hide this from me?" I'm staring at the floor in a daze, trying to make sense of this. When I look up, Trent is gone and I'm left alone, with nothing but questions and no answers.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Silas

  "Willow," I call out as I go in her house. "Are you in your room? I have a surprise for you."