by Billie Dale
“Tensanne,” Bry says motioning to the light on her shoulder, “This is Brooke. She’s a fairy.”
“What the hell?” I ask blinking as the light fades away leaving a little woman. She’s sitting with her legs crossed in jeans and a t-shirt, she’s a cute little bug like thing with large wings, long dark hair, and a sweet smile.
Ronnie and my mom stare with their mouths agape when the little fairy gives us a wave. The moment is surreal and a tad bit nuts but I’m willing to sell my soul to get rid of this pain.
“Brooke can take away some of your hurt. She can heal your mind and take away the breath stealing ache breaking you right now,” Bryenna explains. “It comes with a price, though. All magic comes with a toll that must be paid.”
“I don’t know about this, honey. Maybe you should come home with me and finish school. Eventually, you will heal. Our hearts will mend on their own if we give them enough time,” my mom says glancing from the fairy to me.
“I agree, Ten,” Ronnie says. “Magic is what got us into this mess.”
“No, there was no real magic. Esmeralda said that. The real magic was in the truth potion that I never used. I can’t live with this pain any longer. If magic can get me out of it, then tell me what is the price of the fairy magic?” I ask determined to get rid of this pain.
“When Brooke takes your pain, she takes the part that loved. To heal emotions, the part affected must be shut away. Meaning you will still be able to love, but it will be a different kind of love. You will never again experience the earth moving, soul-shattering love you feel for this boy. I need to caution that if he was your soul mate and we do this then you may never find another. Is this a price you are willing to pay?”
Feeling the agony splitting open my heart, I consider their offer. Do I really want to wish away any possibility to find true love again, to give up at such a young age? I can’t trust my choices anymore. I don’t know what my future holds but I’m certain I never want to again experience this soul shattering pain. “Y-yes, I never want to feel this way again,” I stutter.
The fairy flutters off Bryenna’s shoulder, hovering in front of my face. She’s a cute little fairy with her blue tipped hair and a tiny nose ring. “Are you sure?” she asks in a light voice with sadness in her eyes. Nodding my consent, Ronnie shouts, “No, wait,” while Brooke blows a handful of glittering dust in my face.
Euphoria over takes me. My head and shoulders drop with the release of the tension that has built up over the past few days. The never-ending stabbing pain in my heart and my brain float away from my body in a dark cloud I can see with my eyes. A peace settles in my mind while I feel a shell harden around my heart.
“Thank you,” I say to Brooke. Sadly, with tears trickling down her little cheeks, she nods her head and flies back over to Bryenna’s shoulder.
Grabbing my hands, Shayden says, “If you ever need to contact us, Esmeralda knows how to find us. Bless’ed Be, Tensanne. May your future be everything you need it to be.” Smiling with sadness hidden underneath, they leave.
“How do you feel?” Ronnie asks nervously, fluttering her hands over my body searching for a sign of damage.
“I feel like the weight of the world has been removed from me. I feel free. Now help me pack, I’m going home with my mom,” I insist smiling, shooing away her hands, feeling better than I have in days.
Chapter Thirty-One
Sometimes I wonder if we are all living a real-life game of The Sims, where someone is clicking away to determine our destiny.
—Tensanne to her mom
Tensanne
ALL MY THINGS have been packed away in boxes and loaded in mom’s car. The last thing I need to do is go to the admissions office to plan my education at home.
Dr. Parker is waiting for me inside the Dean’s office.
His mouth in a grim line, “I asked you to be careful with who you trust, Tensanne,” he says.
“I know, Dr. P, and I thought I was,” I say cringing at the disappointment in his eyes. “I’m not ready for campus life. I will still get my degree; I will still be the best cognitive psychologist I can be.”
“I have no doubt that you will, Miss Craig. I can’t wait to see the medical strides you will make.”
“Miss Craig, I have you all set to begin your classes online,” the Dean says. “I’m sorry that your experience here has been so rough.”
“Thank you, both of you. This is an experience I will carry with me always, the good and the bad,” I say walking toward the door.
“Oh, Tensanne?” Dr. Parker calls.
“Yes, Dr. P?”
“I need to apologize. I asked Mr. Black if he would befriend you. I thought I was doing a good thing. He seemed like a genuine young man and he fooled me into believing that he would be a good friend to you. I never guessed it would lead to something like this.”
Shaking my head, “I thought he was a good friend too, Dr. P until he proved he wasn’t. I know you had good intentions. Sometimes, even the best in people can’t outweigh the evil living inside,” I reply sadly.
“To ease your mind, all of the videos have disappeared from the internet.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. I didn’t have anything to do with it. I thought I would let you know that they were gone.”
“Goodbye, Dr. Parker, Dean,” I say leaving the office and the building for the last time. I don’t know how the videos disappeared and I’m glad they’re gone but the damage has already been done. There is no way I can remain in this school when almost everyone has seen all of me.
Ronnie leans against Mom’s car, waiting. After many tears and hugs, she begrudgingly lets me go. “Promise you’ll text and call? Promise I can come visit you?” she asks as tears stream down her cheeks.
Hugging her tightly, I reassure her we will never lose each other.
“I know you don’t want this right now, but maybe someday you will,” she says, handing me an envelope she’s holding.
Taking it, I stuff it in my bag. I have no interest in reading the words. I recognize the scrawling script on the front, I know it’s from Kohl. I’m sure it’s his attempt at explaining himself and I don’t have any fucks left to give for him. I’m leaving this campus and this experience behind me with a clear head and a healed heart knowing I will never be hurt this way again.
Once we reach her home, Mom helps me carry all my things into a room she has designated as mine. After I have everything unpacked, I tuck the letter in my top drawer where I know it will be safe but will not be taunting me to read it. Maybe someday I will want to know why he did what he did and hopefully this letter will hold the answers but for now, I just want to forget the last few months and attempt to move forward.
Mom explains that she is trying to mend fences with Dad. She still loves him but she has changed so much, she’s not sure if they can recapture what they had. She’s been visiting him again at his lab, coaxing him to at least come outside and sit with her. She’s hoping they can get to know each other again.
Over the next few weeks, she plays the same songs over and over. She calls it, ‘Ten’s Heart Healing Tune’s’. The sounds of, I’m Still Standing, Fighter, Beat It, along with other songs from the eighties and nineties fills the house daily. She’s a huge believer in music therapy, encouraging me to be infused and empowered by the words.
Day by day, I send my memories of Kohl to the dark recesses of my mind, compartmentalizing our time together in a locked box in my brain. Little pieces at a time, one by one go into the box and don’t come out.
At first, my days consisted of thoughts of him, school work and more thoughts of him as I attempted to sleep each night. My dreams were of him waiting for me, pleading for me to forgive him, to understand, begging me to give him another chance. The magic may have healed my pain but a small sliver of hope still lived inside me and my mind would not let go of happiness I found in his arms.
As the days pass thoughts of him take up less o
f my time and my school work becomes my focus.
Wren attempted to stay in contact with me via phone calls and texts, he even stopped by the house one day when he was on break. Some part of me still wanted his friendship but another part of me wanted nothing to do with him. I told him the day he stopped by I needed to keep my focus on my degree and my parents. I promised I would stay in touch with him but it was a lie. I never spoke to him again.
Ronnie and I talked frequently. She never brought up Kohl and I never asked, but it didn’t mean I wasn’t curious about what he was doing.
I got my answer one day when I was giving my brain a break and searching for something mind numbing to watch on television. While channel surfing, something made me stop on ESPN. The featured story was Kohl. Seeing him front and center on my television screen as a starting player for the Indiana Pacers cured my curiosity about him.
The small part of me that hoped my dreams were real and he was still at school waiting for my return faded that day. I knew he had moved on and it was the time I did the same.
One positive thing to come out of the whole ordeal is all the days I was unable to eat anything led to me losing another thirty pounds. I continued to work out at moms as a way to clear my mind.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Coffee is the nectar to cure stress if coffee doesn’t work try wine.
—Tensanne to Ronnie
Tensanne
Present Day
GAPING UP AT the sprawling mansion that holds so many memories from years ago, I take a deep breath.
“Well, don’t just stand there, Girl. Get your ass over here and give me a hug,” Ronnie calls in her thick southern drawl. I smile that it hasn’t lessened over the years, moving to where she is standing in the open door.
“Yes, Ma’am. Mrs. Mayor,” I reply wrapping her in my arms.
After a long embrace, we walk into the same living room where Kohl and I danced, the memories flood my brain and bring tears to my eyes. I put all these memories in a box for a reason and being back here is slowly letting them leak free. My time in this town may have been short lived but it impacted the rest of my life.
“Sit, sit,” she insists.
Taking a seat on the sofa, I let out a long exhale.
“Does it feel strange to be back?”
“A little, I guess. I never thought I would come back here and I’m not sure it’s where I want to be; but, in a few months, I’ll be back home.”
“This is your home for now and I’m going to enjoy every minute of having you here,” she smiles. “Come, I’ll show you to your room so you can freshen up. Then we will go grab some dinner.”
Following her up the winding staircase, we pass the room where Kohl and I came together for the first time. Stopping I put my hand against the door seeing images of Kohl’s body in my mind. His smell, the feel of his skin, his taste invades me in an explosion of memories.
Melancholy washes over my body. Though I fight to keep the emotion hidden, the sadness must show on my face.
“Have you followed his career?” she whispers.
Shaking off the glum feeling filling my heart, my lips tip up into something I hope resembles a smile. “No. Honestly, I have no idea what has become of him. I know he went to play for the Pacers but that’s all.”
“He suffered an injury a few years ago. A knee injury ended his basketball career. I lost track of him after that until he came back here to coach,” she replies, her mouth set in a grim line.
Looping my arm with hers, “That’s the past, Ron. Now, where’s my room?” I cheer, fighting the depressed feelings I have inside. I have perfected the art of faking it over the years. I can feign happiness better than anyone on the planet and that’s what I’m doing now.
Once I’m in my room, alone, I wash my face in the restroom. Catching my reflection in the mirror, a strong, independent woman is staring back at me. I’m a successful psychologist, a published author and the mother of four wonderful children. My body is exactly as it should be, curvy, voluptuous and all mine. Glaring hard into my own eyes, I can still see the naïve, insecure girl hiding in the depths. The one who wanted love needed acceptance and risked it all on a belief. Coming back here brought her back to the surface. With a deep breath, I shove her right back down where she belongs; buried and safe from the harshness of the world.
Pulling the pieces of myself back together and putting my happiness mask back in place I leave my room to have dinner with my friend.
A sliver of happiness fills my hardened heart on the walk to her car, her driver opening our doors. I always kept a soft spot inside for Ronnie. She’s one of the two people in the world, other than my kids, that I let past my hardened shell. My friend Erika being the second.
“I still can’t believe you’re the Mayor, Ron. Do you like it?”
“It’s not exactly what I wanted to do but I love the people and I love this town. It only seemed right to take over after Daddy passed away,” she says her bottom lip quivering.
Taking her hand, “I’m sorry I wasn’t here. I’m a horrible friend.”
“I understand, Ten, I do. You were in the middle of a huge trial study and you couldn’t get away. The flowers you sent were beautiful.”
I’m thankful for her understanding but hate myself for not being there for my friend. I loved her dad and I truly wanted to be here when he died but my fear of the past created the lie I fed her about not being able to stop the work I was doing.
The driver stops in front of the familiar little restaurant with the outdoor picnic tables and retro diner style insides.
“Let’s get our greasy food fill,” Ronnie grins her infectious smile that I can’t help but smile back at. A genuine smile from the happy nostalgia this restaurant holds.
With full bellies, we take a walk down the street. Everything is still the same. Some of the shops have changed over the years but it’s still a little, sleepy college town.
Glancing to my right, I gasp at the flashing neon palm in the window of Sit and Read for A Spell. “Holy shit, that place is still open?” I ask a force drawing me to the front of the store.
“Yes, it is; and they still have some of the best Indie books on the planet.”
“You still go in there?” I asked feeling my eyes widen.
“Of course, I do. I have to feed my paperback addiction somehow,” she sasses with her hands on her hips.
“Amazon, E-Bay, author websites. There are many other places you can buy books, Ronnie,” I say, bewildered that she would spend so much time in the place that began my descent into sadness.
Shrugging her shoulders, “Do you want to go in?”
“Hell no, I don’t want to go in. Have you lost your damn—”
“Hello, Tennie Girl,” a deep voice behind me rumbles softly, causing cold chills to travel from my head to my toes. A voice that used to make me shiver, make me scream in ecstasy and warm me to my core.
Turning, I come face to face with Kohl Black and the years have been very kind to him. Where once was a boy, now stands a devilishly handsome man with the same piercing blue eyes that roped me in all those years ago.
* * *
Kohl
Present Day
She’s coming back, is the text that came through hours ago, from Ronnie. The words I can’t stop staring at. The words I don’t have a response to.
Tensanne is coming back. I haven’t seen her since that morning I begged outside her door. Now she will be here.
I left college shortly after the video went viral. After chasing down every version of it and having it removed, I took my chance in professional basketball.
I knew she left, too. I knew her mom came and got her. The last genuine smile I ever had was the one that lit up my face when Ronnie told me her mom had gotten her memories back.
I fought my urge to text, call, write and stalk her every day. I hoped my final letter to her would send her back into my arms but it never happened.
I tried to forge
t Tensanne Craig, with all her lush curves and magnified, mesmerizing eyes. I pushed her penchant for random facts to the back of my mind with every woman I sunk inside of. No matter how many women I went through, she never left my thoughts. No woman was her, no matter how hard I searched no one drew me in like she did.
I kept track of her career through the internet. She never had social media but her articles in the medical journals and her studies made headlines. She had made impressive strides in finding a cure for Alzheimer’s.
I never knew for sure what town she ended up in but every town I went to, I searched for her. I scanned every face in the stands my eyes sweeping each person, knowing my soul would recognize her immediately. I thought I saw her once. A woman with soft brown hair, curves in all the right places was in the stands at one of my games. Her back to me, while I was rubbernecking to make sure it was her, staring until I could see her face, I tripped on the court. My body crashed to the floor with my leg bent in an unnatural way and when she turned, I realized it wasn’t her. My basketball career ended with two broken bones and a torn ACL, I never took the court again.
I drowned my sorrows in alcohol after that, attempting to drink away my pain. The pain of losing my ability to do what I loved and the pain of losing the fragment of happiness I had for a few months with a girl who altered my life.
Then, one day, the last person I would ever expect offered me a job. Chase Masters showed up at my door. When I walked away from college to pursue my basketball career, I left everyone and everything behind me except my memories of Ten. Chase became a head hunter for the NCAA and he offered me the head coaching job at JSU. He wasn’t quite the dick I remembered him being. He had been humbled by a wife and kids, joking that she carries his balls around in her purse.
I took the job and came back to Jalapa State University to coach the Fighting Berries. Veronica is the mayor and she just sent me the text telling me the girl I have been longing for is coming back. The girl who has held me under her spell for twenty years would be within my grasp and this time I wasn’t letting her go without a fight. She would not slip through my fingers again.