Living with Regrets (No Regrets book 2)

by Aimee Noalane

  “I disagree.”

  “The only reason you disagree is because you want to be right.”

  “This has nothing to do with me wanting to be right, Oliver. I know you, and I knew us.”

  “I left,” he growled.

  “Trust me. I know,” I snarled back. “But you are basing your theory on assumptions of what you think you would have done if we had given into our feelings. I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I won’t sit here and pretend that I think you’re right either. That guy you are talking about was not the Oliver I knew.”

  “I hurt you when I left didn’t I?”

  “You’re fucking exasperating, Oliver. It hurt to watch you leave, but what destroyed me was when you told me to back off and to leave you alone. You became a coward and ran away because you didn’t trust us. You broke our friendship, Oliver. You broke us because you didn’t trust me. We will never know what could have been. So how about you stop trying to convince yourself that you’re right.” I could see he wanted to reply with something, but I cut him off. “Besides, my question wasn’t if you regretted not pursuing a relationship with me. The question was: do you regret leaving Carrington six years ago?”

  His jaw tensed and his confident stare met mine. “I. Have. No. Regrets.”

  I pushed my plate away and rose. “I need to use the ladies’ room.”

  Oliver

  I watched her walk away. I was furious. Abby really needed to read my letters.

  Transcendence

  Abbygail

  I barged inside the women’s restroom and noticed that I was unfortunately not alone. Talking at the bathroom sink were the two girls that sat at the table beside the one Oliver and I shared. They looked like sisters, and by the company they kept, they were having dinner with their parents.

  “Sorry,” I said as the back of the door hit the wall a little too hard.

  The blond girl gave me a sympathetic smile. “No problem.”

  My guess was that she overheard our conversation because as the tension between us grew, Oliver and I weren’t as discreet as we should have been.

  “Cam, we need to go. Dad and Cynthia are waiting for us to leave.”

  The chestnut haired girl took a pen and piece of paper out of her purse. I watched as she scribbled something down.

  “Here,” she said before walking out. “If you have no intention of taking him back, give him this. I don’t do the relationships thing either.”

  She winked and left, followed by her sister, who seemed even more uncomfortable than she was when I walked in. I unfolded the paper and stared at the name and number.

  “You have got to be shitting me!” I bellowed a little too loudly.

  So there I stood, alone in the luxurious four-stall bathroom, staring at myself in the expensive mirror. I didn’t know how to feel. There was so much information I needed to process, that I didn’t know where to start. I willed the sad girl that stared back at me not to cry, and for once, she listened.

  “Abby?” I heard a knock at the door. He was bound to show up sooner or later.

  He probably got tired of waiting for me at the table. I must have been in there for at least ten minutes convincing myself that the conversation we just had was a good thing, that whatever we just talked about needed to be said. The hardest part was being okay with whatever I had just learned.

  “Abby, if you don’t come out right now, I’m walking in.”

  And he would.

  When we were in eighth grade, I locked myself in the girl’s bathroom during lunch time because Oliver had made it his mission to aggravate me about this guy on his football team named Liam. Liam had asked me out, and I couldn’t decide if I wanted to date him or not. Anyway, long story short, I ended up locking myself in the bathroom, annoyed by my best friend’s mocking. And after half an hour of waiting for me outside the door, Oliver had decided it would be a good idea to ignore the female sign, and walked in begging me to come out. When he realized that it wouldn’t work, he crawled under the stall and apologized, promising me to buy me a root beer slushy every day for a week. I couldn’t help laughing until we opened the door and fell face to face with Mrs. Beaudoin, our French teacher. Her frown had been priceless, and so was the hour of detention Oliver and I had to attend the same day. He and I had spent the entire hour playing hang man with swear words.

  I never ended up dating Liam.

  I thought I’d be opening the door to a pair of sad eyes, but I was wrong. Oliver’s stare was angry, lustful, and for some odd reason, bemused.

  “I—”

  “You know, when you want to, you can be such a pain in the ass.”

  I smirked. “I prefer be a pain in the ass than a monkey butt.” I mocked. “Oh, I almost forgot. Here.”

  I handed him the piece of paper Cam had left me earlier.

  “What’s this?”

  “It’s from the dark haired girl sitting at the table next to ours. Apparently, she doesn’t do relationships either.”

  He raised his brow. “Good. Maybe we could give her a call and not have a relationship all together tonight.”

  “Sure. Why not.” I answered nonchalantly. I was sure he would call me out on my bluff, but he didn’t say a word.

  “Come on.” He grabbed my hand with a subtle smile. “We’re leaving.”

  I don’t know if Oliver knew that I saw him ditch the girl’s number at the restaurant, but the moment I saw it hit the floor and that he didn’t look back was the moment I realized that no matter the years, not matter the distance, our friendship picked up exactly where we had let it fall.

  We were exactly the same.

  Oliver

  By the time we stepped out from the restaurant, it was a little past eight thirty. On our way back home, we stopped to get a beaver tail but ended up not getting the root beer slushy because the store had closed early that Saturday evening. I was disappointed that I couldn’t share the frozen drink with Abby, but then again, it was minus five degrees outside.

  The drive back home was quiet. We were starting to realize that we were getting closer to the end, and that I had to head back home in less than twelve hours. Going back to Vancouver weighed heavy on my shoulders; I wasn’t ready to leave Carrington and even less to leave her.

  “Feeling a little nostalgic?” Abby asked as I parked the car in front of the skate park where we used to hang out almost every day. I didn’t want our night to end just yet, and this was the exact spot where we needed to be.

  “Kind of,” I admitted. “Want to walk around a little?”

  She stepped out of the car with a smile. I could immediately tell our stopping by had pleased her enormously. She and I had shared a lot of memories at the skate park.

  The place was deserted, probably because of the cold air, but the lights were on so I took her hand and crossed the street walking through the gates together, as we had done so often in the past.

  “I missed this place so much after I left.” I confessed.

  “Yeah,” she whispered. “Me too.”

  She took a seat on a railing as I ran up my favorite ramp.

  “You don’t come anymore?”

  “Not in my free time I don’t!” she laughed. “But I’ve been here a few times with the kids from the rec center. They seem more willing to share their problems when they aren’t restricted by four walls. The guys talk more after they’ve blow off steam. As for the girls, they become little magpies when they drool over the guys who like to show off.”

  “Like you did?” I joked.

  “I don’t drool.”

  Depends from whose perspective…

  “Anyway, are you telling me you were a show off, Mr. Langton?” she teased back.

  “Only for you,” I admitted.

  I climbed another nearby ramp, and when I spun around, I noticed Abby checking out my ass.

  “I thought you didn’t drool?” I mocked, strolling over to the rail she was sitting on. I leaned on the metal bar, and enveloped her wit
h my arms. “Do you like what you’re looking at, Miss Evens?”

  Her lustful smile spoke a thousand words.

  “Is it the lights, or am I making you blush?” I whispered into her ear.

  I felt her controlled exhale on my cool cheek, its warmth caused goosebumps on my skin, and my eyes fell on her lips. I would have given anything to kiss her at that moment, but we were here for one reason only, so I pulled back.

  “So how did you end up becoming a social worker?” Abby asked as we continued to walk around the park.

  “It was either that or a gym teacher. I like working with kids. My first job was at the rec center down the street from the house my mom and I moved into. I thought it was the coolest job ever since I could mostly play the whole time I was supposed to be doing my job. The more I spent time there, the more I realized that I liked to listen to the kids that came around. I got a kick out of helping them and was proud when we could find solutions to their problems together.” I paused to look at the starlit sky. “I suppose, since my dad died, I felt like I could relate to them in some way, and helping them was part of my own grieving process.”

  I lowered my eyes back to Abby. She was paying attention to every word, as she always did.

  “By the time I finished high school, I decided that working with teens was exactly what I was meant to do.”

  “I heard you talking with Cole this morning, you were really awesome, Oliver.”

  I smiled. “About that. Abs, I’m really sorry about the box. I promise I didn’t look at everything. It was mostly the pictures that got my attention. Your mother told me you’d thrown it all away.”

  “I wanted to,” she sighed. “But in the end, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Everything in that box is our story.”

  “Why keep it in your old room?”

  “It was the only way I found to protect us. Knowing it’s there assures me that you were really out there somewhere. Keeping it away from me helps me move on with my own life. If nobody but me knows it exists—”

  “Then it’s easier to pretend you don’t still hurt,” I finished her thought for her. Her eyes shot up to mine curiously. What Abby didn’t know was that I knew exactly how she felt. Her reasons for keeping the memory of us hidden in that box were exactly why I had decided to keep every single picture of her in my old room. And her decision to keep the box in her childhood room was the same as to why I refused to sleep in mine.

  “What’s with all the graffiti on the ramps?” I asked sliding down the half-pipe.

  “Ugh, I don’t know. When the first ones started to appear,” she said as she climbed down from a different angle, “the town hired someone to spray off the paint, but after two or three times they decided it wasn’t worth the investment anymore because they kept reappearing. I think they figured the paint doesn’t stop the kids from using the ramps, so why clean it up? Sometimes, I wonder if the town council isn’t looking for a reason to tear it down. I really hope they don’t.”

  We took a seat on the nearest bench. “I mean, look at this, even the bleachers are the same, not even repainted after six years,” she complained.

  But to me it was good news because it was exactly why I had brought her.

  “Come,” I said, taking her hand, “I want to show you something.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry to burst your bubble, Oliver,” Abby said as we made our way behind the bleachers. “But I already gave my virginity to some guy on the football field four years ago.”

  “Could you keep your mind out of the gutter for like five minutes?” I shot back and she laughed. “Wait.”

  We stopped walking and I regarded her. “You are kidding about the football field, right?”

  “Yes,” she replied.

  For a brief second I felt relieved, but watching her, I took notice of her uncertain face, and my solace fell. I could tell there was something hidden there, but I wasn’t sure bringing it out was my place anymore. I had to come to terms that her past stopped being my business when I chose to cut her out of my life. My only hope was that one day she would trust in me enough to tell me her story.

  I ignored my gut feeling and let the subject go.

  Abbygail

  There were two sets of bleachers at the park: one at the entrance, and the one we were walking behind. I preferred this one because it offered a better overall view. When we came to the skate park, I always sat at the highest point on the left because it had the best angle to watch the guys’ stunts. I even marked that spot as my own when I carved ‘I love Oliver Langton’ on it a few years back.

  Oliver turned on the flashlight from his cell phone and searched for something under the benches. His smile grew as he passed his fingers under the wooden board.

  “Read this,” he said, handing me his phone.

  I stood at his spot and traced the letters that were positioned on the other side of my own message. I bit the inside of my cheek as I read his message. ‘And I love you, Abbygail Evens’

  “When did you write this?”

  “The same night you carved yours,” he admitted. “I saw you run away after we… um… kissed. I watched you from the bleacher across the park. You sat up there for at least an hour, and you were crying. I wanted to come and see you but couldn’t do it. I was afraid of facing you. So instead, I hid until you decided to leave. I followed you home, made sure you got inside safely, and came back to the park to see what you were doing.”

  He took a step forward and caressed my face. I leaned into his hand, allowing myself to feel the comfort of his touch.

  “I loved you just as much as you loved me, Abby. If this doesn’t prove it, nothing will.”

  I blinked and stepped away from his hold. My feelings were all over the place and I needed to distance myself from him, so I walked around the stand and sat on the nearest bench resting my back on the railing.

  “Is this why you brought me here?” I asked him. He followed me and took a seat facing me without giving me an answer. “I don’t understand why you’re showing me this now, Oliver.”

  “Because I need you to know that, no matter what you think, I cared. I want you to know that I loved you, but that our friendship meant the world to me. I need you to believe me when I tell you that, even though I left, I never forgot about you. I swear that you were always there in the back of my mind. Your blue eyes have been taunting me every night for years because I missed you in my life.” He took my hand. “Abbygail, I ran out of courage, and I’m sorry.”

  “I forgive you,” I murmured.

  The lights started to make a loud buzzing sound, and suddenly, the whole park went dark, announcing that the skateboarding hours were over.

  It was time to go home.

  Home

  Abbygail

  Oliver followed me to the door, but stopped before reaching the steps as I unlocked it. I turned to his sad smile. Our night was over, and he needed to get ready to leave. The words got caught in my throat as I tried to say goodbye—I just couldn’t do it. Staring into his dark eyes felt the same as it did years ago. Six years of being apart, and we were right back to where we started, minutes before he stepped into his uncle Jerry’s pickup truck. I’d just got him back, yet years of separation had nothing on our connection and even less on the lingering feelings I still had for him.

  “I can’t stay.” It was the first thing he’d said since we left the skate park.

  “I wouldn’t ask you to,” I whispered. It was true, and part of me wondered if he was voicing it for my benefit or for his own.

  I breathed in the cool air, cleansing away the hurt and letting the memories flood back to what they were supposed to be. I smiled. Forgiveness went a long way. I was now ready to turn the page and move on to a new chapter.

  It was time to move forward.

  “Want to come in?”

  Or not…

  “I don’t think I should.”

  There was no possible way for him to hide the struggle he was having with himself or his
decision, but I understood why he wouldn’t. I gave him a resolved nod and walked back to him. After kissing his cheek, I stretched my hands around his neck and looked deeply into his eyes.

  “Six years… God I’ve missed you.”

  Oliver

  I was holding in my arms the one girl I always wanted, and always believed I could never have. She was the dream I denied myself, even though my body craved hers for years. The one person that held my heart in the palm of her hands, and instead of making her mine like I wanted, I watched her walk away. And the only reason I did, was because I knew very well that if I didn’t, I could never say goodbye to her again.

  Abby didn’t get it. Hell, up until the day she walked in on me half naked and then slammed the door in my face for the first time in six years, even I didn’t get it. I hadn’t gone home to a town or a place: I came back to her. She was my home.

  “Abby wait.” I knew I shouldn’t have, but I did. The hell with saying goodbye, I wanted to regret this.

  “Thank God,” she whispered.

  I rushed to the door and pushed her inside against the wall. She waited for my next move breathing deeply and biting on her bottom lip. I shook my head. She still had no idea how that simple thing drove me crazy.

  “I thought I told you to stop doing that.”

  “You did, like six years ago, and for the record I’m still wondering why.”

  Never taking my eyes away from hers, I lifted my hand from off the wall and pulled on her bottom lip to release it from her teeth. I could feel her pulse quicken as my hand travelled back down her neck and body. “Because it makes me want to kiss you.”

  She smiled. “Then what the hell are you waiting for?”

  Without waiting one more second, I leaned in and took her lips like my life depended on her next breath. And in truth, I think it did.

  Her moans didn’t go unnoticed, and as our embrace deepened, my need to be inside her grew feverishly. I just needed to make sure that what we were doing was a mistake we were both willing to make. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that no matter what, I still had a house, a job, and tons of teenagers that relied on me in BC. I pulled her away for a fraction of a second and looked into her pleading eyes.