Letters Home

by Rebecca Brooke

  Two weeks had passed since Danielle and I had become and official couple. Liam was thrilled to see her happy again, even pulling me aside one night at basketball to thank me for putting a real smile on his sister’s face again—I guess I hadn’t been the only one to notice the fake ones. Things were progressing slowly, a little slower than I’d expected them to at this point, considering we didn’t have to start at the beginning with anything but the intimacy in our relationship. Except, that was the place I felt her holding back the most. We’d gone no farther than the simple kisses of the first night and it wasn’t like I expected her to jump right into bed with me, but on the other hand I did expect her to make some type of move, something to let me know that it was okay to take it further than where we were. As frustrating as it was, I spent many a night under a cold shower. That being said, I knew she needed time and I was more than willing to give it to her, despite the blow to my ego.

  The first night she’d come to my apartment was the last night she’d been on base. Most of the time I met her at her apartment. Granted, it wasn’t easy to get on base, but I’d gotten her a pass, which made it almost pain free. The only difference in having a pass to actually living on base was that they’d call me to verify that she was, in fact, coming to see me. She claimed it was easier if I just came to her.

  I wasn’t sure if it was guilt, or fear, or something else entirely but the problem was I could feel that she was holding a part of herself back from me, and that was what had me pacing her living room, cracking my knuckles. The army ball was coming up and I wanted her to go as my date. Colin and Greg had convinced me to buy the two tickets, saying that even if Danielle and I weren’t dating that she still would have gone as my friend. Whatever the reason she was holding back didn’t bode well for my chances at getting her to come to a ballroom full of military spouses. The door to her bedroom squeaked and I did my best to calm myself down. I forced myself to sit down so that I would stop pacing. The knuckle cracking would give me away too. Plus, I knew it made Danielle crazy. She appeared in the living room wearing a light blue dress and matching sandals. Walking up to her, I wrapped my arms around her waist and buried my nose in her hair, taking in the smell of it.

  “You kill me. This dress looks gorgeous on you.”

  “Thank you.” She stopped for a moment, her eyes searching mine. “Okay, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Are you ready to leave?”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “Not until you’re honest with me. I know something is wrong because your palms are all sweaty, so you may as well just tell me so we can go to dinner.”

  Why did she have to know me so well? I sighed. “I want you to be my date for the ball in two weeks.”

  “Really? You want me to go?”

  “Of course I want you to go, why wouldn’t I?”

  She looked away for a moment. “I thought it was reserved for spouses only.”

  “No, we can bring anyone we like. Are you telling me you’ve never been to the ball before?”

  She shook her head and looked away from me. “I was away at school for most of them, and the last one happened a couple of days after you guys left for your deployment.”

  I felt terrible for bringing it up. This was the second time that I’d forgotten about all of the things she may not have done with Nate. I knew her memories were part of the package and I hoped with time we’d be able to make our own. I hated the fact that mentioning it may have caused her pain. My need to create memories of our own had made me overlook the way she might feel about things. Taking her chin between my thumb and forefinger, I turned her face back to me. “We don’t have to go. Forget I said anything.”

  “No, we can go,” she said quietly.

  “It’s not that important. Are you ready to go to dinner?” I let my hand drop and reached out to open the door.

  She put her hand on my arm to stop me. “I’d like to go.”

  “You would?”

  “Yes, I would.” Pulling her into my arms, I kissed the top of her head and smiled. We’d get the chance to make memories of our own.

  “Even though it feels wonderful to be wrapped in your arms, I’m starving. Do you think we could go to dinner now?”

  Laughing, I pulled back. “Sorry,” I said a little sheepishly, and reached for the door. “Let’s go get you fed.”

  I had trouble keeping the smile off of my face throughout dinner. But there was still that lingering doubt that something was wrong between us. That she would never fully give herself over to me. I tried to keep reminding myself that time was all she needed. She just needed to see how much I cared about her.

  Everything would be fine.

  In time.

  Guilt is something that can be overcome, but regret is something you’ll have to live with forever.

  The phone rang twice. “Marissa Crane,” the voice at the other end answered.

  “I need you to shop with me,” I said without preamble.

  “What are we shopping for?”

  “I need a dress for the ball.”

  “Oh honey, that’s great! Tanner wants to take you with him? When do you want to go?”

  “Are you free tomorrow night? We could go shopping and grab a drink afterward.”

  “That sounds great. Hey, can we talk later? I have a meeting in fifteen minutes.”

  “Sure. I’ll call you later.”

  “Perfect.”

  After hanging up the phone I continued to stare at it. It had taken me all day to get up the nerve to call Marissa about dress shopping and I’d known that she would be more than thrilled to go with me, but I was worried about going. The first night I’d been to see Tanner, my fear of losing him overruled everything else. Even so, besides the few kisses that we’d shared, that night ended up being the same as other nights we’d spent together. Effortless.

  The problem had been the next night, when Tanner had taken me on our first official date. Dinner had been exactly as expected. Tanner was a gentleman through and through. Holding doors, pushing in chairs, he went out of his way to make the date perfect, even walking me to my door. The ease with which the evening progressed had been no great surprise, and given that it wasn’t like us to have dinner and each go our separate ways, we’d continued our conversation from dinner when he’d come inside for coffee. It hadn’t been fair of me to expect Tanner to just come in for coffee, but I had.

  When the door shut he’d turned to me, cupping my face in his hands and lowering his mouth to mine. His lips were softer than I remembered from the night before, and it was while this thought was passing through my brain that it hit me. Besides Nate, Tanner was the first man I’d kissed in almost ten years. And with that realization, a little bit of guilt at what I was doing had crept in. Was it fair to Nate to have another man’s hands on me? Even though I knew it was frustrating for Tanner, I just couldn’t bring myself to let things go any farther and so I’d stopped him at that line every night since then.

  Time. Time was all I needed to overcome the feelings of betrayal. Tanner’s understanding and patience showed me just how much he cared, and one day I hoped to repay him by giving him my whole heart.

  By the time I met Marissa after work, I had managed to calm my nervous energy…somewhat. A thorough cleaning of my apartment the night before had also helped, plus I’d reorganized the files in my office. We started with a couple of the smaller shops in town, knowing that the major department stores would be stocked mainly with prom dresses, which was not what I wanted. Not that I was old, but I did consider myself past the point of wearing something that meant my cleavage and/or butt was out on display.

  As we walked down the street toward one of the shops, I asked Marissa about Colin. I’d been dying to know. I’d just needed to get my own stuff settled first so that, when I did ask, I could give her answer my full attention.

  “So…you and Colin?” I asked, but it sounded less like a question and more like a statement.

  The flush crawled u
p her face. “Not really.”

  I’d never really seen Marissa blush before. “What do you mean, ‘not really’? He was at your apartment when I showed up that night. I seriously doubt that he was there waiting for me.”

  “Well, no, but it was only a one-off.” She made sure to keep her gaze straight ahead, avoiding all eye contact.

  “You know as well as I do that Colin is not looking for a one-off thing. If he was at your place, it meant it was more than one night to him. Which means, either you’re hiding from something, or you are the one who only wanted a quick fling with him.”

  “Well…I…uh,” she stuttered.

  “Listen to yourself. You can’t even talk about it, which leads me to believe that you’re not sure what you want.” Her silence spoke volumes. “All right, I’m going to leave it alone…for now. But don’t think that this is the last time we are going to talk about this.”

  Even with just a temporary reprieve I could see the tension leave her shoulders, and when we entered the first store she was easily distracted by all of the dresses. There were so many to choose from. We’d been through two stores when I finally figured out how to describe what I was looking for.

  “I want something elegant, yet functional.”

  “Aren’t you asking for a lot,” Marissa scoffed from behind me.

  “What?” I twisted around to face her. “I want to be able to move and not feel like I’ve been sealed up, ready to be shipped off to some faraway land.”

  The woman behind the counter nodded. “Let me see what we have.”

  For the next hour, I must have tried on at least fifteen different dresses. Some of them were not what I was looking for in the least. Others were cute, but none of them screamed “I’m the one! Choose me!”

  “Thank you,” I said to the sales assistant. Marissa followed me out the door and we continued walking down the sidewalk when we came upon another dress shop. Looking at the sign, I froze. It was the shop Nate had sent me to, the morning of our wedding.

  Marissa followed my gaze and looped her arm through mine. “Come on, there are plenty of places we still need to look at.”

  “Besides the department stores, this is the only place we have left.”

  “You don’t have to go in there. You tried on a ton of beautiful dresses tonight. You can always choose one of those.”

  “You know as well as I do that none of those dresses were right. I can’t avoid places like this forever.”

  With heavy feet I walked into the store and, thankfully, the woman who helped us that morning wasn’t there. I didn’t like the thought of having to tell a perfect stranger that he’d died. The pity in their eyes was often unbearable.

  It was harder than I thought, being in the store. Even the smell was the same as the morning I’d stopped into pick up my wedding dress, and the familiarity of it ate at my gut. Forcing the thoughts from my mind, I did my best to ignore the tightness in my chest as I looked around the store. That’s when I saw it. A gorgeous emerald green dress.

  At first glance it looked as if it was strapless, at least until I noticed that the one side had what looked like a small capped sleeve, a strap running diagonally across the back.

  Marissa stepped up next to me, admiring the dress. “It’s beautiful.”

  The woman we’d seen when we entered the store came over. “Would you like to try it on?”

  “Yes, please,” I said, a slight quiver to my voice. I doubted anyone but me noticed it.

  She ushered me toward the dressing room while she went in search of the correct size. A few minutes later I was standing in front of the mirror, staring at the perfect dress for the ball. The woman adjusted the bottom of the skirt and stood. “What do you think?”

  “I think it’s exactly what I’m looking for,” I whispered. Marissa reached out and squeezed my hand. The pressure in my chest was getting stronger. I needed to get out of the store. Quicker than I’d put it on, I was out of the dress and at the counter, ready to pay for it. Without a word, I handed over my credit card.

  The woman working in the store must have noticed my distress. “Are you sure this is the dress you want?”

  I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “I’m positive, it’s just been a long day.” Which wasn’t a complete lie. Trying on all of those dresses had taken its toll on me.

  She passed me the receipt and a pen, and set about putting the dress in a garment bag for me to carry home. I wanted to yell and scream that I wanted out of the store now but I couldn’t be that rude so, in an effort to keep myself cool, I bit down on the inside of my cheek. The metallic taste of blood covered my tongue.

  “Thank you,” the sales assistant said as she handed me my dress. “I hope you have a wonderful time.”

  Afraid to lose what little control I had left, I nodded at her and walked out of the door where Marissa was right there to wrap her arms around me.

  “Are you okay?”

  “It’s been nine months. Why can’t I just move on?” I started to cry.

  “One step at a time, sweetie. You’ve moved out of your brothers, you’re in a relationship with Tanner—all signs that you are ‘moving on.’ You just have to remember that there are times where a memory’s going to come up and smack you square in the side of the head. I’m proud of you for going in there and facing it. On top of all of that, you found a beautiful dress for the ball.”

  “Thank you, Marissa.”

  “Anytime, babe.”

  My ears had heard every word that she said, but that didn’t mean my brain wanted to entertain them. At that moment I was struggling and I needed a good cry. Over the last few months Tanner had found a way to comfort me and make me smile whenever I’d gotten upset. This time, however, I wanted to be alone. “Can I ask a favor? Would you mind if we skipped drinks tonight? I’m really not in the mood to go out.”

  “Yeah. I understand.”

  “Thanks.” I started to walk away, when I heard her call my name. “Yeah?” I said, turning in the middle of the street.

  “Make sure you call Tanner and talk to him about this. He deserves to know what happened.”

  I nodded, not sure I wanted to lie out loud because I had no intention of calling Tanner. Part of the reason I was so upset was the fact that buying the dress in that shop made me feel like I was cheating on Nate, or at least Nate’s memory. Everything was just too…close. It was a feeling that was hard to describe. While I cared very deeply for Tanner, I was struggling with how moving on with him was okay, but I knew that this was something I would have to work through on my own. Tanner had dealt with enough of his own guilt where Nate was concerned. He didn’t need to add mine on top of it.

  Over the next week or so, I spent less time with Tanner than I had when we weren’t dating. Every new kiss or touch gave me a moment of pause. When I was with him we had a wonderful time. Every moment with him seemed magical, which sounded ridiculous but there was no other way to describe it. But at night the dreams—or should I say nightmares—were too vivid to ignore. Most nights I woke up in a cold sweat after seeing Nate walking away from me again. The part of my heart that I had given to Tanner was more than half in love with him. It just wasn’t enough to tell him yet. It wasn’t fair to him. Not until I could give him my whole heart.

  He was more than a little excited about going to the ball. One, he was dying to see the dress I picked—I hadn’t shown him, nor had I told him about the store where I purchased it. I’d simple said that I’d found a dress—and secondly, it was his first time going to the ball too. As excited as he was to see my dress, I was a little nervous to see him in his dress uniform, unsure of what my reaction would be. With his ocean blue eyes and amazing physique, he was one of the sexiest men I’d ever met. It did bother me that we still hadn’t gotten any farther than kissing, but I couldn’t help it that every time he tried to move things along, my heart would scream yes! but my head would panic and freeze up. I was hoping that on the night of the ball, things would be differe
nt because, for the first time since we’d started dating, I was going to ask Tanner to stay over. To some, the idea may have seemed a little trivial but it was a huge step for me.

  The day of the ball arrived and Marissa came over that afternoon to help me get ready. I hadn’t mentioned her relationship with Colin since the day we’d gone shopping. There was enough going on in my own life, and if it was something they wanted to work out with each other, then good for them.

  With the design of the dress, I decided the best thing would be to secure my hair in a loose curly bun at the base of my skull, letting small tendrils escape to make it look more natural. Marissa thought that simple makeup would be best—neutral colors that accentuated my eyes but still let the color of the dress stand out. Time seemed to fly and before I knew it, it was time for Tanner to pick me up, Marissa let him in while I finished the final few touches. A quick look in the mirror told me that I’d made the right decision about the dress.

  Mentally preparing myself, I took a deep breath and stepped out of my bedroom. I couldn’t see the living room from where I was standing—the hallway was a little too long for that—but just knowing I’d have to go to him made my legs feel like Jell-O, although, I was excited to hear what he thought about the dress I’d chosen.

  When I stepped into the living room, Tanner was sitting on the couch, his back to me, talking to Marissa. She noticed me first and tilted her head in my direction. Tanner stood up and turned to face me and as his eyes took in the results of our preparation his mouth parted slightly, and he sucked in a quick breath, simply staring at me. I did a quick turn so that he could see the whole outfit but when he still hadn’t moved, Marissa walked up and used her fingers to push his mouth closed. She gave him a quick little shove in my direction.