Anything Less Than Everything

by Adkins, Heather

  “That’s a relief,” I said. “I was afraid you were going to fall for her over-the-top flirting or barely covered boobs or something, and then, being the awesome friend I am, I would have stand by and let you make your own mistakes and just be there when she left you heartbroken.”

  “Give me a little credit, Brooke. Trust me: I am not interested in that.”

  “Good. You deserve better.”

  At that moment his mom came into the kitchen behind us, talking on the phone. “Yes, I understand that emergencies happen, but I can’t just drop everything and...When is the next available? No, that won’t work.” There was a long pause while whoever was on the other end of the line spoke. Liz rubbed her temples with one hand, obviously stressed about the conversation. “You know what,” she said, “just never mind. I’ll be there at ten, but it is a huge inconvenience.” She clicked off the phone without saying goodbye.

  “Mom?” Aaron said. Liz was standing at the counter tapping her fingers on the smooth granite, obviously seething.

  “Why is it people always expect you to just rearrange your lives for them?” She looked over at us, but neither of us answered, so she continued. “I scheduled an appointment for Monday months ago, and now, just days before, they call to tell me that Dr. Dillon will be out of town that day and can only see me today or a month from now. And since it is such short notice, and a Saturday, I have no sitter for Maggie. Sara’s at class, your father is playing golf...” She picked up her phone and started going through her contacts, I assume looking for someone to watch Maggie.

  “She can stay with us,” I said. I glanced over at Aaron, not sure what his reaction would be, especially since he had just talked about making up for the time we lost the day before.

  “No,” Liz said flatly. “I’m sure you have plans, and you get so little time together as it is.”

  “Mom, it’s fine,” Aaron said. “I was planning to take Brooke to Lake Shore--,” he looked at me, “it’s a water park/beach place--and Maggie loves it.”

  “I don’t know,” Liz said warily. “I just can’t imagine that playing with a five-year-old really fits into what you were hoping to do today.” Something about the way she said that made me think she suspected we were planning more than just a day of fun in the sun.

  “It will be fun,” I chimed in. “Aaron never gets to see her, either. And it will give me a chance to get to know her better, too.”

  “She’s right, Mom. We’ll take her with us, and you can come get her after lunch. Brooke and I will still have plenty of time on our own.”

  Liz sighed. “Okay. Let me grab her pass. And get some money out of my wallet. You know how she is about the concessions.”

  Thirty minutes later the three of us, along with an assortment of towels, sunscreen and snacks, were on the road toward Lake Shore. Maggie was so excited that I thought she would bounce out of her booster seat.

  “I haven’t been to this place in forever!” she cried.

  Aaron said, “I thought you said you went last week?”

  “But that is forever in kid years,” she said. Maggie was seriously funny, and I was becoming more and more attached to her with every word she uttered. She had jumped up and down and hugged me when Aaron told her the plans. Then she’d insisted on taking me up to her room to pick out a bathing suit.

  Now in Aaron’s truck, she was talking a mile a minute. “And they have a million water slides! And some of them you ride down on floats! And two people can slide down. Will you slide with me? Oh! And they have a beach and it has real sand and waves and...”

  “Take a breath, there, Talks A Lot,” Aaron said, smiling.

  “It sounds like lots of fun,” I said to her. She smiled, satisfied.

  It actually was a blast. I took Maggie to the kiddie pool while Aaron staked out some chairs. The pool had a zero entry, like a beach, and was full of those mushrooms squirting water and stuff that kids love. Maggie ran in, splashing and laughing, with me close behind. After about ten minutes of us horse playing and being silly, I looked up to see Aaron watching us, smiling.

  “Look, Maggie,” I said. “There’s your brother. Let’s go get him.”

  Maggie ran/splashed through the water, trying her best to douse Aaron as she neared him. He scooped her up and threw her upside down over his shoulder, tickling her until she dissolved into a mess of giggles. “Put me down! Put me down!” she cried between laughs. Aaron did, and she ran back off into the water.

  “Hey, Mags!” Aaron called. She turned around. “Stay where I can see you, okay?” She nodded and then continued on.

  “You’re really good with her,” I said.

  “I was just about to say the same thing about you.” I smiled at his compliment.

  “You can tell a lot about a person by the way they act with kids.” I was looking out at the pool, my hand raised to shield my eyes from the sun.

  “Yeah?” he asked. “Like what?”

  “Well,” I began, “like how patient they are, how seriously they take themselves, stuff like that. Your real self comes out when you’re around kids. If a person is a jerk around kids, there’s no way they’re decent around adults.”

  “Makes sense,” he said. “Thanks for letting her tag along today. That says a lot about you, too.”

  “She’s fun. And I like watching you two together.”

  We spent the rest of the morning zooming down water slides, splashing in the wave pool, and making trip after trip to the concession stand. In a two hour period that kid had ice cream, a snow cone, chips, a hot dog, and an assortment of candy. Aaron couldn’t say no to her, and she took full advantage of it.

  She was practically asleep by the time Liz called to say she had arrived to pick Maggie up. Aaron walked her to the exit to meet their mom. I was sitting on a chaise rubbing more sunscreen onto my shoulders when Aaron returned. He plopped down beside me, taking the sunscreen bottle from me without a word. He squeezed some into his hand and began rubbing it on my back where I couldn’t reach. My skin tingled when his fingers slipped just under my bikini strap. This time it was me who moved away. “Thanks,” I mumbled.

  “So, it’s just you and me finally,” he said. “What do you want to do?”

  “Hmm. What do you suggest?” Make out like a couple of teenagers? Hold hands and make googly eyes at each other?

  “Lazy River? It’s more or less in the shade,” he said indicating my shoulders that were starting to get a little pink.

  We each grabbed an inner tube and waded into the shallow water. I propped my feet up on Aaron’s float so we wouldn’t get separated.

  We floated around for awhile, not really talking, but just like normal, the silence wasn’t awkward. For this I was grateful.

  I had almost dozed off when Aaron spoke. “Hey, Brooke? Can I ask you a question?” His voice was quiet, thoughtful, and I knew this was a serious question, not one of our silly conversation starters.

  “You know you can.”

  “Earlier, when we were talking about Ashton,” I tensed, wondering what was coming next, “what did you mean?”

  I had no idea what he was talking about. “By what?”

  “When you said I deserved better.”

  Was he really asking me this? I’d kind of blown off his supposed “flaw” of lack of confidence, but apparently it wasn’t him just trying to give me an answer. And it seemed this issue came up most where girls were concerned. “Just what I said,” I answered him. “You are amazing, and only someone as amazing as you deserves you.”

  “I don’t think that there are many amazing people out there, though.” I knew him well enough to know he was putting himself in that category.

  “Tell me about it,” I said. “Remember Spencer? And Carson?”

  “Yeah, well, those are extremes. I just mean that most people--girls--seem to be okay, but not enough.”

  “Maybe that’s good, though, I said.” This was all coming to me as I spoke; I hadn’t really thought about it before. �
�If everyone you met was ‘enough,’ how would you know when you met that one amazing someone?” It was true enough of me. Spencer had seemed quite a catch, but I didn’t have much to compare him to. It was only after I looked at him in comparison to Aaron that I realized how mediocre he was and how incredible Aaron was. They were foils to one another, with each one’s characteristics highlighting the opposite traits in the other. Not that I could use that example out loud.

  Aaron thought about this for a moment before speaking. “You’re probably right. Maybe I’m just expecting too much.”

  “I’m confident I have you beat on that one.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I have a list.”

  “A list,” he repeated, trying to understand.

  “Of qualities I want in a guy. Fifty-seven of them, actually.” I had not planned to tell Aaron--or anyone--about my list, and I had no idea where this conversation was going to take me, but I had a feeling it would end with me revealing too much. As usual.

  “Wow. I don’t know whether to be impressed or scared, or offended that you never told me this,” he said.

  “Well, I’m just following the advice a good friend once gave me.”

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “To never settle for anything less than everything.” He smiled a little, remembering his words to me.

  “And how’s that working out for you?”

  I paused, thought. “Mixed results. It turns out I left something really important off the list.” He didn’t say anything, but swiveled his float to look at me, expectant.

  “I should have added that he needs to be someone I can actually have.” I looked away, unable to meet his eyes, which were on me intently, and afraid my sunglasses weren’t dark enough to hide the tears that threatened to spill from my eyes.

  Some kids came crashing through the Lazy River right then, diving into the water, then running a few steps. One bumped into me and upset my balance. I flipped out of the float, and since my feet were on Aaron’s float, I threw him off, too. It was a chain reaction of flailing arms, with both of us ending up under water.

  I came up, wiping water out of my eyes. Aaron was right there, not six inches from me. We both just looked at each other for a few moments, serious at first, then smiling. These moments were killing me. There’d be this undeniable connection, a charge in the air, and then everything would go back to normal. Like on the hill, or with the sunscreen, and even on the couch the day before, though that could have been a result of his fever. Unless it was all in my head, and Aaron wasn’t noticing anything at all. Maybe I was blowing it all out of proportion.

  I had to make a decision. I’d said from the beginning that I was going to be okay with being Aaron’s friend, that I would ignore my feelings for him. And I was okay with being his friend, but I wasn’t doing a very good job of putting my feelings to rest. I just had to do it. To let him go and to open myself up to someone else. And though it broke my heart to really, finally give up the idea of loving Aaron that way, I knew it was the only way to really be the friend he deserved.

  Chapter 26

  Sunday morning brought a mix of emotions. In just a couple of hours, Aaron would be driving me back into the city and then making the five hour drive back to school. Then I’d leave and start a new school year; Aaron would become involved with classes and football and friends. I liked to think our friendship was strong enough to weather those intense schedules, that we were more than just a summer fling, so to speak, but the truth was that I was scared. Going our separate ways seemed as metaphorical as it was literal. We’d talked about that before, of course, but now that it was here my fears resurfaced.

  There was also a tiny bit of relief in my bag of feelings, strange as that may seem. Relief that I would soon be able to escape the closeness of Aaron that drove me crazy in all the right ways that were all so wrong.

  My hope was that by returning to the way things were before, to the friendship by phone, my feelings would settle and I could get over him.

  But the one feeling I was not experiencing was happiness. Nothing about leaving Aaron made me happy. I was going to miss him, and I was dreading the hole not having him around would leave.

  I said my goodbyes to Aaron’s family, thanked them for the wonderful time. Liz hugged me and said to come back soon. Sara smiled (finally!) and shyly asked if she could send me a connect request on BEsocial. Maggie hugged me tight, refusing to let me go for several minutes. Liz eventually pried her arms from around my neck, and Aaron and I walked out to his truck, him carrying our luggage, his family following us.

  Neither of us said much as we drove out of the subdivision. Aaron kept both hands gripped on the wheel, both eyes on the road. We passed the entrance to the park where we hiked a couple of days earlier. I tried to burn the image of that view into my brain, to hold onto the feeling of his arms around me when we hugged.

  “Want to grab some lunch?” Aaron’s question jerked me out of my thoughts. I nodded, but kept my eyes trained on the window.

  Aaron pulled into a pizza parlor, the perfect place for our last meal. I could feel his eyes on me, but I refused to meet them. I didn’t trust myself.

  It felt like he wanted to say something, but instead he sighed, and I followed him out of the car and into the restaurant.

  “This reminds me of our first real day together,” he said as the waitress placed a pan of pepperoni and mushroom on the table between us and took our glasses to refill them with more Dr. Pepper and Diet Coke.

  “Don’t say that,” I snapped. Aaron’s smile froze, then faded, and only then did I realize how short my voice was. “It just makes it seem like this is the end,” I said, so softly I wasn’t sure he’d be able to hear. But I could tell that he understood.

  “It’s not, though,” he said. “Maybe that could have happened at the beginning of the summer, but now...” He was looking at me, but not really. More through me. “But you’re way too important now. Besides,” he said, obviously trying to make me smile, “who else would I find to share pizza with?” I gave him just the tiniest of smiles. “There it is,” he said. “I’m going to miss that.”

  Lunch was over too soon. There really wasn’t anything else to delay us, and Aaron needed to get back to school, so we headed towards the hotel where the conference would be taking place and I would be staying.

  Aaron waited while I checked in, then while I went to my room to put down my suitcase. I didn’t pay attention to the room size or the decor or the view or any of the things that usually were my immediate concern. I used the key card to open the door, rolled my suitcase inside, and left.

  Each step I took back toward him caused the feeling of dread in my throat to rise. My eyes stung with unshed tears, tears I wanted more than anything to go away.

  Aaron stood up when he saw me coming toward him. When I reached him, the first tear fell, a single drop sliding slowly down my cheek.

  Aaron reached for me and pulled me close to him. He held me, gently stroking my hair. He didn’t breathe shushing noises into my hair or tell me everything was going to be okay. He just held me.

  We stood like that for a long time. I wasn’t crying--the first tear was the only tear--but I feared what would happen when he let go. When he finally said he needed to get on the road if he was going to make it back in time for the captains’ meeting, I pulled away. His eyes were soft, misty.

  “Thank you for this weekend,” I said. My voice was soft, but it worked. Aaron smiled at me, a smaller, sadder version of the half smile I loved.

  “No, thank you, Brooke. It was...amazing. You’re amazing.” I pretended not to notice the way his voice caught just a tiny bit when he said that, not for his sake, but for mine.

  “We’ll do it again, soon,” he added. I nodded, both anxious for and dreading him leaving.

  “Call me when you get back?” I asked.

  “You know I will,” he said as he pulled me to him for one last hug.

  I walked towa
rd the lobby doors with him, watched as he walked back out to his truck.

  This is the part in the movies where the guy comes back, unable to truly leave the girl he loves behind, and they embrace in some wonderfully tangled kiss that takes them to the final credits.

  But this wasn’t the movies, and Aaron didn’t come back.

  Chapter 27

  The room was growing dim when I finally stopped crying. I cried for my best friend, the only person who had ever really understood me, leaving again. For the fear of what would happen to that friendship. But mostly for the loss of the man of my dreams, the one whom I had tried so hard not to love. I grieved him. And grieved him.

  My Intro to Psychology class in college had covered the steps of the grieving process. I hadn’t paid a lot of attention, mostly because it was freshman year, and Spencer was in the class, and we were in that “my boyfriend/girlfriend is so wonderful and I just want to look at them all day” phase. But I remembered enough to know you were supposed to deny the loss, and then be angry and/or sad about it, and then accept it.

  That was the problem: I’d jumped too quickly to acceptance, had tried to accept the fact that Aaron was my ideal minus the fact that he was off-limits without really allowing myself to be sad about the fact that I couldn’t--shouldn’t--love him.

  And so I cried. I cried until no tears came. Rather than it being cathartic, though, I just felt worse. I stood in the too hot water of the shower, trying to wash away the sadness, the hurt. No, it wasn’t hurt. Aaron had never done anything to hurt me. He was ignorant of my struggle.

  When I came out of the bathroom, pink-skinned and a little more clear-headed, I saw the flash on my phone that indicated a missed call. Aaron. As usual, he had not left a message when the call went to voicemail, but hung up and sent a text instead: Hey Brooke. Just got home. call you later. And, then, another one, bearing the same time stamp: I miss you.