Hannah disappeared up West Street, not once looking back. Aaron sat back down on the swing. For the first time in his life, regret hit him like a Mack truck. He should have told her about the cancer. From day one, he should have told her, and maybe she wouldn’t be walking away from him now.
Of course, maybe she would have walked away if he had told her, and he would have missed having her in his life for the past six weeks. Maybe regret wasn’t the right emotion. Maybe seeing her walk away was just his punishment.
Chapter 19
Hannah held Tabitha’s hand as they approached the track at Lebanon High School. Tabitha was skipping and singing, dragging her mom behind, with Auntie L flanking them.
“Come on, Mommy,” she urged. “Let’s go find Hawk.”
Hannah’s heart raced, but not from the excitement and anticipation of the Lebanon Relay For Life. She knew Aaron was there somewhere. Her heart knew it, too.
“Whoa! Slow down speed racer. Why don’t you just take a nice stroll around the track and check things out with Auntie L?” Finding Aaron was not on Hannah’s agenda, not the logical one anyway. Her heart had other plans. That battle was irrelevant because Hannah knew seeing him here was inevitable. If she stayed off the track, she could avoid him, so that was her plan.
Hannah stopped at the entrance to the track and handed Tabs off to Malinda.
“You coming?” Malinda asked.
“I just need a few minutes. I’ll see you on the next pass.”
“Next pass, Palindrome. If you don’t get on the track by your own free will, I’ll drag your ass out there.”
Hannah had no doubt about that. Physically, she couldn’t match Malinda’s size or strength. Emotionally, she wasn’t ready to see Aaron and needed to scope out the track to see where he was before crossing the fence line.
Tabs and Malinda were on their way as Hannah leaned on the fence. Tents were scattered around the inside edge of the large track. It looked sparse compared to what she was used to with the North Country Relay, but this track was much larger than Norton Pike Field. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a track this size in Littleton.
As soon as Tabs and Malinda hit the track, Hannah saw her daughter take off at a sprint. Just yards away stood Aaron, in a purple survivor shirt, his stance braced for Tabitha’s impact. Why the purple shirt surprised her, Hannah wasn’t sure. He was a survivor, this was Relay, so it’s what he should be wearing. The whole Aaron had cancer thing still stirred the anger deep inside her.
That anger was subdued when her heart fluttered as Aaron scooped Tabs into his arms and swung her around in an affectionate embrace.
He loves her. Hannah knew it and knew Tabitha loved him, too. Which only served to complicate Hannah’s perfect formula. It wasn’t going to be easy for Tabitha to get over him. Hannah knew that firsthand.
Hannah watched them from her perch outside the fence. Tabs was probably talking his ear off. After Tabs and Malinda disappeared inside the pop-up tent at Aaron’s campsite, he made his way across the field to where Hannah thought she was safe.
“Hi,” he said as he stopped on the other side of the fence. “I’m surprised to see you here.”
“Yeah, well, I promised Tabs we’d come. We never break our promises to each other. I know how to pick my battles with her. This one wasn’t worth fighting over.” Of course, she didn’t explain she’d called in Malinda for back-up support, to help her avoid Aaron, which was obviously a futile effort.
“Do you want to walk with me?” he asked.
“No.” She knew how that was going to go. They’d start walking, he’d grab her hand the way he always did. That amazing electricity would flow between them and she’d forget all about being mad, give up her need to go back to her perfect formula. It was better to keep the fence between them. Wasn’t it Frost who wrote good fences make good neighbors?
They stood there in silence for a while, Aaron leaning back on the barrier, Hannah leaning forward. As they watched the Relayers circle the track, she wondered what Tabs and Malinda were doing under the pop-up, and hoped they would be out soon to rescue her from Aaron’s company. Hannah could have asked him, but she loved the sound of his deep voice, so didn’t want to give him any reason to speak, or any opportunity to break down her defenses.
After a while, he took a deep breath and exhaled a confession she wasn’t ready to hear. “I feel guilty, Hannah. About surviving. Since the day I found out I was cured, I’ve felt guilty. That’s why I didn’t tell you, and in light of what you went through with Steven, well, I just couldn’t.”
Hannah didn’t look at him. She just couldn’t. He’d put it out there, survivor guilt, just like Barbi had said. Somehow that didn’t make her feel any better. Actually, she felt worse. What Malinda said was right, that the world wasn’t painted in black and white. Aaron’s life was painted a little bit in purple, but not because he had chosen to be a survivor. That was just how life had played out for him. To hold that against him wasn’t fair. Hannah was being unreasonable in her anger and now his words confirmed that. She was still hurt, and terrified. Keeping her focus on the walkers, she finally spoke. “Guilty? You should be grateful, not guilty.”
“Oh, I’m grateful. Don’t get me wrong. I am so happy to be alive – and to have met you.” He pushed himself off the fence and turned to her, taking her hands in his. “God, I’m so happy to have met you, but all that doesn’t take away the guilt.”
He squeezed her hands and she knew he was nervous. It must be hard for him. No one likes to admit something so personal. Hannah never talked about the guilt she felt over wishing Steven would die during his last days, not until admitting it to Aaron, but that was in anger. It wasn’t like she had any control when it came spewing out. He’d tried to comfort her, which she should probably do now, but she hadn’t asked him to confess, so wasn’t going to offer him any reassurance.
“Like you said the other night, I had nothing to lose. Nothing. I’m an only child. My parents were already gone. I didn’t even have a girlfriend. I had nothing to lose. I meet people all the time who have lost someone they love to cancer. Brothers. Sons. Fathers. Husbands.” He squeezed her hands again. “Then I met you.”
Aaron let go of her hands and brushed gently under her chin as he tried to break the focus she had on the track, but she resisted.
“Look at me, Hannah,” he pleaded.
She shook her head. “I can’t. I can’t look at you. Not with all you’re saying. Not in that shirt.” The purple survivor shirt was too much, a reminder of what she’d lost, of what Aaron had kept from her.
She was surprised when he stripped it off and shoved it in the waist of his jeans. Surprised and completely turned on.
“What are you doing?” she said, almost laughing.
“You said you wouldn’t look at me in that shirt. So it’s off. Now you can look at me.”
Yeah, she was looking at him. At his hard chest. The firm stomach. The way his jeans rode low on his waist. “Put your shirt back on, Aaron.” It was her turn to plead.
“No. You told me to take it off. It’s off. I need you to look at me, Hannah. I need to know what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling.”
Great. He wanted to read her face. Well, she wasn’t going to give him the chance. “Right now all I’m thinking about is sex.” She wasn’t lying. Aaron, half naked in front of her with his near perfect body. Yeah, that stirred up some thoughts.
“Really? I’m pouring my heart out to you and all you can think about is sex?” he asked with a coy smile.
“Put your shirt back on.”
“Wait here.” He cut across the field to his team’s campsite and disappeared into a small tent behind the pop-up tent. When he came back out, he slipped on a white Relay t-shirt before springing back across the field to where Hannah still leaned on the fence.
She couldn’t bite back the smile. Oh, the lengths he went to.
“Better?” he asked, not even out of breath from the hundred yard dash.
Not really. She preferred him with the shirt off. The image still burned in her head, making the rest of her body burn, too. “Yeah, but you put the image in my head, so it’s going to be hard to think of anything else.”
“Hannah, if you allude to sex one more time, I’m going to carry you to my tent and make love to you until your head is spinning. I don’t much care at this point that it’s a family event.”
Oh, God. Would that be so bad? Yes. Yes, it would be. She was not having sex with him. She was getting over him. “You wouldn’t do that. You’re too much of a nice guy. A gentleman.”
“Is that a dare?” he asked.
Yes. “Umm, no. It’s just a fact. It’s who you are.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that if I were you,” he said.
She felt a tingle far below her waist, and in her bra. Would he really take her to his tent? No, no. Tabitha was over there, and a couple hundred other people were all around the track. Best to turn her attention back to the walkers.
Aaron had a different agenda. He stepped in front of her, blocking the view. “Hannah, seriously, I need to finish.”
Even though she looked at him, she was still aware of the heavy steps on the track and the chatter of conversation as walkers passed by them. As hard as she tried to divert her focus, her attention was centered on the man who stood in front of her.
When Aaron brushed a hand across her cheek, Hannah resisted the urge to nuzzle into it. “Steven had so much to lose. You and Tabitha, Malinda, his parents. We had the same cancer, at the same time. Yet I survived and he didn’t. I swear, Hannah, if I could trade places with him, I would. If it could have been me who died and Steven cured …”
She had no will to control the tears that poured from her eyes. She shook her head. “That’s not my wish.” God, she missed Steven. To have him back, alive – she would love that, but not in exchange for someone else’s life. Certainly not Aaron’s. “I would never wish that.”
“Hannah …” he tried to continue, but she held a hand up.
“Stop. Please just stop,” she pleaded. “I didn’t come here to talk about this.” No, she had come here to avoid him. Like there was a chance in hell of that happening. This wasn’t the place to have this conversation, not here with a crowd. Hannah hated crying in front of people, strangers or not. Even though deep in heart she needed to hear about his cancer, right here, right now … it just wasn’t right.
“I need to talk about this. I need you to understand.”
“Not now, Aaron. Just, not now. Not here, ok?”
“Then let’s go somewhere. We can go back to my place. Or your place. Or someplace neutral. Let’s just go somewhere and talk.”
“I don’t know. I’m just, I’m not ready to hear all this. I told you, I need some time.” It was another cop-out, but she wasn’t ready to forgive him. She knew she would, had already started to. So, there was no way in hell she was going anywhere with him.
“I’m going to check on Tabs,” she said, pushing back from the fence and walking to the track entrance … and away from Aaron.
~*~
Should he follow? Or give her space? To hell with it. At a quick pace, Aaron met Hannah at the opening in the fence and walked beside her for a few steps. Then he took a chance and reached for her hand. As his fingers brushed against hers, she pulled her hand away, stuffing it into the pockets of her jeans. Shit. Bad move. She seemed to pick up the pace, as if needing to get away from him.
Aaron let her go.
When she reached his team’s campsite, Malinda come out of the pop-up tent, engaging Hannah in a conversation that looked like and argument. Hannah’s back was to him, but when she lifted a hand to her face, then wiped it on her jeans, he knew she had wiped away a tear. Malinda didn’t seem to be comforting her. In fact, she looked downright angry.
Hannah disappeared inside the pop-up and emerged with Tabitha, who came running across the track as soon as she spotted him.
Tabitha jumped into his arms when she reached him. He caught her and spun her around. It was their usual greeting and he loved how affectionate the little girl was. She had beautiful tawny hair, just like her mom, and it was now pulled back in a braid to show the extravagant butterfly painted all over her face. Different shades of purple dominated the wings and he could tell she loved it by the smile she wore.
“Mommy said she’s leaving, but me and Auntie L can stay!”
Aaron was relieved and excited. She’d changed her mind and was going to hear him out. They could get past this. He was sure Hannah loved him and he was anxious to make things right between them.
He put Tabitha down, holding her hand as they walked to the campsite. As he approached Hannah, who still had her back to him, he let go of the little hand that held his tightly and reached for Hannah.
“Just let me grab my keys,” he said, gently squeezing her arm.
“I’m leaving,” she said, and Aaron realized she wasn’t leaving with him.
“Wait, Hannah, I thought …”
“I’m sorry, but I just can’t do this right now.”
She gave Tabitha a kiss and said something about seeing her next weekend, but he wasn’t really processing anything right now. His heart ripped in two. How many times was he going to watch her walk away before it was the last time? Aaron was about to chase after her when Malinda’s hand landed on his arm.
“Let her go,” Malinda said, anger marring her voice.
“I can’t,” he said, taking another step.
“She loves you, Aaron. She’ll come around. You just have to let her do it in her own time.” Malinda laughed a little, which seemed odd. He wasn’t seeing any humor in this situation.
“What’s so funny?”
“If you actually give her the time she claims she needs, she’ll probably come around faster.”
Aaron sighed. Staying away from Hannah wasn’t an easy task. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because I know her better than she knows herself.”
Chapter 20
Aaron had been sitting in Uncle Bart’s old wooden rocking chair on the front porch since breakfast trying to read a book. This was his favorite reading spot, but he couldn’t seem to focus on the words in front of him. Hannah filled his thoughts, particularly that he hadn’t seen her in a week, not since the Lebanon Relay.
He was giving her time. She said that was what she needed. Malinda sounded confident when she told him Hannah would come around. Staying away was killing him, though, not hearing her voice, not seeing her, not touching her. It was all he could do to keep breathing.
When Hannah’s silver Camry came around the bend and parked behind his truck, Aaron wasn’t just relieved, he was excited. Malinda had been right, giving Hannah the time she needed had her running back into his arms.
Aaron put the book down. He was going to get up, greet her like the gentleman he was, with all the affection he had for her. But he froze in the chair when he realized she wasn’t getting out of the car. She just sat there, clutching the steering wheel, not making a move. Aaron’s confidence unraveled the longer Hannah remained in the car. If she was having trouble getting out of the car, she couldn’t have a happy reason for being there.
After several minutes Hannah finally got out. Aaron remained frozen, fear gripping his entire body. She walked up the steps with her head down. He couldn’t see her hands, but imagined she was fidgeting with them, something she did when nervous. Aaron had found it endearing, but not today. Her nervousness fed his dread, even from across the porch.
“Hi,” he said when she finally stepped through the screen door.
Hannah jumped a little. She must not have realized he was sitting there. As her cheeks blushed, a smile crept across her pretty face. She looked so beautiful like that, the pink cheeks and shy smile. God, how he wanted to pull her into his arms and hold on to her forever.
“Hi.”
“I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to get out of the c
ar,” he said as he smiled back.
“Me too.”
She sat in the chair next to him. It was a hot day, but trees surrounded the cabin, provided ample shade, in addition to the screened in porch. Even though she looked amazing in a light blue tank top, cotton capris, and flip flops, Aaron hoped she’d be warm enough. He noticed her toenails were polished in purple and wondered if Tabitha had painted them.
Anticipation pushed him forward, arms resting on knees as Aaron looked at her. He wanted to say something, wanted to ask why she was there. She’d tell him soon enough, and he hoped it wouldn’t break his heart.
Her hands rested on her lap, absent the wedding ring. Aaron prayed that was a good sign, but it was a hot day, so maybe she’d just taken it off because of the swelling humidity. Her thumbs twirled around each other, her eyes were completely focused on them, like nothing else existed in the world. The tension flowed off her and consumed him. Good nervous or bad nervous? She opened her mouth as if to say something, then took a deep breath and closed it again. The anticipation was killing him. Whatever she had to say was hard for her. All he could do was prepare himself for the worst – and hope for the best.
Finally she spoke. “You said you don’t talk about your cancer. Why not?”
Whoa. Not what he was expecting. Though Aaron could handle anything else but this topic. He’d been prepared to tell her at the Leb Relay, felt courageous that day, probably because he was surrounded by so many other people like him. Now he wasn’t prepared, not emotionally anyway. This was a tough confession for him. “I just don’t.”
Hannah stopped fidgeting and looked at him. “That’s not an answer, Aaron.”
Now it was his turn to get fidgety. He slapped the book up against his hand a couple times, before sitting back in the chair.
“Tell me about your cancer. Tell me why you don’t talk about it.”
Book Boyfriends Cafe Summer Lovin' Anthology 2015 Page 236