Except when it came to Ian. I was still as in love with that boy as I was the last time. He was a sweet boy and there was no way not to love him, even if I spent less time with him this time around than I had last time.
Ian’s surgery came and went and I visited him in the hospital several times, but not every day. We took a picture together with the paper airplanes, just like before. But this time, I hoped I would not see that picture in an envelope along with two checks and a letter.
When Ian went home from the hospital, Chloe invited Abigail and me over to celebrate. She said that Ian might not be up for much of a party, but there was something they wanted us to know. I had a feeling I already knew.
When Abigail and I arrived at Apartment 3G, all of the memories came flooding back to me. I remembered that day from the last time when I had found the apartment empty and the heart shattering emotions that had run through me as I walked back down the hall and encountered Chloe’s brother-in-law. I knew this time would be different, but I did not yet know how.
Abigail knocked on the door and Chloe answered with a bright smile on her face. “Come in,” she said softly and I took that to mean that Ian was resting in his room.
“Thanks for inviting us,” I said, “We won’t stay long. We don’t want Ian to overdo it.”
“Thanks,” Chloe said, touching my arm. “He’s really enjoyed your visits.”
“I love seeing him too,” I said, spotting a haphazard paper airplane on the floor. He must have been practicing his aim as I instructed him to do once he got home.
“What’s the big news?” I said, wanting to get everything out in the open as soon as possible.
“Here it comes now,” Chloe said as we all turned to watch the man walk to the kitchen from down the hall.
Greg was taller than I expected and more thin than muscular. He had the same blonde hair as his brother, but it was short and clean cut and there was no ponytail in sight. I could see that he, his brother and Ian all shared the same startling blue eyes and I was anxious for the introductions to begin.
“This is my husband, Greg,” Chloe said as Greg extended his hand to me first.
“I don’t know how I can ever thank you for what you have done for my boy,” he said, the gratitude showing in his eyes. The man that stood before me didn’t look in the least bit ill and I was so glad to see evidence that he was back on track.
“No thanks necessary,” I said. “Seeing Ian feeling better is all the thanks I need.”
His handshake was strong and I introduced him to Abigail and we all moved into the living room and spaced ourselves out on the tattered couch and chairs.
“Greg got a really good job,” Chloe said as I took Abigail’s hand and smiled. Chloe looked happy and I was feeling even more sure that I had done the right thing.
“Chloe has probably told you a little bit about my background,” Greg said, pausing to roll his eyes. “I’m a bit of a loose cannon, but this last time, after losing her for so long, and then seeing her on TV and knowing what was going on with my boy, well, let’s just say I have every reason to make things work this time.”
I felt like he was trying to explain himself to me and though I didn’t think he really owned me that explanation, I was still glad to hear it. Though my relationship with Chloe was different this time, I still felt protective over her. And especially Ian.
“When do you leave?” I asked, glad that the news was coming in the form of a face-to-face conversation instead of a shaky letter.
“As soon as Ian is strong enough,” Chloe answered, glancing down the hall towards his bedroom. “We want to give him a little time to recover and Greg’s job has been very understanding about the situation.”
“They know my family comes first and they seem to appreciate that,” Greg added, smiling down at Chloe.
I couldn’t believe how different the story was turning out. All because I had kept my heart out of the way and allowed Chloe to find her way back to Greg, as it obviously should be.
Abigail and I offered to help with the move or to watch Ian, if necessary and shortly after that, Ian woke and called for Chloe. She carried him out to the living room to visit with us for a few minutes.
“Music man,” Ian cried out softly when he saw me. I was glad that the nickname had stuck and I was excited to see the color in his face. He looked good. “Did you know I got as much ice cream as I could eat in the hospital?” he asked and we all laughed.
“They don’t bring that to you in bed at home?” I questioned, giving Chloe and Greg a look.
“No!” Ian cried. “Oh my goodness!”
I felt Abigail shake with laughter beside me and I handed over the little plastic trains we had brought to Ian. His fascination was evident and I was glad we had picked them up, though we had skipped the balloons and ice cream this time. After his comment, it’s possible he would have been happier with the ice cream, but it was a little too late now.
When Ian got tired, we said our goodbyes and Chloe promised to call with more details about the move as soon as she had a few more things lined up. I asked her if Cal knew she was leaving yet.
“I’ll be calling him next,” she said. “I hate to break the news to him because he really did save me. Come to think of it…I had a lot of people watching out for me,” she said, winking at me.
Abigail and I left hand in hand and I prayed that Chloe and her little family would be happy. I was so glad that the story had taken a different turn and my heart felt full instead of broken as I left the apartment building that day.
Had I known what my heart was about to experience, who knows how I would have reacted. You never know what is down the road until you travel it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Things didn’t start to sour between Abigail and I until a month down the road. Until that point I actually thought things were going great. We helped Chloe, Greg, and Ian move together. We had dinners together. We even went bowling. But all of a sudden, the shift happened. And I knew something was wrong, but I just couldn’t put my finger on what or how to fix it.
It started out as little hints here and there. Abigail wouldn’t answer my email the same day like she used to. She also would let my text messages wait two hours or longer before she answered those. Even my phone calls weren’t accepted on the first ring like before and sometimes, I even got sent to voicemail.
Then there were the things I noticed in person. Abigail didn’t hold my hand as much as she used to and she seemed to have trouble looking me in the eye. Her bright smile was now forced and I never got to see the full height of her teeth anymore. Even her hair seemed to have lost some of its shine.
Now, I’d heard about couples going through the honeymoon phase and then settling in to something more comfortable, but Abigail and I should still be honeymooning, right? We were dating, but we hadn’t talked about the future and we hadn’t gotten stuck in any ruts. Our dates were always different and exciting. Bowling…different restaurants…long walks around unusual neighborhoods in the city.
When Abigail asked me to meet her at the very family diner where things had gone wrong with us the first time around, I nearly refused. I should have known before I even arrived that something was amiss, but I really wanted to see her. I had a few things of my own I wanted to talk to her about. Including why our relationship felt like it was slowing down to a halt.
When the waitress put the sticky menus in front of us, I had a bit of déjà vu and I was glad that this time, I was there for another reason, though it might be just as uncomfortable. I looked over my menu and took in Abigail’s face. She was concentrating on her menu but half of her hair was pulled back in a barrette. She looked different than the time we had been there before and I wanted to say so, but I stopped myself because I realized she would not remember that time since to her, it had never happened.
I ordered the same soup I always enjoyed from the waitress and Abigail asked for a side salad. My feelings that there was trouble in the
air heightened even further. Abigail never got a salad. It was something girls either did on the first date or when they wanted the meal to end quickly. My only hope was that she was hungry for dessert and wanted to save room.
“Jared,” she said, giving me a sad smile. “We need to talk.”
“Yeah, I think we do,” I said, hoping I could get my parts in first before so she would give me another chance. What we had had in the beginning had been and felt so special. I just wasn’t sure where it had gone wrong.
“So you know what I’m going to say?” she asked.
I shrugged one shoulder. “Well, I’m not positive, but I think you want to talk about our relationship and where it’s going.” Or more like where it’s not going, I thought as I watched her take a sip of her soda.
“You’re right, that’s why I wanted you to meet me here tonight. I didn’t want anywhere too romantic or overwhelming.”
It was funny how alike our minds worked. When I needed to tell her about the fact that I had fallen for Chloe the first time around, I had chosen this restaurant for the same reason. I immediately wished that I had indeed refused her idea and chosen somewhere else for tonight. Even grabbing a pizza at the corner pizzeria would have been better.
Abigail paused and swirled her straw around in her drink. “I know you feel it too,” she said as she glanced up at me and then stared back into her drink. “Things just aren’t working out the way we’d hoped.”
I had to almost physically pick my jaw up from the table. She hadn’t really said anything yet and she hadn’t really said anything I hadn’t wanted to say myself. But unless I was wrong, it almost seemed as if she was trying to end things right here, over these sticky menus and plastic booth chairs.
“It’s not you, really,” Abigail said, luckily not seeing my expression since she was fixated on her soda glass. “It’s just…well…us.”
I drew my eyebrows together in confusion. I wasn’t sure what to say. I had gone back in time in order to fix my decision to love Chloe and change it to Abigail. I had gone through a lot to get to this point. And she was trying to brush me off? Just like that? I knew I couldn’t explain my thoughts to her, but I felt like I deserved more.
“You’re dumping me?” I said, intentionally using the more harsh word in order to wake her up to the reality of the situation.
“It’s not like that…” she said as she trailed off and stirred her drink again.
“What is it like?” I said, my anger rising a bit. It wasn’t fair to her that I felt so entitled to happiness with her, but that was where my head was and there was no changing it.
“It’s just, well, you know.”
I didn’t know and I stared at her until she looked at me and continued. “With the book coming out and all I’m going to be busy with promotional tours and stuff and I just don’t think now is a good time to start a relationship.”
Funny, I thought we started our relationship a month ago, but I didn’t point that out. Another fact had caught my attention instead. “Book?”
Abigail reddened to a deeper shade than I had seen on her skin before. “Yeah, there’s a book.”
I got quiet for a few moments. I needed time to think back over the things she had said to me. No matter how many times I relived our past conversations, I came up with the same solution. When we first met, she had told me that her publisher and agent wanted her to work on a second book, but that she wasn’t sure she had any ideas that could spin themselves into full books. She had even asked for ideas from me.
Granted, I still hadn’t gotten the chance to read her first book, but I had no idea there was a second book. How could there be? It had only been a month? Even if Abigail was a genius writing whiz with the best idea ever, there was no way she could spin a book out in a month.
“I don’t understand,” I said, referring to the book.
“I know,” Abigail said, blinking a few times and smiling sadly. “I couldn’t tell you about the book. But you’ll understand everything once it comes out.”
I tilted my head to the side. I didn’t want to wait for the book and I didn’t know why it would make me understand any of this. I was getting the wrong end of the stick and I could feel my heart starting to beat hard in my chest.
“I’m really sorry, Jared. I wanted it to work out. I really did.”
“Then why isn’t it?” I asked, my last ditch effort at getting an explanation.
Our food arrived and Abigail picked at a few pieces of her lettuce before she answered.
“It just can’t, that’s all.”
Brilliant.
I was slowly coming to the realization that I was indeed being dumped at the family restaurant with the sticky menus. I knew something was wrong between us but I had no idea things had gotten that bad. After all, I still remembered how things were in the beginning. And it had been MY choice to go back and keep Chloe at arm’s length while I drew Abigail in instead. Had I chosen wrong again? How was that even possible? There were only two options?
The meal ended quickly and silently and I walked Abigail back to her car. I had been driving her for our dates lately, but she had requested that I just meet her there this time, another sign that things were not going to end as I’d hoped.
She gave me a quick hug, a small smile and a little wave and then she hopped in her car and drove away as if she couldn’t get away from me fast enough. She left behind her a bit of dust and a broken heart.
I didn’t feel as instantly crushed as I had when I learned Chloe had left me a “Dear John” letter, but my heart was definitely hurting. It took a few extra hours before it all set in and I really believed that what had just happened really had just happened.
By that time, I was at home, pacing in my kitchen, ready to read Evan the riot act. After all, wasn’t all of this his fault to begin with? He had been the one who had forced me to open up and tell him that I wanted a family in the first place. And he had been the one who had allowed me to choose…twice…with disastrous results both times. I didn’t understand and I wanted him to appear worse than I ever had before.
“Hello again,” he said as he materialized in his normal chair near the wall. Though I had been summoning him, I still jumped as his words broke my thoughts.
“You,” I said, seething through my teeth.
“Good to see you too, Jared,” Evan said calmly, linking his fingers behind his head in his casual way.
I fought looking at him, but my eyes were drawn to his and I immediately calmed down. What was it about this man that had a way of putting things in perspective for me before I was even ready for it to line up?
“Are you doing okay?” Evan asked.
“Okay?” I said, no longer angry, but still baffled at the recent turn of events. “I don’t think that’s the best word to describe me right now.”
“What is?” Evan asked, glancing at the fridge. “What is the best word to describe you?”
I raised my eyebrows. Really? He was going to get philosophical on me? That’s not exactly what I needed. I needed answers.
“I know you want answers, Jared, but it’s not my place to give them to you,” he said, digging into my thoughts as he had so many times before. “Don’t you remember what Abigail said? It will all make sense when her book comes out. You just have to wait for that and things will become clear.”
“Okay,” I said, trying to decide where to go with the conversation with Evan next. I was certainly not going to offer to get him a snack. “Can you at least tell me this…did I make the wrong choice again?”
“It appears that way,” Evan said, running his fingers through his hair and then placing his elbows on the table.
“How?” I asked. “I only had two choices. I chose one, it was wrong. I went back and chose the other, how can that not be right?”
“There are well more than two choices in this world,” Evan explained, smiling at me with his eyes and rocking back in the chair so far I thought he might fall over.
&
nbsp; “But I only need one person,” I whispered, almost to myself.
“That’s right, it only takes one,” Evan agreed. “The problem is that there are millions from which to choose. How do you know which one is right?”
“I thought that’s what I asked you in the very beginning,” I said, my exasperation growing a bit again.
“No,” Evan disagreed. “You only said that you wanted to choose. You never said that you wanted help with that choice.”
Picky picky. If he was going to mince words, I was going to throw some of his own back at him. “Fine,” I said, “but you said you had spiritual authority and you were here to help me. So…help me!”
“When was the last time you went to church?” Evan asked, seemingly changing the subject.
“I don’t know,” I mumbled. “A couple of weeks ago?”
Evan nodded as if he already knew the answer. “I think you’re going to find just what you need there,” he said and then, with one last look at my fridge, he disappeared.
That was helpful. I learned that I had to wait to find out what happened with Abigail until her book came out and I learned that I had made two wrong choices in a row. All of that was going to be fixed by going to church, listening to a few songs and hearing a sermon by some random preacher? I didn’t think so.
CHAPTER THIRTY
I let a whole month slid by simply by digging into my work. We were still in a ratings period and I wanted the show to really shine. Who knows, maybe it would even get picked up and syndicated someday. I doubted it since most of the stuff I did was locally related, but still. A guy can dream.
And dreaming about my job was the best way I could keep my mind off of Chloe and Ian, Abigail, and even Evan. I hadn’t taken his advice. In fact, I had actually been avoiding church since I last talked to him. It was strange, really, since I usually went to one church or another on Sundays.
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