by Tricia Goyer
“Don’t worry. The guys promised to give you plenty of video footage tonight to make up for the day trip,” Dennis said as they got out.
“I don’t doubt that. It’ll be great. They seem to really pour out the stories when they know it’ll mean my having more time to spend with you.” She glanced around, trying to appreciate the sights of this medieval part of town. She didn’t feel whole without her grandfather at her side. It was as if she were missing an arm. How was she going to handle it when they all went their separate ways? Her heart ached just thinking about it.
“I really appreciate your planning this day. This place is so beautiful.” She paused and tucked her hands in her jeans pockets. Her fingers brushed her cell phone, and she thought about calling Jill to check to see if there was any news on Angeline. Then again, if Jill did have news, she would have called. She looked up at the baroque cathedral. There wasn’t anything in Seattle that compared. It was white with a green roof—bronze, she guessed, that had tarnished over time. Intricate carvings graced the arched window frames. Angel statues rose from the roofline like messengers prepared to fly to the heavens at a moment’s notice. If the exterior was this intricate, Ava couldn’t even imagine what the interior looked like. Cathedrals like this were designed to give illiterate people glimpses of a glorious God, and it amazed her how common men had displayed that glory.
It made her think about her own life. Was she really living it in a way that displayed God? She wasn’t sure. Especially lately. She had thought living a good life and doing the best with her talents was enough. Maybe it wasn’t.
Her cell phone buzzed, startling her. Maybe it was Jill with news of Angeline.
“Hey.” She held the phone up. “I need to get this.”
“Sure.” He turned his back, and she stepped several feet away. “Jill?”
“Guess again.”
Jay.
Ava swallowed hard and then looked over her shoulder at Dennis. He eyed her curiously, and she quickly turned away. “Hi.”
“I got your e-mail.” His voice was tender and sweet, like it had always been. Hearing him, it was almost as if the breakup never happened.
He cleared his throat. “Is this a good time?”
Ava’s knees weakened. She hurried toward a bench where an older couple sat. She sat on the end, turning her back to them. “No, it’s actually not. I told you I’d call when I got back.”
“I couldn’t wait any longer to tell you I was stupid. I made the biggest mistake of my life. I’m half of the whole we used to be…”
She didn’t answer. It had been everything she’d wanted to hear before the trip. Now she was a different person. This trip had changed her. She’d laughed, she’d cried, she’d feared, she’d doubted, and…she might even be falling in love with someone else.
Tourists milled around her, taking photos of the structure and lining up near the entrance.
She looked at the sky, seeing that the sun was coming out, hot and bright. She unzipped her sweater and took it off. Her whole body felt hot. Her heart ached.
“I can’t talk about this now.”
“I have to know one thing. Do you care about me at all?”
She balled her free hand into a fist and lowered her head. “You called me in Europe to ask me that?”
“No, I called to tell you that these months without you have been empty. But I did call to ask that too. I have to know.”
“You hurt me.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “We should have been married by now.”
“I just need to know that I still hold a place in your heart.”
“Yes, of course.”
There was silence on his end of the line.
“We’ll talk more when you get back. Talk to you later, Av.”
“Yes, okay.” She hung up the phone, not quite sure what had happened. Her mind felt full of quicksand. A hand touched her shoulder and she jumped.
“Everything okay?”
She looked up at Dennis. “Of course. Just business matters in Seattle.” She rose and brushed her hair off her shoulders. “I’m ready now. Are we going to take in some sights?”
Dennis chuckled and adjusted the rim of his baseball hat lower over his eyes. “Personally, I thought it would be nice to walk around, enjoy the sunshine, talk.”
“You’re right. A walk sounds nice.”
They walked shoulder to shoulder toward a large river. The town around them was quaint, medieval. Small shops and cafés lined the streets.
“Are you hungry?” Dennis asked.
“Not really.” She didn’t tell him that her stomach was filled with a hundred butterflies. She’d wanted time to be with him and talk. Now that she had the chance, Jay had ruined everything. Why did I tell him I still care? Stupid, stupid.
Yet even as they walked, her mind took her back to the three years she and Jay had dated. They’d gotten along great. They enjoyed the same things. They’d seemed like the perfect couple. And then there was Dennis. She glanced up at him. How could this guy, who was both handsome and kind, care for her after all these years?
Somewhere inside, she still felt as if something would happen and reality would prove her doubts about him to be right. What if she was just someone he’d hang out with because she was his best option at the time? After all, she hadn’t heard from him in fifteen years. Even back then, their relationship hadn’t been grounded in reality. He’d been in a make-believe world, thinking that they could jump into marriage and a life together. She’d been the realistic one, telling him she wanted to finish college. That had always been in her timeline—followed by the husband, house, a dog, and 2.5 kids.
But now it was different. They were mature. They could support themselves. They could probably make it together. Then again maybe this was a fluke. They were in Europe. She took in the river, the medieval-looking buildings. She felt at peace with Dennis walking by her side. Real life never could be this good, could it?
“Let’s walk along the trail by the Danube,” he suggested, tucking his hands into his jeans pockets.
“That’s the Danube?” She pointed to the wide, blue-green river ahead. “Like the song?”
“The one and only.”
“I never thought I’d really see the Danube.”
“What places do you really hope to travel to? Other than Paris, of course.”
“I live in Seattle, so anywhere with sun. Hawaii maybe. Or Arizona.”
“Is that the type of place you’d pick for your honeymoon?” He cocked an eyebrow at her.
“What do you mean?” She slowed her pace.
“You know, after a wedding. A honeymoon? Is that where you’d planned on going with your fiancé?”
Ava stopped and looked up at the large, arched walkway that led to an open-air market. The last thing she wanted to do was talk to Dennis about her and Jay’s plans.
“Look at those cute shops.” She pointed to a narrow street and the small shops that looked like places Snow White’s dwarfs would tend. “I want to get my mom a souvenir before I return. Do you want to look?”
Dennis didn’t answer.
She looked at him, and his brow furrowed.
“Okay, since you don’t want to answer that question…does Mr. Mystery Man have a name?”
She released an exasperated sigh. “Yes, it was Jay.”
“Was? Is he dead?”
“No.” She rubbed her arms. They couldn’t stop their trembling.
“What happened?”
She ran her hands over her face. “I just got a note one day from Jay telling me that it wasn’t going to work. That the wedding was off. It was sudden—and painful.” A man and a woman walked toward them down the sidewalk, and Ava and Dennis stepped to the side. After the couple passed, she turned to him and rubbed her brow. “Do you want to know more?”
“Yes.” Dennis waved to a little girl in a stroller. The toddler waved back. “How long did you date?”
They walked through some sort of park. The
shrubs were manicured, flowers were planted in neat rows, and even the German children seemed to play in an orderly and quiet way.
“Three years.” She shrugged. “Please let that be your last question.”
“Do you want me to tell you about some of my girlfriends?”
“I don’t think I want to hear.”
“The list is short. It won’t take long. There was Jane—a worship leader from my grandpa’s church. And then there was Lisa, an intern from my grandpa’s church. And finally Jennifer. She—”
“Let me guess, you met her at Grand-Paul’s church?”
“He’s quite the matchmaker. They were all pretty and nice and…they just didn’t seem right. The longest relationship lasted six months, and she finally broke it off because she said—” He paused.
“What?”
“She said that every time I looked at her, I wasn’t really looking at her. That it was as if I was seeing someone else, or at least wishing it was someone else. Those are her words, not mine.”
Ava wanted to ask more, but at the same time she was afraid to.
“Look at that.” Ava pointed to a hillside up ahead. A large castle looked like something from a fairy tale. Then again, she couldn’t picture a fairy tale like this. “Could you imagine what it would have been like to have lived there?”
“Cold, drafty, and rat-infested would be my guess.”
“Wow, so romantic.”
“You want romantic?” He reached down and took her hand. His hand felt warm, and she let him lead her. They reached the river and followed a paved trail. As they walked, Ava looked over at the water that was more gray than blue. There were sailboats, and in the distance she saw a steamboat chugging downstream.
“So, how did Jay end it? You said he left a note, but there has to be more to it than that.”
“It’s not the most fun story to tell.”
“I still want to hear it. I can’t know you—really know you, Ava—if I don’t know all of it—even that stuff that makes you cry.”
Dennis stopped by a grassy hill, stepped off the trail, hunkered down, and patted the ground. Ava nodded and they sat side by side. She released a long breath and stared at the water.
“I doubt I’ll cry, but what happened is that he—Jay was supposed to go to his tux fitting on Saturday. Friday night I got home from work to discover there was a large gift bag by my apartment door. I immediately knew who it was from. I’d given him the bag with his last birthday present inside and he’d saved it. There was a card on top of the bag—or what I thought was a card.
“I opened the envelope, and there were just five sentences. ‘Ava, I’m sorry. This isn’t going to work out. I’m sorry. Have a good life. I’ll be praying for you.’”
Her hands trembled, and she placed her fingers to her lips. “I haven’t told that to anyone before. Even my friends. I told them he sent me an e-mail, which would have been easier. Maybe he would have gone longer than five sentences.”
“What a jerk.” Dennis spat the words. “He didn’t even have the guts to tell you face to face and then to give you a gift—”
She shook her head. “It wasn’t a gift.”
“But you said—”
“I said it was a gift bag. Inside were just some of my things. My running shoes, which I’d forgotten at his house. Some CDs he’d borrowed. Some photographs of me that he’d taken and had framed. I—” She started and then lowered her head. Tears pooled in her eyes, which surprised her.
“You what?” His hand gently rubbed her back, and his touch made it even harder to hold the emotions in.
“Okay, you really want to know?” She lifted her face and wiped away a tear. “I couldn’t have felt more worthless if he’d rented a billboard and posted it on the I-5 that he was dumping me. In fact, that probably would have been better.” Her voice rose and others sitting near them turned, but she didn’t care.
“It would have been much better if there was some big fight. We could have fought about work, or family, or anything. It would have been great if he would have yelled at me, and if I would have yelled even louder at him. And if I would have thrown something and hit him square in the forehead—that would have really helped. But I got a stupid note and all my stuff back. And when I tried to call a dozen times, he ignored the calls. And then he changed his number.” A sob broke through, surprising her. She wiped her dripping nose with the back of her hand. “And so do you know where that left me?”
The motion of his hand stopped.
“It left me thinking and rethinking. Replaying our conversations and trying to figure out what the heck I did wrong. I did something, that’s for sure.” She swallowed hard and a hiccup escaped. “And I—I just have to make sure I don’t do it again. It hurts too much.” She turned and buried her face in his shoulder. “It just hurts.”
“Oh, Ava.” Dennis scooted closer to her and then wrapped both arms around her, pulling her tight. She felt warm, protected. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt so cherished. She also couldn’t help but think back to Jay’s voice on the phone. Even after all he’d done to her, it still felt good to hear his voice. To know he cared. That he’d missed her.
They sat there for a while, her just resting in Dennis’s arms. He smelled like a spicy musk, and his T-shirt was soft on her cheek. A boat passed by, and passengers on the deck took photos of the town. She would be in their snapshots, forever captured in this embrace. She liked the thought of that.
“And you know what the saddest thing was?” she finally muttered, leaning back slightly.
“What?” Dennis paused and turned, looking into her eyes.
“When I got the note and looked into the bag, the first thing that came to mind was ‘That’s it? This is the man I was going to marry and that’s all he had of mine?’”
“I can top that.” Dennis’s eyebrows peaked. “I have the beach towel that you used every time we went to the lake. The pink one with yellow flowers. I found it in my car after you left, and I still use it to dry my car after I wash it.” He chuckled. “I also have the program from when we went to see Grease at the community theater.” His tone grew more serious. “And the photos of us sitting on the roof of the cabin, trying to coax down the squirrels with raisins.
“I also have the three letters you wrote to me, including the one that said you met some guy at college.” Then he took her hand. “After the big fight, I was going to go along with your suggestion that we just be friends, but even that didn’t work so well—”
“The guy was Chris Anderson. He played football and was a total jerk. We dated for three weeks.” She pulled her hand from his, mostly because she was afraid. She could feel the anxiety moving through her body like an electric current, a reminder of the pain of losing Jay and a realization she’d messed up this whole thing with Dennis all those years ago. Messed up big-time.
“I can’t believe you kept all that stuff. It’s crazy. Really crazy. And kind of creepy.” She smirked. She rose and moved to the railing at the river’s edge that overlooked the water.
“You meant a lot to me.” He followed her, standing by her side. “I wish we could start over. Maybe this trip is a second chance.”
Ava shook her head. “It’s just like that summer. When this is done, I’ll go back to my life and you’ll go back to yours and we’ll lose touch just like we did before.”
“You don’t really believe that. You’re just saying that because you’re afraid of getting hurt again. I can see it in your eyes. Besides, we’re adults now. We have cell phones. Heck, e-mail has been invented. You really don’t think I’ll just return to my normal life and forget about you.”
She turned and began walking.
“Ava, will you stop? Will you look at me?”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re right. I’m afraid.” Ava slowed, but she refused to look at him. She couldn’t.
Dennis grabbed her arm. She paused, but she still refus
ed to turn. “If I look at you, I’m going to fall in love with you. And if I love you, it’s just going to mess everything up.”
“What ‘everything’ is going to be messed up?”
“Nobody’s perfect, Dennis. Even though I try my best, I’m far from perfect. And you’re not perfect. And do you know what happens when two imperfect people get together?”
“What?”
“Disaster. Heartbreak. Pain. A big mess. Don’t you see? I told you I was falling for Chris Anderson because he wasn’t nearly as wonderful as you. If things didn’t work out with Chris it wouldn’t hurt so badly. It was the same thing with Jay. He was nice and handsome, but he talked too much. And he spent too much time at the gym, and his feet stank horribly.”
Laughter burst from Dennis’s lips.
Ava looked up at the sky, focusing on the white clouds being pushed across the sun. “I was grateful for those flaws because I figured then Jay could deal with all my flaws. I didn’t have to be perfect, because he wasn’t perfect. If things didn’t work, I could remember all the things I didn’t like about Jay and so much the better. I realized this after he broke it off. Realized it had been in the back of my head all along.” She tucked her hands into her jeans pocket. Her fingers touched her cell phone, and she tried to push Jay’s voice out of her mind.
“Is that what you thought about us too, that things wouldn’t work out?”
“I didn’t know how to deal with it. I felt too young to be making adult decisions. You wanted us to move near each other. You were talking about marriage in the near future. I had a list of things I needed to do first.”
“I would’ve waited,” he said quietly.
Even though he held her hands close, she refused to look at his face. She heard the pain in his voice.
Finally, she lifted her face and looked into his eyes.
“Don’t you see, Dennis? I love your smile and your passion. I love the way you talk to me, and how you make me talk about things that no one else would care about. I love the way you think that the best day is one that you spend with your grandpa. And I love how beautiful and wonderful I feel when I’m with you.”