by Ginger Scott
I feel sad when he says this. We used to talk. That was our one thing—or at least it was on his end. He could talk to me, and I listened, never judging. He told me about his father, about James. I regret that I kept so much from him.
“You said where. Where what? Ask me, Andrew. Let’s get through this…whatever it is,” I say.
He smiles, glancing over his shoulder a few times as we merge onto the highway toward the next town over. “I’m not ready for where. That’s a big question. I need to work up to it. How about…how about I start with a who,” he says, the right corner of his mouth twisted with his pause, still unsure.
“Okay, who. Go for it,” I say, just happy we’re talking more easily.
“Who’s the guy who walked you home the other day?” he asks. My chest constricts a little, like someone just jumped out from a corner to scare me. I’m not sure why, because Graham isn’t really anything…yet. He’s my mentor’s son, which I guess makes him…complicated.
“He’s just a guy,” I answer. The lamest reply possible, and it takes Andrew all of half a second to call me on it.
“Just. A. Guy.” He laughs once, the sharp belly kind, then clicks the blinker to exit the highway, the sign for Estos standing above a hill. “Okay. We’ll go with that for now. I’ll let you have that one.”
I sigh lightly, watching out the window as we pull in to a space near the door. Andrew cuts the engine, but sits still, watching families and old couples walk in and out of the restaurant.
“There really isn’t much more to say,” I say, feeling defensive. I can’t really explain who Graham is without connecting him to how we met.
Andrew nods, then steps out of the car, leaving the door open, his feet on the pavement outside, but his body still inside with me.
“Where do you think I went?” he asks, his back to me. Everything about him is suddenly deflated, his shoulders lowered, his head sunken. “You said you didn’t know where I went. You didn’t know about Lake Crest. Where…where was I in your world?”
“Iowa,” I answer quickly.
His body rises with a silent laugh, his shoulders raising once, but dropping back into sadness.
“Iowa,” he repeats, standing slowly, turning and leaning into the car. “Come on. Let’s go eat.”
His door closes, and I take this small moment in his car alone to gasp, letting my body make a small sound, a short cry, so I don’t do it in front of him. Then I get out and step around the car, joining him at the front door to the restaurant. He steps in front of me, pulling the door open, his head tilted to the side as I step through.
“Just a guy, huh?” He smirks. We look at each other, his hand finding my back as he guides me inside and I pass him, his touch gentle, but purposeful. I let him. I relish it. And I know I won’t be able to let it go.
The hostess guides us to a booth in the back of the restaurant. It’s away from the front windows, away from the view of his car. I’m glad. Looking at it is hard.
The waitress takes our order quickly. We both order a short stack and a coffee. When she walks away, Andrew sets his eyes on me squarely, his head leaning slightly to one side. I look back into his eyes, holding on as long as I can. It feels like a game of chicken, and eventually I lose, moving my attention to the rolled up silverware and napkin in front of me. I unravel it and move my knife and fork to the side, unfolding my napkin and spreading it on my lap. When I glance down at my hands, I realize just how badly they’re shaking. Then Andrew’s foot finds mine under the table, his shoe tapping into mine. It makes me laugh.
“There she is,” he says. I let out one more breathy laugh, and it mixes with a cry. I choke it down quickly, before he can see.
I rub my hands on my cheeks, thankful when the waitress comes to quickly fill our coffee mugs. I thank her and go to work adding creams and sugars to my cup.
“Wow,” Andrew chuckles. “That might be the unhealthiest cup of coffee I’ve ever seen.”
I nod in agreement.
“I’m a little high strung,” I shrug, blowing over the top of the liquid before attempting a sip. It’s hot, so I set the cup in front of me to let it cool.
“Yeah, I’m sure the seven packs of sugar and liquid fat will totally help calm you down,” he jokes.
“Feed the beast,” I say with a shake of my head.
He chuckles at me, then pulls his arms up to rest his elbows on the table, leaning his face into one hand. His eyes haven’t left me once in the last five minutes.
“I was in Iowa,” he says finally. My eyes lower and my brow pinches as I try to understand. “Not at first, but after…when I got out of Lake Crest. I moved to Iowa with my uncle.”
Every new piece he shares from his life fills these missing gaps in my world of Andrew Harper. Some of the things he says erase what I thought, strike out the story I’d believed and replace it with something sadder. He’s careful when he shares, too—like he’s testing me a little each time to see how I react. I think he’s wondering if I care. He has no idea how much I do.
I care. I care, and it feels so dangerous to let myself, like caring about him could topple over so many other things that lay in the balance. This is how it’s always been with us—our feelings on a teeter-totter.
“When did you move there? To Iowa?” I ask, hoping he says it was only a few weeks after the accident, that he wasn’t at Lake Crest for long. I don’t want my parents to have lied to me.
“Junior year,” he says. His eyes are hard, almost stoic. His foot slides away, and I’m tempted to chase it. Instead, I bring my legs up to the booth, folding them under me.
A test.
“So you were at Lake Crest…for a year?” My eyes sting, but I hold in my cry. My mind races through memories of my mom, how she told me my dad went to look for Andrew, how they were told he was with family in another state. So. Many. Lies.
“Ten months, really. I came home at the end of spring, sophomore year,” he says, pulling one of my empty sugar packets from the center of the table and folding the small paper into a fan pattern.
“Sophomore year,” I repeat. He was home. And he never came to see me. My parents lied. And Andrew gave up too quickly. I shudder in the booth, and I know he sees it. His eyes flinch and his gaze lowers as he continues to study me; he’s waiting to see if I’m pretending. “Why didn’t you visit me? Before you left.”
He shrugs quickly and pushes the small folded paper off to the side, running his palms over the table, clearing the few grains of sugar away that had spilled out.
“You’d moved on,” he says, his eyes moving up to meet mine briefly. I gaze at him, my forehead low, not understanding. His teeth hold on to his top lip for a second. “You never wrote back,” he finally adds.
I breathe in hard, holding my words while our waitress delivers our breakfasts. When she leaves, I let myself move beyond that silent barrier that’s been making everything this morning so difficult, that wall that’s been keeping us both from saying things.
“I never got your letters. Not once. I didn’t know, Andrew. I didn’t know. If I had known…”
He shakes his head, turning his attention to his pancakes, pouring syrup, cutting vigorously, stuffing a bite in his mouth. “It wouldn’t have mattered,” he shrugs.
How can he say that? It would have mattered. I wondered about him, worried about him, wanted to see his face for so long. I wanted his hand in mine when I was scared. I wanted him there—in the hospital when they cut me open.
Feeling brave, I reach over to his side of the table and put my hand on his, stopping him from lifting another bite.
“It would have,” I say, staring at him, begging him to look back at me. He keeps his eyes trained on his plate in front of him, his muscles flexed and his arm still beneath the weight of my hand. I don’t know why he’s so against believing me.
“I drove by your house,” he says, his lips paused open. His eyes finally move up to meet mine. “At the start of our junior year. You were getting r
eady for some dance, your parents were taking pictures. You were wearing this really nice dress. You had a date—some guy who looked like the kind of guy you should be going to a dance with. I’m just a fuck up.”
“Don’t say that,” I swallow.
Our eyes remain on one another.
“Why not?” he asks.
“Because…” I start, not knowing how to explain everything Andrew has been in my life. He vanished, but the mark he left was a forever kind. His sacrifice for me so big, he has no idea how enormous. And now that I know what he went through…
“How many times did you write to me?” I ask instead.
He shakes his head and goes back to his breakfast, shrugging once.
“How many?” I repeat. My voice is more forceful the second time, and maybe a bit desperate.
His lips purse and he puts down his fork, pulling his napkin from the table to wipe his lips. “I don’t know. Twenty maybe. Maybe more.”
I gasp, pushing my plate away, holding my napkin to my mouth to hide my reaction from him.
He sighs, closing his eyes for a second, then he slides from the booth, stepping around to my side where he moves in next to me. My breathing stops with the feel of his body next to mine. And then his arm reaches around me, and everything strong inside collapses as I give in and lean into him to cry.
“I didn’t know,” I say again. It’s all I have to give. I didn’t know. He must hate me.
Andrew doesn’t respond, but the feel of his hand as it cups my shoulder then slides up to reach into my hair, his fingers on the side of my head, threading my hair and sliding it from my instant-tear-strewn face, is enough.
“I didn’t know,” I whisper once more.
The waitress comes after a few minutes, and Andrew reaches into his pocket, pulling out his wallet and sliding a twenty on the table. His arm never leaves its hold around me.
“We’re good. Keep the change,” he says.
She walks away, and he remains in the spot next to me, his breathing slow and regular, his hand tender against me.
“Come on. Let me get you home,” he finally says, his head leaning against mine as he speaks. I nod slowly. When his arm leaves from my body, the air rushes around me. The feel left behind can only be described as sickness.
I feel sick.
Andrew stands at the end of our table, waiting while I slide from the booth to follow behind him.
“Thanks for the breakfast,” I say.
He laughs lightly.
“You didn’t eat a thing. And you didn’t even get to enjoy your fatty-ass coffee,” he says. When I glance up at him, his crooked smile is waiting for me. “I think I owe you one.”
I smirk back, but start to feel the sting of tears again. Andrew steps in to halt them.
“Come on,” he says, running his hand down my arm until he finds my fingers, grasping them tightly. He squeezes just to let me know he’s not letting go, then walks with me next to him, guiding me through the restaurant and back to his car, where he walks to my side to open the door.
“Thought maybe this was one of those times I should open the door for you,” he says. My breath stutters from my body, almost feeling painful. I slide into my seat and let him close the door for me. I watch him rush around to his side, then wait while he starts the engine, buckles his belt and pulls away from the restaurant.
I’m lost in a world of what-ifs and other questions for most of the ride home, and I hardly realize how far we’ve travelled when Andrew wakes me from my trance.
“Who told you I was in Iowa?” he asks nervously. He’s worried about upsetting me more. All this time—these years he must have thought the worst of me—and he’s worried about how I feel now.
“My mom. She said my dad asked your family…” I drift off at the memory. I was in a hospital bed, terrified, wanting everything that ever made me feel secure to be in that room with me as doctors cracked open my chest. The realization of it all weighs on my shoulders, my head feels heavy and my body feels numb. “They lied…my parents…they lied.”
I glance at Andrew, and his hands flex as they grip the steering wheel, his jaw tightening as he swallows. He looks to me, but only briefly before turning back to the road.
“Are your parents still there? In that house? I…haven’t driven by since the last time I saw you.” His eyes rake over me once again, and I wonder what he must have seen. I remember that day—it was homecoming our junior year. My mother had bought me a pink dress that showed my bare shoulders, but covered my chest completely. I had been worried about people seeing my scar. It was the most expensive dress I’d ever owned, but she didn’t care about the price tag. She wanted me to experience something normal and not have to worry about what people saw. I found out about her cancer the day after the dance.
“My dad lives in Woodstock still. He put the house up for sale…after my mom died. But it’s not an easy sale. He’s still there,” I say.
Andrew sinks deep into his seat, his hands running down the wheel to rest at the bottom. He glances out his side window and sighs. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t know.”
“There’s no way you could have,” I say.
The bridge between us is so small and fragile. I hate to say anything more for fear that it will wash it all away. For so long, he was gone. And then he was only a wound—something that left me feeling hopeless. Maybe something I also tried to forget. I didn’t mean to. I think I just had to forget him, or at least hide him from my heart. It wasn’t right—and my heart, it knew he was there all along anyhow. The guilt over what he’d done for me, it was always tempting me, begging me to feel. All it took was seeing him to bring it back to life. And now that I know…now that I know! Right now, thanks to our words, secrets finding the surface—Andrew feels close; I can’t lose him, even what little of him I have.
I’ll take what little I have, whatever he’ll give.
We pull up in front of my building, and my shoulders sag from the weight of everything else I wish I had the courage to say. I want more time—more mornings like this one. I want to travel back five years ago and fix things. I want to have known the truth then, to have gotten to decide for myself. And I want Lindsey not to be tangled in with our story. She is, and because she is, I’m slightly paralyzed. But my heart…it’s still reeling after his words. And at the very least, there are some things he deserves to know…things he deserves to hear.
“Thank you for the ride,” I say, grabbing my purse, clutching it to my chest. Be brave, Emma. Be brave. My heart is pounding underneath my grip. I close my eyes tightly, willing myself to get one thing out—to be raw and honest just once. “And thank you for what you did for me, Andrew—that night, for taking my place. You saved my life. You’ll never know, and I’m so sorry that I didn’t know, and I’m so angry right now that I can’t even think clearly. But…just…you were always my angel. Just please know that. There hasn’t been a night that’s passed that I haven’t wished for you to show up at my window just so I could tell you that,” I say, my words falling out fast, my lips quivering, my hands shaking, my body sweating and flushed.
Somewhere in the middle of everything, I start to cry. My cheeks burn with embarrassment, and I blow air out through my lips, trying to regain my center, my world tilting just from the way he looks sitting there. I want him to look at me. I want him to tell me it’s okay, that what he went through wasn’t so bad. But he can’t, because that would be a lie. Nothing is okay. None of what happened is all right—and Andrew is ruined because of it…because of me! My selfishness ruined him. My broken heart broke his—and I have to live with that.
“I just need you to know that one thing,” I speak, my voice strained as I try to hold the meltdown that is seconds away at bay. “And I’m sorry if I didn’t say it well or if I sound crazy right now. I think maybe I might be a little.” I laugh and cry at the same time, my eyes falling closed. I’m losing it—cracking up. “I can’t even look at you, I’m so embarrassed and scar
ed, but…okay. Yeah. Just…you.” I pause, breathing in deeply, looking down into my own hands that are clinging to each other. “Andrew, everything would have been different. I swear.”
I glance up at him once before I pull the door handle and push the door open. His eyes are intent on his knuckles, and his grip in front of him is tight, his hands wringing on the leather of his steering wheel. He nods once slowly, but doesn’t turn to face me.
I don’t know if this is still him testing me, to see how far I’ll go, how many speeches I’ll make. I don’t have anything left, though. This was all I had. And the fact that it might not be enough, that Andrew will still hate me, resent me—it feels so unbelievably unfair. Yet when I think of what he went through, it doesn’t seem my punishment is harsh enough.
My feet are shaky on the ground as I step from his car, and I walk around the back because I can’t bare the thought of him seeing me pass in front of him. I’m afraid I might fall. My face feels red, and the only thing I can think about is how I’m going to get the courage to ask my father why he lied to me, why Mom lied. My legs are tingling with energy, and I feel like I do when I dream—when my limbs want to run, but somehow they just can’t.
One foot in front of the next, I watch the ground before me, not realizing that Andrew hasn’t pulled away. I don’t look back, and I don’t see him coming, but his hand soon glides up my back, startling me. I gasp as I turn quickly, dropping my purse at my feet, my phone sliding from it, my lipstick rolling down the walkway into the dead grass, my medicine rolling next to it. I move on instinct to pick everything up, but Andrew’s hands find my face quickly, his thumbs on my cheeks, his palms cupping my face. Soon his forehead is on mine, and he’s breathing hard.
“Andrew,” I whisper, my hands clutching the sides of his shirt. My eyes flutter closed as our heads rest together. He licks his lips once, grimacing from pain, his bruises still apparent and his wounds still fresh. His mouth opens in a hard breath.