What Once Was Perfect

by Zoe York

  She didn’t return to the couch until after dinner. Claire and Evie arrived home at the same time, and the afternoon swept by in a flurry of outdoor fun, indoor decorating and holiday baking. Laney didn’t have a chance to talk to her mother about the meddling earlier, and as she sank into the soft cushions, wrapped once again in the afghan, she no longer felt the urgency. A day with Connor and Max was more exhausting than a 24-hour shift at the hospital.

  Evie walked into the family room from the kitchen carrying two steaming mugs. “Chamomile tea? You look zonked.”

  Laney nodded and waved her hand at the coffee table. “Put it there, I’m too tired to even hold the cup right now. Your kids are full-on.”

  Evie giggled. “I know, right? They keep me on my toes.”

  “Mom putting them to bed?”

  “Yep. She’s a godsend.”

  “For you, maybe.”

  “What? Oh no, what did she do?”

  Laney groaned, pushed herself into a sitting position, and reached for her tea. “She got Kyle to drive the tractor across the road today.”

  She expected shock or dismay, but Evie just pursed her lips.

  “Come on, that was inappropriate.”

  Evie shook her head. “No, I get it. You’ve got stuff there you need to work through, and it’s not happening if you pretend he doesn’t exist.”

  Laney gaped at her sister. Traitor. “There’s nothing to work through. He’s an ex-boyfriend. It’s awkward because it didn’t end amicably. I’ve learned my lesson.”

  “Avoidance isn’t resolution.”

  “It’s been twelve years, our relationship is most definitely resolved.”

  “So you’ve moved on, healed your heart, fallen in love again?”

  “Love is overrated.” Laney willed herself to stay calm. “I’ve moved on and found satisfying relationships, yes.”

  “Really?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Tell me about your boyfriends.”

  Laney wrinkled her nose.

  “See? You don’t even like the word.”

  They were interrupted just then by footsteps coming down the stairs, but Laney didn’t feel any relief. Evie on her own was one thing, but her sister and mother together would put on the full-court press. She thought of Kyle’s invitation. Should she stop in and visit? She didn’t agree that there was anything left to talk about, but she could acknowledge that it probably wasn’t healthy to be tense about a college boyfriend more than a decade later.

  “Anyone want some cookies?” Claire hovered in the doorway.

  Laney kept her eyes trained on her lap, watching her fingers worry the loose knit of the afghan. She didn’t want to catch her mother’s eyes just yet, didn’t want to invite her into a conversation Laney herself would prefer to get out of before it went any further. She didn’t want to be rude, though, and snack prep would buy a few more minutes. “Mmmm. Yes, please. Thanks, Mom.”

  Evie waved their mother off and scooted to the edge of her seat, leaning toward Laney.

  “You can’t tell me that you want to be alone forever.”

  That pulled her up short. The last time she had used that word, she had been lying in Kyle’s bed. The decade in between faded away and she stood in the tiny one-bedroom apartment in Windsor, watching her younger self unwind naked limbs from Kyle’s lean frame.

  “This is perfect. I’d like to stay in this moment forever.”

  “You could stay forever. You could marry me.”

  “You know I need to go to Harvard. It’s just for a year.”

  “You could stay and do your master’s degree here.”

  “And what if that’s not enough? What if I don’t get into medical school again? This is Harvard, Kyle. A once in a lifetime opportunity. I have to go.”

  “What about us?”

  “You could come with me.”

  “I just got hired at the school board, you know I can’t leave.”

  “Then I’ll be home on holidays, and you can come visit me at March Break. You’ll be able to concentrate on teaching, and then we’ll be reunited for good next summer.”

  “And then you’ll marry me.”

  “And then I’ll marry you.”

  She hadn’t told Evie that they were going to get married. Kyle had never officially proposed or given her a ring, and two weeks after that conversation, he abruptly broke up with her, telling Laney that a year apart was too much to ask. She had been devastated, and when it came time to apply to medical schools the following year, she only chose universities out of the province.

  “Hey, where’d you go?” Evie waved a hand in front of Laney’s face.

  She blinked hard and shook her head. “Sorry, I’m more tired than I thought.”

  Her sister raised an eyebrow, but sat back in her chair and didn’t say anything else until their mother brought in a plate of chewy ginger molasses cookies. “Mom, I was thinking that I should take the boys into the city tomorrow to do a bit of last-minute shopping, do you want to come along?”

  Claire looked at Laney and hesitated.

  “Go with them, Mom. I’ll catch up on some sleep. I have a bit of work to do too, I’ll get that out of the way and then we’ll have an entire week without any distractions.”

  Claire nodded and took a cookie. She might want to meddle, but for whatever reason she was giving that a pass tonight and Laney decided not to tempt fate. She gave her mom a tight squeeze, stole a cookie and plodded off to bed.

  Chapter Three

  Kyle stepped into line behind Mrs. Wilkins and piled his groceries on the conveyor belt. He hadn’t slept well. Next stop was the coffee shop.

  “Hello, Kyle. School’s out now?”

  “Mrs. Wilkins. Yes, the kids are off until after New Year’s.” He edged forward in line and nodded at the cashier. “Hey, Karen.”

  “Hey to you too. Did you hear that Laney’s in town for the holidays?”

  He rocked back on his heels. He didn’t want to talk about Laney. He wouldn’t mind talking to her, but he didn’t want to contribute to idle chatter.

  “Is that why you’re buying fruits and vegetables?” Mrs. Wilkins ever so helpfully offered.

  Kyle looked down at his purchases. Strawberries, croissants, lettuce, balsamic vinegar, a baguette, olives, whipping cream and a bag of two-bite brownies. He furrowed his brow. “I eat vegetables.”

  Karen pointed out that he usually bought apples and cucumbers, and she didn’t remember him ever buying fancy vinegar. Kyle decided he might go straight home and make himself coffee there instead of risking further appraisal by the amateur detectives of Wardham.

  “Just ring it up.”

  “Touchy, touchy,” Karen said. “So I can’t ask you about dropping off the tractor?”

  “Jesus Chr—”

  “Kyle Nixon!” Mrs. Wilson had moved toward the door with her groceries tucked into a basket on wheels, but she whirled around with surprising speed and wagged her index finger.

  “Watch your language, young man, or I’ll report you to the principal.”

  Kyle couldn’t help but laugh. “Yes ma’am, my apologies.”

  Karen gave him a wry smile, but returned to scanning and bagging. Saved by the wrath of a senior citizen.

  As he drove away from the store in his pickup truck, he considered his grocery choices. He honestly had just wandered the store, thinking with his stomach, but maybe a small part of him hoped that at some point over the next few days, he might get to cook Laney a meal. He wanted a chance to apologize to her. He’d been thinking about her a fair bit over the last two years, and had come to the painful realization that he had broken her heart. For years, he’d believed it was the other way around, that she’d left him and never looked back.

  After moving to the old school house the previous summer, Kyle had started running into Claire with regular frequency. At Ted’s annual Labour Day picnic, he made the mistake of referring to her as the mother of the woman who broke his heart, and that
opened the mama bear floodgates. Kyle had stood in Ted’s yard while tiny Claire Calhoun, with her perfect silver blond bob and disarmingly pleasant smile, poked her index finger into his solar plexus and told him that better be the only time he’d ever said that awful lie. When he turned red and scuffed his foot on the ground, she reached up, took firm hold of his chin and stared him in the eye with a fierceness he would never forget. “Kyle Nixon, you better make sure that everyone in this town thinks the best of my daughter. You hear me? I like you, but I won’t hesitate to tell the parents at your school that you used to sneak into my house in the middle of the night to take advantage of Laney.”

  It had taken everything in him to nod instead of smirk. Kyle doubted that anyone would care that he’d slept with his college girlfriend a million years ago, but there was a kernel of truth in what Claire said. He was only a year older, but he had been the more experienced between them. He was Laney’s first. She’d wanted him to be her only, and he had promised her the moon to get in her pants.

  He hadn’t lied about loving her, wanting to marry her, being together forever, but in the end, that hadn’t been enough. He’d thought it was just a break, but when she didn’t come home the next summer, and then went east for medical school, he knew the split was permanent, and he forgot that he was the one responsible. It took him a long time to move on. He dated casually for a few years, pretending to enjoy his bachelorhood. Actually, he had enjoyed sowing his wild oats, and he made some good friends, but every summer he was reminded of that too-short season when he finally had Laney before he lost her again. Every fall he’d slowly get back into the routine, only to spend Christmas hoping to run into her, wondering if she was at the farm. For five years his life was stuck in a holding pattern. When he heard she was moving from Halifax to Calgary, he crawled into a bottle of Jack Daniels, and almost went home with a blond whose eyes weren’t quite the same shade of ice blue, but close enough to pretend. When he called her Laney and got slapped for the mistake, something snapped into place. That wasn’t who he was or what he wanted.

  Another five years went by before he saw Laney at her father’s funeral, and his world tipped upside down again.

  Laney stood on the porch outside the kitchen door, watching as her family headed off to do their last minute shopping. She could have gone with them after all, because she’d woken early and had already submitted her blog posts for the upcoming week and scheduled a few tweets about the children who would benefit from the New Year’s Eve gala, but after the non-stop chatter about Lego and video games over breakfast, she decided to stick with her original plan. Remembering the bag of presents she’d left in her car the day before, she moved down the steps. The snow crunched under her feet, bright white under the clear winter sky. She pressed a button on her key fob and the car doors unlocked with a loud click. She paused for a moment, taking in the utter stillness of winter farm life. It pleased her. Chicago was always so busy. Noisy.

  Maybe she needed to buy a cottage.

  As she gazed across the front forty acres, a silver pickup truck pulled up to the old school house. She stopped and watched as Kyle hopped out. He was 300 yards away, but she knew it was him. He started toward the house, but then stopped and turned. Was he looking at her? Could he see her if she didn’t move? She raised her hand to give a tentative wave. It took a moment, but he waved back, then went inside.

  She did the same. Her heart was racing and she knew her face was flushed. She shoved the presents under the Christmas tree and paced to the kitchen. She looked at the door. Her keys were hanging on a hook between the door and the window. A lump formed in her throat. What was she thinking? Good lord, what was she feeling? She wanted to see him again, up close this time. She shivered as raw desire rolled through her body. The open invitation to go over and be with him, just for a little while, was irresistible. She was nineteen again, making excuses to spend time with her sister’s friends, desperate to feel the prickly sensation of his very nearness.

  Don’t do this. You’re just going to get hurt. She stood there for a few minutes, having an internal battle royale. Going over to his house would open Pandora’s box. Didn’t Evie flip that latch already? If she was honest, it wasn’t Evie’s fault. The conversation with Rick had played over and over in her head on the drive from Chicago. Since when was she so cavalier with other people’s feelings? She might not like emotions herself, but they were important to others. Maybe she did need to talk to Kyle, figure out why she felt so much about him and not enough about others. Find some balance, or at the very least, closure.

  Mind made up, heart pounding, she grabbed her keys and headed out the door before she lost her courage.

  Kyle put the groceries away and started a pot of coffee. It had taken all of his self-control not to jump back in the truck after that tentative wave. He had to wait until she was ready to talk. If she wanted to, she’d come to him. The crunch of tires on snow caused something deep in his gut to clench and he moved to the front door, narrowly beating Buddy. The border collie knew better than to bark, but he seemed to think it was his responsibility to screen all visitors. Kyle had come to love that about his furry roommate, but this particular guest he wanted all to himself. He snapped his fingers and pointed to the dog bed next to the wood stove.

  Her footsteps stopped outside the entrance. He wouldn’t let her chicken out. If she turned and walked away, he’d open the door, but he wanted her to be brave and knock. It took long enough that he knew she was nervous, but finally, two short taps announced her presence. He let out a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and opened the door with a welcoming smile.

  “Hey...” Laney trailed off, glancing over her shoulder. “I saw you come home.”

  He nodded. “Want to come in?”

  “Sure. Thanks.” She stepped inside and took a tentative look around.

  “Have you ever been in here before? It’s a bit of a work in progress. I’m doing most of it myself, so it’s slow going.”

  “Once, as a teenager. It had been standing empty for a while at that point. It’s nice, I like what you’ve done.” She wrapped her arms around herself. Was she cold, or nervous? Probably both.

  Kyle stepped back to both gesture to the new kitchen space behind him, and to give her some room. “Do you want some coffee?” She nodded. “I just put on a pot.”

  Laney followed him into the open concept kitchen he had installed in one corner of the large open room. The refinished hardwood floors connected it to the rest of the space, but the dark espresso cabinets, granite countertops and stainless steel appliances stood out. He knew it was impressive, and he wasn’t above strutting a bit for the girl who left Wardham to find success.

  He turned to ask if she still took her coffee with lots of milk and sugar, but the words caught in his throat. Laney had shrugged off her coat and boots, and she was standing in his kitchen, looking at the photos stuck to the side of his refrigerator. She wore white socks, black yoga pants and an oversized white sweater which had slipped off one shoulder, revealing a thin elastic camisole strap. She looked perfectly at home, like they’d just had breakfast and were about to curl up on the couch and read together. Longing shot through Kyle’s gut before he could brace himself against it. His roving gaze halted at the creamy expanse of skin between her shoulder and delicate jaw, his eyes devouring the shadow beneath her chin, the hollow at the base of her neck, the faint blue blood vessels tracing across the top of her chest. Her skin there was nearly translucent, and his fingers itched, remembering the bounce of her pulse, how warm and responsive she was under his touch.

  No good would come of wanting her. But it couldn’t be helped.

  Chapter Four

  Laney didn’t know who most of the people in the photographs were, but she stood there looking at them because she wasn’t ready to look at Kyle yet. She hadn’t expected his house to be such a home. For him to be so settled. So happy. When she wasn’t, not really. She was satisfied with her life, and she loved her job, but t
here was still something missing. She hadn’t made many friends yet in Chicago, something she would have to work on in the spring. She licked her lips and re-focused on the photos. She recognized Kyle’s older brother Ian in a few of them, with a beautiful redhead and two small children. Other photos featured similar young families, probably friends Kyle had made after college. The top row of pictures featured his parents and younger sister. The middle photograph was larger than the others, and it looked like something out of a magazine.

  “That’s a nice picture of your whole family,” Laney said quietly, keeping her eyes glued to the fridge. The other photos overlapped it slightly, but she could tell there was a brunette standing next to Kyle and faint jealousy pulsed in her chest.

  The floor squeaked as he took a step toward her. “My mom hired a professional photographer to come out to their farm. That was two and a half years ago.”

  Another step. She turned enough to acknowledge his presence while still avoiding his gaze. He’d placed special emphasis on how old the photograph was. But yet here it was, on his fridge. She let her eyelids drift close for a moment. It was none of her business.

  She felt the warmth of his fingers before they grazed the outside of her fist. The touch was brief and functional in nature, although her central nervous system didn’t seem to get that message. She covered an unconscious sigh of pleasure with a polite smile and accepted the proffered mug of coffee from his other hand.

  She sipped the sweet, hot liquid. She didn’t put sugar in her coffee anymore, and the punch of nostalgia was more than she could bear. A single tear slipped down her cheek and she pinched her eyes closed, furious at herself.

  He didn’t say anything, turning instead to get himself a cup, when they were interrupted by a quiet whine from the living room. She jerked her head, and Kyle laughed as the whine was followed by a thump. “Buddy’s been pretty patient, but I think he wants to meet you.” He raised his voice slightly. “Okay, come here.”