So many years, it felt like forever.
God, thank you.
His finger slid down my arm, and my skin went from almost too warm to instantly chilled as I fought goosebumps.
“Look at me,” he whispered.
I’d spent so many hours, days, months, trying to pretend that I didn’t care for Cody. The thought of having it out in the open was slightly terrifying.
Still, I turned to meet his gaze, those hazel eyes slowly caressing my face as they drifted over me. The truck shifted beneath me as he moved closer, inching toward me until our thighs were touching on the tailgate.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
The question had come out of my mouth without much thought, and as soon as it slipped forth, I wished I had sucked it back in. What did it matter now why he hadn’t said anything? He had finally come around, and I should have been grateful.
“You’ve always been too good for me,” he said, a smile breaking onto his face. “Even so, I could see it in your eyes today, that you feel the same way I do.”
Nodding, I swallowed as I sensed him moving toward me. His eyes drifted closed, and I knew he was going to kiss me before his mouth hesitantly touched mine. The first thing I noticed was that his lips were warm, making me feel numb all the way down to my toes. All I desired was to wrap my arms around his neck and melt against him the way I’d imagined a million times. Unable to make myself move, though, I simply sat there allowing him to kiss me.
After so many years, I’d grown accustomed to the patience required every day, but Cody must not have felt the same. In no time at all, the kiss that had begun tentatively grew eager, and he pressed up against me, attempting to draw me closer while at the same time holding me at arm’s length. An agitated sigh escaped his lips, but that didn’t stop the kiss. He deepened it instead, and although I thoroughly relished my very first such experience—that I had been saving exclusively for Cody from the time I was thirteen years old—part of me thought he might swallow me whole.
But I let him continue to kiss me, wrapping my fingers around the top of his arm where his T-shirt sleeve met his skin. Content to be touching Cody while his fingers pressed against my back, not bothering to pause to breathe.
I have no idea how long Cody kissed me, but I know it was long enough that my mouth felt bruised and I could feel myself almost gasping for breath when he pulled away. I’d seen these moments on movies, and I mentally ran through what would happen next. Maybe he’d drop his forehead against mine, or cup my cheek with his hand. I love you, Alexis. Because of course he did. We were meant to be together.
Instead, he let out a deep breath, as though he’d just sprinted and was trying to get a second wind. And then he started talking about his brother’s new car.
I drop my forehead to my hands at the top of the steering wheel, wishing I could somehow make the memory a little less hollow. Make it hurt a little less fiercely. Shouldn’t it be less numbing after all these years?
But I can’t seem to stop the replay from continuing in my mind. How he had started talking nonchalantly about unimportant things…a graduation party, his dog’s propensity to leave the fence, a sports banquet for the football team. It wasn’t until he casually mentioned the prom the following weekend that my entire world came crashing down.
Oh, he couldn’t take me—I knew that, didn’t I? Because he had already asked Vivian a couple months before and she had a dress and everything. It wouldn’t be fair to her to cancel, really. And besides, it wouldn’t end well between the two of us. Not that I was irrational or crazy or what-have-you, but just because…
“Well, darn it, Alexis, it’s prom, you know? I have expectations about how the night’s going to end.”
And I remember exactly the way it felt when my heart sank to the pit below my chest, farther than I had ever felt it reach before in my life. The moment Cody rejected me, not because he didn’t have feelings for me, or because I somehow didn’t measure up to his expectations.
I was too good for him.
No, not too good for him—too “good” for him.
From the minute I’d been able to consciously do so, I’d been saving every single “first” I would ever have for Cody, praying he’d do the same for me. And even though I knew some of those things had long since passed on his part, I’d still kept my end of the bargain.
But at that moment, on the tailgate of his pickup, I was quite sure he would find the entire situation funny. Alexis Jennings—eighteen years old, just weeks away from graduation, experiencing her first kiss with a guy who…
Well, who had expectations, and not with me. Goody-two-shoes Alexis, who never did anything wrong and surely wouldn’t give him what he wanted.
Of course Dierks chooses this moment to come across the radio speakers once again, how could he not? While I’m sitting in the same spot where every dream I ever had almost came true, but ultimately came crashing down around me in shambles.
“Every Mile a Memory,” this hollowed out spot on the side of the gravel road perfectly content for me to sit here thinking about Cody. Perfectly content to allow me to pour out my tears on the steering wheel of my car on Thanksgiving night, thinking about all the ways my life has turned out wrong.
Chapter Twelve
Alexis
There are some things that you have to become acclimated to in the mornings—bright light from the sun, the loud noise of your alarm, having a child pounce on you before you’re fully awake, a cold bathroom before you step into the shower.
And then there’s the cheerfulness of Gump. Er, Dad. I’ve never been able to acclimate to that, no matter how I’ve tried.
This morning he’s decided that he’s a canary. Or maybe a screech owl. In either case, he’s singing along to the radio like he deserves an audition on reality television.
Of course Bailey thinks he’s the absolute end-all. I’m almost regretting the fact that we came home, because taking her back to Louisville is going to be such a nightmare now that she’s had her Gump fix.
True, I probably wouldn’t be quite as irritable this morning if I hadn’t been out until one in the morning, and if my eyes weren’t sore and puffy from the ridiculous crying. Still, when Dad sings “Stop! In the Name of Love” at the top of his lungs it’s difficult for me not to ask him to stop in the name of everything holy. It is seven o’clock in the morning, after all.
“How about pumpkin pie for breakfast?” he asks, leaning down to where Bailey sits at the table. When she raises her eyebrows, he gives her a sly grin. “Nan will never know.”
“Nan’s right behind you,” Mom corrects. She’s wearing a pair of red flannel pajamas with tiny pink stripes down the leg, but somehow the woman looks put together. And her hair looks brushed.
Probably because she brushed it, Alexis.
Self-consciously straightening the hasty bun I fixed on top of my head with my own mess of uncombed hair, I wordlessly reach for the pumpkin pie. No one even seems to notice until I press the button on the can of whipped topping, when the hiss-spraying sound emits and suddenly all eyes swivel to my plate.
Yes, I’m eating half a can of whipped topping, people. Get over it.
“Was the shopping that bad?” Mom asks with a tinkling laugh, looking ten years younger than her actual age. Her caramel waves reach just past her shoulders, and they fall exactly like those big curls the girls used to go for back in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Combine that with her trim figure and her poise, and she’s very old Hollywood glamour. If she ever tried to be glamorous, that is.
“Don’t ask,” I mumble as I slip a giant spoonful of whipped cream into my mouth. Bailey smiles at me, so I give her a goofy grin before I lick the corner of my lips to be sure I’m not a mess.
“It’s a full two-spooner, Crystal,” Dad says in a nasal-sounding voice, following that by making a siren noise with his mouth. Bailey claps at that one, clearly thrilled that my father is making fun of me. I can’t help but smile myself as he stares
at me, nerdy-handsome with his dark goatee that has a couple smatterings of gray. He’s always had glasses since I can remember, and has been thin as a rail, although he has a teensy bit of a paunch around his waist now. Probably from eating pizza constantly at work.
Mom steps up beside him, and he places an arm around her waist, where they stare at me like a couple of Stepford parents. Their coloring is such that they could be siblings themselves—same hair, brown eyes. If it weren’t for the fact that I look similar to them, I’m fairly certain I would be that odd kid that doesn’t fit in.
No, that would be Heather. Heather is the shooting star trying to resist being put into a box.
Rather than think about it too closely, I shove a bite of the pie into my mouth. It’s creamy and cold from the refrigerator, and covered with entirely too much whipped topping. Perhaps I was a little too overzealous there.
“Are you girls going to put up the tree today?” Mom wonders, gazing lovingly at Bailey.
The pie turns to a rock in my stomach. As though I wanted to come to Tennessee to sit in my parents’ house alone putting up their tree while they’re at work. We’re alone enough in Kentucky as it is.
She must sense my sour response, because she pulls away from Dad to pour herself a cup of coffee. “Maybe Sadie could come over,” she suggests.
Sure, maybe Sadie can come over here and strip me bare of pretense. The girl is like an emotional bullwhip.
“Yeah, Mom, we’ll wrestle with your tree,” I agree, hoping she’ll leave Sadie out of it. I’m feeling vulnerable enough as it is. “You think we can do that, Bailey?”
“Wrestle?” Bailey wrinkles her nose, looking to Nan for confirmation that I’m crazy. Silly me, I thought we had made a little progress in the last month or so. But no, here she is still looking to Nan and Gump as her parents and I’m just the placeholder until she gets back to them.
Or maybe I’m just oversensitive and in a bad mood.
Before any more of the tree trimming plans can be dissected, Dad begins singing “Jingle Bells,” and I go back to my pie as though a four-hundred calorie dessert is going to solve all my emotional hiccups.
Just as I expected, Bailey gave up on the tree about ten minutes after I pulled it from the box. Plumping branches and strategically placing them on the metal pole isn’t exactly her forte. Once I get to the actual decorating process, she might be full in, but that’s going to take a while.
Black Friday. Bleak Friday is more like it, although it wouldn’t be obvious from the sounds in the living room. Bailey’s watching some old Bugs Bunny cartoons my parents had in the closet, and the Road Runner’s meep greets me as I pluck another branch from the box and give it a shake to remove the dust.
When Dad left this morning, he told me I could bring Bailey by to get some pizza at lunch if I wanted. I shrugged it off and said we might be by if we finished the tree, but the truth is, I don’t want to visit Dad at work. Don’t really feel like I could without feeling like I completely, utterly failed him, and this bleak Friday is bad enough as it is.
Reaching into the box, I pull out the top of the tree, my eyes focusing on the folded paper at the bottom. Gold lettering accompanies a picture of a red poinsettia, the word “rejoice” written at the top. Dragging it up from its current position, I flip it over to look at the back. In bold black letters, there’s the name of the church that was home away from home for so many years. Directly underneath: Nick Jennings, Pastor.
Had it been sitting there last year, too? Did we not notice it, or did someone see it and prefer to leave it there for the nostalgia?
The morning slice of pie threatens to revolt in my stomach, so I sit on the couch and take a deep breath. Bailey is still engrossed in Wile E. Coyote and has no concern for what her mother is doing. Probably best, because my throat instantly chokes up as I fight back tears.
They hadn’t known I was there. Had they known they never would have said a word. Well, not to my face, anyway. They would have waited until I had turned my back like proper gossips. Dad wasn’t aware of my presence, either. I had entered by way of the back door by his office, bringing him some papers that he left at home.
“…can’t have that kind of thing here, and you know it,” I heard as I started to come around the corner. Pulling up short, I pressed my back against the wall. The voice wasn’t immediately recognizable, but I narrowed it down to one of three women who pulled rank among the parishioners.
“You can’t expect me to—”
“There should have been a wedding by now, Pastor. It’s not right her being here without…well, it’s not right.”
Dad’s heavy sigh, audible from such a distance and from my hidden spot, pierced my heart.
“I’ve already told you, there will be no wedding.”
“She must do what’s right.”
“It’s not that simple.”
Male ramblings mingled with the angry female voices, one rising above the others. “She doesn’t know who the father is?”
“Of course she does. You’re talking about my daughter!”
“And because she is your daughter, she directly reflects on all of us. I for one won’t have people thinking—”
“That you’re able to love someone who is a part of this family? That you have compassion?”
“This isn’t about us, this is about her. We can’t have her promiscuity influencing the rest of our young women. I have a daughter of my own, Pastor.”
“Then you of all people should—”
“What will she do with the baby?”
“What will she…” Dad’s mumbles faded out of my earshot, until his voice rose again. “…my grandchild!”
“And I’m aware of that, but that doesn’t mean—”
“We’ve already had a board meeting about this, Pastor.”
Their words continued as I threw the papers on my dad’s desk and escaped out the back door, standing on the concrete slab just beyond the building with my hand against my abdomen, feeling the fluttery kicks of the baby inside me. Bailey. I hadn’t even known she was a girl at the time.
And Dad didn’t say a word about it. From that point forward, I never stepped foot inside those doors. Every week I had an excuse, and somehow Dad clung to his position there until Bailey was eighteen months old. Tried so hard to love them even after they pretended I didn’t exist. After they discovered Jake’s identity and trashed him from one end of town to the other, mercilessly and with no regard for our family in the process.
Or for his. Does he even have a family?
“Knock, knock.”
Sadie’s familiar voice pulls me back from the edge of that emotional precipice. Tossing the folded bulletin back into the box, I hastily rise, my T-shirt catching underneath my elbow and drifting over my belly button. I jerk it back down as fast as possible, camouflaging the extra three pounds that I’ve never been able to dispose of since Bailey’s arrival.
I wouldn’t dare mention that to Sadie. She gained a solid thirty when she had Jonah and is still hanging onto it, so I’m pretty sure she would tell me to cry her a river. Or worse.
“Ooh, you’re still in the building the tree stage. Maybe I’ll come back later.” Sadie drops her purse onto the couch and swings Bailey up in the air, sending her into a fit of giggles. “Sweet Bailey Nicole. You’ve missed me, haven’t you darling? Or was it only my Jonah? Do you still love him?”
“No!” Bailey screams before Sadie flips her upside down, sneaking her fingers across Bailey’s stomach as she squeals.
“Girlie, you know you want to marry him.” She places Bailey back on the couch and leans down to drop a kiss on her forehead, which Bailey promptly wipes away just to get a rise from Sadie. The Looney Tunes music begins again, though, and Sadie can’t compete as Bailey cranes her neck to see the television.
“Bailey thinks I’m boring,” Sadie decides, taking a couple steps toward me. She’s clothed her form today in a Christmas sweater that boasts a brown bear wearing a green ho
lly vest and waving a candy cane in the air. Logic informs me that it’s a jolly holiday joke, but I’m just unsure enough about it that I’m afraid to laugh.
“Three-year-olds are always correct,” I inform her with as dry a voice as I can muster.
“How can she think I’m boring when I’m wearing this delightfully tacky Christmas sweater?” She grabs the bottom of her garment and spins slowly in a circle so I get the full effect. “Jonah dared me to wear it.”
“The kid clearly hates you. Where is he anyway?”
“Still with my mom. They left out this morning right after I woke up, since I was with Heather until the crack of dawn. Thanks for leaving me alone with her, by the way. I feel like I’ve sprinted a couple of marathons.” Without saying a word about my shorter-than-her stature, Sadie plucks the small bundle of fake branches from my hands and settles it at the top of the tree with ease. “Speaking of sprinting, what was the deal with you last night? And yesterday at dinner, for that matter. You still letting him get to you?”
My mind immediately flashes to sitting in the Mitsubishi on that gravel road crying last night.
“I know it makes me a loser, but I really can’t help myself sometimes.” Giving up on the tree, I sink to the loveseat and inspect my fingers. “It’s not that I want to think about him, but he’ll just suddenly be there, firmly planted in my mind like there’s an extension of my brain that lives in the past.”
“Totally understandable.” Sadie sits next to me, the odd packed-in-storage smell of her Christmas sweater assaulting my senses. “If I were in your shoes I’d probably feel the same way. It doesn’t make you a loser.”
“Okay, that only convinces me that you don’t see the severity of the problem. And will you please remove that sweater? I can’t have a normal conversation with you.”
She gives me a look that indicates she isn’t exactly pleased, but she unzips the front of her Christmas bear cardigan and pulls at the sleeves. The fact that she is wearing a hot pink tank top with a crown in the center declaring herself a princess doesn’t exactly make matters much easier.
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