3
Meade Lake is only about a two-hour drive across the Maryland border from Kelford, yet it feels like I’ve been driving for days. As I pull into the little town, I’m hit with this wave of unsettling familiarity. I haven’t been here since I was seventeen, but we came here so much as kids that I know the lay of the land like the back of my hand.
Ten years. That’s how long my family vacationed here in Meade Lake. My parents found a beautiful log house right on the water when I was seven years old, and they couldn’t walk away. They bought it, added a boat slip, and we started coming to boat in the summers and ski in the winters—until that last summer, when I was seventeen. My dad signed a contract with a local rental company and rented it out every chance he got. My family hasn’t been back here since, and honestly, if the house didn’t bring in such decent income from the renters, I’m sure my parents would have sold it by now. But today, I’m not going to our house—at least, not first.
I’m driving down the highway, crossing over the bridge, Meade Lake moving beneath me.
I drive a few more miles until I see the big wooden sign, the one he’d lifted me up onto the first night he told me he loved me.
This chill runs down my spine as I hit my blinker and make the right turn onto Big Moon Drive. I know this backwoods road scarily well. I remember how many times I kissed his neck while he drove and how guilty I felt for potentially causing any sort of distracted driving after… after everything.
At the end of the road, I reach the court where three of the houses sit. I look to the right, and I see it: the little cabin where he had lived with his aunt. The cabin he brought me back to the first summer I met her. The same cabin I surprised him at when she was away on a trip...
My heart’s thudding in my chest, and I’m almost angry at myself for the physical reaction I’m allowing these memories to have on me.
I pull up and park in the street in front of the cabin, in case I need to make a quick getaway. I hear blood rushing through my ears, and I feel my own heartbeat, but that’s it. Everything else feels numb. I’m about to see Ryder Casey.
I walk slowly up the front path. There’s a beat-up Ford pickup truck in the driveway, and I know it’s his. I raise my fist, take a breath, and knock on the door gently. I wait a painful three seconds then knock again. I scoot a bit to the right, peeking through the window on the side of the door, but I don’t see anything or anyone. I knock one more time. Surprisingly, I don’t feel relief. I actually think I feel a little disappointment.
“Oh, he’s not home, miss,” I hear someone say. I whip around to see a strikingly handsome black man, probably around my age, carrying a few big planks of wood down the driveway. Holy shit.
“Derrick?” I ask. He nods then narrows his eyes at me, trying to figure out who I am. Then, his eyebrows shoot up as he drops the planks and runs to me, lifting me up and spinning me around before I can even react. I squeeze him back. It’s good to see him. It’s been...well, the same amount of time since I’ve seen Ryder. He’s been Ryder’s best friend since they were in middle school and was with us on a lot of our journeys up here in Meade Lake.
“Girl, what are you doing here?” he asks, finally putting me down. “Damn, it’s good to see you!”
I smile up at him. He’s tall—really tall. He’s bigger and broader than I remember but still with that same boyish smile.
“I’m just...I’m going through some things right now, and, uh...I came to talk to Ryder, I guess.”
Derrick stares at me and nods. He knows everything. He was there. He knows the history. And he knows not to ask any more.
“He’s covering at Lou’s in town; they’re down a bartender today,” he says.
“He works at Lou’s now?” I ask. Derrick smiles and nods.
“Among other things. I’m actually headed up to the bar myself. Do you want to follow me up there?”
I think for a second then nod.
“Sure, thanks,” I say and head down to my car. All the while, I’m reminding myself that I can back out at any time. I can get there and turn right back around if I want to.
Derrick also drives a pickup truck, although, his looks to be in better shape than the one parked in Ryder’s driveway. He leads me back down Big Moon Drive, onto the main highway, and in toward town. Finally, we turn into a parking lot where a small building sits. A big sign reads LOU’S LAKESIDE GRILLE. I haven’t been here in so long, but I can still remember how crunchy the beer-batter fries are and how juicy the burgers are. I take a breath as I pull into the spot next to Derrick. I turn to my right and expect him to be waiting for me, but to my surprise, he hops out of his truck and trots inside, leaving me in the dust.
I follow behind him, my hand on the restaurant door. This is it. I take one more breath and push it open.
The room is dimly lit, but string lights light up a stage in the corner of the room. There’s a huge bar in the center of everything, and servers are scurrying about, grabbing dishes and delivering food and drinks.
I see Derrick at the bar, leaning over it.
He’s whispering into someone’s ear.
It’s Ryder Casey.
Then, all I hear is the blood rushing through my ears again. My heart feels like it’s skipping beats in my chest. My hands are sweating, and I feel a little nauseated.
Derrick turns toward the door, and then, so does Ryder. His eyes find mine instantly, and I think he must be having a similar experience to the one I’m having right this moment.
I think he’s a little taller than when I last saw him. His hair is longer, too, the dark-brown chocolate waves cut off a little bit above his broad shoulders. Half of me wants to stare at him a little bit longer, memorize what he looks like now, in case I don’t see him for another decade.
But the other half of me—the half of me that wins—turns on her foot and high-tails it right out of Lou’s. I can’t see him. I can’t look at him. And I definitely can’t talk to him.
I’m fishing for my keys out of my purse when I hear my name.
“Mila?” he asks, and I freeze against my own will. The way my name leaves his lips makes me forget what I’m doing. I hear him making his way across the gravel parking lot.
“Mila?” he asks again. I take a breath, say a quick prayer, and turn, slowly as ever, to face him.
He’s close, but not too close. I was right, though; he definitely grew an inch or two after…everything. My eyes meet his big green ones once again, and I feel my body lock up.
“What…what are you doing here?” he asks. I see Derrick out of the corner of my eye. He’s walking slowly out of the bar, and my instinct is to be angry with him for warning Ryder, despite the fact that his loyalty is most certainly not to me. But this wasn’t how I pictured it. I pictured myself a little more in control. I pictured myself owning the situation, doing all the talking. Not the other way around.
But this was a mistake. Because, like magic, Ryder Casey wins again, and little Mila is a flimsy mess.
I fumble with my keys in my shaking hand, and my eyes meet his again.
“I shouldn’t have come,” I whisper, turning to my car. “This was a mistake.” My instinct is to apologize to him, but I wouldn’t dare.
“Mila…” he says, and I feel my insides melting. I turn back to him. “How…how long are you here for?”
I shrug.
“I don’t know yet,” I say, my eyes dropping to the ground.
“Well…can we talk, maybe? Before you go?” he asks. I don’t look up at him, but I nod slowly.
“Do you want to come by the cabin tomorrow? I don’t work until the evening,” he says. I want to say yes. I want to tell him I’ll be there. But I can’t give in. I can’t give him all the control. I need to take some back. I need this to be on my terms.
“Maybe,” I say. Then, I get in my car and drive away.
I pull into the driveway of the lake house—our family lake house—but I can’t bring myself to put the car in park.
>
The last time I was here in this house, we were throwing everything we had brought for the summer into whatever bag we could find and speeding back to Kelford, leaving everything and anything having to do with Meade Lake in our dust.
I look up at the big, beautiful wooden house, but I can’t go inside.
I pull my phone out of my purse and look up places around to stay. I find a B&B way across town on the other side of the lake. I grab dinner at a McDonald’s on my way, and I call it a night by eight p.m. Lame doesn’t even begin to cover it.
But seeing the once-love-of-your-life-turned-worst-enemy is freakin’ exhausting.
4
I wake up the next morning in a haze. My room at the bed and breakfast is small, but it faces the lake and has this cute little walkout balcony. It’s on a quiet little cove, and there’s almost no boat traffic. It’s so serene that I almost forget the ever-stressful situation that awaits me.
I take a breath and pull out a pair of jeans from my bag. As I’m pulling my thick chestnut locks back into a long braid, I can’t help but notice my naked ring finger in the mirror. I haven’t worn my wedding ring in months—ever since the “D” word first came up with Luke. But for some reason, today, it feels particularly naked.
I make my way downstairs, say good morning to Mrs. Miller, the sweet old lady that owns the place, and head out.
I drive a few minutes until I reach Big Moon Drive, and then I feel that jolt in my body that’s been happening a lot the last twenty-four hours. Then, I pull up to the driveway. This time, there’s a blue Tahoe parked behind the pickup truck, and I figure that must be the car he drives around town. I hear a loud noise coming from the back of the house, and I make my way around. He’s standing over a table, using a circular saw on a big piece of wood.
I can’t help but think about my life and how much of it he’s missed. How different the Mila in front of him is than the Mila he broke all that time ago. But to me, his life looks surprisingly similar. He’s still in an old flannel button-up and jeans. His hair is still messy—a little messier now that it’s longer—and he’s still handsome as hell. I don’t understand why he couldn’t have gotten fat. Just a few pounds or a beer gut, at least. But nope, nothing. Just a perfectly preserved, slightly older version of the boy I once knew. He pauses for a moment, and that’s when he looks up and sees me. I glance down into my purse, making sure my journal is there. Then, I make my way down the hill toward him. He turns everything off, dusting off his shirt and jeans and clapping his hands together.
“Hey,” he says, standing straighter the second he sees me. I don’t say anything; I just give him the head nod. “I’m really glad you came,” he says, and I feel a slight weakness in my legs. I don’t let myself smile, so I just nod again.
“Why don’t we head up to the patio, and I’ll get us some drinks? Sound good?” he asks.
“Yeah, okay,” I say, following him up the stone path he undoubtedly laid himself. It looks like he’s done a lot to Aunt Winnie’s cabin since I was last here. Even as kids, each time I made a trip here, he was always making some sort of improvement to it. I heard Aunt Winnie passed away a few years ago.
I didn’t call him.
The stone patio is beautiful, facing out over the trees and the lake. There’s a large fire pit and a few Adirondack chairs set around it. I take a seat and look out over the water as he goes inside.
Then, I remember the time I got naked with him in that lake, and I have to look away.
He’s back in a moment, and I see he’s changed into a fresh white t-shirt. He sets down two glasses of lemonade on either of the chairs then takes a seat next to me.
“Thank you,” I say. He settles himself, takes a sip, then turns to me.
“Mila, it’s...it’s good to see your face,” he says. I can feel him looking at me, but I can’t look back. Nope. No way. “What brings you here?”
I want to dodge this question again, but I know I can’t. I know how important that question is.
And I realize it’s time for Mila to take back some of the control.
I reach down into my bag and pull out my holy journal.
“I’m here for...for this, I guess,” I say, motioning to it in my lap.
“What’s this?” he asks. I sigh.
“This,” I say, flipping through the pages, “is my journal. I started keeping it right after...everything. It’s full of letters that I’ve been writing to you for the last twelve years.”
His eyes grow wide.
“To me?” he asks. I can feel him growing a little weaker, and funnily enough, I get a little stronger.
“Yes. Every milestone I’ve had in my life, post-Chase, I wrote to you about. And I guess, now, I just need you to know what I went through. Without him. And without you.” He’s staring at me. “I came here to decide if I wanted to give these to you or not. And to decide if I could forgive you.”
I decide that, for today, I’ll leave out the part about my life being in shambles. We will start with the notebook and see where that goes. His eyes drop to the journal.
“You came here to...to forgive me?”
I swallow.
“I don’t know yet. Maybe.”
He nods, still staring down at the journal. He slowly lifts his hand, reaching out toward it. But I cover it with my own and shake my head.
“Not all at once. I need to see how this goes first before I decide if I can let you read all of these.”
I flip to the first letter and tear it out of the book. I look at the paper in my hands, realizing how raw it is, how much bleeding I will do from every single old wound that has never fully healed. But I guess this is where the healing starts. I fold it in half, take a breath, and hand it to him.
“Can I read it...now?” he asks. I close my eyes and nod. He does, and I watch how his eyes scan it, narrowing when he gets to certain parts.
I can tell just when he gets to the part that says, “I wish it were you.”
And then his eyebrows jump a bit when he gets to the “I still love you” part.
He swallows and folds it up, nodding slowly. I feel an ounce of guilt for a second. Just because I relive it every day of my life doesn’t mean I have to make him miserable, too. I don’t have to, but I am.
“I’m sorry, Mila,” he whispers, lifting his eyes from the paper to me.
I don’t know what to say. Because it’s not okay. I just nod and put the journal back in my bag.
“So, what are you building back here?” I ask, nodding to the wood and tools.
“Oh, Derrick and I are building a shed back here to keep some of our tools and things in,” he says. I nod. So handy. I look over to him slowly.
“I heard about Aunt Winnie, a few years back,” I say, and his eyes meet mine again. “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you, Mila,” he says. His eyes drop to his hands, and a smile forms on his lips. “She sure did love you.” I know he’s not saying it to make me feel guilty, but that’s what it does.
“She was great,” I say, a small smile on my own lips, remembering the time she caught us up here alone and didn’t tell our parents. And then I remember how that was the night we almost...and then suddenly, I can’t. I can’t afford a trip down Memory Lane. Not right now, with him. I stand up and dig my keys out of my bag.
“I’m going to head back to my room,” I say. He stands as I do, and the cool lake breeze blows his thick locks back a bit.
“Will you come back?”
I think for a moment then nod.
“I don’t think I’m done yet.” He gives me a weak half-smile then says goodbye.
5
The next morning, I lie in a hammock on the shore of the lake outside the B&B, swinging back and forth as I pretend to read a book. There’s one couple out here, sitting on the shore, looking out over the water, but that’s it. Otherwise, it’s just me, the trees, and the water, all tucked into the mountains. The sky is the deepest blue possible right now, and the sun shines throu
gh all the trees, trying desperately to touch everything. Now I remember why I loved it here so much. Why I missed Meade Lake the second I left it—because of the quiet peace it brought me when nothing else could.
But then, Meade Lake became the place that took my peace away. I felt crushed, like I couldn’t breathe. I had to claw my way out of the mountains and not look back.
Or, at least, I thought I did. Until I stupidly dragged myself back here two days ago. Why do I do this to myself?
I’m trying to focus on this book, this cute little romance novel that my coworker Molly gave me before I quit my job. I want to read. I want the world around me to dissolve. I want to go numb, like I’ve been for years. But after seeing his face, after our eyes met...it’s like I’m feeling everything at once.
I haven’t had such an overwhelming sensation since...well, since the first time Luke touched me.
God, I loved Luke. I still do. I know I do.
But when everything else is pulling you down to the bottom, love isn’t strong enough to keep you afloat.
Seeing Ryder again made me feel everything, familiarity, pleasure, fear, all in one swift blow to my gut.
And yet, here I go, making plans to do it all again tomorrow.
Glad I’m not a masochist or anything.
After another hour or so, I finally give up. I walk back up the shore, around the front of the little inn, hop in my car, and drive back into town.
I’m driving down Lakeside Highway when I see Lou’s again. I pull into the parking lot.
My heart begins thudding in its chest again, like a warning to my brain that is so stupidly blinded by the very attributes that made me fall in love with Ryder in the first place.
My palms start to sweat on my steering wheel with the thought of walking in and seeing his face again.
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