by Natalie Ann
“You weren’t the only one that struggled.”
“I’d have no way of knowing that,” she said. “At that time, you made it clear it was what you wanted and all I had was my own imagination that you’d been planning it for months. Even though we’d been sleeping together all summer long, saying we loved each other, but in the back of your mind, you were planning your escape.”
He winced. “It’s not like that.”
“Again. We never had a chance to talk. All I had were my thoughts and they were pretty bleak for a long time. If someone said your name, I wished you were in front of me so I could scratch your eyes out.” She grabbed a coffee cup and brought it to the counter. “How long was it before you started to date again?” she asked him.
“Does it matter?”
“Probably not, but let’s just say I’m curious.”
If he wanted her to even remotely get on a road to forgiving him, he had to be open, but she didn’t want to tell him that. She shouldn’t have to tell him that.
“Close to a year. I was focused on school. I was missing you. I didn’t want to end things, but I thought it was the right thing to do.”
“Why?” she asked. “I still don’t understand to this day.”
“Because we wanted different things and I told myself that holding on and knowing it wasn’t going to work out in the long run anyway was only going to cause more heartache for both of us.”
“I guess it makes sense in an odd sort of way. I still wish you could have told me that. That you could have talked to me. We used to talk about everything together and then you just stopped. Why?”
He filled his own cup up and sat down, nodding for her to join him. “I was easily influenced by my stepbrother and all the fun I was going to have. Everything that I was going to do at college.”
“That asshole. God, I hated him.”
He laughed, not a funny sound either. “Join the crowd.”
“Randall? You hate the guy that made life seem so great there? The owner of the firm you work at? So that’s why you’re here? Because you had a falling out with your stepbrother?”
Yep, she was working herself up even more now. So he didn’t come back for her, but another reason and she was going to be the side benefit.
“No. I mean yes, I’m not happy with him and he knows it. I’m still working there. Still work here for them, but things are different. And that isn’t why I came here. I’m just saying, I let him influence things back then. I let him influence way too much of my life.”
“You looked up to him, I get it.”
She knew that. He’d come home from visiting his father talking about his older stepbrother. How cool he was. How successful he was going to be because he was determined to do what he wanted. Matt would always talk about the guy like he walked on water, yet Dena thought he was just a cocky son of a bitch.
“It was misplaced. I know that now.”
“What happened?” she asked.
“A lot of things. And nothing I care to go into right now. Just know that I’m not here because I’m pissed at him. I need something to do with my time here, so I agreed to do work for the firm while I recover. He’s swamped and could take all the help I could give him.”
“What did he think of you coming here?” she asked. “What did your father think? Did he want you back there too?”
He shrugged. “My father is laid back and never cared one way or the other. You know that. He just wants me to get better. Randall, well, he says he’s fine with it. I don’t know and don’t care. The point is, I want to blame him for some of the things I did and said back then, but I know it all falls on me anyway.”
She was remembering Amber and Rene telling her how everyone did stupid things when they were kids. This was probably one of them, but it wasn’t just silly stupid things—this was a major event in her life.
“Yep, it does. I’ll take responsibility for my actions. For the fact that maybe I didn’t listen to you enough when you voiced your hatred for this place. I thought I could get you to change your mind and was naive enough to continue to think that.”
“There is nothing for you to take responsibility for. It was all on me,” he argued.
“I’m mature enough to look back and know that we both had issues and faults back then. You handled it worse by far. You were mean and hurtful with how you went about things and that is the hardest part for me to overcome. If you think there is ever a shot in hell I’ll give you another chance or forgive you, then you need to be mature enough to understand or accept I held some of the blame too.”
A Heart of Gold
Matt hadn’t expected Dena to take any blame for what happened years ago. He was at fault for most of it.
Sure, she acted like she didn’t believe him when he said he hated it here, or when he came back from visiting his father and all he talked about was his time in the Big Apple.
But once he actually lived there, he realized that it wasn’t the same as visiting and having fun. Not like he thought it would be.
Every day the noise would get to him. The snobby people he was around when he hung out at college, or with Randall.
Now, as an adult he realized that Randall used him for his own gain. To tell everyone he was taking his stepbrother under his wing and molding him to be a great lawyer for the firm. To fill a niche the firm needed to help boost their hiring potential.
Too bad when push came to shove, because Matt’s last name wasn’t the same as Randall’s, he’d never see partner. If Matt had known that, he would have never started working there. He would have never devoted the years he had thinking he could have that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
He didn’t even like the law he was practicing half the time. Randall had him doing small-time court trials and never letting him get his hands on any big cases. When a big one came around, Randall would dangle a carrot, but then send Matt off to run errands or doing research. Kind of like the research he was doing now. Doing for all the hand me downs.
If he was honest with himself, he wanted to pick and choose his clients and he wanted to do more than research. He wanted to represent someone in court on a big case and he wanted to win or lose on his own. Not silly little traffic court violations. Not even divorce proceedings.
He wanted a real case and wanted to win something big for the little person. He wanted to make a name for himself finding justice for someone that he knew was getting the raw end of the stick. That just wasn’t happening now though.
“I guess I feel like those parting words I had were that of a child not getting their way back then. I’ll always regret them.”
“I’m not the same person I was when you said those words to me,” she said.
“You look the same to me. At the heart of it, you do. A heart of gold, I always said you had.”
“Why?” she asked him.
“You know why. You were always helping people. Always going out of your way for the underdog. Those that were bullied, you’d pull them under your wing and tell them to sit with us at lunch for the day. If someone turned an ankle, you were right there helping them up and making sure they were fine regardless of who they were. I don’t think anyone was shocked to hear you were going into medicine, least of all me.”
“Little Miss Pollyanna, people used to call me,” she said, scrunching up her nose.
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” he said.
“Except when people take advantage of it,” she said back.
He flushed. “I never took advantage of that fact.”
“I didn’t say it was you.”
He nodded. “At the root of it, you didn’t change. Here you are on a cold Saturday morning at nine plowing out my driveway for me without me asking. Why?”
“Because I knew you’d be stubborn enough to try to do it on your own and I have no idea how bad your injuries really are or could be.”
“So your concern was from a medical perspective? Do you go around plowing the drivewa
ys of all the elderly in Lake Placid so they don’t have a heart attack shoveling?”
“I would if I could, but there are only so many hours in the day,” she said, laughing.
He believed it too. “So now what? You’re here and you helped me. Are you going to stay? Are you going to spend some time with me? Try to get to know me now?”
“So you’re a different person than you were before?” she asked.
“I don’t think so at the heart of it, but I’m guessing I need to prove that to you. I can’t do that if you don’t give me an opportunity.”
“That’s fair enough,” she said. “So what do you propose we do?”
“Dinner,” he suggested. “Let me take you out to dinner. At the very least it’s a thank you for helping me out today.”
“So that’s the only reason?” she asked.
“Of course not. Can we start over? I’d like to take you on a date. I’d like to get to know you as an adult. Maybe we can wipe the past clean and pretend that I’m new to the area,” he said, laughing.
She didn’t laugh back. “No. Mature, I said, Matt. You can’t wipe away what we shared. Nor would I want to. It ended horribly, but before that, part of it was wonderful.”
“It was, wasn’t it?”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Go ahead,” he said, preparing himself for anything.
“Did you really love me? Did you really plan a future with me, or were you just saying it because I was?”
He stood up and walked over to her, then pulled her out of the chair and put his hands on her cheeks. “Dena. I loved you. I wouldn’t be here right now if I didn’t. I wouldn’t have woken up in that hospital calling your name like the years between us never happened if I didn’t. I want to spend the rest of my life making it up to you, but I’m not lying when I say, I had all the same plans that you did back then.”
***
“What do you think of this dress?” Dena asked him while they were sitting there doing their homework. Or at least supposed to be doing their homework. Instead she was too busy flipping through Seventeen magazine and trying to find the perfect prom gown.
“It’s nice. I like that color, but this one is prettier. Blue always looks so good on you.”
“Maybe we’ll have blue for the colors of our wedding,” she said, leaning in and kissing him on the cheek. She’d been secretly planning her wedding to Matt for over six months now. They were seniors in high school and they both had several years of college ahead of them, but no one said they couldn’t get married and finish college together at some point.
“I could get on board with that,” he’d said. He was always so agreeable when it came to those things and she liked that. She liked that he didn’t argue with her, but he’d offer his opinion too. “I just want to wear a dark tux.”
“To the prom?” she asked.
“Prom and the wedding when it comes. I’m not a big fan of white. It makes me look fat,” he said, rolling her over on the couch and pinning her down, then kissing her hard.
They’d dated for two years before they’d had sex the first time. Last year, the summer before their junior year. She’d been so nervous, but he’d been so sweet and tender and just wonderful.
“Okay, you can pick out your tuxes. I don’t want to know what it looks like either. I’ll surprise you with my wedding gown and you can surprise me with your tux.”
“Sounds like the perfect plan,” he said, kissing her again.
“Dena,” Matt said just now in the kitchen of his rental home, holding her tight. “Did you hear what I said?”
“What’s that?” she asked, being sucked into memories of the past.
“I said that I had all the same plans as you. It’s just we never talked about how we’d get to that point, but deep down, I still thought we would.”
She nodded her head, savored the feeling of his arms around her and let a few tears fall. She knew she was going to give in and try to start fresh, but she was damn well keeping her heart locked up tight. What changed from those happy days to the day he broke up with her, she didn’t know and part of her wasn’t sure she’d ever ask.
Thorn in Her Side
Several hours later, Dena was looking at herself in the mirror. Skinny jeans and ankle boots with a nice warm fitted sweater. Good enough for the restaurant they were going to when Matt showed up to get her for their dinner.
She was wondering if she was making a colossal mistake agreeing to this. She desperately wanted to text Amber or Rene and ask their opinion but realized deep down she didn’t really want it.
She knew she was going on this date regardless of their thoughts, and if they thought she was crazy, it would just tick her off. If they thought she should give him a chance, that might annoy her too. It was a no win situation and she needed to figure this out on her own.
What was one dinner anyway? Nothing in the scheme of things.
But when her doorbell went off, she fought the urge to rush toward the door and yank it open. No reason to look like she was anxiously waiting for him.
There he was, standing there in jeans and a winter coat, bundled up tight, with a smile rather than a frown like he’d had earlier when he was outside.
“Come on in,” she said, opening the door wider.
He stepped in and stomped the snow off his boots. “Is this snow ever going to stop?” he asked.
“It’s just flurrying now. You should know by now it happens a lot here.”
“Yep.”
“Are you going to be able to get used to it?” she asked.
“I’m trying. It’s not like I’ve got to leave the house often, so I guess it’s not a big deal. The problem will come when I do have to leave each day though.”
“You just bundle up and get through like the rest of us.”
“If every other resident of this area can, then so can I,” he said.
“That’s the spirit.” She wondered why he couldn’t think like that years ago and had to remind herself to not hold onto the past. They’d never get to the future if she did that all the time.
“Are you going to show me around your place?” he asked.
“There isn’t much to see, but come on.”
She walked him through her two-bedroom apartment that she had a few blocks from Main Street. She was on the first floor with a young couple above her. Seeing that happy couple in love move upstairs last year had been just another thorn in her side of failure in her life, but she never let anyone know.
“It’s a nice area,” he said. “Walking distance to downtown in the nicer weather.”
“What, you didn’t want to walk there tonight?” she said, keeping a straight face.
“You’re joking, right? What if I slip and fall and injure myself again? Maybe we can and you can be my nurse.”
“Physician Assistant. Get it straight. There’s a big difference.”
“So you told me enough when we were dating. That difference being two more years of college like me,” he said, grinning.
“Exactly.”
“Why not go on and be a doctor at that point?” he asked. “You could have done it easily.”
She didn’t want to say because she was thinking that if they finished up college at the same time together, they’d be on the same schedule to get married and start that family. He’d ended things before college, so she could have changed her own path, but her mind had been set on that field of study anyway.
“Too much responsibility. I like what I do. I like spending more time with the patients too. Though honestly, I probably put in damn as much time as Max, just in a different way.”
“Are you on call a lot?” he asked.
“Usually every third week. We rotate. A normal week for me is about eight to five if there aren’t any emergencies that call Max and someone else into surgery and I have to fill in. But when I’m on call, I could put in another twenty hours easily, more if I count phone calls and the cottage.”
�
��The cottage?” he asked.
“Max and Celeste McGuire, well, it’s Celeste Ryder now, co-own a B&B for patients. Patients travel here for procedures and stay on until they are ready to go home. We give them follow-up care making it worth the price for them to travel and see Max.”
“That’s pretty awesome. What a great idea. So they are right by the lake?”
“Right on the lake. A house next to McGuire’s B&B that was renovated for this purpose. Celeste oversees it and Amber, Rene, and I stop in mornings and nights when there are patients there. There normally are, but it only holds three at a time.”
“Sounds like you’re a lot more successful in your career than I am in mine,” he said.
***
Matt was trying not to feel like he failed at his career plans, but deep in his mind, that was exactly how he felt. That all his plans didn’t...well, pan out.
Dena, on the other hand, far exceeded what he’d thought she’d be doing here in little old Lake Placid.
He’d kept up on her over the years. Or more like in the past six months. He knew she worked for Max Hamilton, a plastic surgeon who made a name for himself in New York City and relocated here. From all the research he’d done, it looked like Max’s practice was just as big here as it was in New York. There were tons of reviews on the practice as a whole and all the PA’s were getting nothing but praise.
Dena had made a good life for herself here and he was damn jealous about it. Now the question was, could he find a way to fit into that life?
“I don’t know about that,” she said. “I’m doing what I always hoped to do, but where do you find that successful? You wanted to be a lawyer for a big fancy firm and that is exactly what you are,” she said back.