“I don’t talk about it,” I replied and continued working on the window. I had to find a way to make the scarves fit with the summer display I’d arranged. This was south Alabama. It was scorching hot in the summer. Octavia needed to remember that when she went buying stuff to sell. We both had a lot to learn and I appreciated her hiring me.
“Why?” he asked. “Why not get it off your chest?”
I rolled my eyes. Yes, I was acting like a teenager. He wanted to know something I didn’t want to talk to him about so he was going to ask me why. Did he think he’d get me to open up? Talk about it? Because he was being nosey? I’d been there and done that with plenty of people and wasn’t doing that with him.
“Because Nate. Simply BECAUSE.”
He became silent. Good. He needed to get on with his work for the day and I needed to do the same.
“You didn’t answer my texts or calls. I tried. Made the effort. It wasn’t me who turned you away.”
I closed my eyes tightly and sighed. He wasn’t letting this go. We were going to have to discuss it. Get it out in the open and deal. Which was ridiculous. We’d been kids. I had handled it the way a teenage girl knew to handle things.
“I was facing the scariest thing imaginable. What else do you need to know? I wasn’t in the frame of mind to keep up with a childhood crush.” That was a little harsh, but it was the truth and the truth can sting.
“But I thought we were more than that?”
Maybe we had been. Maybe it was my fault. I’d been confronted with something that changed me. And when I was ready to tell him it had been too late. Too much time had passed and I was different, so very different. My fairytale life had ended. The real world had slapped me in the face. A loving family and a stable home with all the support on earth, can’t save you from something like cancer. It only deals in darkness and pain. You defeat it or it defeats you. Until you experience it you don’t understand the depth of it
I folded the scarf and looked to him. “I was too scared to think about boys. About friendships or the drama of people. Because I wasn’t sure I had a future beyond my next doctor’s visit. I woke up one day with my life all planned to look a certain way. It had been so exciting, so full of dreams, but then in one doctor’s consult I was told that I had cancer. That my life wasn’t guaranteed. Nothing was ever the same and it won’t ever be.”
Nate kept his gaze on me. There wasn’t pity or fear that it could happen to him, beneath the silver pools of his eyes. I saw those two things a lot, pity and fear in people. Not seeing them in his eyes was a relief. It would have hurt. Let me down. But like I’d always known Nate was different. He wasn’t like the other boys.
He still saw me. Most people didn’t. They just saw the disease inside me. The one I had beaten, yet that seemed to remain in their minds after it was gone. I wanted to hug him for that. Thank him and rely on his judgment for that not to be weird and out of place. But he wouldn’t understand. He hadn’t lived what I had been through.
“I would’ve come back here. I’d have probably moved in with my grandpop to be close to you if I’d known.”
It hadn’t been meant to be that way. He loved his parents and sisters, his life in Rosemary Beach and it was there that he needed to stay. He belonged with them and not me. Him coming here wouldn’t have been good for Nate or his family. My guilt, over that, wouldn’t have helped my fight, and back then I fought every minute.
“We were kids. Things happen. We become different people. It’s the past now, let’s just leave it.”
Nate studied me intensely without looking away or trying to argue some point. I could see his mind working right there in the steadiness of his gaze and stance. When he finally released a sigh he nodded and said “okay.” That was all he said.
I didn’t want him to see the disappointment in my eyes so I turned back to the window. My mind was no longer focused on my work. He had agreed. He hadn’t argued. I should be relieved. The fact I wanted him to argue was silly. Childish and I wasn’t childish, not anymore I wasn’t.
I listened as he walked away. I heard the back door open and close. I squeezed my eyes tightly together wishing the ache in my chest would vanish. Leave me be for a while. Give me some peace and tranquility.
I was finally free, living on my own and had a grown-up life. Being sad was pointless now. I had so much to be happy about. I wanted that happiness I saw on other faces and wishing for something far from my reach was wasting time and effort. I knew how fleeting time could be, because I’d almost run completely out.
Once I thought that the scripture in the Bible about not being promised tomorrow was depressing and lacked any joy. Now I knew it was real. Something we all needed to accept. I did, so why was I wasting it on wishing Nate Finlay was tomorrow, the tomorrow I would claim as my future? Instead of just being my past?
Nate Finlay
I DIDN’T INTEND to stay in the back all morning. But I had. I wanted to think about what she’d said and figure out how to deal with her. I should agree and accept her suggestion. If I had more time to think about it, I knew I would have changed my mind.
But I didn’t.
Ten minutes before I was going to get Bliss and take her to lunch again Octavia came barreling in the back door with her arms full of shopping bags and a huge smile on her face.
Shit. This was too soon. I wasn’t ready for her yet. Which should’ve been a sign I acknowledged. Wanting her to stay away.