CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Avonlea – Eleven Years Ago
“Ilove you, Jamie,” I say, and then shake my head, looking at myself in the mirror. I feel ridiculous talking to myself, but I want to tell him and it has to be right.
How do you tell your best friend that you love them? Especially when they live half a world away.
“Jamie, you’re my best friend and I love you.
As more than a friend. Ugh,” I groan. I can’t say that.
But he leaves tomorrow morning and I have to tell him something.
If I don’t tell him now, I won’t have a chance to tell him again until next summer and then it’ll be too late.
He won’t choose to come back to Scotland, but maybe if he knows how I feel it will make a difference in his decision.
If I wait, he’ll already have made his decision and there’s no chance we can ever be together. He’ll never come home. I can feel it.
But I know he feels the same way. He has to. After what we shared yesterday—making love in the van—that alone was enough to tell me he loves me the way I love him.
My face grows hot just thinking about it. It was perfect. A little awkward, a little uncomfortable, but also it felt right that it was with him. To share yet another first with him, to give him that part of me. It was always meant to be him.
I draw my fingers across my lips and remember how swollen they felt by the time we got back on the road to drive home.
There’s still an ache of soreness between my legs, but only enough to make me blush every time I think of it.
He was sweet and gentle, exactly like I expected, and it didn’t last all that long either…
Also like I expected. At least not the first time…
The second time was more… Just more.
It wasn’t like I went into yesterday planning for us to have sex.
Had I been thinking about it all summer?
Had our makeouts been moving us in that direction?
Sure, but as we got closer and closer to his leaving, I assumed there’d never be a right time.
But cocooned in a van, with the rain falling heavily around us, I couldn’t stop myself from asking.
It was something he’d obviously been thinking about too, considering we both had condoms in our bags.
God, what would Grannie have done if she found them?
If Mum had known this was even a possibility, she would’ve gotten me on the pill before my trip, but even I didn’t know this was going to happen.
“Avonlea,” Grannie calls from outside the bathroom. “Jameson is at the door for you.”
I nearly jump out of my skin at the sound of her voice while I’m in here thinking about sex. My cheeks heat even further.
Get it together, Avi.
“Coming,” I say, and finish brushing my hair.
I curled it and put on more makeup than I have all summer.
Usually when I’m here I don’t wear much.
Jamie never seemed to care, and it’s easier when I don’t have to think about it getting messed up if it rains.
I spin once in the flowery sundress I pulled on—the only one I brought with me—excited for one more day with Jamie before he leaves early in the morning for the airport.
I picture us sneaking into his room to make out one last time or finding our secluded spot down by the loch…
I flounce down the stairs, floating like a butterfly on the wind to get the door.
He’s standing on the porch in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt fitted across his chest and arms. He’s not wearing his glasses, so the brightness of his eyes is on full display for me.
Much like they were yesterday when he moved above me, having taken them off because they kept sliding down his nose or bumping against my face when we kissed.
“Hi,” I say, a little breathless.
“Wow,” he says, and his gaze tracks over the spaghetti straps of my dress, across my shoulders and collarbone, then lower, and I can almost feel the heat in them as I watch them widen.
The sweetheart neckline does nothing to hide my cleavage; if anything, it accentuates it. His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat.
“You like?” I ask and lift an eyebrow. Stepping out onto the porch, I close the door behind me and he takes my hand like it’s the most natural thing in the world. And I think it just might be.
“Yeah, I really do.” He twirls me, the skirt flying out around my legs, and I giggle uncontrollably.
Happiness bubbles in my stomach while my heart beats a rapid rhythm in my chest that is only for him. Jamie. The boy I love.
We walk, without talking, to the bench swing in the garden. He looks over his shoulder to the window into the kitchen and when he doesn’t see anyone, pulls me across his lap, causing a little yelp of surprise to escape me. But he quickly swallows it up with a kiss that makes my toes curl.
“How are you today? Okay?” he asks against my lips, and I know he’s not simply asking about my general wellbeing.
“I’m fine.” I dip my chin and blush again… Can I not control that one thing? “A little sore.”
“I didn’t hurt you, did I?” He lifts my chin with his thumb and forefinger and looks deep into my eyes.
“N-no, I think it’s normal soreness.” Not that I’d know for sure.
“Alright. And you’re okay about it, that we…”
I silence him with another kiss.
“Yes, I’m glad it was you. I—”
“I’m glad it was you too,” he cuts in, and I don’t know if it’s a good or bad thing, because I almost just said it. That I love him.
His thumb trails over my lips, and when he kisses the corner of my mouth, I feel my heart trip in my chest.
“I wish we had more time,” I blurt, and then duck my head into his shoulder.
He rubs his hand up my back. “Me too. These summers are always too short. But we have today.” He kisses below my ear and then moves his lips to my shoulder.
“And we have next summer, and then—then I guess we’ll see.
I don’t know if my parents will keep paying for me to fly back every summer and who knows if I’ll be able to afford to fly here myself, but I—”
“I love you, Jamie,” I say, cutting him off this time. If he’s going to talk about what the future could look like, then we should probably have it all out there.
He goes completely still beneath me, his lips freezing on my collarbone.
“Jamie?” I ask, leaning back and dipping my head so I can look into his eyes.
“I-I just wasn’t…” he stutters. “I wasn’t expecting you to say that. I mean, you know you’re my best friend, and I care about you so much, but I—”
“You’re my best friend too.” I smile and brace my hands on his cheeks. “I guess I just thought that, after yesterday…”
He rears back, his eyebrows drawn down. I don’t understand his reaction…
“That what, Avi? I’d somehow stay? I can’t. I leave tomorrow, and I won’t be back for another year. How is this supposed to work?” He sounds flustered, almost mad. I shift off his lap, every word landing like a blow, and I feel the sudden urge to protect myself.
“I-I don’t know. I guess I thought we could talk about it. People have long-distance relationships all the time.” I bite my lip and hope it will keep the tears welling in my eyes to stay where they are. This isn’t going at all like I hoped it would.
“Not across oceans… I mean, I’m sure some do, but Avi… we’re seventeen! We—we can’t do this. Not now at least.”
“Then when, Jamie? When you come back next summer? Will you stay then?”
“No, I… I don’t know. I told you yesterday I don’t think I’ll be coming back for uni. I care about you, of course I care about you, but I just don’t see how this can work, Avi.”
“How can you say you care about me and then just, what, not want anything with me?” My voice rises, frantic and desperate to make him understand. “You were fine with having sex with me, but we can’t be together?”
“That’s not fair. We both wanted that. We… It…” He stumbles over the words and his face is twisted into an expression I’ve never seen before. Like he’s in pain. Like this is hurting him, but it can’t be. Not like it’s hurting me.
I stand up, needing even more space. I told myself when I got ready today that telling him might not change anything, but I believed it would.
Everything feels cold inside me now, the heat from just moments ago completely gone. Jamie stands too and the distance between us feels insurmountable—like a chasm has opened and there’s no closing that gap now.
“I’m sorry, Avi. Maybe yesterday was a mistake. I didn’t know you were feeling like this. We shouldn’t have… It’s only confused things. You’re my best friend, I’m yours… That’s all this can ever be. We don’t live in the same place. We don’t live the same lives. It could never work. I’m sorry, I—”
“But we could talk more. I can use the money I make helping Mum at the pub to pay for phone calls. I could save up so I can come visit you too. We could—” I watch him shake his head, anguish crumpling his features.
“I’d love to talk to you more, to see you even. But, Avi, your life is here. What if you end up in France for culinary school next year? I can’t follow you there, not when I really want to go to uni in the States. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us. I won’t ask you to give up your dreams.”
What he doesn’t say is that he doesn’t want me to ask him to give up his either.
He steps forward and presses his lips to my forehead.
I close my eyes, the heat of his lips is nothing compared to the hot tears that track down my cheeks.
Then he pulls away, and with the precision of the sharpest knife, takes a piece of my heart with him when he says, “I’m sorry, Avi. ”
He backs away before turning around and walking into the inn.
I bolt through the hedge, my stupid dress catching around my knees, and head straight to my room where I bury my face in my pillow and sob.
I refuse to go down to dinner. I refuse to talk to anyone. And when Grannie tells me in the morning that she saw Jamie drive away with his grandparents an hour earlier, I know he’s gone.