Chapter 14 #2
We ordered our pulled pork dishes, and I explained how Melanie came into my life.
“That is insane,” Julianna exclaimed, playing with the straw in her glass. “And your father still says she’s not his, even with the DNA test?”
“Yup,” I nodded. “Denies all of it. It isn’t surprising, since it’s Vince we’re speaking of.”
“Wow,” she mused. “That has to be hard for Melanie.”
“She takes it in stride. She never knew him, so she doesn’t have much to go on.”
Our food arrived, and Julianna doctored up her sandwich with various barbecue sauces that sat on the table. I smiled, remembering her doing that same thing when we were young.
“Are you going into work after this?” she asked, putting down a bottle of sauce.
“No, I thought I might spend some time with my wife instead.” I nudged my leg against hers. She smiled, and I popped a couple of fries in my mouth through my smile before continuing, “How is your back? On a scale from one to ten, one being the worst?”
She thought a moment. “I’m probably at a five right now,” she said, dabbing at her mouth with a napkin.
“Do you think you feel like going for a little walk in the woods?”
“In the woods? Trees, Lakey, all that?”
I swallowed hard. “Yeah. I thought it would be nice to be outside.”
She bit her lip. “Is it uphill?”
I shook my head. “No. We’ll drive the side-by-side up and walk around at the top of the ridge. I’m not taking any chances with your back.”
She thought for a moment. “I’m not opposed. I’ve never been outdoorsy, so it could be annoying if I’m clumsy or slow?—”
“You could never be annoying,” I reassured her, rubbing her arm lightly for a few seconds. “If you want to go, we will. If you don’t, or you’re hesitant, we won’t.”
“I do like the fall weather,” she mused, tapping her finger against her lips as if in careful thought.
“And the temperature and sun are perfect. We can go as slow and careful as you want.”
“Okay. You’ve got me. I’m convinced.” She laughed, her reaction making me smile. “You’re going to make me an outdoors girl if it kills me, aren’t you?”
“An outdoors wife .” I winked at her. “Words matter, sweets.”
Still grinning, she averted her gaze, her token blush spreading again across her cheeks.
I would never get tired of that blush.
An hour later, leaves crunched under my boots and her sneakers as we walked through the woods.
We’d driven up the mountain on the all-terrain vehicle and then taken the path in the flatter areas.
I’d cleared out a lot of undergrowth a few months prior, so the way through the area was easy to explore.
After spending so much time wandering the woods, I was familiar with them.
I didn’t need the marks on the trees I’d painted anymore, but I pointed them out to Julianna anyway so she would be aware.
“How resourceful,” she said, letting her fingers run over the marks on the tree bark. “It’s like you know a thing or two about traversing a forest.” The sarcasm in her voice was not lost on me.
“Yeah. A thing or two.”
“What made you want to be a forest ranger?” she asked. “You and Whit used to do a lot of outdoorsy stuff, but I thought it was mostly getting drunk by the lake and driving around in the mud.”
I chuckled. “That’s fair. But after my football dreams died, I knew I wanted to do something outside.
Being in an office sounded like hell, and nature has always felt worthy of my respect.
It’s amazing how it’s always changing but still stays present.
It’s always there.” I looked up into the tops of the trees, and her gaze followed.
“And there’s a freedom out here you can’t experience anywhere else. A type of peace.”
“I’m glad you found something you loved to make a career of,” she replied, petting Lakey’s head as we walked along. “There are so many paths we can take in life, and I’m glad you didn’t settle for something you didn’t care for.”
“My dad wanted me to be his protégé, and I would rather set myself on fire.”
She laughed for a moment, then fell silent. We were moving more slowly than usual, but I didn’t mind. I would stay outside with her all day at any pace she set .
“Do you ever think about football? Those old dreams?”
I looked at her, slightly puzzled, but she continued, “I thought maybe you would coach or something? You were so good at playing. And you were always teaching Whit things. Without you, I don’t think he’d be as good as he is.”
I stumbled a smidge over a thick stick on the ground. I hadn’t expected her to say that, but I grasped the opportunity to share with her.
“You remember Coach Mayfield?” I asked, and she nodded.
“He’s still at the high school, but he’s been on me for years to help him coach, and I never would.
I didn’t feel like I could. Now, he’s retiring at the end of this year and wants me to take over.
I don’t know how I feel about it. Sometimes, secretly, I think I’d like it. ”
I’d never said those words aloud to anyone.
Her brow creased. “Why secretly? Football was a huge part of your life. Do you think you’re not allowed to love it anymore?”
I sighed. “It seems like something that should be in the past. And it reminds me of a lot I don’t want to remember.
Things I think I’m over sometimes, but maybe I never will be.
Stuff like the injury, our wreck, my parents, losing Grams, leaving you behind…
” I trailed off. “I’ve never said that to anyone.
I think about football a lot, but I never mention it. Not even with Whit.”
She reached over and took my hand into hers.
As our fingers intertwined, she said soothingly, “I think there is a lot in life we can’t forget, no matter how hard we try.
Feelings imprint on us. Those feelings, those times—they become a part of us, and forgetting the past would be denying who we are.
I think it’s good enough to keep moving forward and realizing that the present and future are as important as the past.”
I let her words settle into my bones.
This was not the light-hearted afternoon walk I thought it would be.
But I realized that Julianna was a magnet for emotion.
Nothing was surface-level with her. She dug under my skin before I knew what was happening, drawing out the depth within me.
She might enjoy reality television and pretend worlds, but she was more intense and thoughtful than anyone I’d ever known.
“I know I should embrace getting close with Whit again,” she whispered.
I thought maybe I hadn’t heard her at all until I looked over at her and saw her eyes glistening with unshed tears.
“I think about it all the time. But admitting I want that after he pulled away from me so many years ago so easily...it’s always been more than I can handle.
I’ve had to protect myself, and it’s hard to trust anyone. I’ve never told anyone that either.”
I squeezed her hand.
“Julianna…I should tell Whit,” I said, letting the words slip from my lips, knowing that bringing this up could change everything.
“About the marriage? Of course, we should?—"
“No, not about that. I should tell Whit about what happened the night of the wreck.”
She stopped, her smile dissolving.
“No.”
She didn’t want me to say it, but I did anyway.
“I have to,” I countered. “He needs to know I was driving drunk that night. It weighs on me. And I want a clean slate between us, now that we’re all reconnecting.”
Our shared secret had never been spoken, and the words felt dry on my tongue. She dropped my hand like it burned her and turned to face me.
“You can’t do that.” She breathed out the words, her brow furrowed. “You promised you wouldn’t tell him.”
“And I didn’t,” I replied quickly, running a hand through my short hair, feeling the anxiety building in my chest. “I’ve kept the secret for fifteen years, and I’ve been grateful many times over that you made me do it.
” I knew she’d asked me to keep it to myself to preserve my relationship with Whit in the wake of Grams’ death.
Julianna was always looking out for everyone except herself.
“It’s still important,” she snapped. “Whit will never forgive you. I’m the one who begged you to drive, anyway, remember? You didn’t even wreck because of the whiskey. It was because of the deer.”
I swallowed hard. My mind was filled every day with memories of that night.
I replayed our passionate first kisses and the way it felt for my fingertips to skim across her soft skin.
I had repressed my feelings for her for so long, and it felt like the most significant release to let her know how I wanted her.
“I haven’t forgotten one second of that night,” I said, low and steady. Her lip quivered, and I reached for her hand again, but she pulled it away.
You’re ruining everything.
“You don’t need to remind me.” I continued, “But the facts are, I had been drinking. I was driving. You were riding. I swerved. I couldn’t control the truck down the mountain. You had nothing to do with any of that. You were innocent. I’m the reason your back is fucked up.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head slightly. “No, it’s not. You didn’t do anything, Bram. You didn’t?—”
“Yes. I did.”
I annunciated the words so she’d understand I knew my role and no denial would change the truth. She stared at me, her gaze hard. The tension between us was right on the precipice of snapping.
“I told everyone I took your truck, and it was me driving it. If you refute that, you’ll make me look like a liar.” Her tone frayed something inside of me.
“I’m not taking out a full-page ad in the local paper. I’m just telling Whit. He is the only one who would care. He deserves to know what I did.”
She shook her head. “That’s idiotic. Why confess to him when we both know he’ll never forgive you? Maybe even never forgive me for not telling him the truth. Do you want to be responsible for that? For tearing Whit and me further apart when we’ve just agreed to work on our relationship?”
Her words were like claws sinking against my heart.
“It weighs on me,” I said, more somber. “What I did and then hiding it from him, it eats at me. Leaving you on the side of the road with all your injuries, I?—”
“I begged you to leave me!” Her interrupted cry echoed through the trees, and tears fell onto her flushed cheeks. “I made you leave me. You didn’t want to, and I threatened you.”
“I was an adult. I should have stayed no matter what you said. I was scared. I was a coward.”
“You were a child!” Her booming voice echoed through the trees. “How can you say that?”
I let out a long breath. She had her demons as I did, and I knew in this situation, those demons outweighed the empathy she usually so easily employed. She would never understand my perspective.
I ached to tell her the rest of the story —what had happened after I left her, how I had come back.
But it wasn’t time, not yet. One confession at a time.
I needed to wait. I’d tell her when it felt right.
“I don’t want to argue with you about this, especially not today.” I said the words calmly and stepped back from Julianna. Lakey watched us and whimpered when we went silent. Julianna’s attention went to the pup, and she walked over and began to soothe her.
“Julianna.”
She would not look up at me .
“I just want everyone to get along,” she whispered, scratching Lakey’s head. “I want to move on.”
“I do, too,” I said. “That’s why I want everyone to be on an even playing field. I want everyone to have all the facts so that we can move on.”
“No, you don’t. You don’t want to move on. You want someone to affirm your belief that you’re the piece of shit you think you are.”
It was my turn to freeze. Was that true?
It didn’t matter if it was. I would win this argument.
“I don’t need anyone to tell me what I already know,” I scoffed. “I might be a man worth knowing now, but when it comes to you, I’ll never be good enough. I don’t need Whit to tell me that. I don’t need you to tell me that.”
“I’m not a fucking saint, Bram.”
“I’ll only hurt you in the end. It’s who I am. It’s what I do.”
She looked up at me, her lip wobbling, tears pooling in her dark eyes. But as if the night switched directly to daylight, I watched her demeanor morph before my eyes. She steeled her spine and swallowed her emotion.
The tears stopped. So did the trembling.
She was stoic. Determined. Unaffected.
“We’re mutually benefiting from this arrangement,” she said. “Let’s not forget that. We can agree to disagree.” Lakey stood beside her, tail wagging. “I think I’m ready to go back to the house.”