Chapter 37 #2
I turned around with haste to find Ash standing there in navy slacks and a white tucked-in shirt.
He held a navy jacket over his head to keep from getting completely soaked from the rain outside.
He flicked a finger against the bridge of his nose, brushing off some of the water as he glanced around the shop.
“Sorry, I just . . . I was working all day and, well, uh, are you closed?” he asked.
He glanced down at his watch. “Dammit, you closed at nine. I’m a solid fifteen minutes late.
I’m sorry. I can come back tomorrow. I just thought .
. .” He lowered his head and fiddled with his hands.
In that split second, I saw the kid I once knew.
The nervous boy who was always fiddling with something in his hands.
He rolled his shoulders back and his posture straightened as he turned to leave.
I stepped in his direction. “Wait, no!”
Ash’s steps paused as he turned back to face me.
“Sorry. I guess it’s weird for me to just show up, but I was hoping you’d be here .
. . I don’t know why, but I was hoping.” A small smile found his mouth, and I once again saw a flash of the boy I once knew.
“I saw you had a name tag on yesterday. So I assumed you worked here.”
“You assumed right.” I shook my head. “I mean, kind of. I own the shop.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Wait . . . You own this?”
“Yeah.” I gestured around. “I own this.”
The stunned expression on his face made me smile. “Shit, Karla. You own this?!”
“Yes, I own this.”
The way he was impressed made me feel pride in my hard work, too.
Because yeah, I owned this. My brain was still trying to wrap around the whole concept, too.
I wondered when it would truly settle in that I owned Second Chance Bookshop.
It still felt like a fever dream. And I knew it was partly because of Ash that I had made the dream of the shop come to life.
He was the one who pushed me to open the shop, after all.
He took a few steps toward me, and with each step my heart began to beat a little faster. A little wilder. “I know it’s probably weird for me to come back here. But I just couldn’t stop—”
“Thinking of us,” I finished.
He agreed with a nod. “You too?”
“Yeah. Me too.”
He glanced at his watch again. “Sorry, we can have a little reconnection tomorrow or later this week if that’s better.
Or I can just leave you completely alone.
I . . .” His words faded and his eyes flashed with a heaviness I hadn’t seen from him since the day of his father’s funeral.
Before I could comment, he blinked it away. Again.
The look gave me chills of unease.
Even though there was a part of me that wanted to ask him a million questions, I didn’t want to scare him away. I’d keep the conversation public, not too personal. So instead I said, “Do you want a drink?”
“Only if you have one, too.”
“Have a seat or look around. Whatever feels right. I’m just going to lock the front door to make sure no other ghosts from my past come wandering in.”
“This is very Christmas Carol of me, I suppose,” Ash joked.
“I’m debating calling you Charles Dickens from here on out.”
I headed to the door, flipped over the “closed” sign, and locked the top bolt.
I then turned around to see Ash wandering the shelves of the bookstore.
His eyes still had that spark of admiration as he took it all in.
I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I didn’t want to take my eyes off him.
A part of me felt as if he wasn’t real. Maybe I was just in a state of needing comfort, and the memory of him was what comforted me the most.
No, this is real.
He is real.
I cleared my throat. “Whiskey?”
“Neat.”
Of course he took his whiskey neat. I wouldn’t expect anything else from him. I headed behind the bar and poured whiskey into two glasses. I downed one before pouring myself another shot. My nerves needed a drink or two, too.
I carried the drinks over to Ash and handed him a glass. He took it and then clinked it with mine.
“To surprising reunions,” he offered.
I clinked his glass back. We each took a sip of the whiskey, and the smoothness warmed my whole body. He gestured toward two of the comfy chairs next to Mom’s reading nook. I followed his lead, and we each took a seat.
“I—” we both started to speak at the same time.
We nervously laughed.
“You first,” he offered.
I rubbed my sweaty palm against the fabric of my dress as my mind tried to decide on a good starting point for the conversation. “You’re a paramedic now?” I asked.
“Yeah. Took after my father. Figured I should actually go out and become somebody.”
“You were always somebody, Ash. The only difference now is you wear a uniform.”
For a moment, something unguarded flickered in his eyes. He pushed it down just as fast as he dragged a hand through his hair. How did he do that? How did he blink away his broken pieces so quickly?
“I never thought I’d see you again,” I told him.
I felt my eyes tearing up as I thought back to that period of my life.
Ash met me when I was deeply living in the shadows, and for some reason unknown to me, he had enough courage to share his light with me.
Then when his world got dark, he didn’t allow me to return the favor.
I felt betrayed by him leaving, but even more so, I felt sad for him.
I spent a lot of years in therapy working on my mental health and making peace with the idea of letting him go off to try to find himself.
Thanks to my therapist, I understood that Ash’s decisions were for his own well-being, not mine.
But that didn’t make the heartbreak any less. It didn’t make letting him go easier.
He clasped his hands together and sat back in his chair, still looking at me with amazement. My skin heated up from his stare. “That time period meant just as much to me as it did you, Karla. You meant everything to me. I can promise you that.”
Then why did you let me go?
For a moment’s time, I got lost in his irises. I was afraid to blink in fear that he might disappear.
“You look great,” he added.
I laughed and brushed my palm against my messy hair. “I doubt that after a night of no sleep.”
“You do, though. You look beautiful.”
I wasn’t sure what to do with his words or the way they made me feel. His gaze sent a gentle warmth throughout my body, heating parts of me that I didn’t even realize were cold until that very moment.
He then grew somber. “But your grandmother . . . Is she OK?”
“Yes. She will be, at least. With time and guidance. Thank you for saving her.”
“It’s my job.”
“Yeah . . . but still, thank you.”
We sat there in silence for a moment, just staring at each other. I wanted to ask him a million questions, some heavy, some light, but it felt good to just sit there with him, too. It felt easier than bringing up the heavy questions sitting on my chest.
“You never were able to answer my question yesterday. What are you doing back in Chicago? Last I heard, you were still in North Carolina.”
“Yeah. I moved back to Chicago after I graduated. My father left me our family home in his will. I was going to sell it, but . . .”
I arched an eyebrow. “You’ve been back that long?”
“Yeah . . . I have been.”
He’d been in my state, in my city, for years, and I hadn’t seen him until yesterday.
With haste, I placed my hands on the side of my chair and stood.
“Sorry, I, uh, I should probably get this place settled for the night.” I turned away from him, unable to look him in the eyes, because my heart was breaking all over again from being near him.
“Karla . . .” He stood from his chair and placed a hand on my arm. I flinched from his touch and turned to look at him.
“Don’t,” I whispered, shaking my head. “Just please don’t, Ash.”
“I owe you an apology.”
“You owe me nothing.”
“That’s not true. The way I ignored you—”
“It doesn’t matter. We were young and it didn’t matter.”
“It did matter,” he swore.
“No,” I countered, shaking my head. “It didn’t. We didn’t mean anything really to each other. We were just two kids who trauma bonded and—”
“You were my best friend,” he cut in, the honesty piercing my heart. I hated that he said those words, because he was my best friend, too. My only friend.
“Then why did you ghost me?!” I snapped, my emotions building up more and more, choking me as I shouted the words.
The more seconds that passed with him around me, the more upset and hurt I grew from the memories of how he’d left me all those years ago.
I’d tried to reach out repeatedly. I’d sobbed to my therapist, to my family, about losing him, my only friend. I felt abandoned and alone.
It took me ages to get over the betrayal.
I went as far as not letting other people into my life, because I couldn’t handle the idea of them up and leaving me.
I made peace with Ash’s departure, though.
I made peace with it over the years. I settled into my quiet life with my bookstore, realizing that the only people I could truly trust were my family, my book club friends, and the fictional characters in my storybooks.
I was OK.
I created a life that felt safe to me.
And then he had enough nerve to show up again and make all those old feelings come back to the surface.
Ash’s eyes locked with mine, and I hated that I was growing upset with him, because I saw the hurt in his stare. I could tell that the last few years hadn’t been kind to him or his soul. I could see the hurt leaking out of those light-brown irises. Still . . .
That didn’t mean that my own hurt was invalid.