Chapter 44 Penny
Penny
NOW
I’m almost afraid to blink, wondering if this will all disappear. I squeeze Jesse’s hand harder, testing my reality as we walk down the street we traversed so many times as teenagers.
Our breath is cold, fogging the air around us, and lights twinkle on every house we pass. At the corner is a stately brick home, where guests file out the front door, hugging goodbye on the porch, breaking the silent bubble around Jesse and me.
“Did you want to circle the block?” I incline my head toward the street sign above. “The homes on 2nd Street are always beautifully decorated,” I suggest, but he shakes his head.
“Let’s keep going this way,” he replies softly.
Jesse adjusts the navy-blue beanie on his head but keeps his green eyes locked ahead of us.
His chiseled jaw isn’t tense, but it’s working, like he’s mulling over something in his mind.
There haven’t been many moments between us lately that were this quiet—we’ve either had a lot to argue about, spewing off distrust that was rooted in a murky past, or it’s been needy touching.
But now there’s this.
“Where are you taking me?” I let out a small laugh, glancing nervously at the stop sign as we pass another block.
With his free hand, he points forward. “There’s a little park just up ahead I wanted to take you to.” He’s coy, like I don’t know which park he’s talking about.
“Oh,” is all I manage to say, biting a smile that’s both nervous excitement and sadness.
I don’t want this to end, not when it’s just beginning.
Last night, I tossed and turned in the same bed Jesse slept in.
I stared at the ceiling, the same one I used to stare at dreaming about getting out, about escaping this town, the people, the situations, just wanting to start somewhere new.
But I stared at it, ten years older.
I stayed up, not thinking about what I was going to do after college, or where Jesse and I would live, or what cities I would explore. Instead, I wondered if, as the people we are now, could we still share each other’s dreams?
Ten unknown years sit between us, ones where we led different lives, and that’s such a daunting thing to think about.
What if I’m not the Penny he really remembers? What if I can’t make him happy like before? What if he doesn’t even want that?
“Hey.” He shakes my hand, still gripped in his. “You good?”
I glance up—we’re across from Magnolia Street Park. It’s empty, but the streetlights still illuminate the best parts. The city even hung wreaths on the gazebo and lampposts.
“Yeah, sorry. Jesse…I think we need to talk.”
I don’t know where I’m going with it, but if I ramble, if I spew out all my jumbled thoughts and tangled heartstrings, maybe I’ll figure it out.
“Okay, but first I need to show you something.” He pulls me behind him across the grass. Straight toward the worn bench under the bare magnolia tree.
My eyes are drawn to Jesse’s back as he walks a step in front of me.
Over the last few days, I’ve studied the ink across his body, and my heart aches remembering the magnolia tree tattooed right over his heart.
He sits on the bench and gently pulls me down next to him. I swivel so I can look at him.
“Our bench,” I say softly, running my cold fingers over the wood slats beneath me.
Jesse’s legs sprawl out in front of us, long and sturdy, and his arm rests on the back of the bench behind me. I’m cocooned in him.
“When I came back to North Carolina, this was the first place I stopped,” he says.
My gaze snaps up at his admission.
“Really? Why?” I breathe out.
Without breaking eye contact, he narrows his eyes like the answer should be so obvious. “It’s the place where my life changed,” he replies, the corner of his lips pulling up.
I nod, understanding. It feels like everything big that happened to me as a teenager happened right here.
Meeting Jesse for the first time. Realizing I loved him.
Asking him to move in. It’s where I ran away to when I found out about Danny and Jesse’s arrest. It’s where I sat for hours after Nan’s funeral.
“I brought you here because I wanted to give you your Christmas gift.” Jesse’s hand fishes into his pocket. Deja vu comes over me like a veil.
I kick the dead grass under my feet with the tip of my black boot. “I didn’t know we were exchanging—”
But he cuts me off, placing a large, warm hand over mine. “We weren’t.” He pulls his hand from his pocket, but his fingers are clenched in a tight fist. “But…this is…well, you’ll see…”
My heart is doing weird things. If he doesn’t show me soon, I think I’m going to end up right back in the hospital.
Jesse hooks a finger under my chin, tilting my face up. He places his lips on mine, kissing me slowly before pulling away.
“Last week, when I was certain you hated me, and I didn’t know if there was any chance in hell of redeeming even an ounce of what we once had, I found this in my room.”
I look down as his fist opens, and in his palm sits a silver ring with a green sea glass gem. My eyes widen, and tears well on my rims, but this time, I don’t try to hide them.
“What? You found it…” My voice is scratchy as I look up at him through misty vision.
He holds the ring up, and it looks tiny in between his inked fingers. “I saved for a month to buy you this, and I made a promise of forever with it. You made me feel like the luckiest guy alive the day I slipped this on your finger. Do you remember?”
“Like it was yesterday,” I breathe out.
It’s a memory I’ve long pushed away, but here it is, replaying right before me.
“Penny…I know life is really messy right now,” Jesse begins, still holding the ring up.
“I know showing up here threw a wrench in your plan. And you love your plans.” His arm on the back of the bench snakes around, his hand cupping the back of my neck gingerly.
“You don’t owe me anything, not a moment of your time.
But when you asked the other day if I lived with regrets and I said I try not to—that’s the truth. ”
It feels like if I even draw a breath, I’ll miss something. So I stay incredibly still, watching him fumble over words in his head before speaking again.
Jesse bites his lower lip, voice strained. “I don’t regret saving your brother’s life. I don’t regret falling in love with you when we were too young to know what that meant. And I don’t regret coming back either. But, Penny, I will regret it if I don’t ask you something.”
I stay still, stuck on this bench like glue as he slips off it and onto his knee in the grass in front of me. The drumming in my ears gets so loud, all I can do is focus on him and the eyes that feel like safety.
“We’ve changed a lot since we were eighteen. But one thing hasn’t changed for me. I still want forever with you. I still want the chance to be the man you deserve.”
His words hit me square in the chest, and I suck in a breath, inching forward until we’re close enough to touch.
“Jesse, I don’t know what to say…” Tears run down my face freely, and my heart splits open in a way I didn’t know it could.
In a way I haven’t let it for ten years.
“I know we live in different cities and lead separate lives,” he rasps out.
“And I see how hard you’ve worked to build yours, your career, your independence, everything.
I would never want to take any of that away from you.
What I’m asking is…is there space for me in that life?
This ring doesn’t come with expectations or conditions.
It’s just a symbol of something new. A fresh start. You and me, together.”
There are few times in my life when I’ve found myself at a loss for words.
But this is one of them.
Pushing off the bench, I fall forward into him, anchoring my arms around his neck. He holds me tight against his body.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t need him, didn’t want him the same way he wanted me.
Life is really messy right now, and I have no idea what the future holds, what it will look like to keep this relationship going.
But there’s one thing my heart won’t let me lie about.
I nod, tears rolling down my face, the cold air biting my cheeks, and kiss him longingly, like it’s the first time all over again. Jesse pulls us up to our feet and holds me in his arms.
“What do you say?” he whispers, and I glance down at the bench with our initials still carved in it.
“Yes.”
There’s no need to find space for him to fit in—there’s been an empty gap in my life, in my heart, where Jesse was always meant to be. I just needed him to come home to realize that.
I stare at the green sea glass as he slips the ring on me.
It fits, like I never took it off.