Chapter 3 #2
“I’m leaving!” Natalia comes out from the back and freezes, smiling. “Oh, hey Christian.”
He smiles. “Hi, Natalia.”
“Here to break my friends heart again?”
I slap the counter with the rag. “Natalia!”
His lips press together tightly and he shakes his head in an obvious contrition. “No, just trying to take care of it.”
“Do better this time,” Natalia says all too happily, pushing open the cafe door. “I’m off. Bye sharks!”
I groan as I exit from behind the counter, hoping he’ll leave, and dolly off toward the books—my safe space. I busy myself by fixing, restocking while my trusted employees cover the register and café.
“Lana.”
I jump, the books in my hands dropping to my feet and my heart races with the thought on their spines and covers denting from the trauma. “Christ!” I bend and pick them up, inspecting each carefully. “You don’t do that!” I chastise, not knowing who it was in the first place.
I stand with the books stacked in my arms and turn to see the same delicious man in a horrible suit that accentuates every muscle in his upper body. I wish I could burn that suit off.
“What?”
“So how long since it first opened?” He takes a sip of the latte that I didn’t spit in.
“About a year and a half,” I mumble.
“That’s good,” Christian says softly. “I’m proud of you, baby.”
My heart flutters and I’m slamming the books against the shelves as I restock. “Stop.”
“I’m not going anywhere until we talk.”
The money. The bookstore cafe. The house.
I shake my head.
The drinking.
“There isn’t anything to talk about,” I mutter, restocking the romance section. I’ve read almost all of this section—blushed over the fictional men and, slightly abashed, pictured Christian’s face during the smutty scenes.
“Yes,” Christian says firmly, “there is.”
“Then talk,” I say, moving on to the literary fiction section down the aisle.
“I want you to listen to me when we talk,” he says. “When you aren’t angry so you can listen to what I have to say.”
“If I wasn’t listening to you then I wouldn’t know what you just said.”
I practically hear his eyes roll as he sighs. “Lana, please.”
“No, Christian.” I forget the restocking and face him. “You’re going to tell me you’re sorry for leaving, that you’ve missed me, that you’ve made mistakes, and whatever else you’re going to come up with.”
“Lana—”
“You know I can’t trust you,” I say quietly.
“I know that,” he whispers, his eyes dropping with shame. “And I don’t blame you.”
“I mean…look at you.” I set the books in my arms on the cart. “Who even are you anymore? I don’t know you and I didn’t know you back then either, because the Christian I knew and loved would have never left the way you did. You disappeared off the planet.”
“I had to go to New York.”
“You didn’t have to do anything,” I snap. “You left. You made promises, we made plans, and you left. Leave my store, Christian.”
“Lana—”
“Get out,” I breathe shakily, turning back to the shelves.
“Okay,” Christian sighs. “But I’m not leaving Willow Springs. Not yet. I’m going to keep trying. I’m not just going to give up.”
My lips are flattened together and my knees feel weak. Like I might just break right here, and I can’t do that.
“I…” He sighs. “Lana, you’re it for me, and I’m not leaving. So I will spend a lifetime begging you until you forgive me.”
I turn my head so he can’t see my profile, where tears are sliding down my cheek.
“I’ll see you later,” he whispers, and then he disappears again.
I’m in bed, staring at my ceiling the way I usually do at night. I draw things with my finger in the air to help me sleep sometimes. Occasionally, I accidentally trace his face on my ceiling like it’s a blank canvas waiting for a masterpiece to bestow itself upon it.
And, well, I can’t help myself because if I were a painter, and if I were to draw or paint him, he’d be my magnum opus. He’s beautifully gorgeous. And even though I’m angry and I hate him as much as I love him, he’s still everything good I found in the world.
At least before it got bad for him. Before the nights I had to save him and yell at him to save himself.
Breaking the spell and making my finger freeze, just as I’m sketching out his nose on my ceiling, my phone vibrates with a text.
Levi
Hey
Can I take you out next Friday? I know a great place in Spring Haven that I’d love to take you to
I sigh, try to force myself to be content about the date I’m about to say yes to. If I had not seen Christian last night, I would have texted a quick, yes, and been happy about it. It would have been a step forward toward “my five year plan.” But I should have known.
Lana
I’d like that
Levi
Can I pick you up at 7?
Lana
Sure
And that’s that. I don’t know how to sound happier about it, at least not through text. I lock my phone and put it aside to resume my masterpiece. But my hand is in the air when I hear a loud engine approach, and I can’t decide if it’s relief or annoyance that makes me sigh.
I don’t hear the car pass, instead I hear it slow in front of my house.
This better be a fucking. Joke!
I throw my blanket off my legs and stomp to my windows. A dramatic, extravagant car pulls into my driveway, the LED headlights blinding me even from up here, and the engine dies. The door doesn’t open. No one gets out and comes to my front door demanding my attention or conversation.
Instead, I see his dark shadow adjust his positioning in the driver's seat. I watch for another five minutes, and nothing happens. I suppose I have a guard dog now, not that it’s necessary in this town.
My blinds rap against each other when I release them, and I bite into my lip on my way back into bed.
His ego is bigger than…everything.
Four years later, Christian Calloway thinks he can just come back into this town and sweep me off my feet? Say sorry and all is forgiven? No. I won’t let that happen, I’m not a stupid twenty two year old girl anymore. He’s been gone for four years and look at him!
Our worlds have never been more different.
He’s…him. He has the car, the watch, the suits, and the shoes.
I have a beaten up Jeep Wrangler that Antonio has to jumpstart for me every few weeks, only after trying to convince me to buy a new car.
I have white sneakers that are now an entirely different color and I wear jeans that are almost five years old because I’m too attached.
And they make my ass look great, but that isn’t the point.
Years ago, we fit perfectly. Two halves of a whole, both part of the same world. But then he left and we were living in two different worlds, in separate universes.
I did everything I could to make myself whole again. Most nights, I cried myself to sleep, and didn't bother to eat or shower. I’d given up. Then, when I thought I was better, I got bangs because, well… I was not exactly the sanest I’d ever been.
Before I get back into bed, my eyes scan the stacks of books on my bedroom floor.
I find one of my favorite romance novels and pull it out of the towering stack.
I haven't had the time to build bookcases, and I’m always too cautious with my spending—something I inherited from my mother.
I hold the novel to my chest and take it with me as I sit on the edge of the bed.
I open the thick paperback to chapter seventeen and find the black and white photo booth strip.
The pictures clog my throat as I look at them now.
I was on his lap for these, his arms tight and secure around my waist as he held me to him. I never felt as safe as I did when I was next to him.
Kids are yelping and laughing, parents calling out their names. People scream from the fast rides and laugh on the spinning tea cups that we just got off of.
We’re still laughing, my mind spinning and legs wobbly.
“Come!” Christian’s hand pulls my mine.
“Wait, wait,” I laugh. “I’m still dizzy!”
Christian stops and squats. “Get on.”
I jump onto his back, wrapping my legs tightly around his waist and arms around his neck. I kiss behind his ear and he starts jogging.
“Where are we going?” I laugh, feeling my brain judder in my skull.
He doesn’t tell me, he only takes me through the town's annual summer carnival.
I eat the last of the cotton candy left that we were sharing the past hour and throw the stick in the trash bin we pass.
Children are laughing, lights from the rides are flashing, and my body fits so wonderfully with his.
“Christian!”
“We’re right here,” he says, flashing me a smile over his shoulder.
Christian slows down and stops at a photo booth with a red curtain.
He squats, reaching back to hold onto me as I slide off his back.
The muscles in my face are sore from all the laughing and smiling.
He yanks open the curtain and sits on the narrow bench, waving me in.
I question how we will fit, but he waves me in again with a bigger grin.
“Come, Lana.”
My cheeks are lit aflame as I step into the booth and he pulls me on to his lap, his teeth nibbling my neck and growing stubble tickling me. I’m gasping for air, trying to swat him off me to no avail. He shows me mercy with a soft kiss beneath my ear.
“I love you,” he whispers.
“I know,” I whisper back.
Christian leans forward to feed the booth three dollars, and I kiss his cheek. “I love you,” I say.
“I know,” he says back.
He sits back again and I put an arm around his shoulders. “Color or black and white?”
“Black and white for elegance,” I joke.
Christian chuckles and pushes the left button. “Black and white then.”
The machine counts down from five and he smiles wide, and just before it hits one, I kiss his cheek.
The next photo is me smiling, taking up the entire frame.
The third is our tongues sticking out and touching, and the fourth is me with a giant smile, my dimples on display, and my eyes bright as he kisses my neck.
The booth prints two strips of our photos and I hold the delicate memories between my thumb and forefinger, smiling at our love. “You look so cute,” he says and kisses my cheek with his hand on the small of my back.
“We’re a hot couple,” I chuckle and tilt my head back.
“You’re the hot one.”
“You’re the hot one.”
Christian’s hand wraps around my jaw (I love when he does that) and forces me to stare into his coffee colored eyes. “I love you.”
I smile, biting my lip. “I know.”
His fingers tighten around me and I stand on my toes to kiss his full, pillowy lips. The only lips that have the power to make me feel the safest and most at home. The man that makes me feel the safest and most at home.
My first real love.
We pull away panting, my body overheated and my lower belly tight. He nips at my bottom lip and his hand drops, tapping my ass cheek. I stifle my grin and my fingers move to my lips, tracing them and feeling the tingle beneath my touch, the ghost of his lips still on them.
I watch him take out his wallet—there is a polaroid he took of me earlier this summer as soon as you open it—and he carefully folds the photo booth strip in half before he tucks it away for safekeeping. Christian grins as he does.
He folds his wallet closed, puts it back in his pocket, and wraps his arms around my waist to kiss my cheek.“Come, let’s get on the ferris wheel.”
“Again?”
He shrugs. “You don’t want to make out with me on the ferris wheel?”
I bite my lip. “I always want to make out with you on a ferris wheel.”
“Wow,” he breathes, smiling. “The perfect girl.”
I shove his shoulder. “You owe me a hot dog.”
Christian kisses my forehead, his lips lingering in the soft press, and then throws his arm around my shoulders. “Ferris wheel then hot dog?”
“No mustard.”
“Deal.”
These pictures…
It’s like they hold the entire world. My entire past life of happiness and peace before it went down the toilet with his alcohol induced vomit.
Everyday, most days, I lie awake in this bed and wonder—if I think or imagine him hard enough, maybe his ghost will appear and I can talk to him as if he were real.
Maybe I can hear my favorite voice again. See my favorite face on my favorite person.
It never works.
So instead, I lie in this bed and write out our timeline on my blank ceiling.
I try to pinpoint all the places it went wrong.
When the drinking really became a problem and what I could have done to prevent it.
I think about the times Christian came to me with bruises on his face because his father beat him—because he was drunk and used Christian to take out his anger.
I think about the day his mother came to my door and told me to leave him alone, told me to let him leave because he had responsibilities and couldn’t be held back by an orphan girl like me with nothing and no money.
I think about the money his mother gave me and how I was such an idiot to take it because I was so angry at him.
On this timeline though, sometimes—all the time—I extend it to the right.
I write years that haven’t started and won’t for a long time, and I plan things out.
I wasn’t supposed to see him again until next year, which would have been five years later, because that was going to be the year that I was finally over him.
The year I didn’t miss him anymore and didn’t get sad because he’s not next to me in bed.
But then I’d cross that out and make it the year he came back to me. So, technically, he’s early. And I suppose I should be happy about it. I am happy about it, but that doesn’t mean I won’t make him work for this—for us.