Chapter Thirty-three
Elizabeth
“The course of true love never did run smooth.”
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
While the guys made a beeline for the order window, Chelsea sidled up beside me, staring out over the orchard with Charlottesville spread out below us, the Blue Ridge Mountains on the horizon.
I soaked in the sun, trying to release the negative emotions that had come between us. “My dad would’ve called this a quintessential fall football Saturday.”
Chelsea scoffed. “My dad would’ve called this a good excuse to get drunk.”
I shoved her, laughing at her dark humor. I hadn’t been lying to Evan about our ups and downs. We’d built our friendship over years, and it would take more than a single failure to break us apart. “Thanks for coming up here. It puts way less pressure on us.”
She pushed me back. “So you’re going to fix him?”
It was a valid question, but she’d taught me I can’t be anyone’s nurse. “He has a therapist for that. I’m gonna stick around and see where this goes.”
“Did he at least grovel?”
He hadn’t, not exactly, but he had apologized and given me a little insight. “It wasn’t really that he’d been jealous of any guys I might have dated. But he was jealous of you. Of the experiences we have, the fun we have. I promised him we’d make our own list if he wanted.”
She crinkled her nose. “That’s kind of sweet, actually.”
“I thought you’d like that.” I laid my head against her shoulder, happy to know she’d support me, whatever I decided. “You know what he added to our list?”
“Murder Chelsea?”
I barked a laugh. “No. He doesn’t want to murder you. That’s the kind of thing you put.”
“Does he want to quietly get me out of the way? Have me disappeared?”
“No. He put Go on a hayride.”
She hummed dismissively. “At an apple orchard where you can do that very thing? He’s not above cheating, huh?”
Evan reappeared, passing me a coffee, and Bas laid a box on a table, saying, “You have to eat these while they’re still hot.”
We dug in, listening to Bas prattle on about Greece, while Chelsea glowed, blissed out on his gentle good humor. She was positively smitten. I’d never seen her like this.
“You know what we should add to our list?” Evan asked, turning to me.
“You can’t put apple cider doughnuts,” Chelsea shot at him.
He ignored her. “What about sailing?”
“Sailing?” I did love water, but we were basically landlocked. “That would be fun.”
“My parents own a boat, over near Annapolis. We could go out some weekend when it’s warmer.”
It wouldn’t be warmer for months. Did he really see us together by spring? “Yeah. I’d love that.”
“What would you add if we had a list together?” Bas asked Chelsea.
“Cook me an entire Thanksgiving dinner?”
Typical. We all laughed at Chelsea’s one-track foody mind, but Bas didn’t let the opportunity pass. “I’d love to cook you Thanksgiving dinner. This Thursday?” He frowned. “Oh, but you’re probably going home to be with your mom.”
“No. Not this year.” They worked out logistics, then Chelsea said, “What about you guys? Could you both make it?”
Evan said, “I’d love to. I have to work Friday, so I’m stuck in town anyway.”
“It sounds fun. I’m in.” Of course I’d be there. Ever since my parents started taking off on world cruises, I found myself homeless most holidays. “But why aren’t you going home, Chelsea? You usually do.”
“I think my mom has a new boyfriend. She canceled on me.”
My pity party cut short. My parents might be physically away, but Chelsea would have fared better if she’d been an orphan. “Jesus. I’m sorry.”
Evan stood and held his hand out to me. “Come on. We’ve got a hayride to cross off our list.”
“Your list of two items?” Chelsea chided.
I glared at her. “We’re working on it.”
While Chelsea and Bas grabbed a couple of baskets, presumably to pick apples for a decadent pie, Evan and I strolled to the ticket window, just in time to climb onto the back of a hay wagon that smelled of diesel and sounded like a rocket ship.
Any thoughts of having a real conversation while touring an apple orchard were drowned out by the rumbling of the motor.
“I haven’t done this since I was a kid,” Evan yelled.
“Me neither.” In fact, I wasn’t sure I ever had.
Evan took a seat beside a woman wearing an enormous pair of sunglasses, speaking in a language I didn’t know. “This is probably the most wholesome activity we could have ever imagined, huh?”
I squished beside him on the hay bale. “We could see if they offer square dancing, later.”
“What?”
“Square dancing,” I yelled.
The tractor lurched forward, and the wagon jerked a second later. Everyone cried out, arms flailing for purchase, and then the momentum caught up, and we all laughed at the surprise jolt as the ride smoothed out. Evan looped his arm through mine, and we jostled along.
It was hard to believe it had been less than twenty-four hours since I’d walked out on him, and I was glad he’d apologized for the right reasons, but I worried I was always going to be on my guard for the next thing that might set him off.
After all, Chelsea liked to point out that her asshole dad had managed to charm her mom.
But what if there’d been warning signs from the start?
Was I wasting my time on a flawed person?
The thing was, when I wasn’t thinking like Chelsea, I didn’t see Evan as flawed.
I saw him like someone who’d gotten a shock of electricity every time he’d touched a doorknob, and now he was effectively locked out, afraid to turn the handle.
I could open the door for him, but it was up to him to come through.
I leaned against him, enjoying the breeze in my hair, a whisper of winter in the air. We bumped into each other, laughing at every surprisingly bouncy dip. This whole ride was a weird metaphor for our relationship so far.
As it came to a halt, Evan said, “Well, I guess for seven bucks, I shouldn’t have expected much.”
“Thank God it wasn’t longer,” said a woman, holding her hip.
I stretched, breathing in the fall air to calm my nerves, bracing myself for everything that still needed saying. I would not chicken out. “Come with me.”
The orchard sloped down the side of the mountain, row upon row, with paths between. A couple of girls giggled as they passed us, one calling, “Keep giving the sexy weather,” as if she’d been put up to a dare and now they had to flee the scene of the crime. Evan stiffened and gripped my hand.
Chelsea and Bas were somewhere out here, but the lane we turned down was deserted. Evan reached up to pluck an apple, examining it like it was the root of all evil.
I looked around for an abandoned basket, not wanting to get in trouble for stealing. “Here.” I took the apple from him and dropped it in. “Did you want to pick apples?”
He shook his head, laughing, like he hadn’t even realized he’d entered into a commercial venture with the orchard. “I wouldn’t even know what to do with them.”
“Juggle?”
He picked one up off the ground and tossed it in the air, catching it like a baseball he was toying with. Then he dropped it, lifting his ankle in time to give it a solid kick. It went flying off the path. “No hacky sack, check.”
An archway divided the lanes, like a portal into another world. Beyond the tops of the trees, the land spreading out below resembled a quilt, and something about being so high above our day-to-day issues gave me the courage to speak what was on my mind.
“Evan, I—” I said, just as he said, “I’m really sorry—”
He rubbed the side of his neck, and I couldn’t tell if he was blushing or just cold. “Sorry. Go on.”
The people pleaser side of me wanted to insist he go first, but I already knew he was sorry, and I needed more than a few words to undo the damage from the night before.
My trust in him had been severely shaken, and although I believed his sincerity, I couldn’t keep excusing bad behavior.
I wasn’t so lonely I’d settle for someone who wasn’t ready to treat me like I deserved.
“Evan, look. What you said to me was shitty, and I was angry at you. Not so much for the words, but because you asked me to give you some grace—which I have—but then you didn’t return the favor. You didn’t give me a chance to explain.”
“I know. I fucked up and—”
I held up a hand. “I’m speaking now.”
His mouth closed abruptly, and then he said, “I’m listening.”
“The truth is, I’ve always been afraid of confrontation, and it turns me into a doormat sometimes.
I had a sheltered childhood, but I don’t know how to take up space.
I could have pretended to be brave last night and stayed to fight my ground.
But Evan, I don’t want to need to fight my ground with you.
I shouldn’t have to pretend I’m anyone other than who I am when I’m with you. ”
“I know.” He looked at his feet. “I wish I could take it all back.”
“You can’t. Last night, you had a window when you might have been able to, but you didn’t call or text, and then this morning, I heard you tell Chelsea you didn’t want to see me.” I couldn’t control how my voice cut out, letting him hear how that sting of rejection had hurt.
“I didn’t think I could face you ever again.” He dragged his eyes back to meet mine, like it took an act of bravery to look at me while he shared this.
“Why not?” It was important for me to know whether this was going to be a pattern. As much as I liked him—more than liked him; I’d fallen half in love with him before last night—the other half of my heart remained walled up for its own protection, and I couldn’t live this way.
“I thought I’d already lost you, and I was too scared—no—too ashamed to find out for certain. I wanted to run to you.” He shook his head. “But why would you want to talk to me when I’m like this?” His lips folded together, and I thought he might start to cry.
I could understand that at least. “We all have those moments when we’d rather be dead than own up to our mistakes.”
“Yeah?” He hiccuped a little breath.
“Yeah. Definitely.”
“What I can’t understand is why you can even tolerate me after everything I said to you.”
At least I could now tell Chelsea he’d groveled. But I wasn’t Chelsea, and this wasn’t what I wanted. “I promised you we’d talk the next time we had trust issues. I’m honoring that promise.”
“What can I do to prove to you I’m not that person from last night?”
Usually, at a direct question like this, I’d let him off the hook with a promise to never act like that again, but I was done putting myself in a corner. “I don’t know that you can.” His face dropped, but I went on. “Not today anyway.”
“No, I get it. It will take time to earn your trust back. I hope I haven’t lost it completely.”
I stared out over the incredible view of the panorama below before looking back up into his gorgeous face, searching for the guy he’d been only twenty-four hours before.
I’d spent enough time with him to paint a picture, and I believed the night before had been an anomaly, that it had been more about his demons than my perceived sins.
There was one lingering question. “And do you trust me now?”
“I do.” He gazed into my eyes, sincerity shining through. “You’re just so unbelievably special. You make me think we could have it all: friendship, romance, intimacy.”
Pretty words. “That’s a good start. But Evan, friendship, romance, and intimacy, those are all actions. If you want to prove we can have it all, show me. Not once, but over and over.”
“Does that mean you’re going to give me a chance?”
“Why don’t we start by working on the friendship?”
Points for Evan, he didn’t flinch. His face radiated pure joy and relief. “Thank you, Elizabeth. I won’t fuck this up again.”
With the hard part done, I said, “Let’s go check out that little country store. I want to see how many products can be made with apples.”
For someone who’d just been demoted, Evan had a decided spring in his step as he led me through the orchard, like he’d won a reprieve, and I was proud of myself for setting boundaries I could live with.
Chelsea might not be thrilled with the compromise, but this was my life, and I was learning that I needed to stand up to my best friend sometimes, too.