Chapter Seven #3
“No, I couldn’t.” His laugh was harsh, dry. “I knew if I let myself talk to you, I’d want to rekindle things. And then we’d be right back where we were the year before. Long-distance relationship and an uncertain future. Would that have been any better?”
I thought about that next summer. About Alex and that tavern wench.
Him twirling a lock of her hair between two of his fingers, his smile slow and lazy.
It was performative flirting, the both of them in character, but it had made my chest hurt so much I could barely breathe.
None of his smiles had been for me that summer.
But what if they had been? I imagined the charm of his apology, and the na?ve way I would have accepted it. The whiplash of heartbreak when he went away again. Could things have been different, if I’d known at the beginning that we’d have an end date? Would my heart have hurt as much?
“I guess we’ll never know.” I answered both of our questions at the same time.
“I’m sorry.” When we made eye contact now, he didn’t look away. His eyes held mine, and there was no questioning the sincerity in them. “I’m really sorry. I thought leaving you alone was the right thing to do. And maybe it was, but the execution was all wrong.”
“Yeah.” My sigh felt like it came from the tips of my toes, surging through me, letting go of all those years of hurt.
All those years of resentment and bitterness.
It was a relief so extreme that it made my knees want to buckle.
But it left a big hole in my soul. Who was I if I wasn’t the Caitlin who held on to this grudge?
It had changed so much about who I was, what I believed.
“And then the year after that…” He rested his elbows on the counter, leaning in toward me. “We came back and you were gone.”
“I couldn’t do it,” I said. “Any of it. I couldn’t listen to people walk around reciting Shakespeare.
I couldn’t think about doing Faire again.
Everything about it reminded me of you, and that you’d…
” I’d been so hurt back then, my thoughts tangled up in red rage, that I’d thrown everything away that had given me joy, just because one stupid boy broke my heart.
But when you were in love for the first time, one stupid boy was all it took.
The girl I’d been then had felt so justified, but the woman I was now could only shake her head in amazement. “Why did I let you ruin it all for me?”
I hadn’t meant it as a barb, and thankfully he didn’t take it that way. “Yeah,” he said softly. “Why did you?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m sorry,” he said again, even though at this point he had nothing more to be sorry about.
Now I leaned my elbows on the counter too, mirroring his pose.
Something about the last few minutes gave me courage, and I reached out a hesitant hand.
His eyes flared, but I didn’t touch him.
Instead, I hooked a finger on that brown leather cord around his neck.
Alex made a small sound of protest, but didn’t move to stop me as I tugged it free from under his shirt.
A silver ring was strung on the cord. A narrow silver band, and as I turned it to its side I knew what I was going to see: little daisy-looking flower carvings all the way around it. Asters. My birth flower.
“This was mine,” I said, wonder in my voice.
“It was.” His voice was a breath, a hint of a whisper.
How had I forgotten about this ring? I’d gotten it that summer from a vendor, and at the end of the season, my head full of courtly love and knights and their tokens, I’d given it to Alex. Had I mentioned how extra I’d been as a teenager?
I’d forgotten all about it. Now my fingers closed around the ring, the metal warm from lying against his skin. He’d worn this cord around his neck every time I’d seen him this summer, in costume and out. Which meant he always wore this ring too.
“Why?”
I let go of the ring as he straightened up, and it fell to his chest. His hand closed around it.
“I really did care about you. That was never a lie.” He blinked hard, and I caught a shine in his eyes as he tucked the ring away again.
“When we…When I…” He gave a sharp shake of his head.
“You gave me your heart, and I was careless with it. This is to remind me to be more careful with hearts in the future.”
“And are you?” I asked. “More careful?”
“I try to be.”
“Me too.” I had to be, especially when a small, secret smile lifted Alex’s face. Even as I felt myself returning it, I warned myself to be careful. But this felt good.
I’d heard the phrase “clear the air” before, of course.
But I’d never realized that when you did it, when you actually talked out the years of deep hurt and both of you understood where the other was coming from, then the air—everything around you—really felt clear.
I looked across the counter at Alex and saw him with eyes that felt brand-new.
We were both older, and maybe a little bit wiser.
And maybe that was a good enough place to start.