Page 9 of Love You Still

“Understand? You think you could possibly understand what I’m going through right now? I lost the love of my life on what should have been the second happiest day of my life. How can you possibly understand how I’m feeling? Please, enlighten me.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

Tears stream down Connor’s cheeks, his eyes light with pure fury as he steps toward me. “Then how did you mean it, Vance? Are you trying to compare Lydia dying to Selina leaving? Lydia isgone. She’s dead and is never coming back. You can go to Selina whenever you want. Hell, you could have been with her right now if you didn’t let your fear of being rejected get in the way. All you needed to do was tell her you would follow her wherever she wanted to go.”

I know he’s in pain and that he doesn’t mean to lash out at me, but his words still hit the mark. I could have saved myself a load of heartache if I had just told Selina I wanted to go with her, but I was a coward. More worried about what it would feel like if she told me she didn’t want me there with her than about keeping the two of us together.

Connor grips the neck of my shirt tightly in his hand, pulling me towards him. His entire body shakes with anger as our eyes lock with each other. “Do you really know how that feels, Vance? Do you? Do you have any idea how it feels to have live wires running through your entire body? That the act of breathing feels as if it’s going to kill you and force you to keep living all at the same time?”

“No, I don’t,” I croak, my eyes remaining locked on his face. “I wish there was something I could do to ease all your pain, Connor. I really do. I know there’s nothing I could say to make you believe things will get easier, but they will. You have your little girl, a piece of Lydia, for the rest of your life.”

“I’d rather have my wife.” Connor sobs as he releases his hold on my shirt. I take a step forward, wanting to wrap my arms around him, but he places a hand on my chest.

“Did you know they asked me to hold her? Something about skin-to-skin bonding or some bullshit, and I wanted to vomit. The thought of touching the thing that took my wife away from me made me sick to my stomach.”

“You don’t mean that, Connor. I know right now it seems like it, but you love Jade. You love her because she is a part of Lydia you can carry with you for the rest of your life.”

“Right now, I don’t know anything.” Connor flops back down onto the couch and is immediately enveloped in his parents’ arms.

I stand by and watch my best friend cry, letting go of all the pain of losing the love of his life and the idea of having to go on without her. Bitterness courses through my veins that fate could be so cruel.

“We’re all here for you, Connor. Whatever you need, all you have to do is ask.” I sob before I spin on my heels and head to the back door.

My vision blurs as I grab the handle and fling the door open, gasping for air as my chest tightens. I don’t know where I can go to escape the pain that radiates through my body, but just being in that room, surrounded by everyone’s grief, is suffocating me. I know I should’ve stayed by Connor’s side and helped him work through everything, but right now, I can’t get his words out of my head.

He’s right. I can’t possibly understand what it would be like for Selina to no longer be here. Sure, she’s miles away in New York, probably having the time of her life, but she’s still there. There’s still a chance that I’ll be able to see her again. To know what it feels like to have her wrapped in my arms, to beg her to forgive me for deserting her. For making her feel as if she had to choose between me and her love for dancing. All I have to do is pick up the phone.

“You seem like you have a lot on your mind,” a voice sounds from beside me.

“Yeah,” I mutter as I notice a tiny slip of a girl standing beside me. She has shoulder-length brown hair, her green eyes smiling softly up at me before she shifts her attention toward the setting sun. I take a few moments to try to figure out where I know this girl from. She looks to be around my age, so we probably went to high school together. She’s almost a full head shorter than meand is wearing a pair of tight-fighting jeans and a plain black top—nothing out of the ordinary when coming to visit a friend.

After staring for a few moments, unable to place where I know her from, I open my mouth and ask, “Do I know you?”

“No. Not really,” she answers, not giving me any further information. “We went to high school together, but we weren’t really friends.”

I narrow my eyes at the girl, trying to put her face with a name but come up empty. “Sorry,” I grumble, not sure if that was the response she was looking for.

“No need to apologize. We live in a small town, sure, but you can’t be expected to remember every person you’ve ever met, especially when you only had eyes for one girl.” She giggles softly, her hand stretching toward me. “Emily.”

“Vance, but I have a feeling you already knew that.”

“Yeah, I did,” she responds as she turns her attention forward.

We stand there, both of us lost in thought, before I break the silence. “What do you mean that I only had eyes for one girl?”

“Selina Grymes was your world. Just like Lydia was Connor’s. You two circled those girls as if they were your sun.”

“She is—I mean was. Honestly, I don’t know what we are anymore.” I chuckle humorously. “Either way, she moved off to New York to attend Juilliard right after graduation. It feels as if she’s forgotten all about me and everyone here in Tyson’s Creek.”

“I doubt that very much.” She turns to me, her arms crossed over her chest. “Did you ever stop to think that she’s been hurting just as much as you are?”

“How the hell am I supposed to know what she’s thinking when she doesn’t talk to me?” I huff, confused about why I’m even having this conversation with a stranger. “I’m not a mind reader, you know.”

“No, you aren’t, but neither is she, Vance Kirkland. If what Connor said was true, you have been keeping some things from Selina. Things that would have made it so much easier for you to be together.”

I open my mouth to respond but quickly shut my mouth and think about what Emily just said. Would things have worked out differently if I had just told Selina about my scholarship to NYU? Would we be living happily in New York together, or would we have met the same fate? There is no telling how things would’ve turned out, I know that, but if there was even a slight chance that things could have worked out, I may have done things differently. In the end, it all boils down to me being afraid to take the chance of putting myself out there for Selina. If there was a way to guarantee the outcome would have been different, I know in my heart I’d have done it in a heartbeat. But without that guarantee, here we are.

Selina and I had been so worried about stopping each other from making our dreams come true that we never took the time to include each other in those plans. Selina always planned on going to New York on her own, just as I always planned on what our lives would be like here in Tyson’s Creek. Not once did either of us make room for the other. No wonder she didn’t bother to ask me to go with her. She never knew I’d be willing to do so.

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