Page 65 of The Interns

Maya sat in the back corner of the bar on a table whose chairs had all been stolen by other patrons. She looked across the room that was now almost filled to capacity with only an hour to go until midnight. There were some older folks, groups of younger people, and couples in between who had probably left the kids with grandma and grandpa for the night so they could ring in the New Year together. She found herself looking at the pictures that hung above the bar, trying to match the faces with those in the crowd, but she had no luck except for one very familiar face who was somewhere out there, probably catching up with neighbors or old friends from high school.

She watched Willa flit in and out of the crowd, stopping to chat and check on people’s drinks and food on her way back to the bar where she went straight over to the stereo system. She made a few adjustments, and the classic rock song playing in the background faded out and was replaced by the slow strum of an acoustic guitar and a soft, twangy female voice. Willa left the bar and made her way back through the crowd as the music swelled and filled the room.

“You tryin’ to run people out of here with this crap?” Dustin called out to her, fist still in the air mid-pump from the previous song. His voice carried over the idle chatter of the crowd and the song playing through the speakers.

“My place, my music,” she spat back. “Go get your own bar if you want to play DJ.”

Maya laughed to herself, taking particular delight in the exchange as she watched Willa embrace her husband. They whispered a few words to each other while they stayed in close hold and swayed to the music.

No one aside from Dustin seemed to mind the change of pace. A few of the couples joined Willa and Dev for an impromptu slow dance, and a table full of girls somewhere around her own age crooned the song to each other with hands over their hearts and beer bottles held to their lips in place of microphones. She didn’t mind it. It wasn’t her style, but it was a pretty song, with lyrics about makin’ plans with the one you love that were hitting a very raw nerve tonight.

“You’re always ditchin’ me at parties.” The man who was on her mind more often than not lately walked up with a small grin.

“That’s not true.”

“I think it is.” He slid onto the table beside her.

“Then maybe we should stop having parties the night before I leave town.”

“Yeah, I think you’re onto something.”

They managed to share a small laugh, albeit a slightly sad one, considering the circumstances. He grabbed hold of her hand and they sat there quietly for a moment.

“You look like a baby in that picture,” she said finally, nodding up at the photo of him and a pretty redhead hanging above the bar.

He squinted as he searched for the photo, finding it among the others after a few seconds. “I was. Probably nineteen or twenty. I didn’t realize that was still up there.”

“Is that the woman from the boutique?” she asked, noting the passing resemblance and considering the odds since this was a small town after all.

“Yeah. That’s Joanna.”

She hummed quietly. There wasn’t much more to say, the woman was a part of his history just like she would be tomorrow morning.

“We were high school sweethearts,” he volunteered. “She stayed here and worked while I went to college. And when I came back, she was ready for a ring and proposal. She’d been ready for a long time and was just waiting on me. But I didn’t have the money, so I started putting some away every paycheck, and after about a year of working is when everything happened and I met Al. I really hurt her when I started talking about going to law school when we were supposed to be talking about weddings.”

He paused for a moment and grimaced, looking frustrated with himself. He looked out over the bar and then back at her.

“I guess what I’m trying to tell you is that I get it,” he said, finally finding his words. “I didn’t go away like you did, but I get needing to do your own thing. Nobody understood what the hell I was thinking except for Emmett. Not my friends, not my parents, and definitely not my girlfriend. But I knew there was more I needed to do.”

“Do you regret it?”

“No,” he said without hesitation. “It wasn’t easy, but I ended up where I was supposed to and I think Joanna would probably say she did, too.”

She understood what he was trying to tell her, the freedom he was trying to give her to walk away from this thing they had started with a clear conscience. And that would have worked if it was only the guilt over leaving him that ate at her, but there was the matter of missing him that he couldn’t make go away.

“I look at Dev and Willa and see how happy they are,” she said.

They never left home, married young, worked together, and were about to start a family together. And it all seemed so right. She had wrongly judged people like that from afar for their seemingly sheltered lives, but up close, it was a beautiful thing.

“But what’s right for them doesn’t mean it is for you. It wasn’t even right for me.”

“I’m trying to get you to talk me into coming home,” she admitted with a small laugh, “and it feels like you’re trying to send me packing.”

He didn’t laugh at her sad joke, but he did squeeze her hand a little tighter. “I just want you to figure out what’s right for you. And if there’s still something between us after that, we’ll figure out how to be together.”

If there was a better man for her than him, she’d certainly like to meet him, but she wouldn’t waste her time looking. “Do you have any idea how I feel about you?”

“Yeah. Because I’m right there with you.”

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