Page 41 of Love Never Happens with your Brother’s Best Friend

“No. Not dumb at all.” I shove my backpack over to where she is sitting on hers, and sit down opposite, taking her hands in mine. A small pile of white daisies is at my feet.

“And when I saw you at the party in New York,” Rita says quietly, gazing at our entwined fingers, as if she is letting me in on her biggest secret. “It was a wake-up call. Because, for the first time, I knew you were all grown up and living your best life… without me.” Rita lifts her gaze and locks her eyes on mine. Her brow furrows. She slowly shakes her head. “For some reason, I had this childish idea that you would come back... for me. That you would look me up one day. And I would get a call.” Rita mimes a call, holding an imaginary phone to her ear. “Hi Rita, it’s Brodie. Sorry to bother you after all this time, but I think we need to be together now.” She laughs and hangs up the phantom call. “I thought you would come riding in on a white stallion and whisk me away like a hero in a story.” Rita smiles, her head on one side. “In all those years, I still hoped to hear from you. Then, in that bar, that night, I knew I had been wishing for something that was never going to happen. My dream would never come true. I understood that you were this… this hot, party guy…surrounded by beautiful women. And I just realized that I was never going to get that call.”

“Wait a minute…” I scratch my head, slightly puzzled by what I am hearing. “I think I’m missing something here.”

“I realized I was hanging onto a dream of you and me that didn’t exist in reality. Honestly.” Rita says brightly. “Seeing you in the bar that night was the best thing that could have happened. Really. I turned my life around and blocked you out completely. You were never going to call. I meant nothing to you.”

I feel as if Rita has hit me in the face with a cold wet twenty-pound trout fished straight from the river. I’m so shocked I can’t say anything. Rita continues.

“How stupid did I feel in that moment? Anyway. I saw the girls you were with, and I didn’t want to be one of them. Soon after that, I quit modeling and came back here.”

“Rita… I never knew… Any of this.” I wrap her in my arms and hold her tight. “I want to turn the clock back to that night in the bar,” I say kissing Rita’s lips, her cheeks, her forehead, her nose. “I want to find you and tell you that I love you, and you are the only woman for me, and I want to be with you forever.”

We kiss with passion, a long luxurious kiss, that goes on and on; a kiss that is filled with the years we have been apart; with a deep longing for each other. It’s a kiss that started at this place by the river all those years before. I feel if we kiss for the rest of our lives, we could never make up that lost time when we weren’t together.

“I have a question,” Rita says quietly pulling away from me. “It’s something that’s been bothering me for the longest time.” She drops her hand to the ground and plucks a daisy.

“Sure, go ahead.”

“If you love me and, like you said, you always have…” Rita plucks another daisy and adds it to the pile. “… then why didn’t you call?”

“What do you mean?” I gently hold Rita’s shoulders and look into her eyes. “When?”

“When you left, you never once got in touch with me.” Rita stands up and walks a few paces toward the water. “I only ever heard about you and what you were doing from Dylan. You didn’t call me. Why?”

“Rita.” I am shocked to hear this. Like another slap from a wet fish. “Rita, I thought you… I believed that you didn’t want me to.”

“Brodie.” Rita’s expression is fierce, her nostrils flaring with emotion. I can see how hard it is for her to articulate her thoughts. “You. Kissed. Me. I was fourteen years old. And when you tell someone that you’re in love with them at that tender age, boy, that is powerful stuff!”

“Yes. Rita! I remember only too well. I said it and I meant it.” Now I’m the one getting emotional. “And…”

“And what?”

“And I still mean it now.” I walk over to Rita. “It doesn’t matter that we were teenagers.” I take her hand in mine. “I loved you then and I love you now. I will still love you when you look like the old hag in Snow White.”

“I’m never going to look like an old hag.”

“True. You are way too beautiful.”

“So why, the heck, did you not call me in ten years?” Rita yells at me taking back her hand in frustration.

“Because I really thought you didn’t want me to. I thought you hated me, Rita. I can take a hint.”

“What are you talking about? Why did you think I hated you?”

“That day before I left for Boston, I waited for hours for you to come and meet me at the tree.”

“Tree? What tree?”

“Our tree. Where we kissed.”

“Oh yes, and how was I supposed to know you were there?” Rita crosses her arms defensively. “I’m not telepathic.”

“I don’t believe I’m hearing this.” I slap my palm against my forehead. “Okay…” I walk a few paces down to the river and back to collect my thoughts, then fix Rita with the most serious look I can manage. “Let’s go back to the day I came over to your house to let you know about my scholarship.”

“Alright. You came over so loud and happy. You and Dylan were raucous in the hallway. We were all really happy for you, Brodie.”

“Yes. It was huge for me. You were there and then you disappeared.”

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