Page 45 of Still Love You

He chuckles. "Shit, that's bad. What'd the girl do?"

"She didn't know it was a name. She thought I was just yelling out some random word. She actually liked it. She said it sounded sexy, so next time we had sex she kept telling me to say it, so I did."

He laughs. "That's messed up, but freaking hilarious."

"I shouldn't have done it. It just made me think of Willow, which wasn't fair to Jen. That was her name." I hit him. "See? It's been over a year and I still remember the girl's name and you can't remember the name of the girl you were with last night."

He pauses to think. "Miley? Cami? Help me out here."

I roll my eyes. "Haley."

"Haley. Miley. Close enough."

"I can't believe you get girls to sleep with you."

He points to himself. "Between this body and my witty charm, girls can't resist me."

"Yeah, you're real charming. And that beer gut's real attractive."

"So going back to you and Willow, I think you need to put an end to this before she destroys you again."

"She didn't destroy me."

"You quit college before you even started, then disappeared for two years."

Willow doesn't know I'd planned to go to college. I was going to tell her the day she broke up with me. Before I dated Willow, I never even thought about going to college. I was a laid-back surfer who didn't worry about what I'd be doing tomorrow or next week or next year. I took one day at a time and didn't think about stuff like car payments and rent because I didn't have to. I lived at home and drove my mom's car.

But as things got more serious between Willow and me, I started to think more about the future. I knew I wanted to marry her, which meant I needed to start thinking like an adult who would soon have adult responsibilities, like paying for rent and insurance and car payments. Suddenly I was forced to think about the future and make some decisions, one of which was whether or not to go to college. I decided to go, thinking I'd need to in order to get a decent-paying job. It was too late to apply to a four year college so I enrolled at the community college. I was going to work all summer to save money to get my own apartment, then start school in the fall.

I had a future planned out. A future I was excited about and couldn't wait to share with Willow. The day she agreed to marry me was the happiest day of my life. I felt like everything was coming together. 

But then a week later, she broke off the engagement, saying she couldn't see a future with me. She was still in high school but had already figured out the plan for her life—a plan that didn't involve me. She told me about wanting to be a CEO someday and how making it to the top would mean putting all her focus on school, and her future job. She said she wouldn't have time for me.

I told her we'd work it out and that I'd support her in whatever she wanted to do. I knew she wanted to go to Camsburg, so I did some research and found a community college nearby that I could transfer to when Willow started her freshman year. We'd get an apartment and life would be great.

But she said it would never work. That I would never be happy in the life she'd planned for herself. I kept trying to convince her we could make it work, but I knew that no matter what I said, she was still breaking up with me.

After that, I packed up and left on the trip that Willow and I were supposed to take together, backpacking across Europe. It was a graduation gift from my mom and Martin. The plane tickets were already bought and paid for, so I went without her. And after my two weeks were up, I stayed there. While backpacking, I met some people who connected me with a foreign aid organization and I ended up on a project in Turkey, building houses for the poor.

Whenever I had access to phone service, I called Willow. She wouldn't pick up but I kept calling. It cost a freaking fortune just to leave a message but I did it anyway. Luckily, my mom didn't complain about the phone bills, probably because she was hoping my calls would make Willow change her mind. She knew how much I loved Willow and wanted to be with her.

A few weeks after I left, I called Trent and he said Willow was telling people I stayed in Europe to continue backpacking. She never knew about my plans for college or for getting a job that summer. She assumed I had no interest in things like school or work but would rather roam the world with no real responsibilities. I told Trent to just let her think that. That maybe it would be easier for her to move on if she did.

"You can't let that girl fuck with your life again," Trent says.

"She's not. I'm back home and I'm going to school."

"You only have one class, which is all you can take because you're spending all your time helping her dad. You wouldn't be doing that if it weren't for Willow."

"I'm doing it to help save their business. Carl has always been like a dad to me and I owe him. This isn't about Willow."

"That's bullshit and you know it. This is you and me, Silas. We don't bullshit each other. You need to admit the real reason you're doing this so you can see this for what it is. An attempt to get Willow back."

"That's not what it is. She doesn't even know I'm doing it." I turn toward him. "You need to shut up about Willow and me. If I want to go out with her, I will."

"You're going to get your ass kicked, Silas. And you're going to get your heart broken. Again. She's going to spend the summer hanging out with you, probably having sex with you, and then in three months she's going to tell you to get lost. She'll go back to her fancy college and find some new guy and you're going to be left with nothing. You won't even have any money saved because you're working for her dad for free."

"She's not going to do that."

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