Page 119 of Never Forever

He tilted back his big blonde head and laughed. “I guess I know when I’ve been dismissed,” he said.

He took his tool belt and left the house. I took one look at my coffee and dumped it down the drain. I hadn’t even taken a sip.

26

Matt

Armed with lots of bags from Pappas’ Diner, I went back at lunch on my day off. I took our old skiff and tied it up on the other side of the dock from the spot where the ferry would land.

I knocked on the door, still half expecting Gran to open it holding her joint and her shot gun. But no one came to the door.

“Hello?” I said, turning the knob. The hinges squeaked something awful, but the inside of the house was quiet. “Carrie?” I shouted.

Silence.

I tried not to jump to conclusions, but I was immediately sure she’d fallen and hit her head. Or worse.

“Carrie?” I shouted again, walking through the main floor to the kitchen. There was a jar of peanut butter open on the cutting board and an almost full pot of cold coffee. “Carrie?” I turned, about to head up the stairs, when I saw a flash of red and yellow out the back window.

Carrie sat in the chairs I’d set up for her yesterday. Her head tilted back, face to the sun. She wore another one of Gran’s house dresses, black with bright orange flowers.

She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

Mine, I thought. She’s mine. She has to be mine.

I had to get ahold of myself before I went charging out there to press my face to her belly. I wasn’t sure if yesterday had brought us closer or pulled us further apart. I’d given her as much of the truth as I could.

As much as felt necessary.

We had a new start. A fresh start. I wasn’t going to drag any of that old garbage into it. I could show her what we would be like. I could show her our future. And then I just had to trust her to trust me.

Simple.

“Hey,” I said, as I approached her in the sunlight. She lifted her arm, thin and winter white, to shield her eyes.

“You’re back,” she said, like she wasn’t sure I’d ever come back.

“Lunch,” I said. “I brought options.”

She sat up and lifted her feet from the other chair, making room for me to sit down.

“Your hair looks different,” I said. I’d been haunted by that horror movie chop I’d given her.

“Better?” she asked, touching the ends. “I cleaned it up with my manicure scissors.”

“Maybe?” I hedged. “Let’s just say I don’t know if the paparazzi in LA would recognize you in this state.”

“I know, it’s great. I’m going feral,” she said and lifted her leg. “Look.”

“What?” I asked, looking down at her smooth, beautiful leg.

“Hair. On my legs. I haven’t had hair on my legs in…months. Years?”

“I don’t see…”

She lifted my hand and put it on her sun-warmed skin and my heart stopped.

Touching her always stopped my heart. But now, after all these years, after the damage we’d done to each other – this second chance was a gift. A gift I could not take for granted.

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