Page 84 of Years in the Making

“I didn’t disappear,” I hear him shout. “Nellie, I didn’t disappear. I’m here.” I can hear him swimming, but I keep walking. “Nellie, where are you going?” He’s behind me now, his feet pounding on the packed earth.

Where am I going? I whirl around just as he reaches me and nearly smack into his chest. His hands grab my arms to keep me from falling backward. Water drips from his hands down my arms, causing me to shiver, so I step out of his hold.

His hands drop to his side. “Don’t run away from me, Nell. Stay and talk, let me explain.”

“I’m not running, Teddy. I’m walking away from you. Don’t you recognize the gesture? Or did I not do it right?” I seethe. “I’m walking away from you before you can do it to me again. Because I have stupidly let you seep back into here.” I rest my hand over my heart. “Because the thought of you being here and gone again is too fucking much. And I cannot even begin to tell you how much that pisses me off. Also, I was enjoying my morning and then you had to show up, so thanks for that.”

“So tell me,” he pleads as I take another step away.

I spin back. “What?”

He takes a step towards me. “Tell me what pisses you off. Lay it on me. Every single thing you wanted to say to me but didn’t get a chance because I fucked off. Tell me whata coward I was. Tell me I don’t deserve a second chance at any kind of relationship with you. Unleash every single feeling you’ve hidden away because you didn’t want to make a single situation awkward for anyone else.” He takes another step, and he’s so close I can feel the heat radiating off him. It would be so easy to lean in and soak it up. “Break my heart as thoroughly as I broke yours and don’t leave a single piece of it mendable.”

My gaze is fused to the tattoo that I refuse to acknowledge. “You really want to know?” I ask and finally look up to see him nod. “I convinced myself that this”—I gesture between us, cursing when my hand brushes his skin—“was supposed to happen. It was all fate or some shit, and now it feels like a giant reminder that I’m maybe too trusting, too forgiving. Too Nellie from twelve years ago. I could be married right now, did you know that? I could be Nellie Holmes, but I’m not because despite being comfortable in my relationship, he didn’t do a thing for me in here.” I smack my chest. “You broke me, Teddy. You took my heart and cut it off from feeling more for anyone else, and I didn’t even realize it until you came back. You’re fucking selfish.”

I’m watching him the entire time I speak, and I see his heart break as clear as day. The way his forehead crinkles and the lines at the side of his mouth deepen. I watch him swallow as his shoulders begin to curl in ever so slightly. I watch the fight fade from his whole body, and it’s in that moment I have the shocking realization that I don’t want it to. I want to be fought for. Specifically by Teddy.

“Then you come back. Completely out of the blue, poof, there you are, and you had this brilliant, horrible, heartbreaking excuse for leaving. And I hate you so fucking much for that. Because it’s the only reason you could have given me that made any kind of sense for the guy I fell for. You left, and for years I was convinced that I had done something to push you away.Imagine how that would feel, Teddy. If I had done this to you, and then you find out you had absolutely no role in it. You were just a goddamn casualty.”

I stop to catch my breath because if I keep going I’m going to have to grab onto something to keep upright and the closest something happens to be Teddy. His eyes are burning into me, unasked questions fading in and out of focus. I can’t look at him anymore so I turn my gaze toward the trees that seem to stretch into oblivion.

“And the worst part,” I say, calmer now, “the worst part of this entire thing is underneath all this pain is a woman who is so happy you’re here. And I don’t understand it.”

We stand there silently together, my breathing jagged and his calm.

When my breathing returns to normal, and the silence is overwhelming, I finally look back up at him. “Is something wrong with your phone?” He shakes his head again. “You could have sent a text last night. Called. Yelled.”

“I could have, and I should have. I’m s…not going anywhere, Nellie. I was still here.” He spreads his arms indicating he was still in the vicinity. “I had planned to talk to you about it when I got back, I just got back later than I thought I would. It wasn’t intentional.”Not like before, I think.

He tips his head towards the shore, a stupid hopeful little smile appearing on his face. “I brought coffee.”

There is no harm in listening to this, at least I’ll get an explanation right away. “Did you—”

“Bring the maple cookies? Yes,” he confirms.

“Fine.” I grunt and lead the way back to the rocks where I now see a thermos and a little baggy of cookies.

When half my coffee is gone, I ask the question I should have asked yesterday before he had a chance to walk by me. “So what happened?”

Teddy, to his credit, doesn’t look away from me. He sets his coffee down and looks me straight in the eye. “Betty’s husband—”

“Had a stroke,” I finish for him and watch as his eyes widen. “I asked George about your trip, and he mentioned it.”

He clears his throat and blinks rapidly a few times and I fight against the need to reach for him. “It wasn’t even the stroke or the fact he had similar paralysis as my mom. It was this moment between him and Betty. It was like I was back at the kitchen table with my parents. Despite the fact their reality was far from ideal, they just made it work, for them. They made the life they wanted fit. And…” I watch him swallow and finally look away from me.

“We don’t—”

“No,” he cuts me off. “No, I want to, I need to. I wasn’t running away yesterday, Nellie. I was trying to pull myself back into the present. When I was gone, I spent half of my time grieving my mom and what I had as a son and brother, and the other half grieving us, you.”

I understand the grieving us part, I did it myself and it was hard. I have no idea what I would have done if I’d lost my mom and then discovered what felt like a monumental betrayal.

He takes another deep breath, and I watch a tear escape and track down his cheek. “I know by now I should be over this. I know I should have moved on from this sadness that taints every single relationship I have. I will never be able to make up for what I did to you. There is no erasing the hurt my actions and inaction caused. I should have called you that first day. I should have written you a thousand letters. The shame that consumed me after the grief eased kept me from following through on a single thing when it came to you. You had twelve years stolen because of me. I know I shouldn’t look at you and hope you still see the good guy somewhere inside me. But I do.”

“I do, even if it’s hard to admit it.” It comes almost as a question, as if I can’t quite believe I’m saying it myself. I may still hold some anger about being left, but I’ve been denying the fact that the guy I fell for is still very much who this man in front of me is. “I see the good guy. I also see a guy who’s struggling to come to terms with the life he left behind. I see a son who desperately misses his mom and his family.” I see the reality of how time doesn’t necessarily heal as fast as we hoped it would. It most certainly doesn’t erase moments we wish we could redo.

I move a little closer, but I still don’t touch him. “I see the boy I was falling for so long ago in the eyes of a man. I see you Teddy, the you from before and from today, and all the versions in between. I see it when you smile, even if you don’t smile as much as before. I hear it in your laugh and when you talk to the dog like he’s going to answer you. I see you, Teddy.” The last words are a whisper, and before I know it I’m rising on my knees and wrapping my arms around his shoulders.

Teddy’s arms encircle my waist, pulling me into him. Head on my chest, trying to control his own emotions. When I went to bed last night the last thing I would have imagined was this scenario. If anything I could have imagined an angry fuck at most, but this feels far more appropriate for friends.

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