Page 8 of Second Chance with Seth

“Pride… shame… guilt…”Fear of having to explain myself.“Do you want me to go on?”

“No,” he says. “But if you want her back, I’d suggest you suck it up.”

There’s no question of wanting her back. It’s the thought that fills my every waking moment. As for my dreams, they’re filled with Everly, too. She’s always there… always in my head, and in my heart, and as I drive home, I wish I could drive back to her, instead of an empty apartment.

Don’t get me wrong, I like my apartment. It’s in a small, gated community with landscaped gardens, and I live in the third block on the left. There are only eight in total, andeach building has four apartments. Aiden helped me find it when I left Everly, and landed on his doorstep, desperate for somewhere to stay. He let me use his guest bedroom for a few nights, and then this place came up and I’ve been renting it ever since. I quite like the open-plan kitchen and living area. It reminds me of Everly’s apartment above the coffee shop, although this place is more modern. Having two bedrooms is useful. I use the second one as an office, which means I can work from home every so often… even if only to escape from Davina.

I sigh, thinking about her as I park my car. I wasn’t exaggerating when I told Aiden that she spends half her time hovering around my desk. For the last three days, I’ve barely achieved anything, other than to answer her questions… and while I get that everyone has to learn, it seems Davina’s taking her time getting there, because she keeps asking the same things, over and over… and over.

Still, at least it’s Friday. She’s not my problem for the next two days… thank God.

I climb the stairs, letting myself in and shrugging off my jacket, which I throw over the back of one of the four chairs that surround the circular dining table, before I wander into the living area and flop onto the cream-colored L-shaped couch and stare at the 85-inch TV screen on the wall opposite. I definitely landed on my feet when I moved in here, with nothing to my name other than the bags I was carrying. The furniture may not be entirely to my taste, but it’s good quality, and comfortable… which is just what I need right now, with Aiden’s words still ringing around my head. I have to admit, he’s right… I should suck it up, and I ought to go back. I think I’ve known that all along. Apart from anything else, I need to apologize. Not just for leaving Everly, but for the circumstances of my departure… and the timing of it. I should have said sorry a long time ago,but at the beginning, I wanted Everly to come after me. I didn’t dare tell Aiden that. He’d have accused me of arrogance beyond compare, but it wasn’t entirely about my own conceit. It was about those circumstances… which never came to anything. Obviously. I wasn’t to know that at the time, but even aside from that, I wanted Everly to need me, like I needed her. Except she didn’t, and it was only after a couple of weeks of stoney silence that I realized how much I’d lost. It was fear that kept me away then. Fear of being rejected… of being told she didn’t want me anymore.

“You’re fucking pathetic,” I whisper under my breath, sitting up on the edge of the couch and resting my elbows on my knees, my head in my hands. That’s hardly a surprise. Walking out on Everly was about the most cowardly act I’ve ever heard of… let alone committed, and I’m not proud of it.

I don’t have a defense, but I suppose my only excuse – if it can be called one – is that she caught me off guard. I’d been planning to talk to her about her hours at the coffee shop, about the fact that I’d wanted to help her since her aunt’s death, and that she wouldn’t let me. She wouldn’t let anyone. She’d shut me out, using the coffee shop as an excuse, and I felt excluded from her life… and from her grief. I wanted to tell her how it felt, and to ask if we could find a way around it. There were other things we needed to talk about, too… but despite my well-rehearsed speech, the whole thing fell apart when Helen ambushed me outside the coffee shop. I always used to park out front when I got back from work, and that night, as I retrieved my jacket from the back seat, I felt someone come up behind me and put their hands on my hips. It was a woman… that much was obvious. But it wasn’t Everly, and I spun around, coming face-to-face with Helen. Probably a year or two older than Everly, there was no denying that Helen was beautiful. She wasn’t on the same level as Everly, but she was beautiful, nonetheless. Onthat day, she was wearing a floral dress with a jacket over the top, and her dark hair was hanging loose around her shoulders. I closed the car door, leaning back against it, and she looked up at me, a smile touching at her lips.

“Good day?” she said, tilting her head.

“Not bad. You?”

“It’s getting better by the minute.” Her eyes were fixed on mine, and her meaning wasn’t lost. It never had been before, on all the other occasions she’d said things like that to me, and while I knew I should tell her to stop, I didn’t.

“Is there a reason for that?” I asked instead, knowing it was wrong of me.

“You know there is, Seth.” She put her hand on my arm and I didn’t pull away. Instead, I just stared at her for a long moment and then smiled.

“Just like you know I’m spoken for,” I said.

“You could say that with a little more conviction.”

I chuckled. “And you could behave yourself.”

She moved her hand upward, letting it rest on my bicep. “Where would be the fun in that?”

I laughed, and she joined in, just as the door to the coffee shop opened and someone stepped out, reminding me I was, indeed, spoken for, and that the woman I loved was working inside.

“I—I’d better go,” I said, stepping away, forcing Helen to release me.

“If you insist.”

I wasn’t doing very much ‘insisting’, and I think Helen knew that, although she stepped back and let me go. I could feel her eyes on me as I walked away, though… and I liked that. It made me feel wanted.

It might have been nearly six-thirty in the evening, but the coffee shop was still busy. Everly was rushed off her feet, and Ihad to wait five minutes for her to even notice me. The contrast between her obvious cold-shoulder and Helen’s close attentions was almost overwhelming, especially as Everly couldn’t even raise a smile when she turned to look at me.

“We need to talk,” I said, which probably wasn’t the best thing to say in the circumstances. We’d both had a long day, and she was clearly still in the throes of hers, although she surprised me by nodding her head.

“Yeah. I think we do. Go on up. I’ll join you as soon as I can.”

Was that it?

I felt angry that, although we both knew something was wrong, I was still having to wait. I could have fixed myself a coffee, or taken a shower, but instead I just paced the floor, until she finally appeared at the top of the stairs, looking worn out. Part of me wanted to hold her and tell her it could wait, but we’d put this off for too long already.

“Do you wanna sit down?” I asked.

“No. I want you to tell me what’s going on between you and Helen Rogers.”

I hadn’t expected that and I felt cornered, knowing I was in the wrong, and that I should have been more firm with Helen right from the start.

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