Page 110 of A Chance for Us
We may already be hundreds of miles apart, but it’s as if I can feel the distance growing. Something is different. He doesn’t sound right, and my instincts are telling me that I should proceed with caution.
“Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, why?”
I sit back on my heels. “I just feel like something is wrong and you’re not telling me.”
“That’s not the case, sweetheart. I want to see you, but this weekend is my first one back after being gone for weeks. I need to get caught up and let everyone else take a breather too. Plus, I have a possible wedding booking that I need to meet on Saturday. How about I come to you the following week?”
All of that seems completely reasonable. I’m being silly, and he doesn’t deserve me being a nutjob. Well, more of a nutjob than I already am.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. I’d love to come out there and spend the weekend doing nothing but naked snuggling.”
I laugh a little. “Naked, huh?”
“Definitely.”
“All right. That is a plan I can get behind.”
Oliver and I talk a bit more, catching up on the changes his siblings have made and updates at my job. We saw each other six days ago, and I still feel as though the ground is shaking. When he is near, it’s steady. I miss steady.
I miss him.
I’ve always heard that long-distance relationships were hard, but I never truly knew just how hard. It’s like a part of you, the one you like and need, is missing. I can’t do anything but wait for it to be returned.
“Anything from Linda?” he asks.
“Just a text yesterday saying she needed time to process before she’d be able to speak to me again and that her lawyers would be in touch regarding my father’s will.”
“She’s something else . . .”
He isn’t wrong there. “I’ve been reaching out each day, wanting to see how she is.”
“I will never understand why,” Oliver muses.
“My father would’ve wanted it. Even though she didn’t hold to the same beliefs, I have to do what feels right. I want him to be proud of me, even now.”
At least that’s the line of crap I’m feeding myself. I don’t know why I’m being nice to her. She and Aunt Marie got into a huge argument after I left, and I doubt they’ll ever speak again. It’s as though Linda can be as ugly as she wants to the people who loved him now that he’s gone.
“He is. He has to be.”
I smile. “Cancer stole so much from him, but it never took his kindness. I watched his life fade away bit by bit and rob him of a future he should’ve had. It was impossible to understand or accept, but my father did it with humility. He was always good to people around him, even when they didn’t deserve it. I wanted to rage at everyone because it wasn’t fair. It’s never fair, and I don’t ever want to hear that word again, you know?”
“I understand.”
I sit on the kitchen stool. “I pray that no one in my life has to deal with it ever again. I know that’s unreasonable, but I just can’t handle it. I can’t watch it again, but I know at some point, I will.”
Oliver goes silent.
“Ollie?”
He clears his throat. “Sorry, phone cut out when I moved across the room.”
I had forgot how shitty service is on Melia Lake. “No worries. So, next weekend?”
“Next weekend.”
