Page 81 of Three Not-So-Little Words
Sure, she shut me down every time I would try to be serious, but I should’ve pushed harder. There’s no excuse.
I can’t stop thinking about her, but I’m fairly sure I blew it. The look on her face told me she was too freaked out.
I try to focus on the job I’m working on, but replacing the starter on a Ford Taurus isn’t doing much to stop the Ronnie thoughts.
Fuck.
Around lunch time, Jack comes walking out to the bay and heads toward me.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“Yeah, but there’s someone here who wants to see you.”
I look behind him to see Ronnie standing there. Instead of her usual dressed-up look, she wears jeans, a t-shirt, and Converse sneakers. Her hair is piled into a high ponytail, and she doesn’t have any makeup on.
“Hi,” I say, standing up and wiping off my hands.
“Hey.”
Jack looks back and forth between the two of us. “I’ll leave you two alone.”
When he walks away, I say, “I tried texting.”
“I know.” She shoves her hands in her pockets. “I want to show you something.”
“Now?”
She nods.
“I’m at work.”
“I already talked to Jack. He said it was okay.” She gives the smallest of smiles. “There are perks to the boss being your brother-in-law.”
“Uh, okay. Let me just wash my hands, and we can go.”
Twenty minutes later, we are walking through the woods. I have no idea where we are going, and I’m too scared to ask.
On the drive, I must have opened my mouth to talk about ten different times. Each time, I stopped myself. One, I’m not quite sure what to say. And two, I figure I should see what she wants to show me first.
I’m hoping it isn’t a body dump or something. With Ronnie, you never know.
Finally, we emerge from the trail into a large clearing with a lake and a waterfall.
Who would have thought there was actually a waterfall here?
She walks over and stands on a large flat rock.
I follow and say, “Wow, this is beautiful.”
“It’s my favorite place in the world,” she says. “Drew, I’m going to tell you a story, and I need you to just let me get it out.”
“I’m listening.”
“Do you remember that friend I told you I was going to travel the world with?”
I nod.
“He wasn’t just a friend. We started off that way when we were kids. Then, we became best friends. Somewhere along the way, we fell in love. I know that sounds ridiculous because we were just teenagers, but we knew it was real. I thought we were soulmates. We saved all of our money to buy a camera and a couple of plane tickets. Two weeks after graduation, we were set to get out of here and start seeing the world. Two days after we walked across that stage, though, he was killed in a car crash.”
