Page 43 of Catching Our Moment
“Oh, jeez…” He turned his back on me and covered his face.
“You would’ve considered it the right thing to do—to take care of me. Both because of our friendship and?—”
“From the moment you told me you were pregnant, I wanted to be part of his life.” He held up his hand. “Please stop telling me what was best for me.”
I stepped closer. “My father and I didn’t want you to feel responsible for the road I would be traveling.”
“Your father…" His face darkened.
“Yes, he…” I swallowed and cleared my throat. “He realized our intentions and told me that if I truly cared about you, I’d cut you free. He was right. It was wrong of me to take advantage of you.”
“That’s bullshit. And I will be calling Coach to tell him that. He—" Shaw clenched his jaw and stepped away, pulling out his phone as if to call my father at that moment. I grabbed it from him.
“Shaw, don’t. It’s in the past.”
He tore the phone out of my hands. He stepped so close I drew back. “Tell me one thing. One thing, and I will drop it.”
I gripped my fingers, not wanting to hear what came next.
“Did you want to marry him?” He stepped even closer—closer than he’d been in a long time.
Crap. I knew he’d ask that. “What? Of course, at the time…”
His eyes were all I could see. “Don’t…lie…to me.” His voice dipped. “If James had never come back…if he hadn’t said he wanted to marry you…”
The truth I held back for years broke out from inside me. “You didn’t love me,” I said quietly, pathetically. “You pitied me.” The tears pooled in my eyes and cascaded down my cheeks. “I could never do that to you. I didn’t want to be married to someone who didn’t love me.”
His expression was hard as stone, frozen in one expression. He stared at me like I was a stranger. I was the first to look away, incapable of making eye contact after he struck the blow. “But you did. You married James.”
We stood for an indeterminate amount of time until I said, “This is pointless. It’s history. It didn’t work out. I have a wonderful son I adore, and you can say, ‘I told you so.’”
I took off inside the house and beelined to my room, acting like the teenager I’d been when we’d loved each other so well.
15
Shaw
I walked back to my side of the house reluctantly. Everything in me wanted to follow her and finish this conversation. Because it mattered. It was what needed to be said to move forward.
But Aaron shouldn’t be within listening distance.
In my bedroom, I went to the desk drawer where I kept important items and pushed aside a small, smooth, gray river rock she’d given me when we were young. She’d called it a worry stone. “Hold it tight and put all your worries, all your negative thoughts, negative energy, into the stone.” In high school, it gave me something to do with my hands when I fidgeted—to help me focus in my classes. When I was older, it helped me settle down when I got nervous. It was my lodestone, my lucky rabbit’s foot. It was a damn rock, but it was my last connection to her. All these years, it had traveled with me and stayed in my pocket with my keys and wallet, always a topic of interest to those around me, but never explained.
From under it, I pulled out a dog-eared envelope. It had been folded and refolded, was smooth from years of wear, and was also kept close to me but never saw the light of day around anyone. Inside was a piece of hotel stationery. The same hotel I stayed in the night of the draft. The best and worst night of my life.
I held the envelope and sat on the edge of my bed.
Draft night had started out with her next to me, holding my hand as we walked backstage with her father, my mother, and my agent. She had been beautiful in the dress we’d bought together to hide her newly developed baby bump. We’d been talking about the future, about me being there for her and the baby.
We were waiting to see what team I’d be drafted to before making any definite plans. But I’d thought she’d shared my happiness. I’d thought the promise of a future with me had quelled her concerns. I’d thought the building chemistry was seeping through. I’d allowed myself to let in the feelings—the thoughts and desires—I’d refused to recognize before. I’d thought it was the beginning of the rest of our lives.
I’d thought wrong.
I’d planned to kiss her later that night, not like a friend, not as a joke. I was going to take her beautiful face in both my hands and kiss her the way I’d dreamed of kissing her. I was going to make this real.
The most defining moment of my life was when they announced my name in the draft. I’d never felt so high. Never felt like the world was at my feet. She was in the wings, and my future was in front of me. The people around me cheered. I hugged my mom and shook my agent’s hand, and Kelcie’s father offered his proud congratulations. The television cameras were waiting for me to walk out on the stage and hold up my new jersey with my new team. But before I walked into the spotlight, I enveloped her in our hug—her against my chest and my hand on her head, my head bowed to hers. I kissed her cheek—not wanting our first kiss to be on national television—and whispered, “Thank you. Our future starts now. This. Us. We got this.” I’d squeezed her hand, smiled at her with all my love, and kissed the top of her hand, hoping she felt everything I wanted to say. Then I walked away, stepped onto the stage, and entered a new way of life.
But the past was where she’d stayed.
