Page 6 of Easy Reunion
Chapter 2
Rierson
My fingers are flying across the keyboard as I take notes about the contract I downloaded to work on during the three-hour flight from New Orleans to Savannah. I need something to distract me from my thoughts of flying back for this high school reunion.
I went back to both of the previous ones and had full intentions of bailing this time, using work as the excuse, until I saw the Evite acceptance list that she was attending.
Kelsey Kennedy.
Unable to focus now that my mind went to the one place I wasn’t ready for it to go, I toss my wire-rimmed reading glasses aside. Relaxing back against the plush leather seats in the first-class cabin, my thoughts begin to wander to what she’s been doing the last fifteen years. Is she married? Does she have kids? Do her gray eyes still darken to storm clouds when she talks about writing?
Above all, is she finally happy?
Shoving a hand through my hair, I realize it’s knowing the answer to the last question that got me on a plane. Because this really isn’t a reunion as much as it’s an ongoing sentence. And I know if there’s one face Kelsey likely associates with her rightful unhappiness in high school, it’s mine. And she has every right to. Even as I recall my last months of high school, the guilt I continue to feel about what happened between Kelsey and me is something I can’t let go of.
And subsequently, I’ve never quite been able to let go of her or the memories high school still has over me.
“Maybe this time,” I murmur to myself as the tires screech on the runway as my plane touches down.
* * *
About ninety minutes later,the car I hired to get me from the airport to the Westin Savannah Harbor Golf Resort & Spa pulls up to the grand circular entrance. I slide out of the back, nabbing my briefcase while the driver gets my weekender from the trunk.
Looking around at the majestic tower sitting on the bank of the Savannah River, I don’t feel the same feeling of home I do when I jump out of my rental at my parents’ place on Skidaway Island. Holding up a hand to block the sun, I catch sight of a runner making her way into the lobby. Dedicated in this humidity, I think with some amusement. I’ve always been a swimmer. The weight of the world feels like nothing I can’t shoulder while the cool blue water engulfs me.
I’ve done a lot of swimming in the last fifteen years. I suspect I’ll do a lot of it this weekend until I can look Kelsey in the eye and give her a long-overdue apology.
My best friend, Cade, told me over drinks the other night it was “highly probable she’s forgotten all about you.”
“You have no idea how bad it was,” I muttered.
“It wasn’t like you were involved with her,” he argued.
“It wasn’t involvement. I was protective of her,” I said. But it wasn’t just that either. Looking at my relationship with Kelsey with the maturity of a man versus that of a boy who ached to get out, the emotional investment between us was almost…intimate. Because Kelsey was my tutor in creative writing, she learned a lot about my inner thoughts. And I learned about her deepest pain, her hopes and dreams.
We kept each other’s secrets completely private until one day, her journal was discovered. And I, along with the rest of Forsyth, found out what I already suspected about her crush on me.
Back then, my heart quickened when I learned the soft-faced, gray-eyed girl had feelings about me. It touched me to realize she didn’t think I was a total dick like the rest of the student body. The things I got to read—not by her choice—made my heart swell, made me feel special. So, I became Kelsey’s champion more than I already was against the bullies, standing up for her, tearing down anyone I could who would harm the gentle girl who’d done so much for me.
Until I couldn’t.
Until I ended up being the one causing her final destruction, shattering her in front of hundreds of people.
But I couldn’t let them do what they did to me to anyone else.
I just couldn’t.
Stomach churning, I collect my room key and make my way to the elevator just in time for the doors to close on the woman I glimpsed running when I first pulled in. Not wanting to be with anything more than my thoughts, I don’t make any effort to race for the elevator doors or yell for her to hold them.
Instead, I flip through the reunion pamphlet that was waiting for me at check-in as my thoughts are consumed by all things Kelsey, hoping she’s happy. Because no one deserves it more than she does.
Absentmindedly, I wonder if she’ll come to the barbecue tonight out by the river? Will she come with a date? Her husband? Maybe she’ll bring him to the cocktail hour tomorrow, and by meeting him, the small part of me that felt a flash of something for less than a heartbeat years ago will finally be able to say goodbye.
Maybe I can finally be free from these chains of self-reproach.
Jerking my head, I toss the pamphlet aside. All I know for sure is Kelsey RSVP’d for the main event. And unlike before, I’ll proudly stand by her side if she needs me to protect her from the sociopaths we graduated with.
Because now they can’t hurt me.
