Page 11 of When We Were Young
If only Kari had been paying attention.
“The girlfriend was me.” She smiled. “And I didn’t even know it.”
A soft sad chuckle came from deep in his chest and they started walking again. “All of life changed in that moment.”
He was right. Kari let the pieces form in her mind. After that she had written Ryan off and married Indiana University Professor Tim Jacobs. They were expecting their first baby—Jessie—when Tim’s affair came to light. He’d been seeing one of his students, and at the same time that girl’s former boyfriend had been stalking Tim.
The crazy guy shot and killed Tim a few weeks before Jessie was born.
Kari and Ryan reached the park and started on the lit path. This was their routine, their favorite way to spend an hour together each night. Kari caught his eye again. “You saved my life after that.”
“Hmm.” Ryan released her hand and put his arm around her. “I’ll never forget the look on your face when I moved back to Bloomington. When I showed up at church in the middle of all the madness.”
“And how you were there at the hospital after Jessie was born.” Kari looked through the darkness to the trees above. “I can’t imagine if all that was documented on social media. The way we came back together... your love for Jessie—like she was your own.” Kari shook her head. “Our wedding.” She stopped again and faced him. “If all that was splashed over the Internet.”
“We would’ve survived it.” Ryan’s eyes shone with a love that never dimmed. “You and I would’ve survived anything, Kari, girl.”
“We would’ve.” Her voice dropped to a whisper and the rest of the world fell away.
Suddenly the bad news Ryan had told her a week ago was right there between them again. Like a physical object. Kari pushed the reality from her mind. That could wait. She wanted to keep the focus on the crisis with Noah and Emily.
Ryan put his hands on either side of her face and stepped closer, so their bodies were touching. His kiss put an exclamation mark on all they’d just shared, all that made up their own love story. “Nothing could ever make me leave you.”
Kari wanted to believe that. She had to. Even with the news.
Tears stung her eyes. Ryan was a successful football coach at Clear Creek High, and Kari stayed busy with the kids and her interior design work. But no busyness or passing of the years could touch what she and Ryan Taylor shared. Not even the bad news.
They were still living out their own second-chance love.
Ryan kissed her again and put his arm around her like before. As they started back toward the house he breathed deep. “Noah and Emily still have a chance. I have to believe that.”
Later that night, when they were about to climb into bed, Ryan took her hand once more. “Let’s get on our knees. For Noah and Emily.”
It was something they’d done often throughout their marriage. When one of their kids was in a difficult place or when they faced unimaginable losses. Kneeling together to pray wasn’t something they merely talked about in theory or figuratively.
Kari and Ryan actually believed in it. Even now.
She nodded and followed him to a spot near the foot of their bed. In the back of her mind she told herself maybe they should pray for their own marriage as well. But that could come later. Tonight was about their young friends.
And so together they dropped to their knees and in urgent, whispered words they asked God for a miracle. That God would get Noah Carter’s attention now. This very night.
Whatever it took.
4
His family had been home for an hour, and still none of them had come in to see him. Noah wasn’t surprised. There were no rules for this, no playbook to tell them how to walk out their last day together.
Still, Noah figured at some point the kids would come find him. It wasn’t normal for them to stay to themselves. To not even wonder where he was. Was Emily already turning them against him? Five years from now would they forget to call him when they got chosen for a Little League team or named student of the week? Would he become a figure from the past?
Noah couldn’t stand the thought.
He should go out there, of course. But that would mean looking into Emily’s blue eyes, asking her about the day as if everything were normal. Pretending this wasn’t their last night together.
Something Noah wasn’t about to do.
So he let the hour slip by. Every few minutes he’d stop folding or filling his suitcases and listen to their little voices, their laughter. Just listen. Surely they would run down the hall any minute. But they never did.
Now he was sorting through the last boxes from his closet, old yearbooks and college newspapers detailing his every success, every touchdown. An article from September 2006 lay at the top of a pile of papers. All of them in the box because Emily had saved them.
