Page 147 of A Love Letter to Whiskey
If she was leaving, I needed her to know the truth.
“Is it okay that I love you back?”
She let out a soft whimper of a cry, but I cut it short, pressing my lips to hers and fighting against the overwhelming urge to cry that hit me once we sealed that kiss. Everything in my body warned me of the hurt that was about to come, but I ignored it, wanting nothing more but to savor whatever I had left with her.
“Stay with me tonight,” I whispered against her lips.
She nodded, letting me pull her into me, and she gave herself to me one last time.
I spent that entire night making sure she felt safe, and warm, and loved. I kissed her like I’d never have the chance again, and in my gut, I really thought I wouldn’t.
She left that next day, and she never came back.
She never called. She never texted.
She never answered when I tried to reach her, every birthday and every anniversary of her father’s death.
Life went on without her, the cruel bastard that it is. I wished it would have stopped. I wished a fucking semi truck would have taken me out and ended the misery.
But slowly, time stretched on. I went to school, but I stopped dating. I played basketball, but I stopped surfing.
I graduated.
I moved back home.
I moved on — at least, as much as I could.
I convinced myself I would be alright without her.
But the day the universe decided to put us in the same place again, I realized just how naïve I’d been.
IT WAS ONE OF those times in life when everything feels right.
The night I walked into that little dive bar just a few blocks from the office, I was floating on a cloud of possibility. I’d just been notified that I passed my CPA exam, and my father had officially offered me a position at his firm. Half the partners, and another half-dozen accountants were out with me to celebrate, and I had this permanent smile on my face, this permanent feeling that I was on the cusp of something big.
All my life, I’d had this pretty little dream for my future. I wanted to go to the same university as my dad, get my CPA, join the firm, work my way up, and eventually become partner. Along with that, I wanted to find the woman of my dreams, marry her, and fill a house with babies.
It was the cliché American dream, and I got shit for it from all my friends growing up. They’d call me soft and a pussy and everything else they could think of to try to make fun of what I wanted. But I never wavered. I knew from a young age what I wanted, and I wouldn’t stop until I got it.
That night, passing that exam and getting my official job offer? It felt like checking off a giant box. It felt like stepping into the next chapter.
It felt like the future I’d always wanted was right there, brushing my fingertips.
If it sounds like I’d moved on and found a life without B — it’s because I had.
Don’t get me wrong, that girl had a permanent place in my heart. I was an absolute fucking wreck for a solid year after she left, and the longer we went without a single word between us, the more my heart broke.
But as time went on, I grew to realize I couldn’t hold on to hope for something that could have been. I had no choice but to move forward — even if I had to do it with her still hanging onto my heart.
I still called her, twice every year, once on her birthday and once on the anniversary of her father’s death. She never answered, and because she’d gone ghost on all social media, I had no idea where she was or what she was doing.
I knew she had the same phone number, though, her sweet voice telling me each time that I’d reached her, and to leave a message after the tone.
Three years. Three years of wondering, of longing, of letting her go and yet never truly being able to. Three years of missed calls and unanswered voicemails. Three years of being clean.
And then I walked into that bar.
And I saw her.
It was her hair I noticed first — because any time I saw a woman who had hair even close to B’s, it called my attention, and I’d stare until the woman turned around, and I was disappointed yet again to find it wasn’t her.
But this time, over the top of her head, I spotted Jenna.
And her mouth was hanging open like a frog trying to catch flies.
My heart thundered in my chest as she murmured something to B, and then she whipped around, her gray eyes slamming into me like a hurricane.
