Page 33 of Memories of the Past

“Sounds good. And, if I am going to go tonight, I better get all this taken care of. I’ll see you tomorrow morning?” I questioned.

“Yep, around nine?”

“Sounds good.” I walked Peggy over to the door and locked it once again as Peggy left, then I went about closing the small bookshop.

* * *

I’d returned out to the Jenkins Ranch a little after seven with a pizza. It wouldn’t have been my first choice, but it was an easy one. When I pulled in, the entire driveway was empty, and just as I got to the bottom of the wooden stairs heading up to the porch, Thomas stepped outside. He took the box of pizza from me and welcomed me in with a tired smile. One really good look at him and I noticed that he looked more tired than he had earlier, and I realized that perhaps Peggy was right. Thomas really didn’t want to be left alone tonight, and being surrounded by someone familiar was his way of trying to deal with the day. We’d both attacked the pizza, and once that was gone, we sat on the couch together, watching a movie I couldn't even remember the name of.

I remembered when we were younger and had sat on this couch. We’d practically shared the same cushion, and his parents, especially his mother, would constantly try and keep us separated. I could feel the laughter coming on as I thought about one incident where she kept calling me into the kitchen for silly things just to get me off her son, or him off me, however you wanted to look at it.

Now as I looked at him, sitting there across from me, the Grand Canyon could practically fit between us, and no one would ever guess we were once together. Thomas sat on one end of the couch and I on the other, both of us hugging the respective arm. His mother would have something to say about this, too, I was sure—if she were still with us that is.

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. Since I had gotten here, we had said maybe half a dozen words to one another. I felt that it was now just an unbearable silence that I couldn’t take much longer. I cleared my throat, about to say something, when Thomas looked over at me. His eyes said it all; he, too, was feeling the same discomfort.

I swallowed hard and cleared my throat once again. I had only one question on my mind, and I was fighting to keep it in. Yet when I looked over at Thomas, that question came flying out of my mouth before I could stop it. “Why?”

Thomas blinked. “Why what?” He looked at me, confused.

I needed to know the truth about what happened long ago between us. How does a person leave when they love someone? I had felt that maybe it had been me, that perhaps he wanted something more with someone else. I really didn’t think he had left me because of his father. “Why did you leave?”

Thomas frowned. “Why did I leave?”

Annoyed, I let out the breath I was holding. “Yes, Thomas, why did you leave?”

I waited as he sat there, surely thinking about the past. I figured it would have been some huge, long explanation, but instead, he shocked me with his answer. “Honestly, I didn’t think I was leaving because I thought you would have followed me.” He shrugged.

In my mind, that wasn’t a substantial enough answer. For some reason, it only made me angry because he was trying to put the blame onto me. He had no idea how his words that night all those years ago had made me feel. They made me feel that I didn’t matter, that perhaps the years we had been together had been nothing but a couple passing time until they met their true loves. Instead, he was putting the blame on me.

“That is why,” he said, probably expecting me to answer him.

I took a moment to gather the thoughts that were racing through my mind. Then I picked up my glass of water and took a drink, setting it back down on the table. I turned to Thomas. “You know, I would have followed you anywhere.”

“But you didn’t, Trin. You didn’t follow.”

Instantly, I could feel my anger flaring. Yep, he was trying to put the blame onto me. “Let me finish.”

“Okay, fine, finish,” he responded, holding up his hands.

“I would have followed you anywhere, if I thought I was loved and wanted. You told me, and they were your words, I could come if I wanted. If I wanted, Thomas. That wasn’t what I needed to hear. You were asking me to move away and leave behind everything I knew as my home, including the only family I had.”

Thomas’s eyes fell away from mine and focused back on the TV, and we both fell into another silence. He needed to realize the hurt I felt wasn’t because I didn’t want to be with him, but because I didn’t feel that he wanted me there.

Not another word was spoken until the movie was over, and once it was, he simply stood up and left the room. I could hear Thomas in the kitchen putting away the dishes, so I got up and made my way to the door and slipped my shoes on. I grabbed my purse from the hook just inside the front door. There was no point in staying, I thought to myself. “Thanks for the movie,” I called.

“No, thank you,” Thomas said, coming back into the living room.

I looked at him, expecting him to now have come to some sort of understanding about why I hadn’t followed him, yet he still seemed not to understand. I stood there waiting for him to say something, anything, but when he didn’t, I pushed the front door open and walked down the three wooden steps and over to my car. I pulled the door open and was just about to climb in the driver’s seat when I heard him call my name.

“Trin.”

“What?”

“What can I say? I was a stupid kid.” He shrugged.

Yep, and he still didn’t get it. Fueled more by anger, I climbed into my front seat and started the engine, then I rolled down the passenger window and looked out at him. “You know what, Thomas, you still are.”

I pressed on the gas a little harder than I met to, my tires spinning in the gravel, and once I backed off the gas, my tires gained traction and I headed down the driveway away from Thomas, away from bad, hurtful memories, and back into my current life.

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