I opened the truck door then reached down and kissed my mother on the cheek.
“I love you, Mama. I’ve got to run.”
Before she could say anything else, I got in the truck, shut the door, waved to her, and drove off.
Bristol
THE WIND BLEW softly as I sat on the ground and stared out over the rolling hills enjoying the beautiful April day. I had no idea why I had come to this spot.
That was a lie. I did know why I’d ended up here. It was like my brain knew where to bring me.
It had been here, in this very spot, that Anson told me he loved me. We were on a quilt under a blanket of stars. He had sung a song that night about us. About our future.
I wiped away the tear that had slipped free and rested my chin on my knees.
“You come here a lot?”
My eyes closed at the sound of his voice. I couldn’t stop the way my heart stilled in my chest. Slowly, I shook my head as he sat down next to me.
“I’ve written about this place in a lot of songs.”
I didn’t want to look at him, but my head turned anyway.
He was staring straight ahead, looking lost in a memory.
“You don’t listen to any of my songs?” he asked.
“N-no,” I managed to get out. My eyes were still fixed on him. I didn’t want to believe he was really there. In the flesh, sitting next to me in the very spot I had given everything to him. Not just my body, but my heart and soul.
The corner of his mouth rose slightly. “Guess that makes sense.”
“What makes sense?”
Anson turned and looked at me. My breath caught in my chest as those familiar blue eyes looked deep into mine.
“What about the dedications? Did you read any of them?”
I frowned. “What are you talking about?”
Sadness swept over his face and he looked straight ahead.
“What dedications, Anson?”
“The albums, the dedications on the albums.”
I searched his profile as he sat there. I had no idea what in the hell he was talking about.
“I guess I thought you’d see those, and you’d hear what I was feeling in the songs. And you’d just know.”
Frowning, I slowly shook my head. “You were trying to tell me something?”
“You wouldn’t answer my phone calls or text messages, Bristol. It was the only way I knew how to tell you.”
“You stopped sending them, Anson! I was angry, I needed time to figure everything out. But then you stopped sending them altogether. Then it eventually didn’t matter anymore.”
He snapped his head and looked at me. “Why? Because of Josh?”
My eyes widened in shock. “You’re going to get mad because I dated someone?”
A harsh laugh came from those soft, beautiful lips. “Someone? He was my fucking best friend from high school!”
I looked away. “Well, some of us didn’t have access to super models and singers to date.”
“I didn’t…”
Quickly, I stood. “Don’t even think of saying what you were going to say. You moved on, I moved on. It’s not like we cheated on each other. Besides, I can only imagine the women who have thrown themselves at you over the past six years.”
“I didn’t fuck around, Bristol. I dated a couple of people, but they didn’t mean anything. They weren’t…”
He looked away and sighed before he brought his attention back to me. “They weren’t you.”
I swallowed hard and then wrapped my arms around my body. The sudden chill in the air made me shiver.
“Troy Maven.”
My stomach dropped for a moment as the name brought back a barrage of memories. I couldn’t help the stupid betraying smile. It was the name Anson had come up with when I insisted on writing notes to him in middle school. He was embarrassed a girl was writing him, so he came up with a name: Troy Maven.
“Each record was dedicated to Troy Maven.”
“What?” I whispered in confusion.
“Were you that angry with me that you wouldn’t listen to a single goddamn song? I thought you heard them and just didn’t care. I thought you blew me off, Bri. I thought you…never really loved me.”
My head was swimming with his confession about the dedication, and now he was hitting me with this. I tried to make my mind work, but my silence only made him angrier.
“I needed you, Bri. God, how I fucking needed you. Wanted you. Felt like I was going to go mad without you. All those things I put out there, only to have you ignore every single one of them. Like none of this ever mattered…like we never mattered.”
I shook my head. “I…didn’t know, Anson. I mean, Ida always tried to get me to listen to your songs, but it was too painful to even hear your voice, even six years later…even now.”
He stared at me, hurt and anger in his eyes. How could he sit here and place all this blame on me?