I press my lips together and shake my head.
“Then, why? It doesn’t make any sense. None of this makes sense.” His voice implores, begging to me.
I look away. “Casey was dying. We got her some treatment, and we were beyond lucky that the treatment saved her life. But that had nothing to do with why I left.”
He looks back out the window.
He doesn’t say anything for a long time. I’m wondering if I should just leave when he does speak again.
“Do you still draw?” he asks in a soft voice.
“No.” I look down at my hands, entwining my fingers together.
“Why not?”
How do I tell him that leaving him was the hardest thing I ever had to do, and it broke me?
It broke everything inside of me, and I haven’t been able to draw since then. Every time I put the pencil to the paper, all I could see was his face, and I couldn’t bear the reminder of what I’d lost.
I don’t tell him. That’s the thing. I can’t ever tell him.
I let go of my hands and wrap my arms around my stomach, trying to hold in all the pain that’s threatening to spill out of me, and I just shake my head. “Do you still surf?” I ask him.
I look up to find he’s facing me, back against the window, eyes on me.
“Only on weekends.”
I guess things have changed so much for both of us. The dreams we had together never made it to fruition with us being apart.
We each became a slave to the choice I had to make.
My eyes rake over him as I remember the Adam I knew ten years ago and compare him to the Adam I see before me. The long hair is gone, replaced with cropped locks. The unshaven scruff on his face is still very much there though. At least some things haven’t changed.
“You cut your hair.”
“It has been ten years.”
“I know. I just…I remember a time when you said you’d never cut your hair.” A small smile touches my lips at the memory.
“Yeah, and I remember when you promised to love me till death do us part. Shit changes.”
My smile drops from my face. My cheeks sting like he’s just slapped me.
I deserved that. Doesn’t stop it from hurting like a bitch though.
I turn my cheek, forcing a blank expression onto my face. I don’t want him to see how injured I am by his words.
“How long was it going on for?” he asks me in a quiet voice.
I look back to him. “What?”
“With this other guy. How long were you seeing him behind my back?”
I can see how much it’s hurting him, thinking I cheated on him, and I hate hurting him. I don’t want him to think so very badly of me even though, in some ways, what I actually did was worse.
I blow out a breath. “There wasn’t any other guy, Adam. I’m sorry I lied about that. I guess I just said that because…I don’t know.” I shake my head. “You wanted a valid reason, and I didn’t have one to give you, other than…getting married…it was just too much too soon. I panicked, and I ran. I’m sorry. You wanted the truth. That’s it.”
And I guess, in a way, the truth is in some of those words. It was a lot, us getting married so young. But I never regretted it, not for one second, and I would still be married to him now, if I could be. And I did panic when faced with the decision I had to make. And I did run. So, what I said…it’s the best of the truth that I can give to him.
He stares at me for a long moment, so long that I don’t know what to do.
Then, he blinks his eyes free, blows out a breath as he runs a hand through his hair and says, “Okay.”
Okay? That’s it?
He isn’t questioning why I lied about cheating, and he seems to have accepted my reasoning. It makes me wonder why he’s taken it so easily.
Then, I realize that maybe he’s just tired of it all. Maybe he just sees that it’s time to let go of the past.
And I guess it’s time for me to leave.
“Okay,” I say, pushing off the wall. Gathering myself together, I turn to the door.
I reach for the handle and pause to look back at him.
I just want one more look before I leave.
He’s staring at me, too, a mixture of confusing emotions on his face.
“Good-bye, Adam.”
He holds my eyes for a moment, then, looks away. “Good-bye, Evie.”
There’s a power in his words. He’s saying the good-bye he didn’t get to say ten years ago.
Taking a deep breath, I hold in the tears fighting to break free, and I walk out and finally close the door on my past.
My alarm is going off with an annoying insistence. On a groan, I reach over and slam my hand on it, turning it off.
Time for work.
Ugh.
Summer has only just begun, and I’ve worked the last seven days straight as a favor for Grady. I can’t wait for tomorrow when I can sleep in.
I’m only doing the overtime because Grady is the best boss ever—a retired pro surfer, and the Shack is his life—and he asked me because we’re short-staffed at the moment. I’m also doing it because I need the money.
Paige, who works part-time in the shop with Base and me, has been on vacation. And Tad, who does the surf lessons with Grady, has been out sick with the flu. So, Grady has been pulling Base out of the shop to help with the surf lessons. So, I’ve been manning the shop alone. But Tad and Paige will be back tomorrow, so I’ll get the day off. Yay!
For tomorrow, I was thinking, once I drag my ass out of bed, that I might actually spend the day at the beach and lie out in the sun, read a book, swim, and maybe do some surfing.
I can’t remember the last time I just spent the day at the beach chilling and having fun. Aside from the hour I get there every day, sketching after work to kill the time I have to wait for my bus.
I can get some real sketching time in tomorrow as well. The beach is my favorite place to go to draw, especially on my spot on the rock. I love that view. I’ve gotten some great sketches done from up there. I can see right out over the ocean, and it gives me a great view of the pier as well as all the surfers—along with one particular hot guy in a beach house.
Adam.
I knew I had to draw him the moment I saw him standing up there on his balcony. I captured the image of him there in my mind and started drawing. What I didn’t expect was for him to be standing there every day, watching me.
But knowing his eyes were on my back while I drew the image I had pressed into my memory of him standing there, so tall and so handsome, made me not only want to draw him…it made me want to know him.
He looked so lonely.
The kind of loneliness where he could be surrounded in a roomful of people, and he’d still feel alone.
The kind of loneliness that comes from within, deeply embedded inside of him.
And I wanted to capture that and pull the loneliness out, bringing him to life on paper.
I can’t believe I gave him the drawing I’d done of him. It was so ballsy of me, and I’m not usually ballsy.
Actually, the whole thing was pretty ballsy of me, especially when I asked him if he’d changed his mind about asking me out.
God, I’m cringing from just thinking about it.
For all my bravado with Adam, I actually don’t really date.
It’s not because I don’t want to. I just don’t really have the time, and I haven’t met a guy who I really want to go out with.