“Yeah. So, give me fifteen minutes, okay, kid?”
“Thanks, Lucas.”
“No problem. She’s fine, Harper, okay?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“I’ll call you back at this number?”
“Yep. It’s my cell. Lucas … don’t tell her I called.”
I laugh. “Can’t promise anything. She may find it odd if I show up down there. I’ll look for your uncle, too. If you want, I can send him down.”
“If he’s not there?”
“I’ll go.”
“Okay.”
I hop on to one of the four-wheelers in the old hay barn. This barn is full of memories. Memories that all made a boy become a man. Memories that set the foundation of who I am today.
I look down at the ground, and the memories of holding Tessa when the dog that I had bought for her died in her arms. She cried, she laughed, and she talked in circles.
“We were supposed to be in each other’s lives, Lucas. We both desperately needed each other at the exact moment we met. But we should have stopped when it hurt. We could have been friends … We liked each other that way, and it worked. If I had let go, you would have never been tricked by Sadi. You would have never been in Syracuse, and Tommy … You should hate me, Lucas.”
She was sure, at the moment, that God had planned it all and we screwed it up. She was letting me off the hook for everything I had done to hurt her and trying to convince herself that it was okay to let go. I will never forget how bad that hurt as a boy. I may have been twenty-two then, but I was still a boy. I had not learned yet everything she had taught me at that point. I didn’t learn it until it was too late.
“I can’t believe what is coming out of your mouth right now. If none of that happened, I would’ve never known real love. My dad wouldn’t be with Audrianna. I wouldn’t know my sisters. My mom would still be a mess. I wouldn’t have gotten this far in football. Ryan and Jade and all those kids wouldn’t have happened. Tessa … you need to stop. You’re scaring me.”
“Lucas, you’re scared because you know I’m right. Come here, please, and sit down. We met for a reason, and all the voids were filled. Things don’t happen by chance.”
As an adult who now knows love, the kind that doesn’t carry questions, I believe in what she said back then. But I also stand by what I said.
Things don’t happen by chance.
Every part of me knows that this was part of our journey. She and I will be together someday. I just need to let her grieve.
I drive down behind the barn, following the path that she used to run down when she was running away from her pain and anger. A place she went to escape, a place she went to think.
I stop at the top of the path leading down to where I knew she would be. I know she is sitting next to the falls, trying to gain peace from the flowing water and the gentle breeze of the forest.
Minutes later, I stand just a few feet away from her. The water roars its thunderous release caused by the thaw we’re experiencing. It’s almost deafening.Almost.
She’s crouched down and sobbing. If she knew I was watching her break down, she would be so angry. If I go to her, she’ll be embarrassed. But if I stand here, I’m going to lose my mind.
“Tessa!”
She wipes her face and looks around.
I start walking to her and yell her name again, “Tessa!”
She finally sees me and holds her hand up, as if to stay stop, but I keep walking toward her as she turns and starts walking away from me. Then she starts yelling as she hurries away, and I have no idea what she’s saying.
Fear that she’ll fall grips me, and I run to her. “Stop! There’s ice, Tessa!”
“No!” She takes a step, and just like I was afraid of, she slides toward the edge of the drop.
I catch her and pull her back, “Tessa, come on now. Don’t—”