From what Sophia told me and the photos I’ve seen online, the venue has a stunning garden, almost bordering on a hedge maze. The idea for the main attraction is to set up some sort of tactile walk down memory lane–with pictures, stories, and highlights, laid out chronologically from freshman through senior year. Not my most inventive idea to date, but certainly not my worst.
“I can start pulling notable stories–things like big sports wins, the time the gym caught fire, the bizarre March blizzard. Do you think you could reach out to Sophia and see if she can get access to the old yearbook photos?”
“Absofreakinlutely I can,” Tori says, nearly bouncing in her seat with excitement. “I’m so glad we convinced you to come back, I don’t know what we’d do without you.”
“I’m sure you’d be fine,” I say with a polite smile.
“No, I’m sure we’d definitely end up with a lame slideshow and a Vitamin C song, but that’s sweet of you anyway. Can I keep this?”
“I was stuck on the Green Day song,” I chuckle. “And sure, I have copies on my laptop,” I say as she begins gathering the scattered designs, to-do lists, and notes.
“Seriously Ellie, thank you,” she says earnestly. “I’ll see you this weekend for the venue walk!”
Waving goodbye, she weaves through the crowd heading for the door, a polite stranger holding it open for her on the other side. I let out a sigh, settling back into my seat, closing my eyes and taking a deep drink of my coffee. Tori was more peppy than scary today and apparently the crushing weight of adulthood hasn’t tampered that side of her one bit.
The bell over the door chimes as it swings closed, and call it fate, intuition, demonic torment–but I feel a shiftin the atmosphere that makes me nervous to open my eyes again. Bracing myself, I sit up straight again and cautiously look to see what’s caused it.
From where I’m seated in the corner, it’s hard to see me from the front door, but I have a clear view of everyone at the counter–including the couple that just walked in.
I recognize Madison first, her silky raven hair nearly to her waist, tall and graceful, olive skin somehow glowing brighter now than it did when we were teenagers. Like the dreaded slow-pan in a horror movie, my gaze slides to the man standing next to her, hand on the small of her back.
I want to scream, to throw up, to run, but I sit here paralyzed by my first glimpse of Griffin Hart in nearly five years. Like it’s second nature, my heart warms at the sight of him. He’s every bit the way I remember him.
The harsh reality that I’m a stranger to him now follows like a sucker punch.
His hair is longer now, nearly to his shoulders, but has the familiar swoop I was always so desperate to run my hands through. His stature hasn’t changed much, but even if it had, I think I’d recognize him anywhere–tall, broad-shouldered, an aura of confidence radiating off of him even as he’s just standing there.
He leans down to whisper something in her ear and she lets out a warm, throaty laugh. Suddenly I’m leaning a lotmore towards throwing up. He grins at her, and my chest tightens at the memories of all the times that smile was reserved for me.
My brain finally reconnects with my body and I jolt out of my seat, trying to leave as quickly as possible without drawing attention to myself. In my haste to get the hell out of dodge, I bump into the woman entering the coffee shop, stammering out an apology. In a stroke of horrific luck, my voice echoes in the entryway in the split second that there’s silence between the songs playing over the speakers.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Griffin whip around at the sound of my voice, and although I don’t look back, I can feel his eyes on me as I finally clear the glass doors, the tinkling of that damn bell sure to haunt my dreams for the foreseeable future.
Chapter 27
Griffin
October, Age 29
It was inevitable. From the moment Jack told me that Eleanor’s back in town, I’ve been walking around waiting for the bomb to go off–the one where our paths cross again for the first time since my heart shattered all those years ago.
It feels like an eternity and no time at all–some days I miss her so much it physically hurts. Other days, I realize that I haven’t thought about her in a week, and somehow that hurts worse. There was never supposed to be a life without Eleanor Turner in it.
But there is. There has been for a long time. Knowing it’s over, knowing that I was bound to see her, didn’t soften the blow of hearing that sweet voice and seeing those soft blonde waves as she bolted from 8th Street Coffee. Someone could have hit me over the head with a chair and it would have been less of a shock to the system. It didn’t cross my mind that I’d be with another woman when it happened.
“Another woman.” Like we’re not in a fully committed relationship. I’m a jackass.
“Honey? What did you want?”
Madison’s voice breaks the trance Eleanor stunned me into. Madison–my girlfriend, my anchor, the sure and steady presence in my life. Madison, who suddenly feels like a stranger now that I’ve had the slightest glimpse of the woman who just walked out the door.
“Sorry sweetheart, I got distracted. Just a black coffee is fine.”
I pay for our drinks, operating on autopilot as my head spins with thoughts of Eleanor. We grab our to-go cups and head back to the car–Madison insists on driving everywhere because she gets carsick. I stoop low, the tiny sedan an uncomfortable squeeze for my long legs, still silent and feeling like I’m a thousand miles away.
When we get to the apartment, I immediately text Jack, quickly coming up with some excuse for leaving even as I’m halfway out the door.
“Okay honey, tell Jack I said hi, I love–”
