Page 33 of My Unfinished Heart

Tristan

How long do you think it’ll take? Six years? Seven?

I grin then pull up Connor’s contact info and send him a quick text with my address and an invitation to come by soon. And that I hope all is well, or something like that. Then I go back to the dialogue with Tristan.

Is he checking his phone yet?

Tristan

Thanks. I’ll take it from here. iHug.

“Who are you texting?” West asks as he reclaims his seat.

“Nobody.” I put my phone back in my pocket.

“You’re smiling,” he says.

“Yeah. I do that from time to time.” In the silence that follows, West lets go of this huge sigh that could make the most optimistic person in the world lose all hope. I don’t know what his deal is, and I wonder, even after all of this, if I have any right to ask.

“Other than the bar, what have you been up to? You look different.”

He glances down at his right forearm and the tattoo there. From here, I can make out the shape of a boat and some waves, but it’s dark in the bar. “This and that. I tried college, too, here in town, but it didn’t work out.”

“How’s that?”

“I was distracted.” As if to demonstrate, his attention shifts to the ball game, and I watch him sink lower in his chair, his expression blank.

I’m about to take my chances and ask what happened with baseball and college or any of the plans he used to talk about with me, but I’m interrupted by a tap on my shoulder and a soft whisper in my ear. “Hey. Remember me?”

I almost choke on my own heart.

I turn around, and I cannot even begin to put into words how crushing my disappointment is when I see that the mouth by my ear is not Tristan’s.

But yes. I remember this woman. Her name is Jayne.

A thought occurs to me. Or maybe it’s less like a thought and more like a shift.

The thing that happens—the switch that flips—jolts me, and to be honest, it scares me. If I had to put words to the thought, they would be these: Something’s missing.

That’s all. Might not sound earth-shattering, but it is for me. I admit to toting around my share of feelings of emptiness like any other normal person, but this isn’t that. This is specific.

So what is it? What’s missing? One thing I know with absolute certainty is this: it isn’t Jayne.

“Hey, how are you?” I ask, finding my bearings in the wake of my gestalt.

“I’m great! What about you?” She smells good. Just like she did in high school. Flowers and mint. She has on a short black and white dress that’s…well, she looks good too.

“Great.”

A classic blonde with peaches and cream skin and sky blue eyes, Jayne giggles, brushing a silky wave from her eye. “Hey, West.”

I turn, glancing at my date for the night.

He seems to struggle with placing her. “Oh, right,” he eventually says. “Jason Beck’s little sister, right?”

“Yeah!” she replies brightly, and then glances between the two of us.

West gestures at the chair next to me. “Have a seat,” he says, and I brace myself.