Page 13 of Never Too Late

I just could not live in Hopeful.

In despair, I again went out and after a few drinks in a local bar, I came home, made a cup of hot cocoa, just like my grandmother used to make, with a drop of scotch, and decided to get the Christmas decorations out so I could go through them and see if I needed to buy anything new.

If this was the last Christmas I was going to spend hare, I would make it count.

My grandma was always big on Christmas and had this whole tradition wrapped around it. Starting with decorating the house, then Christmas tree and baking almost until you drop, then ending with the town decorating the well.

Unfortunately, I was late starting at the beginning of the tradition. And would be even more late because in my pursuit, I found the box with the word pictures in black ink written on it and I got lost.

I spent hours pouring over every picture of my parents, grandmother, and my life over the years. The bitter-sweet memories washed the wound in my heart that reopened the moment I got the call with dire news of Evelyn’s passing.

If I was honest, that wound opened almost seventeen years ago when I left Hopeful after Dylan demanded it, almost in the same way as he did that day in my office.

It wasn’t until I got to the bottom of the box and the pictures of Dylan, that the hurt really came.

After finding the first picture, I left my cocoa and went into the kitchen to get the wine.

You better get out of this town.

His words were playing on an endless loop in my mind, torturing me the whole time.

The rage that was on his face was such a contrast to the man I used to know, of the face I was looking at in those pictures and in my dreams.

And one thing became clear to me.

Well, two actually.

I realized that I still knew every line of his face by memory, even though there were new lines that only time and experience can give us, but not much. Still, I knew them somehow. It was almost as instinct. And what became clear was that I still loved each and every one of them. And I could so totally get lost in discovering and loving the new ones.

Which led me to my second realization, I came back for him.

I didn’t want to admit it even to myself at first, but when I thought about living my life, it was always by his side.

Even when I was with Nathaniel, I could never imagine our future. Sure, five years down the road, I could with some difficulty see myself working side by side, but ten years? Fifteen?

The same face would be in my mind, and it was Dylan’s.

And the moment I stepped back into Hopeful, even before I knew he was back, I decided to abandon my life in Seattle and come live here. When in reality, I decided to wait and see if Dylan would come back.

Come back and reconsider his decision.

Come and take me back.

Which meant he was right. I needed to get out of town.

I needed to get away from Hopeful, from him. If I didn’t, he would only break my heart again. And I barely managed to survive it the first time.

A bottle of wine later, I decided to stay until after Christmas. I figured I deserved one last Christmas tradition of my grandmother’s. And since I was here, I didn’t want to miss the decorating ceremony.

I missed too much already.

There was no harm in giving myself this one last piece of my history.

“Are you ready?” Christine’s voice came out from behind me and I turned around to see her standing near the door holding a doorknob, ready to start the day.

“Yes, sorry.” I cleared my throat and blinked rapidly to chase away the tears that started to gather. “Send the first patient in, please.” The good thing about getting medical training in Seattle was that it was constantly busy, you always had a new patient and not a lot of time to spend with the old ones, so my formal voice was something that never got away.

Christine turned and opened the door. “Zara, come in,” and I looked up just in time to see a familiar man with dirty blonde hair and brown eyes that threw daggers at me, walking in.