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But she did. She released him, and Seth was already stepping forward to meet her. Something about the confidence with which my brother drew Rose into his arms made my throat tighten. When had he gotten so comfortable withher?
I stood there awkwardly, the last of the bunch. Rose squeezed Seth’s broad shoulder and then turned to me, because of course she couldn’t leave me out. I couldn’t imagine she had an unkind bone in herbody.
She stepped toward me tentatively, and I extended my arms, abruptly unable to even meet her eyes. Embarrassed by how every particle of my body was jittering with eagerness at this chance to hold her, even if it meant so much more to me than it did toher.
I didn’t draw the hug out, just embraced her quickly and then pulled back. Rose’s hand groped after me for a second as if she’d meant to hug me even tighter. My gaze leapt to her face with a skip of my heart. Was that…painflashing through herexpression?
As if it’d hurt her that I’d barely accepted the embrace. As if it had meant something to her, more than just a tokengesture.
I opened my mouth, but my tongue tangled. There was no glib comment that could turn backtime.
“I hope I’ll be seeing you all soon with better news,” she said, hunching her shoulders in her jacket. Then she was slipping away between the stores before I could figure out the right words to fix my mistake, which was feeling more and more colossal by thesecond.
* * *
A request for me to press the START button blinked on my TV. I picked up the video game controller, but the computer-generated enemies looming on the screen just made my worries niggledeeper.
There were too many real enemies threatening people I cared about. I hadn’t heard anything from Rose in almost two days, and as far as I knew neither had the other guys. At least a dozen times I’d picked up my phone ready to just text her some mindless message like,U OK?And then stopped myself when I remembered the look on her face when I’d pretty much rejected herembrace.
With a groan, I flopped over on the couch. Would it really be so hard to say something? Apologize, tell her I hadn’t wanted to overstep, and if anything I’d wanted to hold her too long, tootightly…
What if I’d just imagined that hurt, though? Wishful thinking? It wouldn’t be the first time. I didn’t have the best track record with girls. The last thing she needed was me hassling her about that when the marriage she was supposed to be planning was in the process ofimploding.
My gaze came to rest on the one work of art on my wall that hadn’t come from anyone in this town. The little metal etching sent to me all the way from New Brunswick in Canada, from the one girl I’d had more luck than I deserved with.Marian.
It had been such a cliché. We’d started talking in the middle of an online game and somehow enjoyed each other’s conversation so much we’d just kept going after we beat the boss—who, for the record, we’d completely pulverized. Chatting on our headsets had turned into video chats and… more than just chatting. I’d called her my girlfriend. She’d called me her boyfriend. I hadn’t gone a day without seeing her face. We sent each other gifts like that etching on mywall.
But then, in the middle of trying to plan our first trip to really meet, it had all fallenapart.
“There was some other girl, wasn’t there?” she’d said over Skype, what seemed like out of the blue. “You said you’ve never really had a girlfriend before, but there wassomeone.”
“What?” I’d said, but even in my confusion my mind had leapt to Rose. It just did. Even years after she’d left. I didn’t know what had happened to her. None of my internet searching had reassured me she was okay. Of course I couldn’t completely let hergo.
But I hadn’t lied. Rose hadn’t been my girlfriend. Not evenclose.
“There are those things you never quite talk about,” Marian had said. “I can see you stopping yourself and editing stuff out. It’s not like I mind if you’ve been with other people before.Ihave. I just want to know you’re being honest withme.”
“I am,” I’d said. “There’s nothing important. Some of the stuff from when I was younger, it’s just…complicated.”
“Too complicated to tell meabout?”
“I guess there are just secrets I don’t feel are mine to share,” I’d said, which had felt like a weak excuse even as it came out of mymouth.
“Secrets you’re keeping for a girl you don’t see anymore?” Her expression had shuttered. “Or do you still seeher?”
“No,” I’d protested. “I haven’t seen her inyears—”
And just like that I’d admittedit.
It might not have mattered. Maybe I could have figured out a way around that admission. But something in my face or my body language must have given me away. Marian had watched me and asked, ever so carefully, “And if she came back, would you still be talking tome?”
The correct answer, clearly, would have been an instant, “Yes, of course, don’t even worry about it.” The problem was, it wasn’t all that clear to me. I liked Marian a lot, yeah, but part of my heart was still tied up in the girl who was woven all through my childhood and early teen memories, the girl who’d be a woman now. So I’dhesitated.
We hadn’t broken up right then, but I knew that was what had done it. The conversation about meeting up had faltered. A few days later, Marian had emailed me to say she didn’t think we wanted the same things. And I hadn’t even blamed her forit.
Lying here now, staring at the metal etching, resolve balled in my stomach. I’d never let go of Rose, had I? Not really. Not even when I’d had another girl right in front of me. Not until she’d been reaching out tome.
What waswrongwith me? The girl I’d never stopped caring about was back, and I might as well have slapped her in the face two daysago.
