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“I graduated and went to the ocean, got my ass kicked. I was good here in Jericho, in the county, but I was a small fish in an ocean. It wasn’t for me,” I explained, leaving out a lot of it. She didn’t want to hear my sob story of how I didn’t make it and I didn’t want to tell her.
She told me that she didn't believe it. “I've seen you play. You loved it. What happened?”
More brutal honesty and she was looking right through me. Beatrice was not one for small talk, and even though we hadn't seen each other in five years, she was getting right to the root of the problem in only a few questions.
“It was dad's game. He loved it and after he died, I didn't love it anymore,” I answered, never really thinking about it like that, but knowing it was the truth.
Beatrice put her arm over my shoulder and her head down on me. “I want to give you a proper hug, but this cheeseburger is so greasy, I don't want to ruin your shirt.”
One minute I felt stinging in my eyes, the next minute I could laugh. “Don't worry about it, I have another shirt.”
“I didn’t mean to bring him up. I didn’t know,” she started.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m still trying to figure out how you are here.”
“Didn’t you think I’d come back?”
“After it first happened and you took off, yeah, I thought you’d have been back a long time ago,” I said.
I noticed then that Beatrice’s eyes had turned green. The clouds uncovered the moon so I could see the vivid color better. I could see that she was full of emotions, her hazel eyes changing with them.
“There was no way that I was coming back here. Not after the stuff between me and you. I was embarrassed to no end and couldn’t show my face here,” Beatrice concluded.
The ‘stuff’ between me and her was the reason that my body was on high alert now. As soon as I heard her voice, the alarm had started to call out, my need rising. I’d spent many nights waiting for her to come back.
“Are we ever going to talk about that?” I wondered out loud. Now seemed like as good a time as any other.
“There's nothing really to talk about. You are Lester’s best friend. Is that still a thing?” Beatrice asked.
“Yeah, we’re friends. We both work at the fire station together. Probably closer than ever before. You’d know that if you ever called and checked in.” I hated the sound of disappointment in my voice.
Beatrice sighed, like she was sad for the conclusion she had drawn. “Well, nothing has changed, so there is still nothing to talk about, is there?”
I agreed, even if I really didn't want to. There had been a moment when Beatrice had thought that I was the one. She’d told me she loved me, and it hadn’t gone down the way she wanted it to. I was thrown off. She was seventeen and she was my best friend’s sister. I didn't look at her that way, at least not then. We were friends, Lester and I were friends, nothing good would come from us getting romantic.
Now though, seeing her all grown up, living without her for so long, it was quite easy to see where I had made a misstep. Before, I hadn't handled it very well, but I never thought she would leave. She confessed her feelings and the next thing I knew, she was long gone, and years passed before I saw her again. Of course, I would see her here in our spot.
“How long are you back for?” I changed the subject that was going downhill fast.
She shrugged and said that she wasn't sure. Beatrice had always wanted to get away and I was a little shocked that she was back at all. “This is only temporary?”
Beatrice disagreed. “I think I'm going to stay awhile. Things went tits up for me and I want to lick my wounds for a bit before I get back out there. I can’t think of a better place than back home in Jericho.”
I knew that there was a lot more to that story, but I was going to have to wait to hear it. It wasn't long before Beatrice said that she had to go. I wanted to talk to her more, catch up and see what she had been up to. Her brother barely ever talked about her, and I'd always been too afraid of him finding out that something had almost happened between us. There had been a kiss before she left, when she’d confessed her love for me.
I was thinking about that kiss now. It had been one hell of a kiss, passionate and so giving. She would have given me anything that night, all promised with our lips pressed together. It had really been something.
She was wrapping up her burger and I just kind of shook my head in awe. “You still eat faster than me.”
“You're just inefficient. You take your time with everything. Sometimes you don't have forever,” Beatrice answered cryptically. Why did it feel like she was saying so much more? She was just as much of an enigma now as she was then. I really didn’t understand her.
What happened between us was different, interesting, better. As soon as she left I wondered what things would have been like if the two of us had worked something out. She was always so different than all the other girls. I thought that was the problem, but maybe it was the best part of her. Would it have truly been impossible?
As she was leaving, I asked her if we were going to see each other again. I didn’t want to sound too enthusiastic about it, but I couldn’t keep it from my tone. It wasreallygood to see her again.
“You know how small Jericho is. I'm sure we will run into each other again.”
“We should go out and have a drink. Then you can tell me what you have been up to all this time,” I suggested.
