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One
Trina
The sunshine glints off the man I love’s golden hair, and I’m torn between contentment and conflict. For the space of a few heartbeats, I shove reality to the back of my consciousness and just let myself live in the moment. It’s a fresh spring day in Oak Valley, Georgia, our hometown. This early in April, everything’s green and blooming with the blessing of comfortable warm temps before the brutal heat of summer squashes all of us flat.
I love it here, and I adore Harrison Walcott.
Too bad he’s my best friend’s husband.
For a moment it doesn’t matter than my precious bestie has been gone from this earth for three years. And for right now it’s okay that Harrison and I depend on each other. Losing her nearly broke us both.
I can’t even count how many times I’d bring Harrison food only to end up crying in his arms. And my face wasn’t always the only one left tear-stained and ravaged. I remember so clearly the day I stopped by to see him at his father’s store. He’d been standing at the counter staring unfocused into space. It’d been only two months after her passing, and I’d gone up and touched his arm, he’d twisted around eagerly, almost blindly.
“Jane?” he asked, pure hope resonant in his tone, and it’d nearly destroyed me to answer him.
“No, Harrison. It’s me. It’s Trina.”
“Oh, um… right. Of course. Sorry. I guess I…”
“It’s okay, Harrison. I know. Sometimes I expect her to come back, too. Then I remember…”
He’d apologized to me in this strange empty voice that didn’t sound like him at all, then proceeded to double over. The next second he’d been shuddering and shaking, weeping into his hands, and I’d done my best to hold him despite being the man a full foot taller than me. I’d tried my hardest to keep it together for him, like he’d done for me so many times by that point, but it’d been impossible to keep my eyes dry.
Jane had been this huge piece of our lives. To me, her absence had at first felt unnatural, then like a gaping hole blasted through my chest, and finally like a bruise in my daily existence that would never quite heal.
Which made my feelings for her widowed husband that much more reprehensible.
Those initial hellish weeks and months of our grief forged a bond between Harrison and I, a deeper understanding than we’d ever shared prior to Jane’s passing. Not that we weren’t always friendly acquaintances. I’d known Harrison ever since I entered kindergarten and he’d been a precocious second grader because we’d lived on the same street and shared the same school bus. But I never saw him in a romantic light.
Once he and Jane started dating when she and I became seniors in high school, I’d applauded their match. They were always so good together, and when it came time for them to marry, I’d served as her maid of honor.
So, feeling attracted to him now feels twenty different shades ofwrong.
I hate myself for noticing the strong L-shape of his jaw when I look at him in profile and the vivid dark cobalt of his irises. Why can’t I ignore the fact that his lashes are so long that they feather over the skin beneath his eyes when he shuts them, even briefly? How could I have known this man all my life and miss how defined his cheekbones are? Or that when he went from bearded to clean-shaven a few months ago, it made the cleft in his chin stand out?
So much so that I ache to press my finger to it just to know it feels to touch his face?
I yearn to touch the rest of him even more.Allthe rest of him. Every glorious inch.
Oh, gracious. I need to stop thinking these thoughts!
I’m a shitty person. That’s all there is to it.
Our lunches together in the square have almost become a ritual. Days like today when the sun is out and it’s not too hot make it hard to find a bench. So to be on the safe side I always include a blanket in my bag in case we need to sit on the grass.
I glance his direction again and watch as he swallows a bite of his deli sandwich, memorizing how his Adam’s apple moves and enjoying the way his blond hair curls just the teensiest bit over his collar. And that’s not even mentioning his lean body. He jogs every morning before work, and I’m ashamed to say there have been times when I’ve set my alarm early just so I can head over to the Downtown Coffee Shop to leer at him as he goes by.
Dammit, I have it sobadfor this man.
He can’t possibly feel anything like that toward me. I’m nothing like Jane. My bestie was this ravishing beauty with her long raven hair, dark soulful eyes, and perfectly svelte figure. Every boy in school had been after her. Yet I’ve always been that weird little redhead who’s perpetually ten or fifteen pounds too heavy for my five-foot nothing frame. No one’s ever called me a ravishing beauty. The nicest thing I’ve been called by most the folks around here is “cute.”
You know, like a down-covered baby chick or a chubby tabby kitten.
Then, there are the freckles. I’m covered head to toe in them. As a kid, they made me feel like I had permanent chicken pox. Not a single thing about me could ever compare with the head cheerleader prom queen that Jane was.
I know this makes me sound like some jealous harpy, but I’m not. Jane deserved all those accolades and honors. On top of being gorgeous, she was also the kindest, sweetest person I knew. Unfailingly. Yet how am I repaying her devoted years of friendship?
By perving on her man.
