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I swallow and look away for a moment. “I’m scared but optimistic about SJ. It feels good but still scary.”
She tilts her head and looks at me curiously. “He doesn’t look like he’s scared, honey. He keeps looking at you like he’s ready to play this game.” And by game, she’s not referring to football. I’m the game. And I didn’t like how the game ended the first time.
“Maybe he was meant to be just a high school boyfriend, but not my forever person.”
“Oh, he’s still your forever person. Just look at him. Stop letting fear ruin you from being with your soulmate.”
I look down, and he’s looking up at me with his arms crossed and a mile-wide smile. The man I was supposed to build a life with. Together. He’s back, and he wants a second chance.
seventeen
SJ
Then
I hearthe window again and look over at my clock. 2:36 a.m. “Callie, what’s wrong?” I sit up and stare as she kicks off her shoes and slides under the covers next to me.
“Same crap. I feel safer here,” she says as she burrows in next to me.
Still groggy, I sit up, feeling angry with her parents. I’m considering going to get my dad and having him step in. But his stepping in might mean it could get worse for Callie. He and the club don’t always handle things above board. And if they did do something, it could tear Callie and me apart.
“You gotta be careful climbing up that trellis. What if you fall?”
“I thought you put the ladder there for me?” she murmurs.
“What ladder?” I ask, confused. “I didn’t put a ladder out there.”
“I think your dad did it, then,” she murmurs as she drifts off to sleep.
Warmth fills me that my dad looks out for both of us. I will never take for granted having him for a parent when I think about what kind of parents Callie has had to live with.
I reach for her hand and drift off to sleep with her.
now
“Saw Callie on the back of your bike,” Bear says as he scoots his stool over toward me at the shop.
I look over at Bear. He’s in his mid-thirties, not much older than me, yet my dad is only fifteen years older than me, so Bear has always been like a brother to me. My dad raised me like a son, but he’s been almost like an older brother to me at times, too. We’ve all grown up together.
“It’s like going back in time, seeing you two together again.” Bear swirls a toothpick in his mouth.
“Yeah, well, time screwed us both over.” I wipe my hands on a rag and sit on a stool.
“You two used to be inseparable.”
“A lot can change,” I reply. “I’m trying to fix it.”
“Does she know why you left? Hell, I’m not sureyoueven understand why you left.”
It feels weird to say out loud why I left, and it feels dumb when I think about it now. “I walked away from Callie because if I didn’t, she wouldn’t be the doctor that she is today with me dragging her down.”
Bear groans. “You weren’t dragging her down.”
“When her parents repeatedly told us both that I wasn’t good enough? Hell, this whole town made me feel not good enough. I was only good enough when I won football games. When football was over, I was useless here. I left for her.”
“You have always been good enough,” Bear says.
“I joined the Army to be better for her and to make her proud. There’s no better man than a soldier. I went to hell every day to be a better man for her.”
