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“The moment before I told you to get in the car.”
“What do you think happened?”
“Jules. Chill. I’m going as fast as I can, and your questions aren’t helping. Let’s just listen to music.”
She flips on the radio, but I can’t recognize any song over the thumping beat of my heart drowning out every song.
We finally pull up to his ranch, and I slam the door and run over to his house and bang on the door.
“Ana, are you okay? Let me in, sweet girl.”
Then around the corner pops out Ana and Adriel. I don’t understand what’s happening.
“I’m so sorry to bring you here under false pretenses, but I need to show you something.”
I lean down to Ana and still need to know she’s okay from her to calm my racing mind. “Everything is okay, for real?”
“I’m okay.” She leans over and gives me a big hug, and I can rest a little easier. “I missed you,” she whispers.
“We can hang out anytime you want. If it’s okay with your dad. I’m still here.”
My fear is quickly replaced with anger.
I get close to Adriel and say, “Don’t you ever do that again. That was horrifying.” I say, starting to tear up with the fast relief of knowing she’s safe.
He holds me and looks more apologetic than he did when I left last week.
I step back and give myself more space between us.
“Say what you want to say, then I have to go.”
“Jules, I’m so sorry. I messed up. Big.”
“Huge.” I add.
“Enormously. I’m so sorry I don’t know how to ask for help. Her mom left us, and my brothers left me when they chose their own careers, and I took all of that personally. I selfishly claimed their growth as examples of no one staying around me. Always afraid to find that upper limit with everyone, I’ve relied on myself. I’ve done everything on my own for so long that I built up my walls so high that no one can scale them.”
I nod.
“Until you came along. As high as they were, you not only climbed over my barbed wire, but you threw down a ladder for everyone else to climb over too.” He’s crying now. “I’m so sorry to put my hang-ups on you and push you away when I couldn’t be more proud of you, and I couldn’t be more in love with you, either.”
Now I’m crying.
I’m still mad too, but I can’t listen to his genuine honesty with a cold heart because the truth is I still love him.
“As soon as you left, I knew you were right. Everything you said was right. From my not wanting to ask for help, to my letting my ego ruin everything that my family had built.”
As much as my icy attitude is starting to thaw at his sincerity, I can’t deny that the words are nice, but I still need more. Want more than just his words.
As if he reads my mind he says, “Even though I haven’t been able to see you for a week, please don’t think for a second that you’ve been far from my mind. You’re in the heart of every detail I built into these cabins, and more importantly you are at the center of something else I built. I need you to know that now that I’ve had you in my life, I can’t picture it without you. The guys stayed to finish the first cabin, but I asked them to help me with something else before we started the next cabins.”
“What’re you talking about?”
“It’s something I’ve been sketching since we met, but I know now is the right time. Come with us.” He takes one of my hands, and Ana takes the other and they walk me into their house.
When I walked in before, you were enveloped in a warm living room, that flowed into an open kitchen with windows on either side of the stove. The hallway used to move to the left of the kitchen to Adriel and Ana’s two bedrooms. That’s all there, but there’s so much more now, too.
I was so focused on Ana and rushing over here that I didn’t notice what is so clear in front of me now that I’m looking around.
