“Hi. I need to see you,” Edward said in a rushed word-blurringspeed.
“What’swrong?”
“Only that it looks like I’m going to be passed over for my promotion.” He sounded devastated. I was a horrible person. I’d been talking to Kevin all night and my boyfriend didn’t get his dreamjob.
“I’m so sorry. Is there anything I cando?”
“Meet me for dinner tonight? Just you. I missyou.”
I had never heard such sorrow in Edward’s voice, and I felt for him. “What about your dinnerwith—”
“I’ll see you at our normal café in Decatur at eightp.m.”
Without another word, the line went dead. I imagined the tears in his eyes, and they seared myheart.
“Are you all right?” Kevin’s voice drew my attention from the blank phonescreen.
“Yeah, fine.” Isighed.
Kevin tilted his head and his eyes narrowed. “No, you’re not. Come on. I have to run an errand and thought I’d buy you lunch for all your hardwork.”
“I shouldn’t.” I held tight to my phone, the only line I had connecting me to Edward while down in MagnoliaCorners.
“Why?”
Ishrugged.
“We’re friends,right?”
“Right.” I relaxed at his words. There was no reason two old high school acquaintances couldn’t go to lunch. “Let’s grab something and head back here. I want to be back for Mr. Shelton’s therapy at one o’clock. I think I could tweak his walker so it slides better across the floor without the tennis balls onit.”
We walked toward the main doors. “You really are good with Mr. Shelton. Not to mention ingenious at figuring out how to fix, put together, and modifyequipment.”
“I enjoy working with my hands. I always have. Besides, I like hanging out with Mr. Shelton. He’s a kind old man. Maybe it’s because I don’t have any grandparents or parents to care for in their old age. Perhaps I need him as much as he needsme.”
Kevin stopped at the coat rack by the door and held up my coat for me. I slid my arms in and turned around. He lifted my scarf over my head and tucked it in around my neck. “I’m sorry I didn’t know more about what you were going through during school. I was a different person then. If you want to talk, I’m herenow.”
“I’m not sure it was that you weren’t listening. It more likely had to do with me not talking. Besides, I was no better. I thought you were the unattainable jock who could only see things on his level. It wasn’t fair of me to think thateither.”
He slung his coat over his shoulders with a big ear-to-ear grin. “Then let’s make a deal. We can tell each other anything we want with no judgement and no preconceived ideas of the other. Let’s get to know each other for real. I think it’s about time after all theseyears.”
I studied his face for a moment. His sincere brow raise and soft eyes told me I could trust him, but I still wanted to know for sure. “Tell me something, then. Why did you have me tutor you in highschool?”
A redness spread from his cheeks to his ears. “Because I was too much of a coward to admit that I wanted to spend time withyou.”
I took a step back and offered him my hand. “I accept your deal. You can ask meanything.”
He shook my hand, but instead of letting it go, he set it in the crook of his elbow and led me outside. “Be careful. Some ice has formed along the edge here.” With a tight grip on my hand, he led me to the truck and carefully tucked meinside.
In that moment, I felt treasured and cared for…andguilty.
“I need to stop by my place to pick up some equipment, and then I’ll drop it at a work site and we can have lunch.” He started the engine with the deep diesel growl of his truck and headed out. The road on which we’d seen each other briefly the night of Avery’s great escape wasn’t far away. We turned down the street, and flashes of his headlights and the sound of his tires squealing rippled through mymind.
“Do you remember that night that you came around the corner in your truck and saw Avery in the middle of theroad?”
“Remember? I thought I was going to have a heart attack at that moment. The thought of…of…harming someoneelse…”
From the pain in his voice, the way he kept his eyes straight ahead on the road and gripped the steering wheel, I knew what he’d gone through. I grabbed his hand and pried it from the steering wheel and held on to it tight, willing him to listen. “If you had hit her, it wouldn’t have been your fault. You’re not responsible for other people’schoices.”
