He steps up, grabbing my hand, trying to calm my sudden irritation. “Hey, I’m sorry. I get it. You take all the time you need. I’d like to see you if I can, though.”
“We’ll see, okay? Either way, I’ll be in class on Monday. Maybe we can talk then.”
He nods, giving my hand a tight squeeze, kissing my cheek before turning to walk away.
Carter quickly approaches me. “I’m sorry if I upset you earlier,” he says as he holds out his hand low to grab ahold of mine.
“I’m sorry, too. I was caught off guard. I had no clue Cole would be here. So you guys are friends?”
“We were friends,” he spits out.
“Carter…that’s not fair. I don’t want to come between you guys.”
“You didn’t. I swear. He’s known for years how hard I’ve looked for you and how much of a mess I was without you. I don’t know how he realized it was you, but any friend of mine would have told me right away, not try to make it so I never knew you were here.”
I let out a deep sigh while rubbing my hands through my hair, frustrated with the entire situation.
When my bracelet runs down my arm, the sight of my tattoo catches my attention. I briefly close my eyes, turning my wrist out to display it for Carter. Our eyes meet, and he quickly holds his up to show the unchanged line we got ten years ago.
“That’s how he knew.” He pauses, looking around the event. “Do you like him?” Carter asks from out of nowhere.
I shrug. “I don’t know.”
“Were you really going to date him like he said you guys were?”
I shrug. “I was.”
“Was…? So not anymore?”
“No. Yes. Shit, I don’t know. I told him the same thing. Everything just happened so fast.”
“But what about us? Evangeline, I’ve never stopped looking for you, and I never stopped loving you.”
“That was a long time ago, Carter. What if who we were back then isn’t who we are now? All we have is the past. Is that enough for us to hold a future?”
“You know it is. We knew it back then. What we had was something special.”
I sigh. He’s right. It really was. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about him every day for all these years.
“It’s going to take time,” I admit. “We can’t just pick up where we left off. I need to figure things out first.”
“I’ve got all the time in the world. I’ve waited this long having no clue where you were. I’m not going to let you go again.”
I look into his eyes, seeing every ounce of determination he put into that statement. It’s the same look I’ve dreamed about for years. The look he gave me when he left for college. He said we’d be together forever and that he’d come get me from our hometown as soon as he could. I believed him then just as I do now.
“Come on,” he says, grabbing my hand and pulling me away from the crowd. “I want to introduce you to Kyle.”
I follow him into the hospital, and we enter a room where a young boy is sitting up in his bed playing on his phone.
“You better not be practicing our racing game on the app,” Carter announces as he enters the room.
The kid drops the phone instantly, hiding it under his blanket. “What, you scared?” he teases back.
Carter reaches for the phone, turning it to reveal the game he was talking about. “Yeah, I see how you cheat.”
“It’s not cheating, it’s practice. Practice makes perfect, remember?”
“Okay, smart-ass,” Carter says, engulfing the boy in his arms and rubbing his head with a closed fist.
