“Yes.” He kisses my forehead. “A million times over. Yes. It feels perfect.”
My heart lodges somewhere in my throat. He’s right. It does feel perfect. Too perfect. Because the last time I thought Jenson Beau and I were finally going to be together, our fairytale ending was ripped apart.
“What about Kyle and Connor?” I ask him.
“They’re coming with me,” he says.
“What about Meghan? You guys share custody.”
“She and her boyfriend, Andy, are going to move in together, and Andy’s from out this way. They’ve decided to move to Philly, and they’re driving out here this week to look around for housing. So she and I will split the time with the boys while she’s in the area, and then they’ll go back with her to Pittsburgh until she packs up next month.”
“So you’re moving in the fall? How will that work with football season?”
“I’ve already moved.” His tone softens. “I have my townhouse in Pittsburgh until the end of the month, and I’ll have to go back to deal with that. But I’m officially on staff with the football team as of today, so…I’m here.”
“That’s…” I swallow hard. “Wow. A lot of changes.”
“I hope it can be a fresh start,” he says, his meaning clear.
A fresh start for us.
I still remember Jenson’s last words to me before he left for college in Seattle for what turned out to be one of the many unplanned chapters in his life. “Ask me to wait for you, Olive.” His eyes were pleading. “Ask me.”
Because he would. I was all he wanted. He was all I wanted. But I was young and naïve, and in my heart, I knew I wasn’t ready for everything we deserved.
Plus, we had two years to fill—I was sixteen, and Jenson was nineteen—before we could be together in any real sense, and I wanted Jenson to enjoy his college experience, his first time away from home. We talked it through, with Jenson adamant that if we were going to do this, he wanted to make sure it went both ways so that I would experience high school like a normal sixteen-year-old deserves to. We tried to look on the bright side—if we didn’t take this time apart, even if we did end up together, one or the other of us would end up resentful.
After much tearful discussion, we made a promise that for the next two years, we would date “age-appropriate” people and not discuss our love lives with one another.
“No holding back,” Jenson said to me. “Okay? Whoever you want to date, or…” He cleared his throat and trailed off. “Don’t censor yourself. We’ll still see each other when I come home, and it will be like old times. But this is your time, Olive. You’re only sixteen years old once. I don’t ever want to be the one who held you back from anything. Promise me you’ll take the time to focus on yourself.”
“You too.” I held his hand tightly in mine, fighting back the tears that were already sliding down my cheeks. “Promise you’ll enjoy college, J. Date, have girlfriends, and party. Do whatever you want to do. Okay? We’ll meet up again soon.”
“Two years.” His voice dropped so low I had to strain to hear him. “It will fly by. And then you’ll be mine. And I’ll be yours. Forever.”
“Forever,” I repeated.
We held to our promise. I went to Prom, to Homecoming, and to the movies on the weekends. I let boys kiss me and tried to feel a spark even if there wasn’t one. I had a few boyfriends, and I know Jenson had his share of dates in college. We did our best to be “normal,” knowing that this was our time to explore and grow on our own.
And whenever Jenson came home, we were as inseparable as ever. “Cousins” to our family and to everyone in town and so much more in private. Never more than stolen kisses; our clothes never came off. Because Jenson was serious about waiting until I turned eighteen. He wanted to do things “the right way.”
At the edge of seventeen, I was exhausted from trying to maintain a line my heart and body were desperate to rebel against. I was one day away from starting my freshman year at UPenn and one month from turning eighteen. I was so looking forward to crossing that finish line so Jenson and I could finally be a real couple.
I only had one month to kill at college before my big birthday. One more month of going on dates with boys who couldn’t hold a candle to the only boy I’d ever really wanted.
But the night before I left for school, Jenson found out the piece of news that would unequivocally change the course of his life. And the course of mine. He was going to be a father. And the mother of his children wasn’t me.
The memories flood my brain while we sit together underneath the safety of the bridge, and I clench my hands together on my lap. “Looking back,” I admit, “I feel like I got married just to try to numb the pain of losing you.”
“Being married never helped me, Olive,” Jenson says in a ragged tone. “I know my marriage was…unplanned. And I love my sons. Wouldn’t change that part of it at all. But Meghan and I never should have forced the marriage through because she got pregnant. We always used protection, were always so careful. We both knew what we were doing was temporary. And yet, Kyle and Connor came along anyway.”
“And you wanted to be a full-time father, to be there for your sons every single day from the moment they were born, the way your biological father wasn’t,” I say softly. “I got it then, and I get it now, J.”
“And yet, I know how it crushed you.”
Yes, going to Jenson’s wedding was deadly. I couldn’t even make it through the ceremony. Hearing about his divorce was less so. Of course, he and Meghan had their two boys by then, so she’s a permanent part of his life. She’s very nice; I always liked her. She was in the impossible position of marrying a man who couldn’t love her back, whose heart was already with somebody else. She never knew about me, and Jenson was never unfaithful to her. But we’d already given our hearts to each other, and no matter how hard we tried to move on, it didn’t seem to work.
“I thought I was taking responsibility as a father. Doing right by my sons.” His tone sounds strangled. “By everyone.”
