“Trying to make your escape?” he gave me that crooked grin, the one that had always made me feel warm all over.
I was caught. I might as well admit it. “Yeah. I didn’t think I’d findyouhere. Obviously.”
He looked at me. “Why would that be obvious?”
I blinked. “Um… a few reasons. You don’t live here anymore. You weren’t at the party, so there’s not a reason for you to be in town. And…” to my absolute horror, I felt tears welling up in my eyes. I cleared my throat quickly and tried to cover it up, thankful it was dark. “And this place wouldn’t mean anything to you anymore. If it ever really did to begin with.”
He looked at the ground, hands in his pockets, and was silent so long, I thought he might not say anything else to me. Then he looked up, and the hurt and pain on his face were clear. “Do you really think that? You think our whole relationship was a lie? That we went from eighth grade all the way through freshman year of college together, but I didn’t love you? That I was just pretending somehow?”
It was my turn to go quiet. Dozens of thoughts cycled through my brain. “I don’t know, Harrison,” I said, finally. “I thought I knew you better than anyone else. I felt closer to you than my parents, my sisters and brother, friends I’ve known since pre-K… just everyone. I never in a million years would have thought you would change so drastically. Or that you could hurt me like you did.” I walked closer without thinking. “So, yeah. I think our entire relationship might have meant something to me that you never really felt. That our love was one-sided. To see you standing here,” I gestured to our tree, “is incredibly confusing.”
He turned back to the tree, tracing over our initials again. “Our love was not one-sided. You meant everything to me. I still can’t believe I threw us away like I did. Or that I treated you like you weren’t the most important person in my life.” He stared at the tree before turning and watching me. “I came in town for the party, but I just couldn’t bring myself to go. I felt like I might be hurting you all over again just by being at all of these events. And I don’t ever want to hurt you again.” He glanced at me.
“I didn’t feel like going to see my parents. I’ve actually been wanting to come up here for a while. I thought it would hurt too much, but I think it’s helping me.” He smiled. “I can’t help but think of the good times. This place holds only good memories for me. Is it that way for you, too?”
I flushed like a teenager thinking of all the times we’d made love under that tree. We’d had our first kiss under that tree.We’d lost our virginity under that tree. We’d even fallen asleep here often and had to sneak back into our houses in the early morning light before our parents realized we hadn’t come home the night before.
“Mainly,” I said softly, thinking of the one bad memory I had of lookout point.
He turned his head sharply. “Mainly? You have memories that aren’t good here?”
I could tell immediately that he was thinking I’d brought other guys to our spot after everything fell apart. “Just one.”
Somehow, we’d both ended up right at our normal spot. I sat down beside him, having to work to not cuddle into his side and lay my head on his shoulder like I’d always done. I leaned back against the tree instead, wrapping my arms around my legs and putting my head on my knees.
“Care to tell me about it?”
I looked at him from the side. “It’s sad. You sure you want to hear it?”
He nodded, looking straight ahead.
“The December I came home after fall semester sophomore year, I came up here. I sat here for hours just thinking about everything. How unfair the breakup had been, how mad I was, how hurt I was, how much I hated you.”
He winced slightly.
“But,” I sighed, “the thing that made me cry—that I couldn’t stop crying about—was that as much as I hated you, I couldn’t seem to stop loving you. I think that hurt the worst. It was like my own heart was betraying me.”
I could tell he wanted to say something, to try to comfort me, but he seemed to know there wasn’t anything he could do to make it better.
“I sat here for hours. I turned my phone off. I didn’t want anyone to find me. I just wanted to be by myself and thinkeverything through. Finally, I did something that made me feel better, took one last look around, and left.” I rubbed my hand over the bark of our tree. “I thought I’d never come back here.” I didn’t confess that I’d come up here the night before Drake and Melinda’s engagement party.
“I didn’t think I would, either,” he said. “I came and had a day like the one you’re talking about, too. It was after I’d broken my leg. After no one cared about me on campus anymore and my head shrank back down to normal size. I had finally regained myself and some perspective and realized how badly I’d blown up my life. I came up here and vowed to do better. To be a better person. And I wanted to do anything I could to make it up to you, but I didn’t know how to do that.” He turned his head slightly to look at me. “That’s when I started therapy. My mom had suggested it, and I decided it was the right thing to do.”
“And what did the therapist say you could do to make it up to me?”
“Not much. He said I could give you a true apology, accept full responsibility, and let you ask any and all questions you had about the things I’d done. And that I had to be honest. He said I could give you a way to contact me, but that the choice would need to be yours as to whether you ever wanted to see me again or not. Then he said I needed to leave you alone.”
I smirked. “I guess you were coming to do all of that when you came by the house that time, and I kicked you out.”
He nodded, absentmindedly picking up acorns and throwing them over the drop off. “I told him what happened, and he said that I had to leave you alone. That my parents were in town and if you ever wanted to find me, you could. It was one of the hardest things I’d ever done, but he was right. I’d hurt you too much. There was no way you could ever look at me without remembering every horrible thing I’d done.”
I was quiet for a while, just listening to the soft sounds of a late summer evening. The tree frogs were still active. I loved their soothing, distinctive song. I could hear crickets, too, and the wind gently blowing the tall grass that bordered the maintained area of lookout point. There was even the occasional mournful hoot of an owl. I closed my eyes as I leaned on the tree. I would never have thought I could feel this relaxed sitting next to Harrison and leaning on our tree. But I was so at peace, I thought I could go to sleep.
“What was the thing you did that made you feel better?”
I slowly opened my eyes, my eyelids heavy. “What?”
“You said you did something that made you feel better before you left lookout point that day. What was it?”
