A flicker of mischief plays across his eyes. “How did you sleep last night?” he asks.
I know he’s thinking about our little… what could one call it? Tryst sounds about right. “Very well, thank you,” I tell him with a playful smile. “How ‘bout you?”
“Amazing,” he says.
I pull my gaze away. He’s too beautiful – always has been. I wonder if it will always be like this. Will I always be attracted to him? Even when we’re both seventy-five years old?
I want him. More than I’ve ever wanted him. When we were together, I had him. He wanted me and he was pretty vocal about it. I could have had him if I’d wanted to. And now I can’t have him. We always want what we can’t have, don’t we?
And there’s also the fact that when we used to be an item, I was still a virgin. I didn’t know what I was missing. But now…
I like sex. I love sex. And I miss it.
We’ve all finished our lunches, and the kids are playing tag in the forest. “Don’t go too far,” I call out.
Blake smiles. “You’ll make a good mother one day.”
I laugh. “Because I’m so responsible, right?” I say, my words drenched in sarcasm.
“No, because you’re caring. Because you’re fun.”
“Oh…”
“I see how you make sure they have everything they need, how you laugh with them, how you make sure they eat their carrots.”
We both sit quietly and look out over the lake, at the vast expanse of sky and small patches of land in the distance. I like this version of him… quiet Blake.
“I can’t believe you chose to leave all this,” he says.
“I know… what was I thinking?” I joke.
The thing is, I know exactly what I was thinking. I was thinking I’d get away from Blake, and from everything and everyone that reminded me of my dad.
“I know you were going through a hard time,” he says quietly, not quite looking at me.
“Well, so were you,” I point out. “And you didn’t just run off.”
“I wanted to on some days,” he admits, “but I wasn’t like you, Maeve. This is all I’ve ever known. I wasn’t smart like you.”
I shake my head. “You’re one of the smartest people I know,” I tell him. “You were just never… ‘book smart’. And skipping classes all the time probably didn’t help.”
He shoots me a quick smile. “True.”
Another long silence.
“I’m sorry about the way I treated you, Maeve,” he says. Again he’s looking out at the lake and not at me. “I just… I needed to get away from you. I needed to push you away.”
I’ve been waiting about ten years for this apology, but I don’t quite understand what he’s saying. “Get away from me? What do you mean?”
“The reason I started fooling around with Tessa Maclean and being a total jerk…” he trails off. “I wanted to drive you away.”
My stomach drops. “I just wasn’t giving it up,” I scoff. “You were seventeen. You just wanted to have a little fun. And I was just a tease, wasn’t I?”
He jerks his head around. “Is that what you think?”
“Yes. It’s pretty much how the story goes in my head,” I tell him. “For the past ten years, I’ve replayed our relationship, and tried to figure out what I did wrong. And the only thing I could think of is that I didn’t let you… you know.”
His face falls and his eyes glaze over. He looks broken, like I’ve punched him in the gut. “I can’t believe that’s how you’ve seen me all these years… a horny jerk.”
