I slide the curtain into place with a trembling hand as Cal’s taillights disappear down the driveway. Any semblance of control I had over my emotions is broken, reality smacks me in the face with a pair of brass knuckles.
Cal is back.
I want to cry. I want to scream I want to send him running all the way back to Chicago.
Everything about seeing him again hurts. As if someone pulverized my heart until it was unrecognizable.
I hate how he still makes my chest hurt with a simple smile, almost as much as I hate the way I wanted to pull him into my arms and beg him to never leave again.
Haven’t you learned anything after the last time?
I cut myself a little loose. Cal turned my life upside down again and my mind is still trying to catch up. To ease the sick feeling building in my stomach that hasn’t gone away since he showed up at my door, I swallow a few deep breaths.
I was never supposed to come back. The last time I saw him, she promised me.
Are you really surprised? Since when is he a man of his word? I thought he would respect me and our past enough to honor his vow.
You were a fool.
No. I was desperate enough to believe him, even when he was about to break my heart.
“California?”
He ignores me as he continues to throw clothes into the open suitcase on his bed.
I walk into his room and close the door behind me. “Where are you going?” He doesn’t even recognize me.
“What happen?” I place my hand on his shoulder and give him a squeeze.
He tenses, choking on the shirt trapped inside his clenched fist. Not now, Alana.
Alan? Since when does she call me by my full name?
I walk around him and fall onto the bed. “Why are you packing?”
“Leave.” Her voice comes out flat.
My eyebrows draw together. “Did something happen in Chicago?” “No.”
Something about the tension in his body and the way he avoids eye contact makes my heart race in my chest. “Okay…” I tuck my legs under me. “How long are you going to be gone?”
He pauses at his erratic luggage. “I’m not going to come back”.
My laughter quickly fades at the tense expression on his face.
I get on my knees so we can be at eye level. “What’s going on? Did something happen at dinner with your grandfather?”
His fist clenches around a shirt. “I can not do this anymore”. “You can’t do what anymore ?”
His gaze slides from his suitcase to my face. “Us.”
My chest feels like lightning has split it in half. “That?” The broken whisper barely passes my lips.
God. It’s the same speech my dad gave my mom the day she abandoned our family. Except instead of watching my dad pack his bags, it’s Cal.
I shake my head.
No. Cal is not your father. He would never abandon you like this, especially after he promised to love you forever.
“We should never have gotten together,” he says quietly.
My eyes burn as if I kept them open while submerged in salt water. “What did you just say?”
“Me and you… It was stupid of me to think we would be a good couple.” He took a breath. He grabs a bottle of vodka from the nightstand and drinks until the clear liquid drips down his chin. My stomach churns at the way she drinks, but I ignore the acid rising up my throat.
He’s suffering, I rationalize.
This is only temporary while he faces the end of his career, I repeat the excuse for the millionth time this summer.
I cradle his head in my hands, ignoring the way they tremble against his cheeks. “You don’t mean that.”
“Yeah.”
My fingers press against the sides of his face. “Just talk to me and tell me what’s going on.”
His red eyes move away. “I have nothing else to say”. “I thought you were… happy.”
“No, Alan. He was drugged . His upper lip curls. I retreat. “That?”
That is not possible. Cal knows how I feel about drugs. I’ve had the same negative stance about them since my sister first overdosed.
“How else do you think I managed to spend this miserable summer recovering from my injury while my team was celebrating their big championship?”
Miserable summer?
I ignore the sharp pain that reverberates through my body, knowing he can’t mean that after everything we’ve shared together. “You seemed fine every time I asked you about it.”
“Because I took enough Oxy to feel that way.”
I take a deep breath. “Okay. Well, now that I know, I can make sure you get help. You’re not the first person to struggle with an opioid addiction after an injury.” My voice remains light despite the heaviness weighing me down.
“I don’t want help.” She walks away before pressing the vodka bottle to her lips and drinking some more.
I snatch it away. “You are better than this.”
The muscle in his jaw ticks. “It’s me? Or are you too blinded by your love to see the real me?
My vision blurs. “I’m not blind.” Hopeful, sure, but not oblivious to the problems going on here. I just thought we could work on one problem at a time, starting with his depression.
“Please don’t make this harder than it needs to be, Alana.”
The hole in my chest widens when he uses my full name, the single letter adding distance between us. “No. Don’t make me Alana . I’m not going to give up because you’re afraid. We can get through this together.”
he denies with the head. “You are not understanding me. It’s over.” “What’s over?”
“Us.”
I lift my trembling chin. “No.”
He lets out a heavy sigh. “What we did this summer… it was all a mistake. A huge one I made because he was too drunk and high to know better.”
The crack in my heart widens until I fear it may break in half. “You don’t mean that.” My voice trembles.
“Yeah.” He zips up her suitcase and places it on the wooden floor, leaving a few clothes scattered on her bed.
“I refuse to believe that.” I jump out of bed and step between him and the door. “Ignoring the truth will not make it less real.”
“Then tell the truth! Stop talking nonsense about how we are a mistake! I know how you feel about me. About us .”
He might have been high from some of it, but I know he meant all the things he confessed. The future he painted of our lives together. The promises he made to me about his love. The wishes he had for us and the family he wanted to have one day.
His eyes closed. “I wish I had never come back here. “It was selfish of me when you’re the last person I wanted to hurt,” she whispers as she grabs the handle of her luggage.
“You told me you would never leave me.” He promised. It’s the only reason she let him break our friendship with a single kiss. Because I was as interested in our future as a couple as he seemed to be.
He looks at me with cloudy eyes. “I’m sorry.”
The fight leaves me along with any hope that he will stay. “Do you want to leave?”
Say no.
He nods. This time, the throbbing sensation in my chest is numbed by something much stronger.
Anger.
My hands clench into fists. “Good. Then don’t ever bother coming back. I’m not sure what would happen to me if I did, so I’d rather not find out.”
His jaw trembles again. “Is that what you want?” “Yeah.” The pang in my chest disagrees. “Anything for you.” He sighs.
“Throw it away,” I state, my voice flat despite the way my vision is blurred by unshed tears.
“I promise not to come back here.” He rolls his luggage toward the door. His hand hesitates around the knob before looking back. “I’m sorry for hurting you. I wish I was different. Stronger. Sober.”
I wrap my arms around myself and turn around, hiding the tears that fall down my cheeks. With a final sigh, Cal closes the door to his room, leaving me alone to fall apart. I put my legs against my chest and cry until my eyes are swollen and my head feels like it’s going to explode.
I’m not sure how long I stay in his room, crying myself hoarse, wishing Cal would come back and claim this was all a bad joke.
Brady Kane enters the room with a frown. “Where did Cal go?”
I look at him with tear-stained cheeks. “She’s out.”
The wrinkled skin around his blue eyes softens as he watches me. “Oh, Alan.” She pulls me into her arms. “I’m so sorry. I thought something like this might happen.”
“As?”
Their lips press together.
More tears well up in my eyes. “Why wasn’t I good enough?” For my dad. For Antonela. For Cal. It always feels like he’s fighting everyone to stay when all they want to do is leave.
He rubs my back. “This has nothing to do with you.”
“It is not like this? If Cal loved me, she would have stayed. She would have fought for us.
“He can’t even fight for himself right now, let alone you.”
I shake my head. “I didn’t want him to leave.”
“Anyone who has spent time with you two would know that.”
The pain in my chest intensifies. “But I made her promise that she would never come back.”
Your hand moves in small relaxing circles. “Is that what you want?”
I sob against Brady’s chest. “Yes? No? I don’t know.” “Things will be fine. I’ll make sure of it.
Except here I am, six years later and still feeling anything but good.
Things are different now. You are no longer the same heartbroken girl.
Isn’t it me, though? Because all it takes is one interaction with Cal to remember everything I spent the last six years trying to forget.
The curve of his lips as he flashes me a smile.
The pull in my chest that always draws me to him despite all the years of pain.
The heat that spreads through my body every time he makes a joke, threatening to melt the ice that surrounds my heart.
A part of you still loves him.
I bolt from the couch and escape to my room, though the unwanted thought follows me like a dark, looming storm cloud.
Just because you love him doesn’t mean you’re in love with him , the reasonable voice speaks.
The truth is, a part of me will always love Cal. It’s impossible not to with over two decades of shared history, but I’ve never
I will fall in love with him, at least not again. I made that mistake once and lost my heart in the process.
But unlike the last time Cal showed up at Lake Wisteria, this time is different.
I’m different
And nothing you say or do will change that.
