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  Sighing, I shake my head. “I didn’t plan on nor have I been thinking about sex with her at this point.”

  “Then why the push?” Cam asks.

  Why indeed.

  “That’s the same question I’ve been asking myself all night.” I sigh and drop down to my couch. “Something wouldn’t let me let her go without getting a yes. I don’t know.”

  “Mom would say that it means that she’s important in your tomorrow today,” Val says softly.

  Val being the oldest of us, she spent the most time with mom. I was only ten when she lost her battle to cancer. Val was fifteen and Cam was thirteen. Often times, I felt jealous of all the extra time she got with our mom while she was healthy. My mom first got sick when I was six.

  “She would and was always right,” Cam agrees softly.

  Silence settles over the lines. My heart aches for the loss that I believe will never truly heal. My mother has missed out on every important thing in our lives. Val is married to a great guy named Harry. I always joke with him asking if he could take Val’s place. They are expecting their first child in about four months. I’m so excited to be an uncle. Cam is engaged to basketball superstar, Nathan Fern. No date set yet, but I expect they’ll just elope.

  Cam is always the hardest for me to look at because she looks so much like mom. Her honey colored hair and bright green eyes. Even her laugh sounds like hers. If I weren’t looking and heard her laughing, a pang of sadness would hit me at the sound.

  Dad has never recovered from her passing. He lost himself and the thrill of life when she was no longer filling it. We all hope that when Val has the baby, he’ll see his reasons for life to continue, that he needs to enjoy what our mother can no longer do so.

  When the silence began to become too heavy, I broke it. It is a matter of saving us all from falling. Our mother was an incredible woman, and it’s hard to forget such an amazing presence.

  “So, take it slow, show her she’s important even if I don’t know how much yet, and get to know each other?” I ask.

  In my head, I can picture them both shaking themselves from their own sadness.

  “Yes,” Cam confirms. “She needs to know that you’re interested in her not just her body.”

  “Cam!” Val exclaims. “You know our brother is not like that.” She pauses for a moment. “You’re not like that, are you, Alexander?”

  Shoving my hands in my hair, I glare at my cell phone that sits in front of me on my coffee table. Why were sisters always so damn frustrating?

  “Of course, I’m not,” I snap.

  “I didn’t think so.” There is a pause and muffled voices over Val’s line. “I have to go, guys. Let me know how it goes, Ally. Love you.”

  I groan when I hear her nickname for me. “Keep calling me that, and I won’t talk to you anymore.”

  “Oh, yes you will. And you know you were always our sister. Even when you weren’t playing dress up with us,” Val laughs.

  “I hate you.” I laugh. “Love you guys. I’m getting off here. Bye.

  They both say bye and the call is disconnected. I flop back against the couch. Talking to those two about anything anymore just seems to drain me. Either it’s Val talking about disgusting things to do with her pregnancy. Or it’s Cam talking about her sex life with Nathan. I don’t want to hear that stuff. A shudder runs through me at the thought.

  Pushing myself up from the couch, I take my now empty glass of water into my kitchen, wash it, dry it and put it away. Something my mother taught me is that if your house is clean when you go to bed, your day will start out better. It stuck with me all these years. I never left a dish in the sink, dirty clothes on the floor or anything out of place.

  One beef I always had with Jenna had been on my ‘neat freak’ ways. For me, it is a way to stay attached to my mother’s memory, and it calms me when my house is orderly. Shaking my head, I am no longer thinking of her. My thoughts will be for tomorrow, not yesterday. Waverly is my tomorrow.

  Once I make sure all is right in my house, I head to bed. Tomorrow will be one long ass day. Even now my stomach turns with excitement and nerves. Oh, the kids will get a kick out of me.

  Sitting in the parking lot, I tap on the steering wheel nervously. My eyes search the lot for her Jeep. The more the minutes tick past, the more I worry if she’s even going to show up. To be quite honest with myself, I would honestly be shocked if she showed up.

  Guilt kept me awake most the night. My subconscious telling me that I had been in the wrong begging her to come today. Maybe I should just leave and let her off the hook? But if I left and she shows up, she would think I’m just a man playing games with her. She wouldn’t see that I am worried about how this is going to affect her, affect me.

  “Damn it! Get your shit together, dude!”

  Just as I’m about to rip my own hair out, I see her Jeep pulling into the parking lot. Quickly, I jump from my car and hurry over to the spot she was parking in. Once she had the vehicle in park, I opened her door for her.

  Holding out my hand to her, I smile. “Glad you could make it.”

  “Thank you for the gentleman move,” she smiles shyly.

  When she places her feet on the pavement, I see she’s wearing some black heels that do crazy things to her legs and my mind. Her dress is a black and white number that has thin straps and stops just above her knees. She wears a white cashmere sweater over top of the dress. Her hair is down, and she wore a small amount of make-up.

  “Wow,” I breathe. “You look fantastic.”

  A red hue begins at her chest and slowly climbs its way up her neck and to her cheeks. It is sexy that she doesn’t see herself as a hot commodity. I’m not sure I’d feel the same for her. I love down to earth girls that aren’t afraid of living because they might get dirty.

  “I… I didn’t know what I should wear. I was going to come in what makes me comfortable since I’m so nervous, but then I remembered where we were going and figured, I’d pull out this,” she gestures to her clothes.

  Smiling at her, I lean in and kiss her cheek. “It didn’t matter to me what you wore today. I am just glad you showed up. You do look beautiful, though.”

  “Thank you. You look nice too,” she says quietly.

  Placing my hand on the small of her back, I shut the door and lead her inside. The minute we step inside the smells hit me right away. My stomach growls. Due to nerves for tonight, I didn’t eat lunch. Taking a deep breath, I push my nerves away as I give the hostess my name and wait to be seated.

  Five

  Waverly

  Xander stands next to me his hand still resting on the small of my back as he talks to the hostess. My stomach does flips, and I suddenly have the urge to throw up. I never thought that I would be at this point ever.

  It’s not that he didn’t seem to be a good guy. I know he is. Well, at least, something told me he is a good guy. I’m just not fully over my past to begin something new. Xander swears he won’t push me and I believe him. Still, I’m very worried I’m doing something wrong. It just feels wrong.

  “Our table is ready,” he smiles down at me.

  I give him a small smile and let him lead to the table we are sharing. Xander pulls out a chair for me, and I take a seat. As he moves around to the other side, I take in a deep breath and blow it out slowly.

  “So, how was your day,” he asks with a huge smile on his face. His eyes are dancing with what seems to be relief and maybe a bit of nervousness.

  “Oh, uh,” I pause. I don’t talk about my job with many people. So many people I can call friends lost their privacy the minute the camera caught their faces. It’s the reason I write the movies under the name of Angel Micheals. To keep my identity to myself. Legend had been the only one I trusted with that information.

  He chuckles. “Was it that bad?”

  “I started writing last night well into the day, and then I slept.” There that isn’t revealing much. He could think that I’m an author or something
.

  “Oh, that’s actually really cool. Did you like what you were writing?”

  “To be honest, I’m too afraid to look yet. I’ll get what’s in my head out, and then I’ll go back through it. Right now, I’m just happy to be writing again. Well, kind of happy. How was your day?”

  “Why kind of,” Xander asks, ignoring my attempt to get the light off me.

  I sigh. “It’s my connection to my ex. He had pushed me to write when we were younger,” I smile sadly.

  “You showed him something that good, huh?” His eyes twinkled, and I’m not sure with what.

  “We were going on a date, but he had to stop into the shop that he worked at to help his boss with something. I was bored and started messing around on the napkins in the lounge area. He had been standing over my shoulder reading it and told me that it was what I was meant to do. I trusted him. I loved him. So with his help, I submitted my first writings when I was eighteen, and it all started there. He was by my side and critic through every single thing,” I shrug as I wipe a tear from my cheek.

  Xander reaches his hand over and lays it on top of mine. “I’m sorry. I dug deeper. Forgive me?”

  “No harm. It’s been almost two years since he left. I should be over it all. Now, tell me how your day was?”

  “Oh, the kids were rowdy today. But unlike most teachers, I love it when they get like this. It allows me to tap into my inner teenager and I seem to get through to them easier.”

  Smiling, I lean forward on my hands ready to respond when the waitress finally gets to our table. She clears her throat and tosses her shoulder length hair over her shoulder, shoves her bangs out of her eyes and gives us a beaming smile.

  “Hey y’all, my name is Nelly, your waitress for the evening. What can I start y’all with to drink?”

  “Can I have an unsweet tea?” I ask her.

  “I’m sorry all we have is sweet tea. No one normally comes in asking about unsweet,” Nelly gives me a weird look.

  “Yeah, I can’t have sugar. It makes me sick. I’ll just take water then.”

  After Xander orders his drink, she writes it all down and leaves us each a menu. Our conversation is put on hold for a moment. Setting my menu aside, I look up to find Xander smiling at me.

  “I think it’s great you are a teacher. Takes a strong, better person to do that. You must be so proud.”

  His chest seems to almost puff up as his smile grows. “I am proud. It really isn’t easy work. Some days can be harder than others. Like right now, I’ve got a student who I’m sure is in some kind of bad situation at home. His grades are falling, not paying attention in class, and seems to be pulling away from everyone. I tried to talk to him, but he wasn’t so receptive.” His smile falls then.

  “Have you thought of approaching it a little differently than confronting the problem head on?” I say before I realize it’s coming out of my mouth.

  A ‘V’ forms between his brows as he crinkles them in confusion. “What do you mean?”

  “I shouldn’t have said anything. Let’s just forget I said anything, okay?” I apologize.

  “No, please. If you think something else will help, I’m all ears.” The sincere and earnest look on his face is the only thing that has me opening my mouth and offering a suggestion.

  “My best friend in school lived in an abusive home. When I found out, I told her she needed to go to the police or tell a teacher something. It was bad. She hid bruises with make-up or fighting, so she had an excuse for them. The sad thing is that she blamed herself. Thought that she was unlovable. But anytime I brought up the topic of her telling someone she clammed up and tuned me out. Sometimes she’d get real angry. So, one day, I was searching things online on how to help someone in her situation.

  “They operate on fear. Fear of the change. Fear of the backlash if no one takes them seriously. Fear of life with or without the abuse. When fear is the only companion, they tend to lose themselves in it. Some of the sites suggested to give them ways to see their strength. Because when their being abused, they are being stripped of all their strength, all their will, all their life. They said to find ways of building their confidence and sense of will to live. So, I told her that I wanted to lose weight and that I heard that boxing was a great way to do it. But I didn’t want to go alone so I asked if she’d do it with me.

  “She and I went every single day that we had time. It averaged around four to five days a week. She had picked it up quickly, just as I had. I knew she wouldn’t let me do anything for her, but inadvertently she was doing it for herself. One day, I was at her house studying for an exam that was coming up when her uncle stumbled into her room. He stunk of alcohol so bad that it actually made me gag. He started yelling at her and raised his hand to hit her. I stood up and got in his face, yelling back. He knocked me to the side, and I hit my head on her bed post.”

  A small smile breaks out across my face. “She stood up for herself. Using the techniques she learned in boxing, dodging his drunken swings and then knocked him out. When everything was over, she called the cops and was taken from the home. My parents stood up and took her in for the rest of high school. But see, it was the direct approach that caused her more suffering. I merely gave her an out, and she took it full steam. I know that you can’t approach it the same way I did, Xander, but what I’m saying is try looking for different angles on whatever you think might pull him out from the fear that suffocates him.”

  Xander just sits there for a long moment. He doesn’t say anything. All he does is look at me with his mouth partly open. I’m not sure if he is thinking, in shock, or if I stepped over a line I didn’t know was there.

  “You are brilliant. Do you know that?” He finally says with a huge smile on his face.

  “I don’t know about that, but I hope it helps somehow with your student,” I say taking a long drink from my water.

  “So tell me about your family.” He asks.

  The conversation flows fairly easily between us. I tell him all about my sister and my best friend, and he tells me about his two sisters. He talks so fondly of his father, and when I ask about his mother, his face falls, and I knew at that moment that his mother had passed away. He told me about her struggle with cancer and how his father has taken the passing of his wife. Then we turned the conversation to a brighter topic of hobbies and interests. I found it fascinating on how much we have in common.

  “Come on,” he goads. “Everyone reads and watches movies. That’s lame,” he jokes. “What kinds of books do you read? What types of movies do you watch?”

  “Honestly, I don’t watch many movies… well, television period. And as of lately, not been doing much reading either.” I answer him as I pull on my sweater and push my chair in.

  He places his hand on the lower part of my back steering me out of the restaurant into the equally crowded parking lot. Slowly we make our way over to my car, the conversation seeming to end the minute we walked out of the restaurant. My heart hammers away in my chest so quickly that I’m almost sure he can hear it.

  “So,” I say as we reach my car.

  “I know that you were nervous to even come to dinner, but there’s a beautiful park trail that I love walking near here. We could go for a walk and continue our talk, if you want that is?”

  “Oh, uh, sure,” I smile.

  He helps me into my vehicle, and I follow him across town to one of the national parks that are nearby. My house is actually on the other side of this reserved area. Not something that can be walked in a day. Not even a few days. The park is huge. Once we have parked, he takes my hand, and we take one of the easier trails to walk on. There is one that is for moderate hikers and advance.

  “Thank you so much for coming,” Xander says after a few moments of walking in silence.

  I sigh. “I’m sorry, Xander. I guess it’s harder for me to let go of Legend than I thought.”

  He stops us from walking and turns to look at me. “I’m not asking you to let him go. Y
ou loved him, and he’s gone. That isn’t something that can be just tossed to the side. All I’m asking for is a piece. Some space in your life.”

  “Is that how you feel about Jenna? That she’ll always have a part of you?”

  His mouth opens and promptly closes for a moment before finally answering my questions. “I guess so. My case is so different from yours yet similar at the same time.” He says as he gestures for us to take a seat on a couple of rocks.

  “Similar how?”

  The view from this part of the path isn’t much to some, but the woods have become my solace. My place to remember and one day rebuild. Every tree, shrub, bush, flower, it all comforts me. It hides me. The trees act as if they guard and protect me from the pain or maybe they share it with me. Mentally, I shake my head. You’ve definitely lost your mind, Waverly. Every freaking marble is gone.

  “It’s the same in the respect that we found a love that won’t let us go even when it sucks the damn life from us. It’s the same in the respect that each has left us – albeit yours is in a more permanent form – broken and really shells of who we thought we were. You get what I mean?”

  Sitting there, I stare off into the vast trees. Oranges, yellows, and even some hues of red fill my line of sight as I think about what Xander just said. We are two pawns on the same board. We lost what we thought we’d have forever. Our endings were taken from us leaving us swimming for a moving surface. That target just out of reach.

  “Their hold will never let us go, will it?” I say in a bare whisper.

  “I don’t suppose so, but we have a chance to heal the pain they left behind. We may not trust our hearts, but we can at least try to let them beat again.”

  Smiling at him, I bump his shoulder. “Do you always speak that way? In eloquent speeches?”

  He tosses his head back laughing. The warmth of the sound runs over me. “It seems to come out with you. Or maybe it’s my teacher side. But no matter the side, it’s the truth. I believe we owe ourselves happiness. I think the pain has had its time and we need to let it fall behind so we can feel happy again.”