“Because I was weak!” I let out a strained laugh. “Don’t you see that? I was always weak! From getting caught up with drinking at seventeen to allowing myself to hit rock bottom.” I looked down, feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders. “I was pathetic.”
“Of all the lame excuses…”
Seriously? After I just spilled my heart and soul?
I glanced up angrily. “No. Listen to me, please. Every time I called you I’d feel my resolve weaken. I’d want to pack my bags and whisk you away like I promised. The only thing stopping me was the fact that you were in Bethel Falls and I knew I owed it to myself and my dad not to go back. Then you went to college, which was…”
I watched the color fade from Rocky’s face. She blinked not just once, but twice before responding, “Out of town.”
“I knew I could visit you then, but I was afraid that somehow I’d drag us both down.”
“Why?”
I bit my lip so hard that my eyes began to water. “Promise you won’t get mad.”
“Why would I get mad?” Her voice shook ever so slightly.
Not knowing how else to describe the emotions that barreled through my body every time I was near her, I whispered, “You were like my trigger.”
“What?” Her nostrils flared angrily. “How can I be a trigger? I never made you do anything that you didn’t want to. In fact, I was always following you.”
I considered my answer for a moment. “Being around you does something to me. It reminds me of throwing everything out the window and just being reckless.”
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
And just like that, everything I’ve held inside of me…every layer of guilt, insecurity, and hope came spilling out. I knew she probably wouldn’t understand. Hell, sometimes I felt like I still didn’t. Yet there was no turning back now.
I shut my eyes and allowed the words to take free rein. “I know it doesn’t to you, but it does to me. You…you represented the good in a time that was so bad. You were like the reward when I did something wrong. It was a fucked up form of positive reinforcement, I guess. I was afraid that if I saw you again I’d revert back to the boy I was in Bethel Falls. Every time I spoke to you over the phone I felt the same rush I did whenever we were together. I had no idea what would happen if I actually saw you in person and that’s why I stopped calling you and answering your calls.”
“It can’t be possible,” she whispered.
“What was that?” My eyes peeled open. I stared at Rocky, praying that she had figured me out. I wanted to come right out and say it. I wanted to say I love you and I always have, but something was stopping me.
Fear?
Maybe.
Possibly the knowledge that even as a business owner and even as a grown man I did not measure up to what she deserved…
Or possibly that she feels the same way and I’d be willing to leave everything in Charleston for a shit life in Bethel Falls.
“Never mind,” she replied quickly.
I blinked in both disappointment and relief, feeling a heavy rush of air escape my lungs. Frowning, I watched her eyes brighten excitedly.
Gazing at me shyly, she remarked, “I don’t think the rush you felt had anything to do with being bad.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I do, because…” She shook her head and changed the subject, leaving me with whiplash. “If you were planning on hiring a nurse for your mother all along, why even come back for so long? Better yet, why did you take a job with us? Unless you’re uncomfortable.” Even I wasn’t dense enough not to catch the sarcastic venom dripping from her tone.
“My dad told me that to be a better man you sometimes have to do things you don’t want to.
As much as it pained me to face my mom again, I knew I had to do it. I also thought that because more than enough time had passed, past triggers wouldn’t affect me as much. I’d grown enough as a man to be able to stand my ground and remain the person I became. I was finally brave enough to face my fears.”
Who was I kidding? I was still afraid of one thing and I was looking right at her.
“Okay…” She shook her head in doubt.
I peeled away the final protective layer. It was both therapeutic and painful. “That included seeing you, of course. I wanted to see you so much but how could I? Like you said, I cut you off completely. Why would you even want to see me again? I couldn’t help but go over the same questions in my mind, over and over again. Would you be angry? Would you want to see me? Would you remember me?”
“Of course I’d remember you, dummy.”
I had to chuckle at that. “Yeah, right. Either way I knew I needed to stop being a pussy and be what I kept convincing myself I was—a man. I needed to see you but I wasn’t sure how to approach it. Then as luck would have it I ran into your dad at the pharmacy. He did a double take of course and had the reaction I expected.”
“Shit.”
Same old Rocky, still deathly afraid that I cared whether or not her parents liked me. Sure, it’d be nice if they did, but the most important person I cared about was sitting right across from me. “But then I explained to him why I was in town. I told him how much I changed and…”
“And what?”
“He asked if I needed a job. I guess he felt sorry enough for me to lift that ban he had against me seeing his daughter, right?”
“But you didn’t need a job. You had one here.”
Come on, Rocky. Throw me a bone here. Don’t you see what I’m trying to tell you?
“But I needed to see you. Let me rephrase that—I needed an excuse so you’d have to see me.”
“So why did you ignore me for the first few days you were there? Why did you act like I was some sort of pariah?”
Years ago I wouldn’t be able to answer that question honestly. I would have been afraid to chip away at the ‘I don’t give a fuck’ persona that I had worked so hard to maintain. It was the only way to stop myself from being picked on or bullied. As an adult I realized that same persona was the reason why I missed out on so many things.
I rubbed my hands down my face and took an exasperated breath. “Like I said, I was nervous. I didn’t know what you thought of me and that nervousness was justified the moment I saw you for the first time. You looked as if you were horrified to see me.”
She blinked wildly. “No, I wasn’t! I was…”
“What?”
“Nervous too,” she just about whispered.
My eyes widened and I burst into laughter. “Well, if I had known that it certainly would have made my life easier.”
The small smile on her face quickly vanished. “You would have known me if you never shut me out.”
“Rocky—”
“No, let me finish. If you were so afraid of me triggering you and bringing you back down, what was the deal with you trying to make me bad? What was the deal with messing with me?”
My face twisted in agony. “I guess…I guess…”
“Enough with all the secrets, Jesse.” She snapped two fingers in the air, the corners of her mouth pulled down in a frown. “You aren’t the only one who grew into their big boy pants. If you have something to say to me, just say it. This isn’t some stupid art critic tearing me down; it’s my best friend confusing me. I need some clarification before I go crazy.”
I pulled at my hair as if to coax me along a beaten path, which is exactly what I felt like—a battered horse trying to hobble my way back to safety. “I guess I wanted to reconnect with you so bad that at that point I didn’t care anymore, okay? I wanted so much to feel what we used to have that I figured if, that even for a bit, we reverted back to what we used to be, things would be good between us. And…”
“Yes?”
My vision darkened at the edges. Being honest wasn’t always my strong suit. “When your dad gave me the job he made me promise not to drag you down again. He told me you were a good girl and remained one after I left. I guess it took that moment to realize I was the one who suckered you into all the trouble we got into. In some stupid corner of my mind I thought that maybe if I proved you did have that bad girl in you all along then I wasn’t so bad after all. I wasn’t the only one to blame.”