It Takes Two, page 39
She has taken her hair down and changed into a more comfortable-looking sweatshirt. He stands up as she comes down, trying to figure out how he is supposed to say goodbye to her again.
“Do you want to go out in the back?” she asks him, crossing her arms over her chest. “Just to have some fresh air?”
The backyard is as nice as the rest of the house that he’s seen. It is made up of a well-kept lawn with trees at every corner. He imagines Alina has a lot of fun playing out here. He imagines Jazzy is a fun mom to play with. And a good person to have to go to if something is ever wrong. A good person to have on your side in any case.
They sit on the steps leading up to the small patio for a little bit, letting the nice cold air blow through them. His eyes wander down to the tiny little device she has brought out and placed beside her on the step. She notices him staring and grinning.
“I know it’s a little much,” she admits, gazing down at the blinking baby monitor. “I come out here a lot at night, ever since she was a baby, and… I don’t know; I’m still afraid something will happen when I’m not in the house.”
“That makes sense,” he assures her. “She’s still a little young.”
She looks away, out into the dark abyss past the small fence, toward where the neighbor’s house is a little ways down. “It’s a bit difficult with no one else in the house.”
Her words choke him. Just like they had back at the ice cream shop earlier.
“I’m sorry you’ve been so lonely.”
It’s been three years, and he still has to push himself to finally say what has been hanging onto him for so long.
“I never wanted you to come out here alone,” he continues, after a deep internal sigh. “I wanted to go with you the day you left, Jazz. I never… I should have said something.”
He’s too afraid to look at her, but he does anyway. And her face is kind and filled with a look that convinces him he wasn’t the only one suffering for so long.
“I know,” she says, her voice thick with emotion. “I probably should have said something too.”
A part of him feels amazed and comforted and even excited that they had both wanted the same thing that day. But all he can do is just laugh in disbelief, running a hand through his messy, windblown hair.
“I guess we both really just kept dropping the ball with all of this,” he muses, shaking his head in wonder at his own, young stupidity.
“We were young. We thought things were way more important than they actually were, trying so hard to be adults. I was so scared and obsessed with wanting every single person to like me all the time… Remember how I thought that writing exam was going to cause my death if I didn’t pass?”
He can’t help the laugh that ripples through him.
“Yeah. And I thought it was going to cause you to leave me forever. So then I just… acted like a total douche.”
It’s so strange to talk about it all now. Things that had seemed detrimental, things that would destroy them both permanently. All now just harmless memories.
“It wasn’t all that bad though,” she reminds him, turning to grin at him.
“No.” He hardly ever thinks about anything bad that had happened when she was with him. Only the good things.
“It’s worth it all, you know,” she tells him. “The heartbreak with the happiness. I used to wonder if the risk was worth… anything. But it is. I learned that after having Alina, the first moment I held her.”
Glen feels something turn in his chest, something pleasant but also yearning as he looks at her.
“And I’ve ended up with the greatest gift I could ever imagine,” she continues, the moonlight shining brightly in her eyes. “So I don’t have any regrets.”
“No?”
“Not a single one.”
The breeze tugs at her dirty-blonde hair as the light from the moon glimmers in her eyes that look so much more assured and confident than he’s ever seen them. Her hair is as long as it had been when they first met. He hadn’t noticed it earlier today before she had taken it down.
“You’re right,” he concurs, shaking his head in wonder at the whole thing. “She is… amazing. I can’t believe how amazing she is.”
They sit for a little while longer. He asks her about work. Apparently, she works at the local library only a few blocks from Alina’s school. Every weekend she works with the archival team to read and transcribe documents from letters and diaries of families that lived in the area centuries ago. She also gets to work to create ways to make those archives easily available to anyone who wants to look at them.
She somehow ended up exactly where she wanted to be. Working non-stop, always happily busy with either work or with Alina. There are the downsides of course of being a single parent. But her family, and even her two friends from Washington, are always there to help out when she needs it. And he can tell it’s the happiest she has ever been.
“And what about you?” she asks, nudging her knee against his. “A location scout, huh?”
“Yeah.” He grins, reaching up to run a hand through his frazzled hair. “It’s great. The company hired me on full-time, and I get to travel all over California. I even went to Atlanta once. Hopefully it’s gonna keep growing from there. I’m looking for somewhere else to live, getting kinda sick of the same old apartment building back in San Francisco, you know? I can really live anywhere, since my job is mostly traveling anyway.”
“Have you scoped out anywhere yet?”
“Not really. Some places in Northern California looked good. We’ll see how it goes, I guess.”
Jazzy nods slowly, turning her head away, but not before Glen can just catch the hint of a grin she is carefully trying to hide.
He doesn’t want to leave. But of course how impractical, and not to mention inappropriate it would be for him to stay. But he still wants to.
He imagines a life with her, getting to know her amazing little daughter better, falling in love with Jazmine all over again and making a life and purpose for himself here.
He suddenly pictures Jazzy wearing that wedding dress from the shop she had talked about. He wonders what she had been picturing when she had looked at herself in the mirror that day in one of the gowns she had always dreamed about.
After he’s stepped out the front door, onto the tiny stone porch that is decorated with a single pot of purple and white flowers, Glen turns around to look at her one last time. The look on her face is much better than how she looked the last time he had left her when they both went off their separate ways. And the feeling in his heart is much lighter.
“Jazzy?”
“Yeah?”
He gives her his old grin he always used to give that would make her blush. It only makes her smile back now.
“I think I might… stay here for a little while,” he tells her. She had known already what he was going to say, and her smile grows wider, though she tries to hide it.
“I would like that very much.”
Her face stands out beautifully against the soft light buzzing over the front porch. He thinks of kissing her again, wondering if it will feel the same. Asking her, with the touch of his lips, if he could try all of this again with her.
One day.
Acknowledgements
AH! I made a book!
The first person I have to thank is my amazing and hilarious sister, Kayla, who has been my best friend for almost my whole life and without whom I would have gone crazy by now. You are there for me every single day to talk about anything and everything, whether it is serious or completely incomprehensible madness. If I did not have my partner in crime to vent to about all of the exciting, scary, and frustrating parts of the writing process, creating this book would have been a thousand times more difficult and lonely.
The second reason I have managed to somehow complete this project, which I feel like I have been dreaming about for my entire life, is my parents and grandparents. From my very first moments, you all have always encouraged my creativity (even if it was a bit strange at times) and always made sure I had access to books, movies, toys, and a place to play and create so that my imagination grew every single day. You never once made me feel like I had to do anything other than pursue my dreams. Throughout unsure times during this journey, that confidence was invaluable.
My editors, Tiffany and Charity, both deserve the world for reading through my entire manuscript with an attention to detail I could never hope to possess. You both have made me a better writer, and had to put up with my endless grammar mistakes (I think I maybe know how to use a semicolon now!). Without the outstanding help from both of you, this story would be a mess without me even knowing it, and I can't thank you enough for the hard work you put in. I hope to work with you in the future!
And, as far as editing goes, I have to thank Kayla again for being someone I could trust enough to help with the early drafts and crafting this story into what it was meant to be. You read through this manuscript twice to help me cut what needed to be taken out and expand upon what was lacking. Without your feedback, there would be so much in this book that I would have felt utterly lost with.
I want to extend a gracious thank you to the designers at MoorBooks Design, who took the barest idea I had and turned it into something beautiful. Actually getting to see my characters for the first time was unreal! Working with you was one of the greatest parts of this process.
Finally, I have to thank pretty much every single author YouTuber out there, since I probably watched at least one of your videos to figure out how the heck to publish a book all on my own. While intimidating, this entire journey has been one of the most exciting things in my life, and to have fellow independent authors sharing their tips and tricks, as well as their encouragement to just go for it already, has changed my life. Without the community I thankfully have access to due to modern technology, I would be lost on step one.
Becoming a published author is a dream that has felt completely distant for so long, and to be here now would probably be impossible without the dedication and support from those around me. I am so lucky to have had help from all of you. This journey has helped me grow more in the past year than I ever thought possible, and I can't wait to see what will come next!
About the author
Emily Irving lives in her hometown of Petaluma, CA, and is obsessed with writing about love and romance persevering through any circumstance in every genre. When she is not engaging in her conflicting taste for both horror and Disney movies, she is reading epic Star Wars novels and fluffy romance stories or making video edits that nobody but her sister will ever see.
Emily has a BA in Communications from Sonoma State University and planned on becoming a published author before she even learned to read. It Takes Two is her first novel.
Learn more at:
Instagram @authoremilyirving
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Emily Irving, It Takes Two
