Only Love Can Hurt Like This, page 25
“Oh, you do it, Laurie,” she snaps good-naturedly, giving up on her fourth attempt.
“Are you sure?” Laurie asks her laughingly.
“Only if you don’t steal my wish,” Peggy teases.
“It’s all yours,” Laurie replies warmly, stepping forward and blowing out the last few remaining candles.
Everyone in the room cheers, but Jonas’s cheer is the loudest. He’s still holding the cake at the side of the shot, but Anders’s attention is focused on his wife.
She looks at him and the film ends, freeze-framed on her laughing face.
I stare at the screen.
“She’s so beautiful, Anders.”
He releases a quiet sigh and takes his phone from me.
“I think I would have liked her.”
He nods. “She would have liked you too.”
She certainly wouldn’t like me if she knew how I feel about her husband. I understand entirely why Kelly is so furious—she’s defending her daughter because her poor daughter can’t defend herself.
My heart contracts as my resolve stiffens. I need to do the right thing. I’ve already caused so much pain to Laurie’s family—and to Anders too, which is the very last thing I wanted to do. I’m not so selfish that I’d choose to make their lives even more complicated and upsetting.
“Oh,” Anders says suddenly, abruptly getting up from the sofa and leaving me feeling cold without his body heat. “I wasn’t sure if you’d eaten since yesterday?” He looks over his shoulder at me and I shake my head.
“I dropped by the Rathskeller on my way home. Got you those loaded fries and pretzels.”
I sit there in a daze as I hear him opening and closing the microwave, setting it, the clinking of plates and glasses and cutlery. And I want to stay, but my entire body feels racked with pain because I’ve just fallen in love with him a little bit more and if I don’t go now, I’m not sure I’ll ever find the strength.
I force myself from the sofa. I force myself to walk into the bedroom. I force myself to pick up my belongings. And I force myself to make my way through the living room to the kitchen, where he has his back to me, upending the fries into a bowl on the far counter. And this is so much harder than it was to walk into Laurie’s house and face her mother, her father, her. This is the single most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do.
“Anders,” I say quietly.
He turns around, sees me standing there with my bag, and looks utterly crestfallen.
“Please don’t go.”
“I have to,” I reply.
Fresh tears shine in his eyes. Maybe he thinks that I’m walking away because it’s too hard for me, because I’m so insecure that I feel threatened by his beautiful wife or that I simply can’t handle his terrible circumstances. He probably has no idea that I’m leaving because I don’t want to be yet another burden to him.
It doesn’t really matter what he thinks. The important thing is that I go.
Tears begin to spill from his eyes and he shakes his head imploringly. I mean to step away, but he steps toward me before I can make my feet move, sliding my bag off my shoulder to the floor. He cups my face with his hands and stares into my eyes, anguished, silently asking me not to leave.
I slowly reach up and brush my thumb across his cheekbone and down the side of his face. His skin is warm and his stubble is rough, and I find myself smiling as I stare into his grief-stricken eyes, my vision going blurry.
“It’s okay,” I whisper, blinking to free my tears. “We’ll always be friends, right? If you’ll still have me?”
He swallows. And then he nods, letting me go and lowering his head.
I step away, pick up my bag, and walk out the door.
36
Last night I dreamed that I was at Anders’s apartment. I was sitting on his Eames chair in the sunroom, warmth and light spilling onto my face from the giant Crittall windows. I could hear Anders in the kitchen, making dinner, and it occurred to me with a surge of joy that I lived there, that it was our apartment, that he and I were together. Then I looked down at my stomach and saw a bump and felt such a flood of love for the baby we were having together.
I woke up with a start and stared into the darkness for a long time afterward, my heart galloping wildly as I tried to shut out that perfect vision of an impossible future.
But is it impossible? I wonder as I lie awake now. How long would I be willing to wait for him?
I feel an intense rush of longing for the child in my dream. I was ready to start a family with Scott. How many years could theoretically go by, with me putting my life on hold? Would I be too old to have a baby? How much would I be willing to sacrifice, to risk sacrificing, to be with Anders? Wouldn’t it be better for me to move on, to get over him, and hope that the real love of my life is just around the corner?
I feel heartsick at the thought of that person being anyone but him.
It doesn’t help, being here. I know I can’t possibly take the job Dean offered me, not now. When I fly back to England next weekend, it will be to stay. The thought brings with it a fresh wave of pain, not because I’m finally going home, but because I’m leaving. I fled the UK to put some distance between Scott and me and now I’m fleeing America to escape Anders.
One foot in front of the other, one day at a time. The most pressing thing right now is getting through movie night tonight.
The last week and a half has been a whirlwind of activity. The maze opened last weekend and I’ve been helping Dad and Sheryl welcome customers, in between doing my own work, of course. The sound of children laughing as they’ve tried to find their way to the middle and out again has been one of the few things to put a smile on my face.
Jonas has been in the fields with Zack, the farmhand he hired to help him with harvest. It’s been raining on and off, but the breaks due to the weather have given him time to finish getting the barn ready. He’s shifted all but forty of the hay bales and we’re hoping the weather will hold because, ideally, we’d like to have the screening outside. The hay bales will work as makeshift chairs for people who forget to bring their own—we plan to set them up in a semicircle this afternoon, facing the screen that the mobile cinema company is bringing.
Bailey has been such a star, pulling everything together. I’m so proud of her. She and I will be serving popcorn and drinks out of Bambi tonight—she’s hired machines for the purpose. The Airstream is not fitted out with furniture or cabinets yet, so we’ll use freestanding shelves and tables. It’ll be a bit crowded inside, but I’m excited to use Bambi at last.
Jonas sold a large quantity of the popcorn he’d harvested to a popcorn company, taking the rest to a factory where they packaged it up, ready for sale. He’s fulfilled his orders from the stores in Bloomington and others farther afield and he plans to sell what we don’t use tonight at farmers’ markets.
Yesterday evening, Peggy and Patrik arrived home while Bailey and I were at the farm. We’ve been helping Jonas sweep out the barn and string up lights, inside and out.
At the sight of his dad, I’m pretty sure Jonas drew a breath that he’s probably still holding, but Peggy was so happy to see her son, giving him the longest hug. Patrik was more reserved and a little dour, but he wasn’t unpleasant. Bailey and I left them to it, but we’ll see them today, of course.
I spoke to Jonas after I returned from Indianapolis. I wasn’t ready to talk, but he came calling for me, so I dragged myself out of the house and we went for a walk down to the river.
He wanted to know what had happened, and when I explained I’d met Laurie, his face fell off a cliff.
“I wish one of you had told me.” I tried not to let bitterness creep into my tone.
He apologized, but said he hadn’t felt it was his place.
“They may still be married, but they’re not really,” he said.
“How can you say that?” I asked with incredulity. “They are married, that’s the end of it.”
“What if he divorced her?” he asked, turning to look at me.
I blanched. “He will never do that and you know it.”
“But what if he did?” His eyes scanned my face.
“Stop it, Jonas,” I snapped angrily. “Despite what you said, he does still love her, and he’d never hurt her parents like that.”
We walked in silence for a while, and then he asked, “What does she look like these days?”
“Why, when was the last time you saw her?” I replied out of interest.
“Not since she was in the hospital. Ma visited a lot at first, but she hasn’t been in a couple of years.”
“Why not?” I didn’t expect that of his mother, nor of him.
“When her eyes opened and it became clear that the lights were out and nobody was at home, I didn’t see the point.”
“That seems a bit callous,” I muttered, immediately regretting it when he got angry and defensive.
“She’s dead, Wren! Or as good as dead, anyway,” he added, his voice flattening. “But whatever, what the fuck, it’s not your problem.”
I walked away from him then, shouting over my shoulder that I didn’t want him to follow me.
We haven’t spoken of Laurie or Anders since.
* * *
Bailey is already at the farm and I’m heading there shortly. The movie won’t kick off until sunset, which is around seven thirty, but we’re welcoming people from five thirty and it’s three thirty now.
Jonas is planning to barbecue burgers, and Bailey’s friend Tyler has arranged for a mobile bar to come from Bloomington. She works at an events company, which is where she and Bailey met when my sister was just an intern. When Bailey rang her, panicking that the permit to sell alcohol had not been granted in time, Tyler pulled some strings. She’s coming along tonight. It will be nice to finally meet her.
There’s a good chance Anders will come too, but I’m trying not to think about that. I’ll be too crushed if he doesn’t.
* * *
Dad is finishing up telling a family of four where to find the maze and the pumpkin patch when I pop into the barn to say that I’m on my way.
I smile at the family as they exit.
“Have fun!”
“Thank you,” they all cutely call back in unison.
At least most of the people around here have good manners.
“I’m heading down to the farm,” I say to Dad. “See you there later.”
“Look at you!” he exclaims, emerging from behind the counter and opening his arms.
I’m wearing the red-and-black ditsy-print dress Bailey convinced me to buy when we went shopping in Bloomington, the one that hugs me in all the right places, flaring softly at my knees. She had to persuade me to wear it tonight too. She knows that the two dresses I bought still haven’t made an appearance, but the nights are drawing in and I’m running out of opportunities to wear them before next summer.
“Do I look all right?” I ask uncertainly.
“You look beautiful,” Dad replies.
It’s not that I desperately want to be told that I’m pretty, or beautiful, or that I even particularly care that much what I look like. I’m fine as I am, I really am. But oh, it’s the way that he said it, my dad, as though he’s told me all my life. The casualness of it makes my eyes water.
Because it doesn’t matter what the rest of the world thinks, every child should be told that they’re beautiful by their parents.
“We won’t be late,” Dad promises as he gives me a hug. “We can’t wait!”
We let each other go and I begin to turn away, before pausing and turning back to pluck a tiny twig from his hair.
He laughs when I show it to him, and I’m still smiling as I walk out of the barn.
* * *
I’m trying to prepare myself for not seeing Anders’s car on the driveway, but I’m so on edge as I come past the cornfield that I almost don’t register the sound of his laughter. And then I spy him up ahead, walking side by side with a striking redhead toward the barn.
I can’t see her face, but her wavy hair cascades down her back and her legs go on for miles, and when Jonas appears, the delight on his face is visible from here. Who is she?
Whoever she is, I bet she’s beside herself to be flanked by these two brothers. How could she not be?
My jealousy is irrational and I know it, of course, but it does cause me to wonder how many advances Anders has had to fight off. He must be so over it.
One foot in front of the other, Wren. It’s my new mantra.
Jonas catches sight of me and lifts his hand. The redhead turns around to see who he’s waving at, but my attention is focused on Anders.
He’s seen me.
And his smile has faded.
I feel as though my rib cage has closed around my heart, squeezing it in a vise. I hate that it hurts him to look at me.
“Wren!” Bailey yells, distracting me. She jogs toward me, her eyes all big and boo-like as she slows her footsteps a few feet away. “You are killing it in that dress!” She comes forward to give me a hug. “You okay?” she asks in my ear.
I nod against her shoulder. She knows all about what happened with Anders, and chewed Casey’s ear off for him not being more clued up about Laurie, as if the poor guy could help what he did and didn’t know.
She releases me and smiles sympathetically. “Come and meet Tyler,” she urges, hooking her arm through mine.
“Is she the redhead?”
“Yep. Have you seen Jonas’s face? He can’t stop drooling.”
I laugh. “Is she single?”
“Yep. I bet she’ll be interested too.”
“How could she not be?”
Bailey grins at me. “You weren’t.”
“Yeah, but Anders,” I reply with a shrug.
“I wasn’t either.”
“Yeah, but Casey,” I say with another shrug, because the more I see them together, the more convinced I am that they’re perfect for each other.
Bailey smiles. “He’s growing back his mustache, you know,” she tells me casually.
“Is he?”
“Yep. So all is right with the world now.”
I giggle, even as my heart continues to thud as we walk across the dusty farmyard toward the others.
I think she’s happy, but I know Bailey, at least I do now, after this summer. She’s not the sort of person to let life happen to her. She’ll grab life by the horns and make it work for her, and if it doesn’t go well here, if she and Jonas don’t carry on running events that she enjoys organizing, if she continues to be bored by life at the golf club, then she’ll do something else. I know she will. Whether it’s here in town, over in Bloomington, or farther afield, and Casey will move mountains to be with her. He won’t be happy unless she is, that’s a fact. So they will be okay. Of that, I’m certain.
“Tyler, this is my sister!” Bailey calls as we approach.
“Oh, hey!” Tyler exclaims, meeting me halfway to give me a hug. “I’ve heard so much about you!”
She’s stunning, with sparkling blue eyes, a face full of freckles, and a smile that could light up a room.
“You too. It’s so good to finally meet you. Thanks so much for letting us stay at your place last month.”
“You’ll have to come back so we can have a night out together,” she replies.
“I’d love that.”
Jonas comes over and sweeps me up in a hug, growling a greeting in my ear and putting me down right next to his brother.
Subtle, Jonas, subtle.
I look at Anders, my heart flipping and flipping and flipping.
“Hey,” he says quietly, a small smile on his lips, two creases between his perfect brows, his startlingly flawed eyes resting on mine.
“Hi,” I reply, wanting more than anything to reach out and smooth those creases away, once and for all.
Stay strong, the voice inside my head reminds me. You have to be strong for him.
But then Anders steps forward and takes me in his arms. I breathe in sharply, barely even registering the clean citrus scent of him or his hard chest pressing against mine before he lets me go.
My stomach dips, my smile wavering at the realization that he just hugged me and I was so tense, I didn’t even hug him back.
“Right, come on, Wren,” Bailey chirps, and I know she’s attempting to rescue me because I don’t think it could be any more awkward. “Can you get the Airstream out of the shed, Jonas? We need to set up.”
“I’ll do it,” Anders offers.
“Bailey, can you tell me where you want the mobile bar?” Tyler asks her.
“Crap,” Bailey mutters, stopping and turning around. “You all right?” she asks me.
“Fine.”
Anders and I walk alone, toward the shed. So much for escaping the awkwardness of the situation.
“How have you been?” he asks.
“Okay,” I reply, nodding. “How about you?”
“Fine.” His reply is clearly far from the truth. “Sorry that was weird back there,” he says after a moment of painful silence. “I was trying to be . . .” He shakes his head. “Friendly.” His tone is wry, self-deprecating.
I bite my lip and look at him again and this time he meets my eyes and smiles. His gaze drops to my lips before flicking away.
