P.S. Goodbye, page 14
Leah leaned toward her. “But, Caroline—”
“No.” She locked eyes with her sister. “I know I’m being unfair to say he’s like Dad. But the fact remains, he’s still running, and I think he’s been running since he left the Army. Until he finds what he’s looking for, I’m not sure it could ever work between us, anyway.”
“I agree.” Nate passed the postcards in his hands to Leah. “I love Grant, and I’d love for you two to get together, but right now, he’s looking for answers that you can’t provide—nor can I.”
Leah gathered the postcards that were still on the floor and added them to the box. “He still deserves to know you love him.”
“We’ll talk . . . after the interview.”
Leah stared at her, her lips pressed into a thin line.
“I promise.” That was the plan anyway, but she was slowly learning that plans had a way of not coming together.
Chapter 13
Are you running toward something or away from something?
George’s question from the ride here played on repeat in Grant’s brain. It hadn’t helped that it was pretty much what Nate had said to him too. He hadn’t had an answer for George, and he still didn’t have one now.
He leaned against the floor-to-ceiling window as a plane took flight in the distance. An angled conveyor belt emptied suitcase after suitcase off the plane he was waiting to board, while a man with headphones and orange sticks directed another plane to park.
Grant glanced at his phone again and the missed call from Caroline. He hadn’t really missed it, but the phone didn’t make a separate category for declined calls.
For a person who values honesty so much—you’re really bad at it.
Caroline was right. He was so bad at honesty that he couldn’t even seem to be honest with himself. Did he love her?
Love was a huge step. But the way his heart had scraped across gravel at the sight of that ring, maybe he was in love—or not far off. But it didn’t matter, because what woman kept the ring unless she was at least giving it consideration?
But then she’d called. Grant pulled out his phone and stared at her name in his list of contacts—his finger hovering over her name.
His phone rang in his hand. Unknown number.
“Hello.”
“Quinn! Tell me it’s true.”
“Conway?”
“Who else, dipwad? Now tell me when you’re getting here.” Justin Conway had been on his team a few years back. The guy had a colorful mouth but at least he was keeping it PG today. But fewer guys had a truer heart. He’d been there for Quinn when he’d gotten his Dear John letter from Emily and the day Quinn had woken up with his life changed by the explosion.
“I’m getting on the plane in a few minutes.” At least I think I am.
“I about messed myself when I heard. It’ll be great getting the team back together. Jackson’s here too.”
Team.
His team. His life had many pieces he couldn’t fit together right now. But a team—that he could figure out.
“You can stay with Coop and me until you get a place. What time are you getting in? I’ll pick you up.”
This was it. Was he going or not?
His team needed him and Caroline said she didn’t.
“Sir.” A woman in a blue suit stood before him. “Sir, are you a ticketed passenger? This is the final boarding.”
“I get in at ten-fifteen. See ya then.”
Grant powered down his phone and shoved it into his pocket. He boarded the plane and followed the flow of people to 25B. He offered an apology to the person on the aisle as he squished past. Last-minute ticket meant the middle seat. Awesome.
The girl by the window leaned over a notebook with different colored sticky notes lined up across the top while she studied a small stack of flash cards. Her handwriting was neat and tight, and she had the scientific name of a different body part on each card. Maybe she was studying biology. Or how to dismember people.
She leaned over to dig through her bag. Her red hair was nearly the same shade as Caroline’s but longer. More like it had been back when Caroline had been eighteen.
Grant looked away. He didn’t want to think about Caroline right now.
He reached in his pack for the candy bar he’d purchased in the airport, but his hand found a book. He pulled out his Bible and stared at the cover held together at the spine by duct tape. He hadn’t packed his Bible. Nate. The guy just wouldn’t give up.
Grant thumbed through a few pages. How many hours had he spent studying these pages before . . . before everything had fallen apart? The page fell open to where a well-worn envelope had been tucked. Caroline’s last letter to him.
He pulled the letter from the envelope and smoothed it out.
* * *
Dear Grant,
Since I have never heard back from you, I assume either you have been deployed where there’s no communication—like the deepest regions of the rain forest or the top of Mount Everest—or you don’t ever plan on writing back.
I probably shouldn’t write this final letter—just let it end naturally. But I feel in all the things I said to you there's one thing I never had the guts to say.
It is okay to let people in. I know you’re strong and you like to be strong for those around you. But being vulnerable isn’t a weakness. It is a strength.
I hope you have found someone who you can let in.
Caroline
P.S. Goodbye.
* * *
How would things have turned out if he’d answered this one letter—or any of them?
But the truth was he hadn’t known what to say then and he still didn’t. He hadn’t let Emily in, and when he’d tried to let Caroline in, she’d pushed him away. No, that wasn’t fair. He’d never really let her in either. He’d only let her in the safe areas. The areas where he’d mostly healed. He had shown her his scars, but he hadn’t come close to showing her his open wounds.
He turned to the girl next to him. “Could I use a piece of your paper?”
The girl tore off a piece and held it up, her focus still on one of her note cards.
“Thanks.” He felt in his backpack for a pen but came up with nothing.
The girl held up a blue pen as she flipped another flashcard.
“Thanks.”
Where did he start? Maybe it wasn’t what he said but the fact that he was willing to say it. To open up and share a piece of who he was in each letter. He’d start by addressing the last thing she’d written in that letter long ago.
* * *
Dear Caroline,
I’m not ready to say goodbye . . .
Who knew that five days could pass so slowly? Caroline stared at the front of Nate’s house, Grant’s bike, and finally Nate’s car. With all vehicles accounted for, Grant had to be inside. She’d just expected—hoped—that Grant would’ve called her when he got back in town. But it had been over twenty-four hours and still nothing. She wasn’t letting him leave town again without talking to him.
Caroline got out of her car and made her way to the front porch. She knocked once and then again with more force. Nate’s distant voice came through the door. “Come in.”
The kitchen was empty. Just a table piled with boxes. “Hello?”
Nate entered with another box in his arms and dropped it on the table with the others. “Hey. What’s up?”
“Is Grant around?” She ducked her head and started stacking the boxes with the largest on the bottom. Anything to keep her hands busy. “I thought you’d already unpacked.”
“Sorry. I thought he called you.”
Caroline paused with a box in midair. “What?”
Nate winced and shook his head. “He decided to take the job. He’s . . . not coming back.”
She focused on the box in her hands and then the others. Each one was addressed to Grant Quinn in Florida. “What about his bike?”
“He sold it to me.”
Her legs went weak and she dropped into a chair.
Breathe. In. Out. In. Out.
He’d never sell his bike unless he really wasn’t returning.
Nate squatted down in her vision. “I’m so sorry. I should’ve never encouraged you. Grant has a lot he needs to work through. I thought . . . I’d hoped . . .” He released a deep sigh before standing. “I’m sorry.”
He pulled her to her feet and wrapped her in a huge hug. Tears formed in her eyes as a sob clogged her throat. She swallowed it back.
After a minute, he leaned away. “What will you do now that the WIFI is closing?”
“I don’t know.” She wiped the tears on her face. “Seems everything I plan falls apart.”
“What about your life coaching business?” He pulled two or three Kleenexes from a tissue box and held them out. “You’ve got some savings to live off for a bit, and I think if you really invested some time into it, it could take off.”
She accepted the tissues and dabbed her face again. “And if it doesn’t? I’ll have eaten through my savings and still have nothing.”
“It’s okay to fail sometimes.” Nate pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and sat down and then pointed to the other. “God can work with that.”
Caroline plopped in the opposite chair. “I don’t want to fail.”
“No one does.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “I’m not asking you to fail. I’m saying you need to step out and live the life God’s called you to—really live that dream—without a backup plan.”
“But that’s . . . terrifying.” Caroline stood again and paced a few feet away.
“Life is scary sometimes and that’s okay. Relationships are scary sometimes. But if you never put yourself out there, you won’t find love and you’ll never really live.”
“My mom put it out there again and again, and it never worked out for her.”
Nate nudged the chair and waited until she sat again. He leaned toward her, propping his elbows on his knees. “I don’t know all the details about your parents’ marriage, and I’m guessing if you’re honest with yourself, you don’t really either. I do know that you can’t be afraid your whole life based on what you saw your mom go through.”
“I’m not afraid.” The words tasted like a lie. She’d been afraid to be honest with Grant. And afraid that it was more than just her list that was wrong. If her whole life approach was wrong, then everything she’d worked toward over the past five years had been a waste. “I’m applying what I learned from her and I’m choosing a different way.”
“A safe way. A way that—at this rate—means you’ll never quite reach your dream.”
“That’s unfair.” Caroline stood and filled a glass with water.
“I’m not trying to make you mad, Caroline. But you’ll never reach the dream if you don’t trust God to get you there.”
She leaned against the counter and downed a few swallows. “So, I should throw away all my plans, like Grant did?”
“I don’t know. But I know Someone who does.”
“Right. God.” She couldn’t keep the sarcasm from her voice as she set the glass in the sink with more force than necessary.
“When I first felt called to be a pastor, I thought God would call me to the streets of Detroit. But He didn’t. He put me here. Could you get farther from the streets of Detroit than Heritage? This isn’t what I thought I was saying yes to. But the truth is, I didn’t say yes to pastoring in the inner city. I said yes to serving God where He put me, and believe it or not, He put me here. To be honest—I’m still not sure all the people of this town agree with Him. I just have to trust He has a plan, and my job is to wake up and say yes to that plan every day.”
“People here love you.”
“Not all of them. But that isn’t the point. Remember, God promises to direct our paths when we submit to Him. He doesn’t promise to bless any plan we decide on our own to make. We get that confused sometimes.”
Caroline sat in the chair once again. Is that what she was doing? Yes, because when she thought about the times she’d prayed, she rarely waited for an answer. She didn’t even know what God’s answer would sound like.
Nate came and stood in front of her. “I’m not trying to give you a sermon.”
“Yet, you’re succeeding.” She lifted one eyebrow at him.
He laughed as he pulled her to her feet and into another hug. “I care about you. And I believe God has so much more for you. But you have to be willing to follow.”
“Something to think about.” She nodded and turned toward the door. She needed to get away before she started blubbering all over him again. “I’ll see you later.”
“I’m counting on it.”
Outside, Caroline paused before unlocking her car and stared at Grant’s bike. No, not Grant’s anymore. The pain scraped fresh again. He wasn’t returning.
She’d been leading the charge since her mother passed, determined not to end up like her. She hadn’t turned out like her mom, that was for certain, and yet she’d ended up with the same fate. Left behind.
Her plans were meant to keep this from happening, but they hadn’t.
Sliding into her car, she laid her head against the steering wheel as tears began to flow. She couldn’t even form a prayer with her words, the pain was too intense. The pain of losing Grant. The pain of trying to be the one to hold the family together since her mom passed. The pain of having nothing left. Could God work with nothing? That was what her grandma had always told her, but did she really believe that?
Okay, God. Now what?
It wasn’t the most eloquent prayer she’d ever uttered, but it was all she had. She stayed with her forehead resting on the steering wheel. Waiting. She wasn’t even sure what she was waiting for.
After more than fifteen minutes, she still didn’t have a plan, but one thing she did feel certain about—she still had to be honest with Grant.
He’d made his decision. But she couldn’t get away from the feeling that—whether for her benefit or his—it was time to lay it all out there. It was time to write him one more letter.
Chapter 14
Why had he ever decided to sell his motorcycle? Grant turned down an empty road and opened up the throttle on Cooper’s Harley. The wind rushed past him, stripping away the tightness that pulled at his chest, but it still didn’t erase the itch under his skin. The month he’d spent here in Florida for training was going great—so why did he feel like this? The green on-ramp sign to I-75 grew in the distance. Maybe he should drive north. North to Michigan. His ranch. Anywhere but here.
Run away again.
Caroline was right. As soon as something wasn’t sitting right, his first instinct was to bolt. No, more than instinct. A compulsive need that nearly strangled the air from his lungs.
He’d done his best to keep Caroline and her parting words out of his thoughts over the past month, but occasionally, she slid under his defenses. He’d never missed Emily like this. He’d never missed anyone like this.
Why couldn’t he see anything through?
Not even the ending of his relationship with Caroline. Her letter had arrived a month ago. Yet it still remained in his leather coat pocket unopened for the same reason he hadn’t mailed the letter he’d written on the plane or any of the dozen that he’d written since then.
Whether she wanted him back or not, he wasn’t sure he was ready for either. If she no longer wanted him . . . the idea was too much to think about.
But if she wanted him back, he couldn’t do that either. After all, how could he be who she needed him to be if he couldn’t stay in one place for very long? He’d always be running, and that wasn’t fair to her.
He’d heard it said that no one can outrun God. But he’d sure tried.
A dark line across the road appeared in the distance. He downshifted and slowed the bike. A black cable stretched from one side to the other. Not even big enough to cause much of a bump.
A cable.
He stopped the bike five yards back from it as a cold chill traveled down his arms and into his hands. What was wrong with him?
It was just a cable.
His lungs struggled to find enough air.
Just a cable.
No matter what he told his brain, he couldn’t drive over it.
Grant pulled the motorcycle to the side of the road, dropped the kickstand, and slid off, falling to his knees. The gravel bit into his skin through his jeans as darkness gathered at the edges of his vision.
Why wasn’t there enough air?
He closed his eyes and drew in a slow breath. It didn’t help. Screams echoed from far away as burning pain radiated down his face.
He tried to force his eyes open, but the world was too bright, too much.
That blasted cable.
Grant rolled onto his back and focused on breathing. In through his nose, out through his mouth. In. Out.
So many people wanted to be on his team and he’d pushed them away. Over and over. And now he was going to die. Right here on the side of the road. Alone. “Lord, help me.”
In. Out.
His phone rang in his pocket. He ignored it. In. Out.
The gravel near him crunched, followed by a slamming door. “Son, are you okay? Do you need me to call someone?”
Son. The word echoed around in his head. Son.
“Dad?” Grant forced his eyes open. The man leaning over him wasn’t his father, but he had a kind face and was saying something. No, he was trying to get Grant to sit up. He looked like . . .
“George?” Grant took the offered hand. And then the water bottle the man was holding out.
“No. The name’s Walt. Can I call someone? Do you know what happened?” The man knelt next to Grant.
Grant blinked some clarity back into his head. “I think I had a panic attack.”
The man brushed his silvery hair back and sat on the grass next to Grant. “Has this ever happened before?”
“Never this bad.” Grant rested his elbows on his knees and drew a long swig of the water. Then pointed to the cable. “I couldn’t drive over it.” Grant rubbed his hand over the scar.
