It was Wednesday and the final day that Bella would be getting her tutoring. She was excited to get the day started, but I wasn’t feeling the same excitement about it. She was growing up so fast, and all I wanted to do was keep her little and sweet. The world was a crazy place, and everything in me wanted to protect her from the things that I had gone through. When we woke up the next day, I would be getting her ready and driving her to the Prep School to start the intake process for kindergarten. She would meet her teachers, her classmates, and spend time in their daycare program. It scared me, thinking about dropping her off and leaving her. I had been with her ever since Isabella died, and now, I had to figure out how to let that go and know that what I was doing was the best thing for her. I never realized what it meant to want to protect someone until I had Bella.

Lacey was coming over for the last day of tutoring. This was another sore spot on my mind because I hadn’t talked to her at all really since she left last Saturday morning. I knew that I was running out of time to really talk to her about us, but I was terrified that I had lost my chance. This whole time, I had been trying to protect myself from getting hurt, and in the end, I was the one who caused the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was angrier at myself than Lacey could possibly be. I knew what I had to do. I had to ask her out that night and attempt to make things right.

By the time Lacey was done with her lesson, I had paced back and forth through the house about a million times. I was nervous as hell, but I had to stay the course. Lacey walked out of the office and into the kitchen, looking like she was close to crying. She really cared about Bella, which was one of the reasons I cared so much about her.

“I’m all done,” she said, forcing a smile.

“I was wondering if you’d like to go to dinner tonight?”

“I want to go,” Bella said, running out of the playroom. “Please, can I go, too?”

“Not tonight,” I said, bending down in front of her. “Tonight, you are going to have a super awesome dinner with Grandma Betty. She has been planning it all day for you. The two of you are going to eat, watch movies, and get ready for school tomorrow.”

She sat there looking at me and then up at Lacey before a big smile moved across her face. She leaned forward, hugged me tightly around the neck, and kissed me on the cheek. She jumped over and hugged Lacey again before running back to the playroom. We could hear her singing to her stuffed animals about going to my mom’s, and we both chuckled. She was really excited to go over there, and it made me feel better knowing she would be having a good time while I was out with Lacey. If she would go to dinner with me, that was. I looked back over at Lacey, and my heart started beating really fast. Her face was contemplative, and I wasn’t sure if she was actually going to agree to go with me or not. I was starting to think that I had screwed up so badly that she had written us off.

“Yeah,” she said, smiling. “I’ll go out to dinner with you.”

“Great,” I said, letting out the air in my lungs. “I’ll pick you up at six, okay?”

“Sure, that sounds great,” she said. “I’ll be ready and waiting. What should I wear?”

“We’ll go somewhere chill tonight, so just dress comfortably,” I said.

“Sounds perfect,” she replied, her cheeks slightly flushed and her smile disappearing. “I gotta get going, though. I have some things to do before then.”

“Alright,” I replied, shaking my head.

She gathered her things and left, not looking back as she shut the door. As soon as she was out of sight, I noticed the nerves simmering in my stomach. I was terrified that I was going to do something to ruin the only chance I had left. I didn’t have the best track record of saying the right thing when it really mattered. The last thing I wanted was to have my fear take over when it mattered the most. Saying dumb things had never been an issue with me in the past, but there was something about Lacey that left me completely tongue-tied and incapable of really saying what I wanted to.

I went into the playroom and spent some time with Bella, helping her pick out the outfit for the next day and letting her show me all the pictures that she had colored that day. She told me all about what Lacey said she should expect on her first day in kindergarten. She sounded like she was really starting to get excited about everything. When we were about done, I heard a knock at the door and found my mom standing outside with a big smile on her face. I shook my head, letting her inside, knowing she was going to have questions.

“Hey, Mom,” I said, walking toward the kitchen. “Thanks for watching Bella for dinner tonight.”

“I figured I would keep her overnight, and you could pick us up in the morning for school,” she said. “Give you the freedom to take your time.”

“Cool, thanks,” I said, smiling.

“Are you going to tell Lacey how you feel about her?” she asked. “I think that it’s about time.”

“I want to,” I said, sitting down on the stool. “I really want to tell her how I feel about her. It’s been on my mind for a long time, and I know that I only have one chance to do so, but I’m scared. For the first time in a really long time, I’m scared to talk about my feelings. Well, I guess it’s not the first time in a long time since I haven’t talked to anyone but you about my feelings.”

“It will be good for you to open up,” she said.

“I know it will be, but it’s been a really long time,” I said. “I haven’t told anyone other than Isabella that I loved them my whole life. I didn’t think, after Isabella, that I would have to tell any other woman that I loved them. It’s a really big thing, and I didn’t even know that I felt that way until recently.”

“I don’t believe that,” she said. “I’ve seen it in your eyes since the first time I was around the two of you.”

“That doesn’t mean I wanted to admit it to myself.” I chuckled. “It’s just scary. It makes me really nervous.”

“I’m still not seeing what you are scared of here,” she said.

“Lacey is different,” I replied. “She gets me in a way that no one else does. She makes me want to open up to her, to confide in her, and to let down my guard. She pushes me to do things that I know are in my best interest, but I fight her on them every step of the way. I’m an idiot when I get scared, and I say things that are hurtful or dumb, and I did that to Lacey the other day. She wants me to open the surfing shop back up. I know that it was a place that really made me happy, but one of the worst things of my life happened there as well. I just don’t know how I feel about it. On top of that, she wants me to teach her how to surf, which absolutely terrifies me for all the obvious reasons. I don’t even know if I can go into the water again, much less put Lacey’s life in danger by teaching her how to surf.”

“I don’t necessarily think that it would be a bad idea for you to open the surf shop back up,” she said. “It was your dream, and yes, you built it with Isabella, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still love the place. The surf shop had nothing to do with her death. The same way that you had nothing to do with it. If it had happened in front of your home or the town, would you sell the house and move away?”

“No,” I said. “But I have seen the power that the ocean has, and it is pretty scary from this side of the fence.”

“You know you are going to have to get over your fear of the water,” she said. “You can’t be afraid of the ocean forever. It is something that demands respect, I can agree with you on that, but it isn’t something to be afraid of. You grew up on the ocean, playing in the surf, going out on boats, and most of the time, you were in the water more than you were on the land. What sets you apart is the fact that you have a respect for it, and with that, you will be safe. If you can’t let that fear go, you might as well move somewhere away from the water. There is no point of staying here and watching the ocean out your window but never going in it. I think that it’s part of what haunts you so much. You can’t be where you know you belong. You won’t surf, swim, or boat, and your fear has trickled over to Bella. She hasn’t swum or been in the water since she was three years old. That is a very unhealthy way of teaching her how to be safe around the water.”

I knew she was right, and I walked over to her and wrapped my arms around her. She squeezed me tightly and then went back to the playroom to pack Bella’s bag and head out. Why could my mother tell me all of these things, but when Lacey told me, I just got angry with her? She was showing me how much she cared about me by pushing me to take steps forward for my future and Bella’s, and all I could do was let fear take over and run in the opposite direction. Tonight was hopefully going to be a good night where we could relax and talk about all of these things.

After my mother left, I downed a beer, feeling my nerves getting worse by the second. I took in a deep breath and headed back to the bathroom to take a shower and get ready to go. The time flew by quickly, and before I knew it, I was picking Lacey up and heading for the restaurant. She looked pretty, but she stayed quiet, making small talk but not delving into anything that needed to be talked about at length. The whole night felt awkward, which wasn’t something that I was used to when it came to Lacey. Up to that point, I had always felt completely comfortable with her.

When dinner was over, I paid the tab, and we headed back to her house. As we pulled in the driveway, I realized that not only did we rush through dinner, we didn’t talk about any of the issues we were having as a couple, or whatever we could be considered. I parked the car and sat there, not ready to get out of the car yet, but starting to feel like a fool, getting the feeling that she wasn’t even interested in working everything out. Maybe she didn’t care about me like I thought she did.