Bree

Present day … 10 years later…

As Drew looked at me I could see that he must have been remembering that horrible night too.

It was the pained look in his sea-green eyes.

We hadn’t seen each other since, but I was certain that I was right. Some things never changed.

I wasn’t sure what to say to him.

It was hard enough to believe that he was here in this room with me. The room where I spent most of my life.

It was easier for me to believe he was a figment of my imagination than actually here.

That night my father took me away from Providence.

He practically through me in the back seat of his pickup and we drove. He’d packed up my things and his things, plans made well ahead of when he’d gotten to the lake house.

We drove for hours and I was so blinded by my tears that I didn’t know what he was doing, or where we were going. All I knew was that it was far, far away. I cried myself to sleep and when I woke up I saw signs for Maryland. It was nearly morning so we really did drive all night.

My father was eccentric at the best of times and when the bad times hit he seriously could blow everything out of proportion. That was just terrible though and what followed was worse. That night was just the beginning of a downward spiral disaster for my life.

He moved us to LA. Right across the country, far away from everyone and all that I knew.

Far away from Drew.

I never got to go to Brown University. I went to UCLA instead, and that was after having a semester out because we hadn’t fully sorted out ourselves and he wanted me to live at home with him. Definitely not on campus because he thought setting something up like that would allow me an escape route.

All of that was bad, bad.

But what was hell was I never heard from Drew. I waited to hear from him, for him to find me somehow, but he never did.

When a week passed I thought I’d go insane. When it was several months I felt myself slip away and the person I used to be recede into a shell.

We didn’t see Aunt Lily until months later and she told me that Drew joined the Navy.

That was when all hopes of me being with him died. I thought that if he wanted to find me, and find the way he was talking about he would have by then and he would have tried harder. At that point eight months had gone by. Plus, we weren’t exactly in the dark ages.

Aunt lily still lived in Providence so he could have found out where we were from her. Although my father did his best to keep where we were a secret.

It was simply crazy. Anyone else would have just moved but he took extra precautions to the point where I’d wondered if Drew had made contact and my father was going above himself to keep me away.

I moved on in my mind and salvaged what I could of the passion I had for photography, but my heart was never repaired.

Looking at Drew now, standing here face to face with him reminded me that my heart was still broken.

In fact, I didn’t think I’d truly felt it beat since that day.

He was just looking at me and I was doing the same, still trying to figure out what to say.

The minutes that passed with us like that felt like eons. Then suddenly he stepped forwards, reached out and touched my face.

The brief contact sent a jolt of electricity right through me and sparked across my heart. It reminded me of one of those films where one of the characters could heal a wound with the mere touch of their hands.

I opened my mouth to say something, what it was I wasn’t sure and it faded from my mind when the look of wonder on Drew’s face was replaced with a frown.

To my surprise he pulled back, stepped away, then turned and left me standing there as if I’d done something wrong.

I listened to his footsteps going down the stairs, heard the front door open and close and then the sound of a car speeding away.

I sucked in a breath, realizing I wasn’t breathing.

“What just happened?” I said to myself.

Lily chose that moment to come into my room, hands clasped and that motherly expression of concern on her face.

“Are you okay dear?” she asked.

“No, God. I’m not. Aunt Lily why didn’t you tell me he was back.”

She looked nervous. “I didn’t think it was important.”

I couldn’t see how she could come to that conclusion. “Why? Are you kidding me. Don’t you remember what happened?”

“It’s been ten years sweetie, I didn’t think you even remembered Drew.”

I gave her a long hard look. Something wasn’t too right here. She knew how much I loved Drew. She was the only person who knew we were seeing each other. No one else did, and that was saying something. She used to cover for me when I snuck out to see Drew, and if I was ever late coming back.

“That is completely insane.”

Her shoulders slumped. “No, it’s not. You haven’t really spoken about him. Besides Bree, I was too excited to see you. I haven’t seen you in five years tops. Drew was the furthest thing from my mind.”

I sat down on the edge of the bed and gazed out the long French windows. The branches of the large oak tree swayed in the wind, leaves rustling.

I felt bad enough as it was that I hadn’t seen Lily in such a time but hearing the length of time made me feel worse.

I worked for National Geographic Magazine. That dream came true for me and I travelled the world taking the most amazing pictures. I lived where I worked wherever that was. My father died six years ago from a heart attack. I’d been out of college for a year when it happened and was about to start my internship.

After that I put myself on this nonstop trip to lose myself in my work, the only thing that gave me a sense of enjoyment.

The problem with it was belonging nowhere. Living like a nomad and not really settling down. This was the only real place I’d ever called home.

It’s funny how ten years can take its time and feel like forever, but also go by within a blink of an eye.

I’d called lily a few months ago to catch up and see how she was. When she said she hadn’t seen me in five years I couldn’t believe it. I decided I had to do something about it.

I was in Cuba, now I was here, and Drew was here in Providence.

Lily came to join me. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I hate speaking badly of my father, especially as he’s dead, but I will never ever forgive him for the way that he took me away from Drew. It was horrible, and I always thought Drew would come and find me but he didn’t.”

Lily reached across and took my hand. I looked at her face and saw something there that I’d never seen before. It was guilt.

“There’s a lot that happened during that time that you didn’t understand.”

“What do you mean?” I straightened up.

“Bree…” she sighed and looked away. “Your mother really did have an affair with Drew’s father and that really messed up your father’s mind. Then when she died it was like he died too and became this person I didn’t recognize. He acted completely out of character with you and Drew and did a lot of things that were not right.”

Hearing my mother actually did have an affair with Drew’s father got to me. I always thought that was a rumor or something my father pulled out of a hat. But that was a story done and dusted. It was what Lily wasn’t saying that pricked at my nerves.

For instance, I knew that taking me away from here was out of character and definitely not right. But she sounded like she was implying that more happened.

“What else did he do?”

Lily got that nervous look again.

“Bree when you saw Drew just now how did you feel?”

“I was…” I was going to say shocked and surprised but that wasn’t the answer. The answer wasn’t either of those things, even though they were a part of the feelings I experienced. I looked at Lily and remembered how I used to confide in her.

I felt like I could do that now so I did.

“I felt the same,” I confessed. “Even after ten years I felt the same. No one had ever come close to how I felt about him, I compared every guy who was even remotely interested in me to him, and I feel lost right now because it’s crazy. What’s worse is he didn’t say anything. He just looked at me and left. And he looked at me like I did something wrong.”

Lily stood up and released a haggard sigh. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you he was home. I should have. I’m sure by the end of this week I’ll have much to be sorry for.” She winced and pressed her thin red lips together and ran her frail hands over her silver hair.

“Why would you say that? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

An uneasy look washed over her face. “You should go see him.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“It is, trust me. It’s a good idea if you still feel the same about him. Please. He lives in the old lake house.”

“The old abandoned lake house?” Our house.

“It’s not abandoned anymore. He bought it, did it up and now he lives there.” She offered a warm smile. “You should go see him. Maybe allow today to pass because of all the rawness. Think about it.”

Think about it? I didn’t think I’d be able to think about anything else besides Drew.

The problem was seeing him.

I was only here for another two days so that didn’t really give me much time to think.

I was leaving straight from here to head to Morocco.

But, I knew I couldn’t simply go and not see him.