Mari

There’s something soothing about the feel of cool dirt between my fingers. Before plucking a small white petunia from its container, I dig a small hole with my hand trowel. Mom sprained her wrist last night at bowling but Dad had already purchased a hundred dollars’ worth of petunias, impatiens, hostas, and marigolds, so I told her I’d handle it.

It’s win-win anyway.

There’s only so much Wheel of Fortune watching and coffee shop shifts I can distract myself with before my mind circles back to the inevitable.

Him.

“Mari.”

Dusting the dirt from my hands, I turn toward the familiar voice, quelling the simultaneous swell of butterflies and swirl of tension in my stomach.

“Hudson,” I say, pushing myself up from the grassy patch of yard beneath the old maple tree I used to climb as a child.

He’s dressed for a jog and judging by the thin sheen of sweat gracing his muscled upper body, I’m not the first stop on his route.

“Just came by to tell you my accountant is making a deposit on Monday,” he says, hands hooked on his hips. My eyes fall to the muscled V pointing toward his shorts before meeting his gaze.

“For what?”

“It’s a pro-rated amount,” he says. “I’m paying you for the month of work you did.”

“I thought the contract said if I didn’t finish the agreement in full, I wouldn’t be paid at all?”

“It does say that,” he says. “But I didn’t feel it was a fair deal for you, Mari. I just want to do the right thing.”

“It’s not necessary.” I stand up straight. “I don’t need a handout.”

“I employed you,” he says, his voice holding that chilled quality I once knew so well. Only Hudson could be so cold and so generous at the same time. “You should be compensated.”

We stand in quietude, or maybe it’s an emotional impasse.

I half expect him to offer one last apology before he goes, one final try to get something out of me. But he says nothing, he simply studies my face before eyeing the distance toward his house.

“Goodbye, Mari.” He heads back to the sidewalk, but I’d feel remiss if I didn’t tell him that I think about him all the time, even when I don’t want to.

“I have this rubber band,” I say, calling after him.

He stops, his hands on his hips as he turns to me with twisted brows.

“I wear it on my wrist sometimes, and every time I think of you, I snap it,” I say, giving an earnest chuckle. “I thought I could condition myself not to think about you as much, but all it does is leave welts and the second they’re gone, you’re back in my mind again.”

I expect him to come closer to me, but he stays, feet planted on the chipped sidewalk. It hurts more than I thought it would, feeling the sting of emotional and physical distance as it lingers between us.

“The worst is when I’m lying in bed at night,” I say, “tossing and turning and thinking about you. About us. I play all these scenarios in my head, asking ‘what if, what if, what if.’ And then knowing you’re right up the street?”

I shake my head.

“I hate it. I hate that I want you. I hate that I want to be with you when all you’ve done so far is hurt me and prove that you’re probably going to hurt me again,” I say, feeling the sting of tears rim my eyes. “But I thought you should know. I’m guessing I’m not going to see you again after this, and I wanted to say it when I had the chance.”

He’s quiet, watching me with an unmoving stance.

“You left a mark on me.” I place my hand over my heart. “Good or bad, it’s there. And it’s going to be there forever. And I don’t quite know what to do with that yet, but I guess I’ll figure it out one of these days.”

Hudson lifts his hand to his face, rubbing his eyes before pinching the bridge of his nose and breathing out.

A weight anchors my chest as a rush of emotions flood to my surface. A cry builds. I blink away a single tear because I refuse to cry in front of him.

“I liked you a lot,” he says, breaking his silence.

His use of past tense breaks my heart, but I’m not sure what I expected. He came back for me, and I let him go. Many, many times. A candle doesn’t reignite after you’ve blown it out.

Hudson takes elongated strides toward me, his lips flat as his face grows somber. I brace myself for the worst, for the conversation I knew would need to happen sooner or later.

We did this to ourselves. We were careless, frivolous with our emotions. Too generous with our hearts when we had no business doing so. It’s no wonder we wound up in a free-fall, spiraling back down to the earth only to crash and burn.

You can’t come back from that.

“But then I realized it was turning into something more,” he says. “That last night we spent together, Mari, something changed. I realized I was falling in love with you. I didn’t want to believe it at first because it was happening so fast. I didn’t think it was possible actually.” He glances away, pausing. “But the next day, when you came to me with your news, I’d never felt so upset because I knew this was going to change things. Not only did you lie to me in a roundabout way, but knowing you had a piece of Alec inside you, a connection with him that you were never going to have with me … that’s what hurt the most. And that’s when I knew. That’s when I knew I was falling in love with you.” He pulls in a deep breath. “I love you, Mari.”

The weight of his words sink into every part of me before settling in my chest.

But it still hurts.

“You should know that telling you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life,” I say. “I didn’t want to hurt you.” Clearing my throat, I add, “But imagine how I felt when your mother tells me you were never expected to marry Audrina. You lied to me, Hudson. I agreed to help you. But I didn’t agree to be used for some sick little revenge fantasy.”

His eyes squint, and he bites his lower lip before lowering his head.

“Yeah,” he says, exhaling before pinching the bridge of his nose. “She was my first love. We were together for years, planning to marry. I found out she was fucking my best friend, and I guess it kind of did a number on me. I’m over her now, of course. Have been for years. But I couldn’t suppress this part of me that wanted to get one last dig at her. When we were kids, we always said that if neither of us were married by thirty, we’d marry each other. This would’ve been the year. Guess I wanted to stick it to her one last time, and watching her see me happy, knowing she could see that I’d moved on and found someone a million times better than her, was the final piece that I needed to close that chapter. In retrospect, it was really fucking sideways thinking, and I’m sorry I pulled you into it.”

My arms fold across my chest and I pull in a deep breath. As much as I want to be angry with him still, I can’t.

“That explains so much about you,” I say. “That explains everything about you, actually.”

“What do you mean?”

“You were heartbroken. You couldn’t trust anyone after what she did, so you became cold and unfeeling. You refused to commit to another woman because you were scared of getting hurt again,” I say. “And the fact that you needed to do something so extreme in order to feel vindicated once and for all, as fucked up as it is, Hudson, is actually understandable. You’re only human. And you were hurting.”

He rolls his eyes, sniffing. “There’s no excuse for what I did. Don’t feel sorry for me, Mari.”

“I don’t,” I say. “But I get it.”

Inhaling the scent of flowers and soil and feeling the lawn heat beneath my bare feet and the morning sun, I give him a surrendering gaze.

“So what now?” I ask. “Where do we go from here?”

His brows lift, as if he’s shocked that I’m alluding to the fact that maybe this isn’t over for me.

“You still want to be with me?” he asks.

Biting my lip and holding out my red, rubber-snapped wrist, I say, “Yeah, Hudson. For some completely insane reason … I do.”

He reaches for me, cradling my hips in his hands and pulling me against his sweaty, iron-steel physique, and I laugh.

“It feels good to hold you again.” His blue gaze captures mine, and he brushes my hair from my eyes. “God, I’ve missed you.”

“Before we get things back on track, I have to ask you one thing,” I say.

“Anything.”

“At the risk of sounding like a jealous psycho girlfriend, who was that blonde girl leaving your house last night?” I ask, one eye squinted.

His full lips smirk. “You were stalking me?”

“Just answer the damn question, Rutherford.”

“That was my real estate agent. She came by to drop off some listings she wanted me to consider.”

“I have to admit, watching you stare at her as she left made me a little … jealous. And I’m not the jealous type.”

Dragging his hand across his mouth he chuckles. “She was in six-inch heels. And that sidewalk is a broken fucking mess. I was just ensuring I wasn’t about to have a lawsuit on my hands.”

Oh.

“Fair enough,” I say. “One more thing though.”

“What now?” He stifles a chuckle, and I love the relief in his eyes. It gives me hope.

“No more secrets. No more lies,” I say. “Ever again. No matter what.”

“Deal.”

“And another thing,” I add.

“You’re not holding back with the contingencies, are you?”

“I want us to apologize to my parents. And yours,” I say. “Together.”

“Fair enough.”

“One last thing.” I lift on my toes, placing my hands on his shoulders and grinning. My body is ripe with anticipation, hungry with want.

“Okay …”

“Kiss me like you did the first time,” I say.

Hudson wastes no time, his mouth finding mine, claiming me as his while his hand slides along my jaw and the other circles my waist. I’m not sure if my feet are touching the ground or the butterflies in my stomach have any intentions of slowing down. All I know is he’s ruined me for any other man.

And now … after everything … I’m finally okay with that.