Eleven

BRADEN’S AFTERNOON TURNED out to be one of the best of his life. It didn’t get much better than an afternoon hike through the forest, a swim in a pristine lake, followed by making love to the most beautiful and amazing woman he’d ever met. But he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d made an enormous mistake with Melanie. All her signs had said go, but she’d been clear about wanting only friendship. When she said don’t stop, it was like a fuse had been lit to a rocket-fueled missile.

Every minute spent with her was like he was getting away with something previously unattainable. Being with Melanie was like unearthing a time capsule they had buried together over a decade earlier. When she’d lain her hand against his chest in the water, he couldn’t shake the feeling that if he didn’t take advantage of the moment, he’d never get another chance.

They dressed and he claimed her hand in his. The déjà vu almost knocked the wind out of him. He’d done this before, been in this situation before. He could almost reach out and touch the past, but he wasn’t eighteen and this wasn’t eleven years earlier. However, the past mixed with the present, their shared intimacy today was even better than the first time.

They returned to Melanie’s pickup truck. The conversation remained light and the words exchanged between them flowed easily as they walked, but there were things he still needed to tell her. The weight of his past wouldn’t leave his shoulders until he explained his disappearance and found out why she married so quickly after they separated.

The truck bounced across the pot-hole-covered parking area at the trailhead. Dust churned the air like a brown cloud behind the pickup as Braden turned onto the road that led back to Granite Lake. Their fingers remained entwined on the seat between them.

“When I was seventeen, I stopped speaking to my father and brother. I made a decision to cut them out of my life. My parents divorced and Mom was moving to Oregon. I didn’t want to go with her and I refused to live with my dad. My grandfather was willing to let me stay with him so I could finish high school before joining the Coast Guard.” Braden paused and glanced over at Melanie. Now seemed like the right time to explain everything he held bottled inside him. She didn’t remove her hand from his.

“I woke up one morning in late summer and heard my grandpa talking to someone in the kitchen. It was Justin. He wasn’t supposed to be there and I wasn’t happy about his arrival. I refused to speak with him and didn’t leave my room until after I heard his truck leave.”

Melanie remained quiet and he continued.

“I left the house later in the afternoon to come pick you up. It was supposed to be our final day together before you moved to Ohio. I was pulled over for a brake light being out. Then before I could figure out what was going on, I was arrested.”

“You’re kidding,” she said, her brows gathered with concern.

“The story gets worse.”

“How?” Melanie asked.

The skepticism mixed with shock didn’t surprise him. Braden wouldn’t believe the story if someone off the streets tried to lay this tale of woe on him.

“Justin must have stolen my old ID and he used it after I moved out of my dad’s house. When I handed over my license to the officer, he discovered a couple of warrants for my arrest in Santa Cruz. One for assault and battery and another for failure to appear.”

“You never showed up for our date because you were in jail?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t your grandfather bail you out?”

“I'm sure he would have but he already left on one of his fishing trips. My grandpa wasn’t one for technology. He didn’t have a phone and there was no way to get a hold of him. My mom said she couldn’t come because she had no way to get here, but she would get in touch with my father. He showed up two days later.”

“Braden, that’s terrible. Why didn’t he come sooner? You said he lived in California.”

“Oh sure, he lived in Santa Cruz. It’s about a five-hour drive from Granite Lake. He gave me some bullshit excuse about work. After he showed up, he didn’t even apologize for making me wait. Told me I owed him for the bail money.”

“Where was Justin?”

“I don’t know. Staying with friends probably. I found out later, much later, after hunting him down, that he came to Granite Lake to ask our grandfather if he could stay with him for a while. My grandfather told him no. He knew Justin caused trouble and wouldn’t allow him to live with us.”

“I was at the university by the time you had everything straightened out,” Melanie said, staring straight ahead.

“My grandfather never found out about any of it. He didn’t come back from that fishing trip. Another fisherman found him collapsed by the lake. The doctor eventually said he passed away from a brain aneurysm.”

Braden turned down their street and into Melanie’s driveway. He cut the engine and sat back against the seat. Melanie watched him but he kept his eyes on her house.

“I sort of lost my mind in the week following the arrest. I had to stay with my dad, but before anything else, I had to find my brother. That took over a week. There was a nightmare of explaining to do with my enlistment officer. I spent hours trying to sort out the confusion with the sheriff’s office and the judge on my case. Eventually, after I cooled down, I wrote you a few letters and mailed them to this address.” He lifted his chin to the house. “They were returned. I knew your parents were moving to Southern California after you went to Ohio State. I figured the letters would be forwarded and eventually find you, but they didn’t. I had to leave for basic training."

“I never received a single letter. Did you try to call my mom? She had my information.”

He glanced at the girl who he had once convinced himself he’d lost forever. Yet here she was like a figment of his imagination.

“I think I tried to call a couple of times. The phone had already been disconnected. I was fighting with my dad constantly. My brother complicated everything.

“After basic training, I had a couple days off before I transferred to North Carolina. I flew to Ohio to see if I could find you at the University. I thought about how we talked about not having any commitments during our first year apart. That we would be free to do anything we wanted in our first year of freedom from our parents, but I wanted you to know what happened and that I didn’t intentionally blow you off. I needed to know if you wanted me to stay in your life in any way. Even as a friend.”

“How come I never saw you? I hated living in the dorm. I would have loved to have a friend visit me from California.”

“I found out what dorm you were in. The dorm resident-assistant in your section was nice enough to tell me where she thought you might be after class. I waited outside the commons area. I saw you holding hands with some guy and I had my answer.”

“But—” Melanie cut herself off.

She turned her head away from Braden and stared at the flowers growing alongside the driveway. “I thought you were the one to cut our ties. I made myself believe it was easier for you that way,” she said. “My letters were never answered. No one answered the phone when I called.”

“That was the hardest year of my life. Mostly because you weren't in it.”

“I wanted to be,” she said quietly.

“It didn’t look like it from my end.”

“You saw me with Dylan.” Melanie's phone buzzed. The distraction wasn’t unwelcome. She retrieved the phone from her bag. “It’s Sienna.” She gave Braden an apologetic look.

“Answer,” he said.

Raw emotions filled the cab of the truck. Sadness filled her eyes before she stared at the phone and hit the button.

* * *

“Hello.”

“Mom. I want to come home. Dad’s being a total jerk. I hate it here.”

“Wait. Slow down, Sienna. I can hardly understand you. What’s wrong?”

“Dad has a bazillion rules and his wife is a nightmare. She thinks it’s okay for me to eat barbeque ribs and bratwursts like every night. I can’t take them. Please, can I come home? He’s ruining my summer.”

“Sienna, where is your father right now?”

“He’s in the living room or somewhere. What does it matter?” Sienna’s voice alternated between super whiny to ultra annoyed.

Melanie inhaled a steadying breath and realized an entire tank of oxygen wouldn’t be enough to deal with her daughter and Braden right now.

“Are you safe?”

“Yeah. I mean if you think practically being poisoned is safe,” Sienna spouted into the phone.

“You’re not being poisoned. Can you tone down the dramatics?”

“Mom, Jenna’s Chinese takeout had peanut sauce on it. I’m not even kidding. She’s trying to kill me.”

Melanie closed her eyes. “I will call you right back.”

“Maw-omm,” Sienna whined. “I want to come home.”

“I’ll call you right back. And I’ll speak to your dad, too. Give me two minutes.” Melanie disconnected the call. She dropped the phone in her bag and clutched the strap in her fist.

“I have to take care of this,” she said to Braden. “I’m—” She wasn’t sure how to respond to him and appearing flustered wasn’t how she wanted to end their day.

“That conversation didn’t sound fun.”

“The drama never ends with Sienna. Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to separate the grains of truth from her overreacting.”

“I’ve never been around pre-teens, but I know she needs you right now.” Braden opened his door and walked around the truck.

Melanie popped open her door and met him by the front bumper. She rose onto the balls of her feet, leaned in, and kissed him. “I'll talk to you later. Thanks for today.” Before she could say or do anything else to make things more uncomfortable, she scurried inside and closed the door.

* * *

If Melanie could hold it together for a few more minutes, she would survive. Channeling her mother’s wisdom on raising girls always seemed to filter into her mind when she needed it most. You can get through any situation if you break it down into one-second intervals. The seconds ticked by at an agonizingly slow speed, but she persisted.

Sienna begged to come home, but Melanie wouldn’t give in to her daughter without a thorough investigation from at least two sources. Sienna was source one, but Dylan was source two. She was able to calm Sienna down and explain that even if she came home early, it wouldn’t be that night. Melanie hung up with Sienna and dialed Dylan. The incident with the peanut sauce, which Sienna never even let come close to her plate, was a mistake made by the Chinese restaurant, not Dylan’s wife. Sienna complained that Jenna asked her to start calling her Mom. Sienna told Melanie she didn’t want to. Of course, Melanie’s motherly instincts roared inside every cell of her body at the thought of her daughter calling anyone else Mom. She didn’t let Sienna know or hear in her voice how upsetting that news was. Dylan, on the other hand, would receive her full opinion on the matter. Jenna, however nice, sweet, or pretty she was, would never be Sienna’s mom. All Melanie could think of when she thought about the woman was that she would always be the person who slept with a married man and broke up her marriage.

Dylan received her call with the usual acquiescence. He made all the right sounds. Apologized when he should have and informed Melanie he knew nothing about Jenna asking their daughter to call her Mom. He agreed that Jenna would not ask again. He assured her he and Jenna were doing everything that had always been done to accommodate Sienna’s food allergies. Nothing had changed in that department.

Melanie hung up the phone and wanted to throw it at the wall as hard as she could. One of the reasons she couldn’t be with Dylan anymore was because he never really heard her. He made agreeable noises then did what he wanted. She didn’t trust him. The temptation to launch an immediate rescue of her daughter was so tempting, she could taste it. Sienna’s concerns, which admittedly were blown out of proportion, had validity to some degree.

Melanie didn’t smash the phone, but placed it carefully on the countertop. She found a chair by the dining table, sank into it, and fell apart.

Tears wouldn’t solve her issues. Melanie wasn’t totally sure what she was crying about. She missed Sienna and hearing the misery in her daughter’s voice was enough to send her over an emotional cliff, but that wasn’t the only reason for her meltdown. Everything about being with Braden churned her insides into an unrecognizable mess. His retelling of what happened the day she believed he stood her up, and the knowledge he came to see her when he was able to, was almost too much to bear.

The level of despair she went through after moving into the dorm was like no other hurt in her young life. At the time, moving forward made sense. Jumping into bed with Dylan was a mistake she couldn’t take back now. She had wanted Braden more than she wanted to be alive. When she thought she had been unceremoniously dumped and forgotten, she’d practically thrown herself at the first boy who reminded her of Braden. Dylan had been funny and his thick brown hair was the same color and texture as Braden’s. Even the way his eyes smiled when he laughed reminded her of Braden. But Dylan never had the eye color or the shape of his nose or mouth quite right. Emmeline called Dylan a rebound boyfriend, but Melanie had always disagreed. She loved Dylan. Her awareness that he wasn’t Braden was always in the back of her mind, but even those niggling thoughts had her convinced it was a good thing Dylan was so different than Braden. Their opposing personalities would help her move on. She didn’t plan to get pregnant, but it happened. Dylan wanted their baby as much as she did. Falling in love with him and Sienna almost simultaneously had been a whirlwind of new, exciting times. There was no way she could have known as a nineteen-year-old that she was making a huge mistake—and she wouldn’t call her past life a mistake now. Melanie chose to marry Dylan and she had wanted him. Every time she repeated the thought in her mind, the tears washed over her afresh. Braden had wanted her while she was busy growing a child inside her womb and learning to love the wrong man.

Shattered didn’t begin to describe her mixed emotions over learning the truth about where and what Braden had been doing when she was supposed to be completing her freshman year of college.

Melanie cried herself out and dialed Emmeline. Her sister didn’t answer. She glanced at the clock on the stove. It was bedtime for her nephews. Although Emmeline was her older sister, she started having children later in life. Emmeline would be monitoring the bath, or tooth brushing, or reading a story to her boys before tucking them into bed. Melanie wondered if she would have waited to have kids if she’d had a choice. She left a long-winded message about Braden and Sienna and finished by telling her not to call back. She would be in the workshop and wouldn’t answer.

The phone chimed with a text alert as Melanie switched into her work boots. She assumed it was her sister letting her know she received the message, but when she checked, she saw a text waiting for her from Treasure.

Treasure: How’s it going with your neighbor, Mr. Well Endowed A.K.A Sir Scrumptious Buns? Have you talked to him yet?

Melanie glanced at the door that led to the garage. Sleep wasn’t going to happen with her current mental crisis. She needed the distraction of physical work to exhaust her fully before sleep would come. The armoire needed another coat of paint and she wanted to start stripping the old podium and benches she had stashed in the shop all winter. Black Bear Brewing were interested in them to use as a hostess station and seating in the waiting area.

She texted back: My head is under the sand right now. I’m in my workshop. I know you understand. Call you later.

The screen lit up three times while she sanded the cracked and scratched finish off the oak podium. She cut her gaze to the screen each time a new text or message came in. Emmeline’s picture lit the screen and she promptly ignored her. She was serious about not being interrupted when she was in the zone. If she stopped sanding to answer, she would never get back to her project. The stripping process was messy and required her to pay attention to what her hands were doing. But the work wasn’t fully mentally engaging and her thoughts returned to Braden at every given opportunity.

At first she tried to quash the images rolling through her head, but she eventually gave into her brain’s desire to rehash the past, and the present, and let everything process through her mind. Their time at the lake, followed by his heart wrenching retelling of their parting, played over and over until the entire podium was sanded and she could no longer analyze anything Braden said.

Melanie ran out of one-hundred and one-hundred-and-fifty grit sand paper and succumbed to the fact that she needed a break, a shower, and a bed in that order. The hardware store would be open in... She checked the time and saw that she could sleep for five hours, buy supplies, and be back to work before nine a.m. She had tomorrow off from swim lessons and could sleep in if she wanted, but she knew she would be back on the podium and benches for Black Bear Brewing rather than sleep. The potential order could be her best sale ever if they liked the pieces.

The spray of hot water eased some of the tension in her back and shoulders from holding the sander for so many hours. She noticed she was a little sore between her legs and almost started crying again. Sex with Braden at the lake was one of the most incredible experiences in her life. Shouldn’t she be happy about it? Today was eye-opening in more ways than one. Melanie never knew sex could make her feel as if she came apart into a million pieces and was put back together as a new and better person in the span of a few minutes. After their spontaneous and explicit tryst in the lake, Braden said he’d felt something different with her, too. Their connection had been shared on a soul level. She should be in awe or something, shouldn’t she? Is melancholy elation a thing? What was the matter with her? Confusion was what she found beneath the quickly cooling stream of water beating against her back. She’d drained the entire hot water tank while trying to make sense of life.

Melanie dried off, put on pajamas, and wrapped a towel around her head. She crawled into bed and dreamed about having mind blowing, life altering sex with Braden. Except his face switched to Dylan’s right after she told him how much she’d always loved him. The panic moment in the dream of confessing her love to the wrong man threw her upright and wide awake. She covered her eyes with her palms and squeezed her face.

She needed therapy.