Chapter Twenty-Three
Payton
Will things ever get back to normal? No. A week after we bury my sister’s fiancé, the Summer family is having to navigate a new normal. One that still involves tears and a huge void where one person once was. Everything has changed, and none of us really know where to start.
First off, there’s Meghan. She’s not our Meggy right now. She’s grieving something none of us ever hope to experience, and if I could take her place in this traumatic turn of events, I would in a heartbeat! I would do it for any of my sisters, and know they would do the same for me.
Even if it hurts.
I haven’t spent the night with Dean since the night of the visitation. Not because he didn’t ask, but because I needed space. It would be so easy to get caught up in the magical bubble he wraps around me. You know the one where everything is cozy and comfortable and content. He and his daughter and the way they make me feel like a part of their little family.
And that right there is the problem.
I can’t be a part of their little world. Yeah, sure, in theory, when I close my eyes, I can see myself sitting on the couch with both of them, wrapped up in a blanket and watching a Disney movie. Or all of us seated at the dinner table enjoying a meal I cooked. Or what about bedtime where Dean and I tuck Bri into bed before slipping into his room, where we fall into our own and make love until we’re both sweaty and exhausted.
Those are dreams.
No long reality.
Reality for me is lonely, and while I might be able to gloss over it with time with him and his daughter, it won’t hide the truth forever. He’ll want more kids.
And that’s where I would come in.
But I can’t give them to him.
One thing I’ve learned in the last week is that love hurts, painfully so. And while I’d gladly take the place of my sister so she doesn’t have to feel an ounce of this heartache, it’s also made it brutally clear that there is no happy ending in store for Dean and me. As much as I’d love to see it happen, it can’t. It won’t. He’ll be disappointed in me just the way Cole was all those years ago when we finally broke up.
I know what I have to do, and it hurts.
I don’t sleep because when I close my eyes, I see their faces. I don’t eat because my stomach can’t handle it. I can’t breathe because the ache of knowing he won’t be there when I want to talk makes it too painful to do something as simple as moving oxygen in and out of my body.
The agony is coming and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
* * *
It’s Friday night and the shop closed a little over an hour ago. I’m in my office, working on an order to be delivered next Wednesday when I hear a knock on the back door. My phone has been in my purse much of the day, and I’m sure it has texts and messages that have remained unseen.
Reluctantly, I get up and head to the door. My gut tells me it’s Dean, which wouldn’t surprise me since I haven’t seen him much in the last week. With taking much of last week off for Josh’s funeral, I’ve been playing catch-up like crazy at the shop. Rachel helped keep it running, but not the behind the scenes stuff. The office and clerical part, as well as the inventory and ordering is all me.
So when I open the door and Abby is there, I’m a little surprised.
“Hey,” I say, holding it open so she can enter.
“Am I interrupting much?”
“No, no. Just going over some of the order forms that need to be sent in. My next shipment is coming Wednesday, and it couldn’t be soon enough. Since I wasn’t here last week, I didn’t get anything this week. I’m dangerously low on my staples.”
She follows me into my office and glances around at the stacks of papers on my desk.
“Have you eaten?” she asks before turning those mirroring green eyes on me.
“No,” I say, just as my stomach growls.
We laugh together while she digs out her cell phone. “I’ll order pizza.”
“Sounds good,” I sit down behind my desk and shuffle the papers that need to be filed.
“Oh, wait. You don’t have plans with Dean tonight, do you? Am I messing something up?”
“No, no plans.” I avoid eye contact and keep moving papers around on my desk.
I notice right away that she’s quiet and can feel her eyes on me. Instead of looking up and confronting her inquisitive eyes, I keep my head down, piling the papers. It only takes a few moments before I feel the weight of her stare and know that I’m avoiding the situation, not her.
“I haven’t talked to him much this week,” I confess.
“Why?” she asks, sitting down in the seat in front of my desk.
“It’s not going to work.” Saying those words aloud is almost gut-wrenching.
“I know how you feel,” she whispers. My eyes fly to her. She looks so defeated with her hands twisting together in her lap.
“What’s the matter?”
“I don’t think I can be friends with Levi anymore,” she confesses, her eyes shining with unshed tears.
“Why not? You two have been friends for as long as I can remember.”
“I know. He’s great, really. But lately, things have been…different.”
“Different how?”
“I don’t know, really.” She’s quiet for several moments, and even though I want to press her for more info, I sit back and wait. “He still wants to hang out, but I don’t think I can.” She averts her eyes. “I…I, well, I like him.”
“Duh.” The word is out of my mouth before I can rein it in, and if the way she looks at me, full of surprise, she wasn’t expecting me to say it either. “Sorry.”
“I know you all think I’m in love with him, and well, maybe I am a little, but he’s my friend. That’s it.”
“That doesn’t have to be it,” I encourage her.
“Yes it does. He’s made it very clear that he sees me as a friend and nothing more.”
“Things change.”
“No they don’t. Don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s a Friday night, you have a boyfriend, and you’re choosing to work instead. Even though you have a reason to go home, you’re here.”
“I’m here because I’m a chicken too.” Again, I surprise even myself with my bluntness.
“What do you mean?” she asks.
“Things aren’t working out with Dean and I’m hiding out here and working instead of talking to him and just ending it.”
“Why do you have to end it?”
I want to tell her, dammit I want to confide in her so bad. “It’s complicated.”
“Life is complicated. I want my best friend. I’m the poster child for complicated, Pay.”
“Touché.”
“So tell me about your problem with Dean.”
“He’s great, Abs. He’s caring and doting with his daughter, he’s sexy in that geeky way, and he’s fabulous in bed. He’s picture perfect in the relationship department, and will make some woman very happy in the future.”
“But not you?”
“No, not me,” I tell her with a sigh. “He’s not going to want me.”
“Why would he not? I see the way he looks at you. Not to mention how supportive and amazing he was all through the funeral. He went above and beyond the typical boyfriend, Pay. If it wasn’t so sweet it would have been nauseating.”
“I know. But there’s something that I haven’t told him. Something that’ll change the way he feels about me.”
That has her attention. “What’s going on?”
And before I realize what’s happening, I’m spilling everything. I tell her everything about the demise of my relationship with Cole and the reason it won’t work with Dean. When I glance up, I see tears in her eyes and realize they match the ones sliding down my cheeks.
“You’ve been sitting on this for the last, what, six years? Why wouldn’t you tell us about this?”
“I wasn’t ready. It’s too painful. I had to give up a dream, and I mourned the loss for a while. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever really been ready to talk about it.”
After our pizza arrives, we eat in silence for a few moments before she speaks again. “You know, I think you’re making a mistake with Dean. I think you should tell him and let him be the judge of the state of your future. If he can’t handle it, then fine. Walk away. But what if that doesn’t matter to him?”
“It matters to everyone.”
“You don’t know that. You assume, and you know what Grandpa says about assume, right?” I give her the look as I wait for the line I already know is coming next. “You make an ass out of you and me.”
“Why are you being such a pain in the ass?”
“Because I’m your little sister and that’s my job. And you only think I’m a pain because you know I’m right, and you can’t stand that because you’re always right.”
“I am always right. I must be rubbing off on you.”
We laugh as we finish up our pizza, chatting about her work and making small talk. When I glance up at the clock, I realize it’s already almost nine. It always surprises me how fast time can fly when I’m with my sisters.
“I should go.”
“Heading home?”
“Yeah. I was invited to The Shed tonight to see Levi play, but I’m not feeling it,” she says with a shrug.
“Abs, don’t give up on him. I really think that you guys have something special, more than just a friendship. Don’t be afraid to explore that side, okay?”
She shrugs casually without committing. “Don’t be afraid to tell Dean your secret. Let him decide if it’s too much for him or not, okay?”
I can’t help but grin back at her. “You’re still a pain in my ass.”
“Ditto, big sister. D-i-t-t-o.”
“I love you,” I tell her as I pull her into a big hug.
“I love you too. I’ll talk to you soon,” she says before slipping out the back door. I watch as she walks to her car and heads out of the lot.
Knowing that my night is complete, that no work will be finished now, I flip off the lights and grab my stuff. I don’t even take home the folder with tomorrow’s order forms; I’m pretty sure I won’t get to them later either. Right now, all I want is my couch, comfy jammies, and a bottle of something hard.
Making sure all of the doors are secure, I head to my own car and climb inside. My phone vibrates in my purse, but I leave it there until I get home. Needing to concentrate on driving and not on the pending conversation I’m going to have with Dean, I forgo the phone and head home.
It’s been a long, exhausting, and emotional day, and the booze is calling.