Finding Abigail (32 page)

The ache in my
chest was now throbbing. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath in. After a few
seconds I opened them. “Noah, what does it matter? I’m home now and tired, I’d
like to go to bed.” I started for my room. I didn’t get far before he grabbed
my arm, whirling me around to face him. Panic shot through me so suddenly I
choked on it. Despite the gentle hand, it wasn’t his grip I felt. It was one
that was hard as a vise. I blinked, seeing Noah’s face, the feeling washed
away.

His eyes were
wild with frustration and pain. “No, you’re going to sit down and listen to me.
You owe me that after what you put me through.” I tried not to compare him to
Nick. Although his voice was harsh and his eyes wild, a look I was very
familiar with, the overall vibe was disappointment. He wanted more, and I had
rejected him

Tears
threatened to fall. Everything I had built here, my friendship with him and
Kathy—my peaceful existence was slipping away, I could feel it. My chest burned
with the loss. “Noah, please don’t do this.” All I could manage was a whisper,
afraid of what was about to happen.

He stepped
forward. “Don’t do what? Tell you that I love you?” His voice was soft.

I stared into
his eyes, but I couldn’t say anything. My emotions were in turmoil. Deep
inside, I wanted him so badly, I needed him to show me how love is supposed to
be, and I knew he would be gentle despite his anger. But I also hated the
thought of losing him, and getting romantically involved with him would do
that. My history with love wasn’t a good one. Besides Nick, the only person
close to being serious was Jason, and I lost him.

“I love you.”
He took my hands in his, all the tension drained from his face. His hands were
warm. I hated the tingle that I felt when he touched me. It made me want
something that I couldn’t have. “I didn’t want to after what happened with
Becca, but I do, and I can’t change that. These last few months have been the
happiest of my life. And it’s because of you, Anna. I love being with you, I
love our time together.” His eyes burned with longing. “But I want more.”

I felt tears
run down my cheeks. He was ruining everything. I pulled my hands out of his,
and stepped away from him. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I shook my head.
“Noah I can’t give you more, I’m sorry,” I said softly, knowing it would hurt
him.
Why did everything have to change?

His eyes showed
the sting of rejection from last night. It pained me to see it. “You love me
too, I know you do. I also know you felt something in that kiss last night,
just as much as I did. Are you just going to ignore what we feel?”

The ache in my
chest returned, piercing my soul. “I can’t be with you that way.”

“You’re not
saying you don’t love me.”

“Please stop
this, you’re ruining everything. We were happy the way things were, why did you
have to do this?”

“Because I
was
happy with you, but I know that we can be more, we can have everything.” His
eyes shone brightly with emotion, and the urge to jump into his arms was so
strong.

Deep inside, I
wanted what he was offering, but I knew it wouldn’t last. Love never does; in
the end everyone gets hurt. My parents had an everlasting love that was cut
short by death, leaving my mother devastated. My love for Nick was crushed,
after one blow. Noah’s ex cheated on him; why would he think we would be
different? It didn’t last. I may write about fairy tales, but I knew they
weren’t real, just stories made from minds like mine.

“I can’t.” It was
a whisper, but from the flare of pain in his eyes, I knew he heard me.

“Stop saying
that you can’t, and tell me why.” Desperation echoed through his voice.

“Noah, that’s
all I can say.”

He blinked. “I
have a right to know.”

“I know you do,
but I’ve said everything that I can.”

He backed up, a
look of sorrow covering his face. “Then so have I.” He walked to the door and
opened it.

“What does that
mean?” I asked, before he took a step outside.

“I want more,
and I can’t be just your friend.” With those words hovering in the air he
stormed out, slamming the door behind him.

I wanted to run
after him and do whatever I had to, to make it the way it was. But I couldn’t.
He changed things, and there was no going back. I forced myself not to cry, I
could live without Noah, we were friends, and that’s all. I had only known him
for a few months, I didn’t need him. And I was lying to myself, as much as I
was lying to him.

He was
everything to me, a giant I looked up too, bigger than life, the last drop of
water when I was thirsty, my bright spot in the cloudy world Nick had created,
and I couldn’t ruin that. If I took the plunge, be what he wanted, what would
happen if it ended? I needed him to survive. Without my family he was the most
important person in my life and I wasn’t willing to risk losing him. But my
fear of loss was what pushed him away; the irony was not lost on me.

The room felt
empty without him, and it didn’t help that his scent of spice and wood still
lingered in the air. I fell onto the couch feeling exhausted. I threw my head
down on a cushion and let the tears that had threatened earlier, fall.

Over the next
few days I buried myself in my work; I ate and wrote and did nothing else. I
tried not to think of him, but he was forever on my mind. The look of rejection
on his face haunted me. The only thing that pushed the image away was writing.
So that’s what I did.

Friday
afternoon, Kathy stopped by. “Hey, how are you?” Her voice was cheerful as she
stepped inside the cottage. I gestured for her to come in, and I closed the
door behind her. I couldn’t help but glance outside, to see if my neighbor was
home. My heart sunk when I saw the empty driveway.

“I’m good, just
working hard, how about you?”

“I don’t know
about hard, but I’ve been working.” She grinned, her eyes crinkling in the
corners. Her hair was down, flowing to her shoulders. The color appeared
lighter, almost coppery, when it was down. During the summer, she wore it up a
lot.

“Do you want a
drink?” I asked, feeling uncomfortable; not knowing what she knew was killing
me.

“Sure.” She
climbed onto a stool in front of the island, yanking at the hem of her red
fitted sweater.

I took out two
cans of iced tea and handed one to her, before leaning against the counter and
opening up my own.

“So,” she began,
a line appearing between her eyes. “Do you remember when we talked about
changing our weekend plans to Friday movie nights?”

“Yeah,” I said
slowly, worried where she was going with this.

“Why don’t I
come over here, so we can watch a chick flick, and Noah can go to our place?
That way we can all watch what we want. The four of us would never agree on one
movie anyway.”

I tried to
ignore the twinge of jealousy. We had always done things together. “Noah
doesn’t want to see me, does he?”

She squirmed in
her seat. “No, I’m sorry.” She reached out and laid her hand on mine. “But
really, can you blame him?”

“Yes!” My voice
was shrill even to my ears as I slammed my can down on the counter. Amber
liquid bounced out of the hole, falling onto the marble surface. “Everything
was going great, and he had to wreck it.”

“Anna, he
wasn’t trying to wreck what you had, he wants to make it better.”

Sighing, I
waved my hand at her. “It doesn’t matter. I’m fine with a girl’s night. We’ve
never had one before anyway.”

“It does sound
fun. We can do facials, and maybe I’ll stay the night. Getting away from the
boys for a change sounds good.” She paused, taking a sip of her drink. “And
then you can tell me why you’re willing to throw away the perfect guy. I know
you love him, he knows it. The only one who won’t admit it is you.”

I closed my
eyes taking a steadying breath to calm myself, before opening them to gaze at
her. I was tired of defending myself to these people. “Kathy, I want you to
come over, but please don’t nag me about this. I won’t tell you any more than I
told him.”

She raised her
arms in the air in a sign of defeat. “Fine, I’ll see you tonight. I’ll bring
the food; you bring the movie, the girlier the better.” She stood up and walked
to the door. As her hand touched the door knob, she turned her head to look at
me. “By the way, Sam wanted me to give you a message. ‘You promised.’” Her face
was a mask of confusion by her husband’s words. “I don’t know what it means and
I hate that he knows something I don’t.” She tilted her head, her expression
changing to a grin, her eyes bright. “I’ll see you tonight.”

Sam’s message
haunted me for the rest of the day. While I was writing about a ten-year-old
boy and a talking dog, somehow the words “you promised” continued to show up on
the pages.

Even at the
movie store, the title
Promise
seemed to stand out over all the others.
The movies were on a rack in the back of the general store and there wasn’t
much of a selection, but thankfully they did have
Notting Hill
, with
Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant. Since it was one of my favorites, I hoped it
would get me out of my dismal mood. I really did need cheering up; the last few
days without Noah was so lonely. We didn’t usually see each other that much
during the week, but now that I knew I couldn’t even if I wanted to, it made me
miss him more than I realized I could.

Kathy showed up
at about six, with takeout from Mable’s. We sat on the deck enjoying the cool
fall weather and the leaves on the trees that were now orange, brown, and yellow.

“Burgers and
fries, good call,” I said, taking the food out of the bag while Kathy poured us
each a glass of raspberry sparkling wine.

“I figured
you’d want something greasy. I also brought chocolate ice cream for later.”

I paused with
the burger in my hand. “You’re treating this like a break-up. You know we were
only friends.”

“Uh-huh.” She
leaned back in her chair and took a sip of wine.

I narrowed my
eyes at her. “Oh, shut up and eat your burger.” I tossed it to her. Luckily it
was wrapped well, because it rolled off her plate. She caught it before it fell
to the ground. She laughed as I took a bite of mine trying to ignore her as she
stared at me.

After the
movie, we broke open the ice cream, and another bottle of wine. “So, tell me
about some of the men in your life.” She spoke with her mouth full of double
chocolate chunk. We had moved inside and were both sprawled out on the couch,
one at each end, with our feet resting on the coffee table.

“Well, there’s
not much to tell. I lived with a guy when I was twenty-four for about a year,
his name is Jason. We were such good friends, and when he got a job offer in New York, we realized we weren’t in love. I miss him, though. He was such a great guy but I
just didn’t love him the way I should have. We were more roommates than
anything else. How about you? How old were you when you got together with Sam?”

“Seventeen, it
was shortly after Noah dumped me. Sam was consoling me, and after I bitched
about Noah for an hour, I looked into his eyes and saw something. When he
kissed me, I knew he was the guy I was going to marry.”

My heart
melted. Her words gave me some hope—sometimes love did work out. Until he
turned forty and he died leaving her devastated like my mom.
Man, I was
cynical.
“That is so sweet. You’re lucky.”

“I know, and
I’m so thankful I have him. How about the worst relationship you’ve ever had.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What? I’ve only been with the dork twins, so I need to
live through others.”

I grinned at
her words to describe the best friends. “His name was Nick, and he was kind of
controlling. He got jealous when Jason came to see me, and he would freak out
over the dumbest reasons.”

“Ewww, I hope
you dumped his ass.”

“Yep, I dumped
his ass.” God I wished it were that simple. Although if it had been, I never
would have met Kathy or Noah, because even though Noah and I didn’t agree about
our relationship right now, he had become one of the most important people in
my life, and I wouldn’t change knowing him for anything. “God, I need more
wine.”

She leaned
forward, grabbing the bottle off of the coffee table, filling both of our
glasses to the top “Have you ever noticed how sexy Noah’s voice is?” she asked.

Was she
kidding? “Yes, I noticed the first night, after I punched him. I swear just the
sound of it made my whole body hum.” I just wouldn’t admit it to myself. At the
time, I was too damaged to really notice.

She giggled. “I
used to tease him about it when we were kids. He could do voice-overs, or take
up singing, be the next Barry White.”

I laughed so
hard my stomach ached. Kathy joined in. I wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t that
funny, but it could have something to do with the empty bottle of wine.

Once the
laughter subsided I chugged more of the bubbly liquid, suddenly feeling
depressed. “Why do things have to be his way? Don’t I have any say in this?”