The chill was back. Emma ran her hands over her arms and kept them crossed. She felt eighteen again walking beside Brad Cutler. It took everything she had to remind herself that nothing was like it was back than. Absolutely nothing.
“All those people … you found them on Facebook?”
“Everyone’s on Facebook. Half the parents of the kids in my class friend-request me the first week of school.” Emma smiled. “It’s good, I guess. Gives people a way to stay in touch.”
“I guess.”
“Of course … then there’s your way.” Emma wore sunglasses too, so he couldn’t see the sudden way her eyes danced. But he could certainly hear the laughter in her voice. The sound caught even her off guard, like everything about the past hour. How long had it been since she and Brad had found anything to laugh about?
“My way?” He gave her an easy smile and again he stopped walking.
“Wait a decade and show up like a ghost at the end of the workday.”
For a few seconds she thought he was going to turn serious on her, say something about how he couldn’t post whatever he had to say on someone’s Facebook. “Yeah.” A gradual chuckle came from his throat, as if he wasn’t any more ready than she was to talk about the real reasons he was here. “I always had to be different.”
“Which was usually a good thing.” Emma remembered dozens of times when kids from their class took beer to the beach or drove out to the country to party. Brad didn’t drink. Not ever.
“Our class could get pretty crazy.”
They were quiet again, and Emma figured Brad was probably as lost in the memories of yesterday as she was. The sun was warm on their shoulders, and the blue sky was quietly being consumed by clouds — the type that could quickly turn into thunderstorms. Back near the pier, a long ways down the beach, Emma saw that families had arrived with oversized coolers and folding chairs, towels and umbrellas. A couple kids ran together, releasing a kite slowly into the ocean breeze and watching it take flight. The holiday crowd.
But the place where Brad had led her was both familiar and private, the atmosphere they would need for whatever was coming. Emma had a feeling it was time. They could only talk about the past for so long without running into the reason why he’d come.
Brad motioned to a bluff up on the sand, a few yards farther from the water. The spot was marked with long sections of beach grass, the kind artists tried to capture in paintings of the Carolina coast. “Come on.”
Emma followed him, but in response her heart skittered into a strange rhythm.
Relax,
she told herself. What could he say that would be worse than last night’s news — the fact that he was engaged. She sat next to him and stretched her legs out, crossing them at her ankles.
Was this really happening?
She stared at the ocean, trying not to notice him, but it was impossible. His presence heightened her senses in every possible way. Brad Cutler, a foot from her. His mannerisms, the smell of his shampoo as it mixed with the salty air, the way he pulled up one knee and casually leaned toward it. The familiarity surrounded her, consuming her. The two of them sitting here, breathing the same air, staring at the same old shore. Her heart wanted to believe she was still his … he was still hers, and this was just one more summer day in a lifetime of summers she might share with him.
She leaned back on her hands, again careful to keep her distance.
Just say it
, she wanted to scream at him.
Get it over with.
Then this moment could be finished. He would go home to his fiancée and never find his way here again. Because every moment he lingered beside her made it harder to convince herself of the truth.
The truth that she must never, ever fall for Brad Cutler again.
B
RAD WAS ENJOYING HIMSELF TOO MUCH,
forgetting the adult he had become and the life he had back in New York City and everything else except Emma beside him. The sound of silence between them jolted him back to reality, reminding his heart that they weren’t teenagers anymore. Never mind the attraction he still felt, or the easy way they had when they were together. He wasn’t here to catch up on old times and remember once more why he’d fallen for her all those years ago.
He loved Laura now, and he needed to get home. He couldn’t waste another hour reminiscing.
For a long minute he gathered his thoughts. The broken pieces in his soul needed to be laid out on the sand between them before he could begin to find a way to make them whole. For either of them. He was still trying to find a starting place when she shifted her position, just enough so she could see him better.
“You didn’t come here to talk about Tommy Winters or Max Maynard.” Her tone was softer than before. The humor completely gone. “Why don’t you just say it Brad. Tell me why you’re here.” A massive cloud shaded the beach, and she removed her sunglasses.
Brad did the same, and he could see clearly into her soul. The way he always had been able to. The hurt in her eyes made him feel sick, made him doubt the wisdom in sharing any of this. He could’ve written her a letter or dismissed the idea, assuming Emma would be too hard to find. Anything so he wouldn’t have to be here now, aware of her brokenness, trying to find a way to talk about the most painful part of their lives. He looked as deep and far into the blue sky as he could. He had to tell her. He had no choice.
The clouds were darkening the sky, but the forecast hadn’t predicted thunderstorms until later that night. Brad looked into her eyes. If he was going to tell her how he felt, then he wanted her to know he was genuine. She watched him, waiting.
Please, God … give me the words …
I am with you, Son. This is where forgiveness begins.
He filled his lungs, willing her to understand. “I remember bringing you here instead of Wrightsville. And I remember taking you to this part of the beach.” He paused, the past vivid and painful. “I remember losing control.”
Her cheeks grew hot, but she didn’t move, didn’t say a word.
“I can still see myself driving you to the clinic and then …” regret weighted his words, and he fought against a sudden rush of tears. “I remember driving out of town to UNC, but …” he looked down at the sand. What sort of jerk had he been back then? He clenched his jaw and then lifted his eyes to hers again. “I don’t remember … saying I was sorry.” He shrugged, helpless to change the facts. “I never said I was sorry, Emma. That’s why I’m here.”
For a few heartbeats she stared at him, motionless. Then she pulled her knees up and circled her arms around them. As she did, she faced the ocean once more, her back straighter than before. It took a minute, but gradually tears began sliding down her cheeks, falling to her bare legs and rolling down toward the sand. Finally she brushed her fingers across her face and swallowed a few times. “I loved you since I was in fourth grade. Since that week when that … that teacher made us hold onto that stupid rope.”
“I thought about that. The rope.” He sounded beyond sad. “On the flight here.”
“After that, I told you everything, you knew all that my heart held. Every detail. You were … you were my best friend and my brother and my boyfriend.” Another tear slid down her cheek, but Emma didn’t seem to notice it. “You were everything.”
Brad wanted to reach out to her, but he knew better than to take her hand again. Last time the feeling had stayed with him long into the night. Instead he allowed himself to think back to every long afternoon and endless weekend. Emma wasn’t the only one. He had shared his heart with her, too. Whatever he was feeling, he told her. Until … “Until we came here …”
“All I wanted …” Her hand shook as she lifted it to her face and dabbed at another tear. Her eyes were lost in the past, trapped in that terrible time when life changed for both of them. She looked right at him, straight through his soul. “All I wanted … was for you to ask me what happened that day.” She let her head fall slowly to her knee for a few seconds. When she looked up, her eyes locked onto his once more. “I never told anyone, not a single person. Not my mom or a friend or a counselor.” Anger simmered in her tone, but she didn’t raise her voice. “Because if I couldn’t tell you … who could I tell? You let me walk down the hallway of that clinic and when I came back you didn’t say a
word
. You never asked me what happened.”
Brad felt the truth hit him like a hollow bullet, shattering his heart into a thousand tiny bits. She hadn’t told anyone what happened at the other end of that hallway? Not ever? Brad hadn’t asked her because he hadn’t wanted to know. Not then and not now. But he’d come all this way for that reason — to apologize and so they could both grieve. “Tell me, Emma.” He spoke the words he should’ve said ten years ago. As he did, his conviction grew. He needed to know what happened because the baby wasn’t only Emma’s. It was his child, too. “Please tell me.”
“Brad …” She started to shake her head, new tears spilling from her eyes. “It’s too late.”
“No. That’s why I’m here.” He reached out his hand because he needed her. They needed each other. This wasn’t about finding new feelings for each other. It was about figuring out the past. When she didn’t seem like she was going to take his hand, he slid a little closer and tenderly took her fingers in his.
She didn’t fight him, though her spirit seemed more broken than before. As if she wanted to resist his efforts at kindness, but she simply wasn’t able. “Please tell me.”
A few seconds passed, but she clung to his hand tighter than before, and he knew. The story was coming. She was about to tell him the details he hadn’t wanted to hear or know. All these years Emma had held the truth inside her, and now that Brad was here, he could see that she’d never found peace or healing. She was still crippled by the trip she’d taken down the hallway of that clinic, and she desperately needed healing. While Emma wrestled with what to say and how to say it, Brad hurt for her … and he hurt for himself. Because whatever the story involved, he was suddenly certain about one thing.
After this, nothing would ever be the same.
A
CHANCE LIKE THIS WOULDN’T COME
again.
Emma understood that as she wrestled with the truth, with how to tell him. The part of her story she needed to tell Brad was something she couldn’t tell Gavin the other day, because she could barely admit the details to herself. For ten years she’d wanted to tell Brad about that day, so he’d understand how awful it had been. Now — in the wake of his apology — Emma knew this was the only time she’d have to tell him.
“I was scared to death. Sitting in that waiting room.” She found strength in the way her hand felt in his. Safe and protected. The details of her story wouldn’t kill her, not with Brad there sitting strong beside her. “I wanted to run back to the car and beg you to take me home.”
“Emma …” A quiet groan came from him and his shoulders fell a little. “You should’ve.”
“No.” She shook her head. “You knew, Brad. You could tell I was scared.”
At first he looked like he might argue, but then he closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he looked stripped of any self-defense. “Yes. I knew. I didn’t want to talk about what you were feeling.” His eyes grew watery, but he didn’t look away. “I didn’t want you to change your mind.”
The admission was what Emma had known in her heart, but it hurt all the same. He had taken her to the clinic, and not for a minute had he wavered in what he wanted from that visit. He wanted Emma to walk out no longer pregnant. He wanted no baby to complicate his future, nothing to change the course of his life, nothing that would tell the world what he and Emma had done.
“I was terrified by the time they called my name, but I guess …” Emma blinked back fresh tears. The breeze was cooler than before, so she inched closer to him, borrowing from his warmth. “By then I figured it was too late to change my mind.” She couldn’t tell the story in small fits and starts. With her hand holding tight to his, she allowed herself to be back there again, young and pregnant and walking down the cold, impersonal hallway of a clinic toward the back room where babies died. Steeling herself against the pain of the past, she began. And once she did, she told the story until it was finished.
An older woman with tight features and short gray hair led her down the hallway and Emma looked back just once. In the waiting room, Brad had his forearms on his knees, his focus on the floor.
“This way,” the woman said. She seemed to notice that Emma was distracted, so she stopped and put her hand on Emma’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, dear. This will all be over soon.”
Emma allowed the woman’s words to stay with her, guiding her the rest of the way to a small white room at the end of the hall. The woman opened the door and nodded to Emma. “Remove your clothing and slip into the gown on the table there. Keep it open in the front. I’ll need you to fill out another form before the doctor will see you.”
The doctor?
Emma remembered feeling confused. She hadn’t considered even once that the person performing the abortion would be an actual doctor. All her life she’d thought of doctors as people who help others. The woman closed the door, leaving Emma alone. In some ways the boxy room looked like any other Emma had seen at her doctor’s office growing up. A table, a sink, a round stool on wheels for the doctor. But this room also had a small table covered by a paper cloth. On top of the cloth were several frightening-looking tools. A machine stood nearby with a number of black switches, and a clear tube hooked to the side.
Emma looked away from the machine, and a cold feeling came over her. She began to shiver, first her teeth, then her shoulders and arms, until her whole body was shaking. Freezing to the core of her being. In all her life she couldn’t remember ever being that cold before or since. Fear moved through the room, sucking the air from it, and Emma couldn’t draw a full breath.
Do something
, she told herself.
You can’t just stand here.
She could hear voices out in the hall, but none of them were clear enough to understand. Her heartbeat echoed in her chest, her head. It was so loud she was sure the nurse would hear it when she returned. Mindlessly, still shaking with fear and cold, still struggling to breathe, Emma kicked off her tennis shoes and peeled away her clothes. She set them in a small pile near a corner of the room, and then she slipped on the gown. It was white with small blue flowers.
The kind you might see in a baby nursery
, she told herself. She pulled it tightly around her, and the smell of bleach filled her senses.