Page 62 of Live Like There's No Tomorrow
“He succeeded. I love it.”
They took a seat at the table on the terrace of a sidewalk café and Charlotte nodded to herself. “This is great. I can see me coming over here for lunch often.”
“Good, count me in. Hopefully, you’ll have lots of reason to be over here, helping me and Laura.”
Once they’d ordered and the server had brought their drinks, Holly held up her glass in a toast. “Here’s to you being back here, to you and Ben being happy, and to all of us building the future of Summer Lake.”
Charlotte smiled and raised her glass. “I can certainly drink to all of that.”
“It must be really weird for you, to be back here after all this time.”
“It’s weird, but at the same time it’s not. It feels right. It’s where I always knew I was supposed to be. If I’m honest, all the years I wasn’t here felt much weirder than this.”
Holly nodded. “I can’t imagine how that must have been. In the early days, Pete and I broke up for a little while, and it was awful. I went back to my life, the life I’d been living before I knew him, but it didn’t feel like my life anymore. I knew my life was supposed to be with him.”
“Then I think you do have some idea of how it was for me. I wasted too many years, living the wrong life, in the wrong country, with the wrong man.”
“I guess all you can do is try to make up for it now. You can’t get back all the years you lost, but you can make the most of every day now you’re back together.”
Charlotte smiled. “That’s what we’re trying to do. Ben always used to say that I was chasing tomorrow, now it’s time to live like there’s no tomorrow; make every day count, you know?”
“I do. I …” Holly’s voice trailed off and Charlotte followed her gaze. Angel was making her way across the square toward them, at least toward the café. Holly looked at Charlotte and raised an eyebrow.
Charlotte’s heart raced, which surprised her. She didn’t know what to do. It would be rude to simply ignore Angel, and yet she had no clue what to say to her. Angel took the dilemma out of her hands by putting her head down and hurrying past them. She went inside to the sandwich counter. Charlotte let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
Holly gave her an inquiring look. “I take it there’s no love lost between the two of you?”
Charlotte shrugged. “It’s not like that, it’s not like there’s bad blood or anything. It’s just a bit awkward, you know? If I hadn’t come back when I did, I’m sure she and Ben would be together by now. And I kind of feel bad.”
Holly looked surprised. “I don’t think he would ever have gotten together with her, whether you came back or not.”
“You don’t?”
Holly shook her head adamantly. “He was never going to get together with anyone who wasn’t you.”
Charlotte got up. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to go and talk to her.” She went and waited by the door while Angel paid for her sandwich. Her throat went dry; she had no idea what she was going to say. She just knew she needed to say something.
Angel’s stride faltered when she saw Charlotte standing there. She took another few steps and then stopped. She met her gaze, looking uncertain. “Hi.”
Charlotte smiled. “Hi. I just wanted .... I don’t know what I want, other than to say hello. I was
rude the other morning and I’d like to apologize for that.”
Angel smiled. “I think we were both taken by surprise. There’s no need to apologize. I feel as though I should be apologizing to you, but I don’t even know why. Well, that’s not true. I do know why. I want to apologize because I feel as though I did something wrong. But I know I really didn’t do anything wrong.” She lowered her gaze and gave a slight shrug. “Other than have the world’s worst timing.”
“I know how you feel on that one. My timing pretty much sucks out loud, for both of us. There were years and years when I could have come back with no problems at all. Yet here I am now, it might have worked out so differently for all three of us if I came back a year ago or a year from now.”
Angel shrugged again and looked up with a smile. “One thing I’ve learned in life is that there is no use thinking about all the could-haves and should-haves. All we can do is make the most of what is.” She held out her hand and Charlotte shook it. “I’m glad we could talk. Hopefully now there won’t be any awkwardness between us.” She smiled and rolled her eyes. “Well, at least not too much.”
Charlotte nodded. “It’s a shame, I think we could have been friends.”
“Maybe we still can. We obviously have one thing in common.”
“Yeah, we do. I’ll let you get on, I should get back to Holly.”
“I’ll see you around.”
Angel left and Charlotte made her way back to Holly. She sat down and Holly raised an eyebrow. “How did that go?”
