Page 46 of One Week Hating You
I smile. “Pretty much.”
“God, it was so much more than that,” he says. “You know it was.”
I think about our dads then. “Well, I know we were both going through a lot—”
“A lot,” Blake snaps. “A lot? Both our dads were killed, taken from us in the flash of a second. I’d say that’s more thana lot.”
February 17th. It’s a date which will stay with me forever. Our dads, best friends and fishing buddies, were off on an annual ice fishing trip, something they looked forward to every year. It was no one’s fault, they were just at the wrong place at the wrong time. The roads were icy, and a semi hit them straight on. We were told they were killed instantly, but that wasn’t much consolation.
Both our families were devastated and while our mothers and siblings turned to each other for support, Blake and I closed into ourselves. I cried and journaled a lot. I spent a lot of time in my room. Mandy tried to connect with me, but I just couldn’t talk about it. Every time I did, it hurt so much. I just wanted to pretend it didn’t happen, like he was just gone on a long trip. Yet everything reminded me of him;Seinfeld, fishing, chocolate ice cream, country music, his favorite coffee cup still sitting in the cupboard, and the daily paper. He used to love to read the paper first thing in the morning and do the crosswords – he’d always be asking me for answers. The lawnmower, parked beside the shed out back made me cry once. Tim had taken over the lawn mowing duties and every time I watched him mow the lawn, my heart would break a little. And the Scrabble game sitting on the bookshelf in the living room, abandoned. Scrabble used to be our thing. That’s when I searched for an escape. That’s when I started looking into colleges, anywhere. Anywhere but home.
Blake handled the tragedy a different way all together, by drinking and drowning his sorrows in the beds of local tramps. Okay, maybe it was only one bed. Maybe it was two… or ten. I really don’t know. All I know is that he wasn’t sleeping inmybed.
“I’m sorry, Maeve,” he says again, and I can tell that he genuinely means it, that this has been nagging him for a long time. “You just reminded me of the whole thing. Your whole family did. My family too. We were all practically glued to each other before, and then…”
“Marilyn and Brian only grew closer,” I point out.
“Yes, they did… and we… we grew apart. I think we were just too young to process it all.”
“You’re probably right.”
He turns to me again, and his eyes are so dark and full of pain. “Every time I looked at your beautiful face, it hurt.”
“Me too,” I tell him. “Even when I looked at Mandy. I abandoned her too, I guess.”
“You did,” he says. “You have no idea how much she missed you when you went away to college.”
I’d never really thought about Mandy. I was so selfish, so self-centered. All that mattered was escaping, and getting away from the pain and memories. Between the tragedy and Blake’s behavior, I couldn’t get away fast enough.
And when I met Peter in college, he was nothing like my family back home. Nothing about him reminded me of my past. He was a new door, the promise of a new life, a new me.
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly. “I’m sorry I ran away.”
“Don’t be,” he tells me. “I might have run away too if I’d had somewhere to go.”
We fall into silence and watch the kids play. They remind me of Blake and me when we were young. We’d have so much fun just running around, playing silly games and getting dirty.
The person I was then seems so out of reach now. Blake was right – I’ve changed so much.
“I got another email from Peter,” I tell him. I’m not sure why I’m sharing this with him right now. I suppose I am because he’s part of ‘the plan’.
He jerks around. “Really? What did he say?” Blake might try to act aloof but it’s obvious that he cares about my relationship with Peter.
“The usual… he’s sorry and wants to start over. I don’t think he wants anything too serious. He wants casual.”
Blake laughs. “I’m sure that went over well with you. You’re not the no-strings-attached type.”
I snicker. “Well, no, not when it comes to him,” I admit. “We’ve shared seven years. We almost got married for crying out loud. How can he expect us to go back to the beginning?”
“Uh-huh…” Blake says.
“But with someone new…” I say playfully, “I might not mind a little casual sex.”
He cocks a brow in surprise. “Really?!”
“Well, it’s been a while,” I tell him in that same flirty tone.
He smiles. “Has it?”
