Page 3 of Seasons of Love
"You can't let a girl like Maggie get away, that's for sure."
He nodded and left with the biggest smile on his face.
My mind went back to the call from Mike. I once thought we had forever too.
Saying life after my parents died wasn't easy was the understatement of the century, so when I met him, he was the ray of sunshine I craved. If he was a flower, I was a bee drunk on his sweet nectar.
Except I carried secrets I had never been able to share and, in the end, that broke us. Yes, he'd cheated, but when you hide who you really are from the person you love, aren't you as much of a cheater?
We normally didn't get many customers in the shop on Saturday mornings, so I busied myself putting things away in the garage and closing it before heading back to close the shop.
I stole another glance at the old Harley and then pulled out the list of parts I needed to order for it. I reckoned I could have it ready by the end of the summer, when I usually closed the shop for a week to get out on the open road.
The thought alone caused my skin to erupt in excited goosebumps. I'd missed out on the trip last year, when I'd come down with an unexpected flu, so I wanted to make this year count.
I pulled out my phone and blocked the number Mike had called me from. I wasn't interested in living in the past.
The man that had saved my life said to me once, “Slade, son, nothing good comes from looking back. Put the good memories in a safe box and move forward. Only when you're miles away from the past, can you afford to look back inside the box and pick a memory to revisit. Don't do it too early, or you'll be tempted to turn around. Make sure you're far away enough that you can't.”
Those words had carried me from Seattle to Atlanta and then to Chester Falls.
When I'd arrived in the small town six years ago, I thought I'd stepped into a place that wasn't made for people like me. It was too nice, too perfect.
Time showed me that people here were as flawed as anywhere else, and so, a day at a time, I carved out my little spot in the community.
After locking everything up, I went around the building to the outside stairs that lead up to my apartment above the store. I liked that there was a separation. My apartment was my sanctuary. There, I didn't have any secrets. I could open my memory box and bring back the good ones any time I liked.
One scan of my bookshelf reminded me that I'd recently donated some books to Goodwill, so what a perfect day to fill it up with new ones.
Maybe I'd bump into Liam and Maggie at the book fair. Maybe I'd buy her an iced coffee.
Now those were memories I wanted to make.
2
AIDEN
"Aiden, I didn't know you were in town." Ben's smile was as warm as always, but the strain on his arms from carrying a big, heavy box of books was written all over his face.
"Wait, let me help you," I said, taking the box from him. "Where do you want it?"
"Outside, in the square," he said. "You see that gazebo in the middle? That's where we're taking the books."
Bookmarked, Ben's bookstore, was always busy on a Saturday morning, and since the front door had been open when I came in, I didn't even notice the sign was flipped to closed. There was also an unusual number of boxes filled with books by the checkout desk.
"What's going on out there?" I asked.
"It's the Summer Book Fair. We do it every year, but this year is a special one," Ben said, walking past me with another box of books and indicating for me to follow.
"Why is that?"
"It's our twentieth anniversary. My Aunt Jackie started it to offload older books and raise money for town projects."
We crossed the road into the square that always seemed to be the center of the town of Chester Falls.
"That's such an amazing idea," I said.
"Yeah." He put his box down by a few others, and I followed his example. "I still remember the first one she ever organized. It was just a table outside the store with a small sign. The money she raised was enough to pay for catering and some costumes for the school's nativity play. The next year she had more books, and the year after that people asked if they could donate books to raise more money."
