Redemption(26)

“You want to do what?” I had to have heard her wrong.

“It’s just lunch.” Annie acted like having a lunch date with her ex-boyfriend wasn’t a big deal. And it wouldn’t be if she weren’t married.

“Do you really believe that?”

“How is it any different than having lunch with you?”

“Well, let’s see. We’ve never seen each other naked. I haven’t ripped your heart out and stomped on it while claiming to love you. Oh, and I have a vagina.” I tapped my lip with my finger and stared at the ceiling while delivering my list of reasons to her.

“But it’s a public place, and I wouldn’t go without Brett saying it was okay.”

“Just playing Devil’s advocate here, would you be okay with his having lunch, without you, with one of his ex-girlfriends?”

She shrugged her left shoulder just slightly and cocked her head as she did it. Her eyes fell to her cup, and her tone was far too perky. “Sure.”

I smacked my hand on the table, my spoon rattled on my coffee cup, and I refused to wipe the smile from my face. “Bull. There is no way you’d be down with Brett hanging with an old hottie. Admit it!”

“Fine. I would hate it. But, but…” She held up her finger. “Hear me out.” A seriousness replaced the humor that had played in her eyes. “I told Brett before we ever got married, I hoped at some point Gray and I could be friends.”

“Yeah, but that was before you said ‘I do.’ It’s just not fair to him, Annie. And you know as well as I do, he won’t tell you no. You’ll just hurt him asking.”

“I need to do it.”

“But why? Why would you risk your marriage for this guy?”

Her face fell, and sadness washed over her pale skin. When tears pooled in her eyes, I knew whatever her response was she felt it at the core of who she was. “So it wasn’t another failure.”

And there it was. My friend needed justification for the time she’d spent with this man.

“If I can resurrect a friendship, then the years I spent loving him weren’t in vain. They meant something, and I didn’t let him down.”

I reached across the tiny table in the little coffee shop where we had become regulars and took Annie’s hands in my own. “You realize, he wasn’t yours to save? Neither was Will. I understand wanting to right the wrongs of the past, but Annie, they brought you where you are. Those relationships weren’t failures because they didn’t turn out the way you expected. They prepared you to receive the gift Brett was going to give you.”

She looked at me like I was speaking in a foreign tongue.

“You had to go through Will and Gray to find Brett. And had they not done the damage they did, what Brett gives you now wouldn’t be as valuable because you would have always had it.”

Annie eyed me with curiosity as she gave me just the slightest hint of a nod. “Is that your story?” Her eyebrows rose half an inch, and she held them there in question.

I let go of her hands and trailed my fingers back across the table as I sat back in my seat. “I think it’s part of all of our stories. People come and go in our lives. I truly believe each serves a purpose from the cashier at the convenience store to the guy you marry. You may see the reason for their introduction in your path, you might not realize it until long after they’ve left, and there are those you’ll never understand but never forget. The fact is they were all intricate parts of who you are designed to be.”

“Do you miss your family?” The question was out of left field, but I also knew Annie was fairly detached from her own, and they lived in town.

“Terribly, but they made their choices, and I made mine.”

“Would you rekindle those relationships if you could?”

“My parents are not the same as an ex-boyfriend, Annie.”

“There’s no one back home you wish you could mend fences with? Not reconcile, but make amends?”

I wanted to tell her everything, give her the details she was searching for. She knew there was more to my history, but she wouldn’t pry because she wouldn’t want me to. “Of course, but Annie, if I were lucky enough to be married to a man who believed I brought him life, there’s no way I’d go backward.”

She hadn’t made up her mind. Annie was teetering on the edge of this decision, and I hoped she didn’t fall over. This would be devastating to Brett. I wasn’t going to badger her about it, or even condemn her if she followed through, but I prayed she appreciated her present and left her past alone.

We chatted for another hour or so before we broke off, her to Brett and me to my house. I hadn’t heard from Dan all day, which meant it hadn’t been a good one for him. The only time he went silent was when the shit hit the fan at work. I didn’t want to drive all the way home only to have him call minutes after I got there and want me to come back to his house, so I tried his cell in the parking lot.

“Hey, Penny. I was just about to call you.”

“Hey.”

“What are you up to?”

“I just left Java Bistro. I’m sitting in the parking lot but didn’t want to drive home if you were getting off soon.”

“Meet me at my house. If you get there before I do, there’s a key behind the light to the right of the door. You’ll feel it even if you can’t see it.” He paused for a moment. “I just need to get you a key. Anyway, I’m leaving here in a couple minutes.”