Sweet Water(56)

Joshua tips my head back and kisses me so deeply, I nearly black out.

What. Is. Happening?

I let myself disappear into him, because I need to escape more than I need to think.

We’re clinging together beneath the pergola. I break away from him. “You left without saying goodbye.” I’m breathless and confused, but I still need to know. All the torn emotions he left me with led me straight to Martin. I craved Martin’s stability at the time, but now it feels like an insecure cop-out.

He flips his hair out of his eyes. “I hate goodbyes. We were going in two different directions. It was better that way.”

All my resentment washes away in an instant. Josh didn’t leave me without saying goodbye because he didn’t care. He left because he didn’t want to feel the sadness of our departure from each other. I can feel it in his kisses. He never stopped caring for me, his want for me uncontrolled, not planned at all, genuine.

“I’ve missed you,” I say, and I don’t realize how much I actually have until I say the words. It makes me wonder if everything I’ve done up until this point was a way to put a bandage over the wound Joshua left behind, the feeling of abandonment I never wanted to feel again after my mother died. I didn’t have to be perfect for Joshua; I just had to be me. Martin deserves someone who can live up to his standards, wear his enormous diamond with poise, share his political views. I have so many questions for Joshua. If he ever made it to the camps to help all those people shattered by war. If he ever got to chase the Brit-pop thing he idolized as a kid. Has he even gotten to try? I need to know.

“You’ve never been far from my thoughts.” Joshua kisses me again, this time hungrier.

I don’t know if his parents are home, but I let Joshua lay me down on the cement bench this time. I’m sure he would ask me if I’d be more comfortable somewhere else, but our clothes are coming off too fast, my dress already hiked up to my hips. I can’t believe how hot I am with my bare back pressed against the chilled cement bench, urgency replacing any guarded desires I had the last time I was here.

When we’re finished, he says, “I’ve missed you too. I’m just home visiting my parents for the holidays.”

“You’re home for the holidays?”

He nods. And you didn’t call me? My stomach twists. Was I wrong in assuming what we had was special?

We dress quickly, because it’s cold, but I still lean into Josh, absorbing his heat. Crazy thoughts enter my brain as snowflakes swirl all around us. What drew me to Stonehenge? Is it the house or Joshua or a little of both?

“Are you going to leave without saying goodbye this time?” I ask.

He shakes his hair out of his face again. “Probably. I hate goodbyes.”

“Me too. I have to go, though. I’m sorry I’m so out of sorts. Thank you for making my day better.” I get up to leave, shocked by what I’ve just done. It’s snowing, the wintry mist casting an ethereal blanket around the world I created here. My heart is still beating fast, but things that happen here can’t hurt me. I feel invincible in Joshua’s presence.

Alive and free, not trapped by my decisions.

Joshua watches me curiously, and I want him to be thinking about me after I leave.

“Don’t say it,” he says.

“I won’t,” I say.

I won’t say goodbye.

I run back to my car. I can’t explain what just happened, and I decide I don’t have to. No one knows he exists. That pergola is like my Narnia, and now I’m climbing through my closet wardrobe, back to the other side.

Although I actually consider taking off with him. I’m almost done with school, and if he’d wait for me to finish, I’d follow him anywhere if he’d let me. Joshua and I have that special connection my mother and father shared—the one Martin and I lack.

The only problem is, when I try to go back again and knock on Joshua’s door a few days later, he’s already gone—before Christmas. I’m shocked. Sick. But I have my answer.

Joshua was the catalyst to lead me back to my steady arrow and nothing more. He’s not a stayer; he’s an abandoner, a misfit, a real heartbreaker.

Just like Martin said, I lost my head for a bit, got cold feet, but all would be forgiven.

I just wish I could forgive myself for the consequences. Because as much as I like to pretend Stonehenge was a fantasy and Joshua was a ghost, the pain he left behind is very real.





CHAPTER 15

Present

The front doorbell chimes in the tiny music store at the very end of the street. It’s easy to miss tucked in a tiny alcove with a flower basket hanging in front of the gold lettering on the window. I should tell the owner to move it so people can find the place, but really, it just bothers me because I can’t remember if this store has always been here or if it’s one of the few places in town I haven’t discovered yet.

Not that it would matter. Everyone in my household lacks musical ability except for Spencer. He seems to excel at everything he does, but by middle school, football and swimming quickly became a larger priority, and he stopped playing piano altogether. However, he barely needed lessons to learn how to play in the first place. I worried what Martin might think, but Spencer’s musical ability didn’t really cross his radar—Martin was concerned only about his son’s prowess at sports.