Love In Between(77)

“Me too.” The frown was still whispering around my lips.

“I’ll call you.”

“Bye.” I pushed end call on my phone and stared at it for a few moments as I stood in the coffee shop’s parking lot. I knew I should call Kyle but he was not on my list of favorites right now.

He’d been more than a little angry at my spontaneous beach house purchase, especially since I hadn’t consulted him on the deal. Frankly, I hadn’t wanted his help. He had a tendency to bulldoze any negotiation he was part of, and he wasn’t interested in heading south anyway. He worked in Washington, D.C. as an attorney seventy plus hours a week hoping to make a name for himself in the growing firm. That left me alone a lot. I managed a boutique hotel a few blocks from The Smithsonian that I loved, but evenings and weekends alone had me lonely and ready for a change.

The Carolina shore had always been my dream and suddenly I’d woken one morning and had started browsing real estate sites. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but it didn’t take long for me to land on a weathered, multistoried beach cottage outside Wilmington, North Carolina. Despite the fact that I’d gone to Duke University in Durham, I hadn’t had a chance to spend much time at the shore. I was probably drawn to the beach from the Nick Sparks novels I’d devoured throughout college. Regardless, I’d called about the house that same day. The multilevel, shingled beach house with twisting staircases and whitewashed porches spoke to me.

Silas and I drove down there one Saturday while Kyle was at the office. We drove, we saw, I offered asking price, and by the time we were back in Washington it had been approved. Needless to say, Kyle was not as excited as I was. But I’d gotten a degree in hospitality and my intention had always been to own a bed and breakfast or my own boutique hotel someday. It was exactly the change of scenery I’d so desperately needed, and I reassured Kyle it would only be for this one summer. After that I would rent it out, beach rentals were big on the shore.

I was absentmindedly scrolling through my contacts list as I sipped my Frappuccino and thought about my past with Kyle.

I’d moved into the house next to Kyle’s when I was twelve in a upper middle class neighborhood outside Richmond, Virginia. He had been outgoing and friendly, while I was shy and withdrawn, yet somehow we’d become fast friends, then as we’d hit puberty our hormones took over. We’d giggled and held hands and talked about getting married. He’d been my first kiss. When we were a few years older we had made out in the back seat of his car on Saturday nights and had snuck into each other’s bedrooms after dark. Kyle and I had had some rough patches in high school. We’d broken up for a few months, I’d cried when he had held hands with another girl, but it wasn’t long before we were back together. Kyle was my comfort, my home. The world had felt strange and awkward without him; I had felt strange and awkward without him.

Kyle had graduated a year ahead of me and had gone to Duke. He’d gotten a scholarship there and their law school was top notch in the East. The first year he’d been gone had been torture for me. Duke was nearly three hours away from our sheltered little town. He’d come home whenever he could and I had visited often, but I’d still missed him more than I had cared to remember. I’d been lost without him, so it hadn’t a surprise when I had followed him the minute I’d graduated. We’d lived on campus for a few years and then had lived in a small apartment together that was tiny but clean. But the further he’d gotten into his degree, the less I’d seen of him. It had been at that point that a slow shift had begun to take place. Kyle had taken too many classes every semester, had picked up internships and had spent late hours at the library or at his advisor’s office studying and setting the wheels in motion for his future. I’d known it was necessary, but that hadn’t made it any less painful. I’d known a life with him would be worth it in the end and he’d promised the late nights and long hours spent away would be over soon. It had always been, “just let me get through this semester, just 'til I graduate,” and then it’d become “when this internship is over, after my first promotion.”

The long days and late nights still hadn’t ended and things had grown strained. After more than eight years of supporting Kyle while he’d earned his law degree and then had started at a prestigious law firm in D.C., I finally broke. I saw Silas much more than I saw Kyle. I think Kyle resented coming home at midnight and finding Silas and I curled up on the couch together with ice cream watching The Notebook. Kyle would walk in and heave a sigh and then loosen his tie and head for the bedroom. Some nights I followed him in after Silas left, other nights Silas and I would stay together huddled on the couch and finish our movie before I would crawl into bed with Kyle, long after he was asleep. I knew we weren’t in a good place, but he was my entire heart and I still had faith that just one more promotion, just another year at the firm, and his schedule would ease up. We could buy a house and start a family. Maybe live outside the city. I still had the dream for our future that we’d conjured together when we were fifteen and I refused to let go of it.

A part of me felt guilty for making this monumental decision in my life without Kyle, but I’d been suffocating in D.C., so I couldn’t allow myself to have regrets. By the time I’d packed clothes and some essentials for the summer, Kyle was no longer mad. We were past that. It wasn’t our style to shout and scream, but there had been tension. He’d kissed me and said he would visit as soon as he could. I’d nodded with a smile. I even thought these few months might be good for us. Maybe we would come back reconnected. These last few years I’d been the effect to Kyle’s cause, but now I would be doing something that would be mine.