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Chapter 4
I took a deep breath, at the same time wanting and not wanting to admit what
I felt. “Nick—I—no. I can’t. You don’t mean that,
I—I just can’t. There can’t ever be an us.”
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“B—But why? Why not? I love you.”
“You make it sound so simple. Well, it’s not, Nickolas Gene Carter.
Your life is so simple. Thrust your hips, sing about crap you’ve never
felt, and make millions doing it. You could have any girl you want, have
you ever heard of one refusing? Of course not. One flip of the blonde locks,
and poof, you get what you want. There are things you just don’t understand.
And no matter how old you get, you never will. Its not all fairy tale balls
and Prince Charmings.”
Nick was speechless. What did Brooke mean, “there were some things he
just wouldn’t understand?!”
“What do you mean, I wouldn’t understand?! Of course I would. Because
I know you, and I know that I love you. I know I always have, and nothing,
and no one, could ever change that. No matter what you think, I know I do.
And I’d always be here to understand, and to listen. And that stuff
you said about not understanding about love and all that shit we sing about
well, I do. Or at least I thought I did.”
“I—I—I’m—sorry. I am. But it’s not going to
happen.”
With that, I hung up.
I stood staring at the phone. It felt as though I had been burned by it.
But truth was, it wasn’t the phone that had burned me. It was the fear
of being burned again that had.
Nick wouldn’t understand. I had gone through so much in these years,
things that no one should have to go through.
I had faced being an outcast, my hopes and dreams shattered. I had been taunted,
and called horrible names by people that had the father of my baby’s
picture in their locker. I had to face all those faces, day after day, those
pictures burning a memory in my head. Soon all my days became the same,
withdrawal by myself becoming a daily ritual. I had no friends, only faces.
Faces that had once been those of friends now turned enemies, ones that lived
solely to make me miserable, or so it seemed.
I had had nightmares, ones far more horrible than what anyone deserves to
go through. Dark, black eyes were staring out at me, horrible evil words
that stung like fire shooting out of their mouths.
I had once been so cheerful, with a smile always on my face. Those miserable
days took their toll, making my face look gaunt and wasted, my pretty features
no longer visible in a face that had become hard to shield. It shielded me
from those harsh words, evil words, like “slut” and
“whore.”
My baby had that same smile, the one that had so often been on my face…
before. She had Nick’s sparkling blue eyes, and thick blonde locks.
That just kept me going. It reminded to keep working. For her, if not for
me. It was hot burn of my past, which kept me from going too near the fire
again. It can keep you warm, but if you get too close, it can leave a scar
that can never be healed. And that’s what happened to me. I had loved
Nick too deeply—dangerously deeply for someone like me, who had lived
her life on the edge, always stepping back when the fire got too hot. I had
let myself get thrown in too deep.
Maybe I still loved him. Maybe I still needed to roll over, find his warm
body next to me, having to hurry him out before we got caught. Touching his
soft chest, feeling his warm lips on mine, was something that had kept me
going that summer. One where I had been left stranded, where I had no place
to go in life. He had been my secret, one I kept hidden from all, like a
jewel, as if too many people saw it, it would lose it’s glitter.
I absent-mindedly flipped through my mail, visions of blue and black eyes
dancing through my head. I wished that it could be the same as when I was
a child, the way things are for Emily. Everything is crystal clear, wrong
is black and right is white and everything always comes out the way it’s
supposed to be. I ripped open an envelope addressed from my old high school.
I took out all of my rage and frustration on it, ripping the envelope into
tiny shreds and discarding them on the floor, reminded of the way my heart
felt as I stared at the small pieces of paper slowly drifting far apart onto
the floor.
It turned out to be an invitation to my high school reunion. I snorted. As
if I would voluntarily return to that nightmare of evil eyes, taunting and
teasing me with each piercing glance. Pity was a feeling I hated, but yet,
when I went through school, which was the last experience I felt. Not happiness,
not the joy of childhood, but pity. Pity and misery.
The doorbell rung and I hurried to answer it. I opened it, yet there was
no one there. That’s funny, I thought. I could have sworn I heard the
doorbell ring. Just as I was going to close the door, my glance was caught
upon a flash of scarlet red on the ground. As I stooped down to pick it up,
I realized what it was. Long-stemmed red roses.
There was a card, and I had no doubt as to whom it was from. It had to be
Nick, expecting me to crumble in his arms at such a gesture. Well, I wasn’t
going to play into his arms.
I opened the card, and instead of the “I Love You” I expected it
had a short message: “Together forever we’ll be. I promise.”
All those tears I had been trying to keep from flowing came out, silently
slipping down my face. I tasted the salt in my mouth, and it made me remember
that night, that fateful night.
*FLASHBACK*
The sand flew around us, and my hair was whipping around my face. We stood
together, on a secluded beach, with only the stars and the ocean surrounding
us. Nick silently and gently reached over and gently tucked a stray strand
of hair behind my ear. A tear slipped lightly down my cheek and fell to the
dry sand.
Nick took me in his arms, and lay my head softly on his shoulder, still neither
of us breathing a word. I would be leaving tomorrow, and I still felt innocent
at that time, not knowing that I was to become a mother.
I grasped him tightly, as if to never let him go.
“Don’t forget me,” I whispered into his familiar shoulder.
“I love you.”
He tilted my face slightly up to face him, and pulled me in even tighter.
His blue eyes pierced my frightened ones. “Listen to me, Brooke. I could
never forget you. Because I know that if there’s one person I’m
going to spend the rest of my life with, it’s you. Because together
forever we’ll be. I promise you.”
And that night, I lay in his arms, on the sand, breathing in. I watched him
just breathe, his bare chest falling up and down. And I fell asleep in his
arms that night, and saw the sun rise with him in the morning. That day,
at that instant, I had known it wouldn’t be the only sunrise I saw with
him by my side. And that day, I knew we’d be together forever.