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She’s shaking her head so hard her raven-colored hair whips back and forth around her face and shoulders. “I should never have agreed to this.” With quick steps and fists balling at her sides, she begins to walk down the path toward the car.
I follow, taking her wrist in my hand and spinning her around. She loses her balance and I pull her to my chest to keep her on her feet.
“Let me go.” Her eyes are full of fire and brimstone.
“I can’t.” The painfully honest words scrape past my throat.
“You have to.” Her voice is a whisper lost to the breeze. She pulls away and I let her go. Without hesitation, she turns and strides off down the path, every step another wedge between us.
“Wait!” I don’t know why I call out.
I don’t know why she turns around, no doubt against her better judgment.
I glance at our uneaten lunch, my heart hammering as I glance at her.
She thrusts her arms out to the sides. “What do you want, Fredrick?”
“You.”
Her face twists. “You’re engaged to someone else!”
Part of me is glad she’s so hung up on that detail, even though I know it’s likely because that’s her reason for rejecting me now.
“Damn it, Lila, it's not like that. There’s more to all of this.” I gesture to the world around us as my frustration boils over. The truth lingers on the tip of my tongue, but I refuse to give away that information. Not yet.
“Then what is it like?” Her words are a challenge as her arms cross once more as if barricading my words from her being.
“It’s complicated,” I say, knowing the words sound like a cop out.
She lets out a frustrated sigh, scanning the trees around us before glancing at me again. “Life's complicated for everyone, Fredrick. That's no excuse for...” She doesn't seem to know how to describe what’s happening so she gestures between us instead.
I don’t know what to say. She has me dead to rights. I’m behaving like an ass - and I know I am - but I’m not ready to come clean.
She searches my face as if looking for the boy she once knew.
But I still don’t know what to say. “Please just sit and share one last meal with me,” I say. “I don’t like how we left things.”
Her expression softens and she takes a step toward me.
Chapter Six
Lila
I sit across from Fredrick on the picnic table, avoiding his gaze.
The fact that he remembers my favorite way to have my sandwich and my deep love of iced tea takes me back to long days and exciting nights spent with him as friends.
Behind him, the lake seems almost not to exist, the water is so clear. As the past, present, and future blur together, I wonder if past me would ever have imagined this outcome. I wonder if present me can handle the weird push and pull of his attention and the knowledge that he’s engaged to someone else. Future me must be looking back at me, offering strength, because I don’t know how I’m managing to get through this.
“You’re very quiet,” he says, his gaze locked on me.
“We have a lot of memories here.” The words sound wistful and almost sad as they cross my lips. It doesn't matter what he says. I have to remind myself that I'm only here so he can soothe his guilt about the way he left things between us. If he wants that clean slate before his vows, fine, but after today, I'm not going to talk to him ever again. I can’t handle the heartbreak and pain.
He nods his head in response. “Remember when we swam here?” he asks.
Of course, he would remember that. The memory has my skin prickling and my cheeks stinging. We’d skinny dipped here; Fredrick was the first man I’d ever seen naked. And the thought still lingers in my mind, no matter how hard I try to banish it. “Of course, I do.”
All embarrassment aside, those were some of my best memories from my teenage years.
