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I knocked on the door of the hardware store, attempting to peer through the windows. It was dark inside and the door was locked tight. I knocked louder, just in case she was inside.
“Can we please talk?”
A man on the sidewalk looked up at me and I could tell he was uncomfortable by my behavior. He seemed uncertain if he should intervene in whatever situation he had come across.
“It’s alright,” I said, turning to him. “I’m leaving.”
I walked past the man and slammed back into my car. His eyes were on me as I did a U-turn on the narrow street and took off toward the real estate office.
But she wasn’t there either. Once again I was met with a quiet and locked building.
Darcy ... where are you?
Just as I asked myself the question, I heard a chime from my phone. I rushed to pull it from my pocket and my heart nearly skipped a beat as I saw Darcy’s name flash across it.
No need to explain. I shouldn’t be surprised. Ever since we were teenagers you’ve been doing this. As soon as I get close you pull away. You did it at seventeen and I’m not surprised you’re doing it now. Enjoy your tour.
The finality of these words and the clear judgment against me and my past actions was a sharp pain in my chest. Darcy was angry. That I understood. But her words seemed to imply that I was somehow tricking her or hurting her on purpose. That was painful to me. And worse, she thought this was some pattern of behavior, something I had done in the past. Ever since we were teenagers ...
I thought back to our date all those years ago. What did Darcy mean? I was the one who had been left all those years ago. She disappeared without a word before I had a chance to show her how much she meant to me. A question began to gnaw at me, and I thought about the outdoor amphitheater where we had our first date. A local band we both liked had been playing.
I stood on the sidewalk outside of Darcy and Liz’s real estate office and wondered what to do next. Should I text back? The message was so final. It didn’t feel like we could have a productive conversation if we weren’t face-to-face. That concert kept floating back into my head... if Darcy was thinking about that place, could she have gone there?
Running on pure instinct, I rushed back to my car. I knew it was crazy. It was dumb to think Darcy had gone to the site of our first date. And yet, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was what everything had been leading to. This was the unspoken thing that hung between us after all these years. And it was time to face it.
I rushed to the amphitheater with my heart pounding in my chest. I felt nervous, worried what she would do when she saw me. I feared she had already made up her mind and wouldn’t be willing to talk to me.
The phone rang next to me and I rushed to answer it, only to see it was Liz’s name that popped up on the screen.
“What the hell?” she asked. “You just disappeared.”
“Sorry.” I took a hard right onto a dirt road, feeling my tires bump over the uneven surface. “I texted you, though. Everyone’s fine.”
“Everyone except your niece and nephew! They asked about you the second they got off the stage.”
I realized all at once that I had forgotten about Maggie and Alan who had spent the past week talking about how excited they were for me to see their performance.
“God, Liz, I’m so sorry. Tell them I’ll make it up to them. Do you want to put them on?”
“They’re distracted by the ice cream sundae bar we’ve set up to celebrate the end of camp. But you’ll definitely have some explaining to do when you’re home tonight. What’s going on?”
“Brady showed up.”
“Your manager Brady?”
“Exactly. And he tried to blackmail me into going back on tour early. He said he was going to kick me out of the band and let Liam sing all the songs.”
“Liam?” I was comforted by the shock in Liz’s voice. “He thinks Liam can be the lead singer? He can barely keep rhythm when he’s on backup vocals.”
“Thank you!” I cried out. It was comforting to hear someone else voicing the same opinions I had. For what felt like the hundredth time this summer, I felt grateful to have Liz in my corner.
“So what does this have to do with Darcy?” Liz asked. “Are you leaving?”
“No!” I cried out, but then I had to stop myself. “Well, I sort of told Brady I was. And Darcy overheard me. But I don’t actually want to go!”
“And yet you told him you would?”
Liz was skeptical on the other end of the phone, and I knew she wasn’t wrong. Instead of being an adult and voicing what I wanted, I had let Brady influence me into saying what he wanted to hear.
