“I can’t see you anymore,” she blurted out. No buildup, no warning, just a punch delivered right to the solar plexus. For a moment he couldn’t breathe.
“My mom is serious this time,” she said. “If I keep seeing you, she’s going to send me away to a Catholic boarding school.”
“She can’t do that,” he replied with hurt in his voice. “She doesn’t run your life.”
“Tell that to her,” said Brianna sorrowfully.
“Screw it, let’s run away.”
“I can’t.” Brianna pulled her hand free from his grasp. “I’m going to be a junior. I’m not running off to get married.”
“Who said anything about marriage?” he said, sending her an endearing smile.
She socked him in the arm.
“This is serious,” she said. “I can’t be with you anymore.”
It was as if she took her hand and drove it straight through his chest.
“We’re not breaking up,” he insisted. He grabbed hold of her arm, squeezing it hard enough for her to wince. He worried his grip might have left a bruise, but he was thinking of the summer, the beach, Brianna in a bikini, all the talking, cuddling, touching, and more that they’d do. He couldn’t live without her, that’s what he was telling himself.
“I’m sick about it,” Brianna said as tears flooded her eyes. “But my mom is insisting. If she even knew I was here seeing you, she’d kill me. But I had to come. Tonight was my only chance to tell you in person. It’s got to be over between us.”
She bit her bottom lip trying to hold back the tears, but still, they streaked down her face.
“I love you,” he said, holding her hands as he gazed deeply into her eyes. The hurt tore through him. He thought he might get sick. In his mind he could feel her body against his, in his bedroom, after having sex—such incredible sex, he’d never had that overwhelming feeling before, and he knew with certainty that he’d never feel this way about another person again.
“Please,” he said, pulling her against his chest. He was tearing up as well, but didn’t care that his emotions were spilling out. It didn’t matter to him that all eyes were on them, watching their every move. They were clearly making a scene. “I can’t be without you.”
Before Brianna could answer, an angry and all-too-familiar voice called out in the distance.
“Brianna? Brianna? There you are.”
Brianna went pale. She turned in the direction of the voice, looking panic-stricken.
“It’s my mother.”
A moment later an imposing woman stepped into the floodlights from the darkness beyond the patio. She glared at Brianna with eyes ablaze.
“I thought you were here.”
Brianna hung her head, saying nothing.
“Let’s go,” her mother said, taking Brianna by the arm, pulling her away.
Before she could depart, he reached out a hand, seizing hold of Brianna’s other arm, pulling her in the opposite direction toward him like she was the rope in a tug-of-war. Brianna wrung herself free from his grasp.
“Don’t make it worse,” she implored. Turning to her mother she said, “How’d you find me?”
“Audrey overheard you talking to your friends about this party, and her guilty conscience finally got the better of her. You could learn a thing or two from your sister about honesty. We’ll talk more when we get home.”
“She doesn’t have to go with you,” he said.
Brianna’s mother approached, radiating enough anger to throw off heat.
“Don’t you dare tell me what to do, young man,” she scolded him. “Brianna told me that you two had broken up months ago. I guess that’s just more of her lies. I’ve said from the start that she is way too young to be dating. And if she’s ever going to date again it will be someone from church, not someone like you with shallow morals and a predatory nature.
“Now let’s go, young lady.”
He watched, enraged, as Helen dragged Brianna away. He ran after them, but Toby, who had fifty extra pounds on him, locked him in a bear hug.
“Let it be,” he said.
When she was gone he smashed a beer bottle on the patio. Glass shards scattered in all directions.
“It’s not ending this way,” he seethed to Toby. “I won’t let her leave me like this.”
Months later, Toby would recount that conversation for the jury while on the witness stand.
* * *
The memory sat in Michael’s throat. He toweled off, still thinking about that party, of Brianna, but soon found himself reminiscing about another party—this one from the night he met Natalie. He hadn’t thought of that night in quite some time, but memories can be like an avalanche, one triggering another.
In his mind, he was back in his friend Morgan’s crowded apartment. He was at the tail end of his mid-twenties, living in Boston of all places (odd, given his prior love for the Yankees and New York sports teams in general), figuring out life, working his first job in finance. In she came, and it was like Brianna all over, a light surrounding her like a glow around the moon. She was different, special, he could tell with just one look.
He and Morgan worked together, so he knew most of the people at the party. They were part of a party circuit, with the same people, same drinks, different locations. This particular woman had never come to any of those parties before; he would have remembered her. He was curious now, all these years later, how Natalie came to be at Morgan’s that night, setting his life on a different path.
He dried off, put on clothes, got ready for the day, whatever the day would bring, still trying to recall why she was there. Who brought her? She’d come with someone who knew Morgan, but he couldn’t remember who it was. His vague memory slowly formed a picture of a blond woman at Natalie’s side, cute as well, but they were young and everyone was cute back then.
He tried to recall if Natalie had mentioned this person’s name on their walk around the block that night, or what they even talked about. It was no use. He remembered their first conversation had been a good one. Same as with Brianna, they didn’t stay in the shallow end of the pool for long.
Michael wouldn’t have given that night much thought if he hadn’t been obsessed with finding his wife. Every name mattered now. Even though it was early, he decided to text Morgan. He and Morgan weren’t particularly close anymore, but she was still in his contacts, and he was on her Christmas card list.
After apologizing for maybe waking her, he asked if she remembered how Natalie had ended up at her party on the night they met. He told her it might be important, but that he’d explain later. As it turned out, Morgan didn’t have to think long to give him a name.
Kate Hildonen, she wrote back.