Thunder crashed as I watched the car pull away. I retraced my steps back into the bakery, locking the door behind me, and turning off the light in the seating area. I couldn’t shake the fear in Georgia’s eyes as she talked about Rae ... and love. Georgia was afraid to love. I was afraid that I’d never love again.
Had been afraid, until that blinding swirl of exclamation points and question marks masquerading as Georgia Hall barged into my life. Or did I barge into hers? How the hell did we get here? Kissing in her kitchen, promising more kisses, then doing nothing about it?
I didn’t know what all her fears were, though she was clearly afraid of them, as odd as it sounds. But she wasn’t a girl who could be pushed.
As I entered my apartment and pulled out my violin and composition notebook, I took a deep breath and reasoned that to love Georgia was to be patient. Let her come to me.
I was loving her.
As I drew my pencil across the lines of the notebook, sculpting the last goodbye to Rae, I didn’t feel apologetic about that. Loving. Rae would want me to love again. Hell, love would want me to love again.
I was falling slowly.
And I didn’t want there to be a bottom, because what greater feeling in the world is there than to actually be falling into love?
Georgia
My windshield wipers whipped too quickly back and forth across the glass as I sped down the highway. The thumping of the rubber took me out of my head, making me listen to something other than my excruciating heart.
I was running away.
Regan loved Rae, she loved him, then every worst thing in the world happened and he showed up at my doorstep. I invited him there, yes, I’m aware of that minute fucking detail, but there he was. War-torn? No. Faithful. A disciple of all things pure.
I’d been afraid that maybe if he was kissing me it was a rebound thing, but Rae had passed away almost a year ago—9 months, I think—and Regan didn’t even like me when we first met. At least it hadn’t seemed that way.
I slipped. I knew better. I shouldn’t have ever rented him that apartment, but since there was nothing I could do about that by the time I realized what was happening, I should have kept him at a firm arm’s length. Instead I’d had my arms around him exactly one too many times.
I couldn’t tell him I didn’t want his help anymore with the bakery. He seemed so happy when he was in the kitchen, and it was a constant reminder of why I loved being there in the first place. And, opening the bakery was something I was genuine in wanting. He was the only person who would let me go at my pace.
Then there was that fucking letter.
I shouldn’t have read it. I wish he hadn’t shown me. I knew all of it, but to see it outside of the folklore of Rae: former girlfriend was overwhelming. It wasn’t her words or her character that so cheerfully bubbled through the ink that got to me. It was that she so certainly laid everything bare for him. I know they never said those words together, but reading her note and hearing stories from him, I knew they were a real couple. The kind that talked about things and then worked through them.
That was nothing I could ever live up to, even if I wanted to. I wanted to, but didn’t want to want to.
I pulled into my mother’s driveway right when my mind started somersaulting down a hill. The rain hadn’t been this heavy in as long as I can remember, and I knocked louder than necessary just to be able to hear the sound.
My mom came to the door looking better than she had in days. Her recovery time between shock treatments was getting better, easier to manage. She was looking more like herself than I’d seen her in years, which was good since I was a total mess and needed her like I hadn’t needed her in just as long.
“What’s wrong?” she shrieked and pulled me in out of the rain.
The door shut behind me as I buried my face into her shoulder.
“I’m in big trouble, Mom.”
In that moment I was thankful for gravity, because there was nothing else holding me to the Earth as every piece of strength I thought I had seeped from my eyes and onto my mother’s freshly pressed blouse.
“That’s quite a story.” My mom brought me a fresh cup of hot chocolate as I finished telling her the Regan and Rae love story, and the Regan and Georgia tragedy in the making.
I looked into the swirling mini marshmallows, my eyes swollen with tears.
“What are you afraid of, Georgia?”
“Hurting him,” I answered before I could craft something witty.
“I don’t understand. From what you’ve told me, you two have an easy relationship. You’re friends, you each have your own interests but are interested in each other’s, respectively. What’s the holdup?”
I took a deep breath; it tripped over lingering tears, but satisfied me just the same. “The women in our family don’t really get happy endings, Mom. Grampa killed himself and with him, took Gram’s chance at one, and you...”
“You don’t think I’ll get a happy ending?” Her eyes pinched at the edges, clearly hurt.
“I meant you and dad. He was a drunk and then you had...”