There had to be a way to make this right.
I’d been up early to meet the construction crew and worked with them most of the day, but I still couldn’t stop thinking about her. I jumped on my bike and hit the trails in the timber surrounding the cabin the second we were done working for the day. If I was going to clear my head, the best place to do it was on two wheels.
If I wanted Nora Bennett to give me a second chance I was going to have to make it happen. She was as stubborn as the day is long and unless she was pushed, she was never going to back down from thinking that her pretend-it-never-happened way of thinking was wrong. She couldn’t pretend that what we had was nothing any more than I could.
When I just couldn’t ride any more, I pulled out my phone. What were the odds that she still had the same phone number? It started to ring as soon as I pressed send and my stomach bottomed out as if I’d just jumped my bike over a hill. The sun was starting to sink down for the night and I was trying to think of something to say if she actually answered. It was pathetic. I knew it, but sitting around and wishing I could talk to her would have driven me even crazier. It was Saturday night and while I should have been gearing up to go out with my friends, like a normal, single, twenty-something, I was sitting on my bike trying to decide what I was going to say to a girl who had told me she didn’t want to talk to me.
“Hello?” she answered.
“Nora?”
“Yes. Who is this?”
“Really? You deleted my number from your phone?”
“Reid?” She sighed. Of course she’d deleted it. She’d been pretending I didn’t exist. “What do you want?” The agitation in her tone was clear.
“Just to talk.”
“We don’t have anything to talk about.”
“I can think of a few things.” I paused. “Maybe we start with why you’re dating Beau Gregurich.”
“I told you last night it’s none of your business.”
“Well, I want it to be my business. He’s a jerk and you know it. Always has been, always will be.”
“The only jerk is you. You can’t just call me up and expect me to share the last seven years of my life with you. You left.”
“Yeah, but I’m back. Whatever happened between us back then, I want to fix it. I want—”
“I don’t.”
“Too bad.” I told her. It might have been a little pushy, but I knew by the way she looked at me last night that there was unfinished business between us. I also knew the way to get through to Nora Bennett was not to *foot around. She was strong willed to the core and didn’t do well being treated with kid gloves. When she didn’t immediately try and reason her way out of it or hang up on me, I continued. “Just talk to me. Please.”
“About what? There really is nothing for us to talk about. We’re different people now.”
“I’m not.”
“I am and there are things that I just cannot talk to you about.”
“You can tell me anything,” I argued, my curiosity had been piqued. We’d never kept anything from each other. Or at least that’s how it used to be.
“Please don’t call me again.”
“Nora, wait.” I said, trying one last time to get her to not hang up, but it was too late. I was talking to myself.
*