Getting up at 5:30 to go and do something I hate is my definition of torture, and the hour and a half private session with Madame Eileen just about breaks me. It's just after 7:30 when I get home and I smile as I think about spending time with Chase later. I'd be lying if I said I'm not at least a little bit nervous about being alone with him. That is a strange feeling to have toward Chase because we'd been alone a lot as kids, and it had never crossed my mind to be nervous about it. He'd certainly never given me reason to be. As I think back to the bonfire last night, I had been so sure that he was going to kiss me while we'd been sitting in the bed of the truck. Until the guys had all coming piling in, anyway. Now I have no idea and my mind is messing with me, telling me that I had just been fantasizing about kissing him too much lately.
I take a long, hot shower and throw on a pair of sweat pants and a tank top for the time being. Something has been nagging at the back of my mind since yesterday afternoon and I need to find out where Mom is. Her car had been in the driveway, so she must be around. I head down to the kitchen and fix myself a bowl of cereal but she isn't there and I know she hadn't been upstairs either. I figure she must have gone for a walk down the road as she often does when she doesn't have to be in to work real early. I finish my cereal quickly and hurry back upstairs. I should probably wait until she is gone for work but this thought is eating me up inside and I have to know if it has merit.
I walk into her bedroom and peer out the front window. I don't see her on either side of the road so I figure I have a few minutes as least. I start pulling open her dresser drawers and rummaging beneath her clothes. I rush over to the closet and pull the doors open. I step on the step stool to examine the boxes that sit on the shelf at the top. I've never snooped in her room before and my heart is racing, afraid of what I might find. I don't find anything in the closet, so I get down on my hands and knees and peer beneath her bed. There are a couple of plastic bins filled with shoes, and three shoeboxes as well. The first two shoeboxes each contain a pair of boots, but the third is much lighter. I pull it out and my heart sinks when I remove the lid. There are a bunch of envelopes inside and my hand is shaking as I pull one up to look at the front.
I gasp as I read my name and address on the front in Chase's familiar handwriting. I pull out a few more envelopes that look exactly the same and tears start to pour down my cheeks. My mother had gone all 'The Notebook' on me! I had been so upset when the mom in that movie had kept the letters from her daughter, and now my own damn mother has done it to me!
It had been bothering me since Chase told me about the letters yesterday and it made no sense that they would
all
just disappear. I've had this nagging feeling that this might be what I would find, but I had hoped to be wrong.
“Haylee, what are you doing?” My mother's voice startles the hell out of my already wildly beating heart. I hadn't even heard her come in the house. She glances down to where I sit on the floor beside her bed holding the open shoebox.
“Why, Mom?!” I hiss, as I look up at her through my tears. I hold one of the envelopes up for her to see. “Why did you do this to me?!”
She sinks down to her knees in front of me and tears begin to pool in her eyes as well. “I didn't mean to hurt you, Haylee,” she starts, her voice barely more than a whisper.
“Well, you did!” I shout. I usually try to walk on eggshells around her, but I am so mad, so hurt, that I can't hold back right now. “Why?!?”
She sighs heavily. “When the first letter arrived, you were such a wreck that I just couldn't bring myself to give it to you and watch you fall apart all over again. I should never have done it, but once I kept the first one, I just started keeping the next few as well. I just wanted to wait until you were dealing with his being gone better before I gave them to you. Then your dad. . .” her voice breaks and she swallows audibly. “After losing your dad as well and seeing how much it affected you, I just couldn't bring myself to tell you about the letters and eventually I just forgot about them. I was trying to protect you, Haylee, not hurt you.”
“Well, you did hurt me! All this time I thought he had lied to me when he'd told me that he would write. I was
so
mad at him! How do you think he felt when I never wrote back to his letters? He thought I had written him off for leaving and you know that wasn't the case!” I stand up now with the shoebox in my hand and look down at her on the floor. “You had no right to keep these from me!”
“I'm so sorry, Haylee. You'll never know how very sorry I am,” she whispers and I storm out of her room and down the hall to my own room, slamming the door behind me. I collapse onto my bed and sob into my pillow. I feel so betrayed. She's my mother. The one person who is supposed to look out for me no matter what, and to find out that she has kept something so important from me for so long, it's inconceivable.
I'm not sure how long I lay there crying, but eventually I run out of tears and sit up to wipe the salty trails from my cheeks. I put the shoebox next to me and pull out the first envelope. It's unopened, so at least Mom hadn't read them. My hands are still shaking as they pull the papers out and unfold them. Just as Chase had said yesterday, there is a page for Griff and Brynn and two pages for me. My heart swells as I started to read his words from four years ago.
Dear Haylee,
I feel terrible about the way we left. It was so sudden. I honestly had no idea until my folks sprung it on me that day.
The house they bought out here is beautiful but nothing inside it feels warm or real. It's not home to me and I don't know if it ever will be. I've been unpacking slowly all week because I don't really know what to do when I finish. I can't just walk over and hang out with you, Brynn, and Griff anymore. I haven't even seen the people in our neighborhood here outside their houses yet. I guess if their houses look like ours, they probably don't want to leave it!
There is something that I'd been meaning to tell you before I left, and I obviously never got the chance. I don't want what I say to change our friendship or make things weird between us, and that's pretty much why I never said anything to you before. I sort of figured I had plenty of time but it turns out that I didn't.
You've always been my best friend, Hayles, but I think you're more than that now. I'm pretty sure I'm in love with you and it ripped my heart out to move across the country from you. Please don't feel obligated to say anything back to me if you don't feel the same. I just needed you to know . . . I can't even say for sure when I noticed a change but it's been there for a while now. You're so beautiful, Haylee, inside and out, I don't know how I could
not
fall in love with you. You've always been there for me, and now I just have to hope that Griff and Brynn will be there for you the way that I wish I could be.
Take care of yourself and drop me a line when you're not out rescuing the animals.
P.S.- Colt made the trip just fine - he's my only friend out here now. Thanks to you!
All my love,
Chase
I put my hand over my mouth as tears start streaming down my cheeks again. So much for not having any left to cry. I glance back over the letter.
Holy shit! Chase had been in love with me too? I want to hate my mom for what she's done. For four years now, I had bottled up my feelings for Chase and I had always assumed that it was one-sided on my part. If only I'd known. . .what would I have done? What
could
I have done? Well, I know I would have written back to him for sure. Would I have been brave enough to tell him that I loved him too? I think so. But would it have made any difference when we lived on opposite sides of the country? I have to stop questioning the past because, like Griff always said, we can't go back. I have a chance to move forward now though.
I chuckle at his P.S. Colt is a pitbull mix who we'd found along the road one night. We'd taken him right to Griff's house to see his dad because the poor thing had been shot in the neck. Thanks to Dr. Michaels the dog survived and we named him Colt after a type of gun since it seemed to fit him. Chase had taken him in after that.
I guess the question now is whether I am brave enough to tell him face to face? I never thought I'd have the chance to do this and now I do. Is he still in love with me or had that just been how he'd felt back then. Things could have changed between now and then; California girls could have squeezed me right out of contention. I glance over at my clock. I have two hours yet until Chase will be here. I get myself cleaned up again and text him to ask what the heck I need to wear since I don't know what we are doing. He texts back right away:
Bikini, shorts, shirt, sneakers, + that beautiful smile
Well, he has me smiling now! My mind is busy trying to figure out what we might be doing. Boarding since we both loved it? Not in sneakers. Water park, maybe? As I look around my room, I realize it is still a disaster from last night and I can't even find a bathing suit. I quickly start picking up clothes and shoes and putting them away. I had brought up the basket with my clean laundry in it this morning, so I go through that as well. I choose a red bikini that I don't wear while boarding because it tends to lead to wardrobe malfunctions. Hopefully that won't be a problem with whatever it is we would be doing today.
Would he be taking me out today if he is no longer in love with me? Of course he would. He's Chase, always thoughtful, and he's my friend. That much is still apparent. I can't read too much into today until I know for sure.
I hear Mom's car start and back out of the driveway, and I'm relieved. I grab the box of Chase's letters and tuck it into the back of my closet behind some shoes just in case. I have some more reading to do eventually. I keep the first letter out that I'd read and stick it into my backpack along with a hoodie, in case I get cold doing God knows what. I pull on a pair of tattered denim shorts that barely cover my bikini bottom and a white tank top that I'd gotten at the same time as my newest Hyperlite wakeboard, so it has a boarder on the front. I pull all of my hair up into a high ponytail and put on a little makeup.
I hear a knock on the front door and glance over at my clock. 11:50. “It's me, Hayles,” I hear Chase call out. He's early, but I'm grinning like a fool.
“Come on in. I'm upstairs,” I call back and feel my stomach knot up as I remember his letter. He still doesn't know I've found them. I hear his footsteps creaking up the stairs and then I turn to find him standing in my doorway. I smile as I realize he takes up more of the doorway than he used to. “You can come in.” As he steps inside, I see him looking all around. I haven't changed much of anything in here since he'd left, so it probably looks just about the same as he remembers.
“I'm a little early, so if you still need some time, I can head back downstairs,” he offers and slides his hands into the front pockets of his black cargo shorts. He's wearing a blue and white Liquid Force t-shirt that I swear makes his blue eyes seem to glow and reach right inside of my heart. He has his signature Hurley hat on backwards, but a few strands of his dark hair poke out and curl up beneath the rim. I want to run over to him and wrap my arms around him, but that would probably seem strange, since he doesn't know I've read his first letter or that I am in love with him too.
“Well, since somebody wouldn't tell me where we going, I guess this is as good as it gets,” I shrug with a smile.
“You're beautiful, Hayles. Always have been. Always will be,” he replies with a rather intense expression. I feel his words reverberate all the way through my body. Is that just my
friend
Chase saying that? He holds his hand out to me again, and I grab my backpack as I give him my hand. We head out to his truck and he opens the passenger's door for me. I feel my cheeks flush as I walk around him to climb inside. Do friends hold car doors open for each other? I suppose they do. . . this is confusing.
He climbs into the driver's seat and I am hit with the scent of him. Clean like soap with a hint of cologne and just . . .Chase. In close quarters. Messing with my sanity. “Where'd you say we were going again?”
He flashes a devilish grin at me and I'm overwhelmed by the way he makes me feel. “I didn't,” he replies and throws the truck in reverse, loving that I am clueless about his plans.
We drive down the lake road and then out of town. I can't help but sneak a peak over at Chase while he drives. He's so incredibly handsome and right now he seems so much like the boy I used to know. He's smiling slightly as he drives and it just feels so right to be with him like this. As he drives onto the highway, I watch his hands and arms work and admire the raw strength and beauty of the male form sitting beside me. I'm not even paying any attention to where we are going, which is pretty ridiculous considering it's a surprise, but I just can't pull my eyes away from him.
“Have you figured it out yet?” he grins as he glances over at me, catching me watching him. I shoot a quick look out the window then, to at least make it seem like I care where we are. We could have just been going for a ride in the truck and that would have been fine with me!
“Should I have figured it out? 'Cause I honestly have no clue,” I ask him. We are driving along the highway that leads south out of Wake Forest, but that doesn't give me any idea where we might be going.
“No, I'm just checking. You seem pretty deep in thought,” he smirks at me before returning his attention to the road. It's as if he knows that I've been lusting after him instead of trying to figure out where we are going. It can't be helped.