My legs are shaking as we walk across the driveway toward the back of Griff's house. As we go, I fill Griff in about what happened at dance and how I'd been dismissed.
I've waited four years to talk to Chase but I feel completely tongue-tied and confused. He and Griff seem to be right back to being the best buds they were before he left. Griff says that he'd talked to him for quite a while, but I just don't know what Chase could say that would excuse disappearing completely for the last four years. Maybe in my youthful inexperience I'd misread how close we'd really been back then, because I know that I never would've been able to leave and not so much as write to him.
We just start up the steps that lead to the back patio when I look up and find Chase looking back at me just outside the screen door. I must've stopped moving because Griff puts his hand on the back of my arm and nudges me the rest of the way up.
“I'm sorry about earlier, Hayles,” Chase says and his voice floats to my ears like music I hadn't realized I'd been missing. “I didn't mean to startle you like that. I'd actually been on my way to the door when you came out and I just . . . I froze.”
“I'm sorry about taking off like a lunatic,” I say softly, “I just . . . was
not
expecting to see you there, or ever for that matter.” His gaze flicks away from my face briefly at my bluntly honest words.
“Can we talk?” he asks and reaches his hand out to me. “
Please
?” The look on his face and the way he holds his hand out jolts me back in time.
I was about seven and had just started dancing. I was already not a fan, but Mom seemed to
love
it! Some of the girls from my class had been teasing me about being friends with two boys and calling me Dr. Doolittle because I was with the animals all the time. I'd come home, or over to Chase's house, in tears on days like this.
Chase had come by my house early the next morning and told me he had an idea for a prank to get back at the girls. He stood there in the doorway to my house and reached his hand out to me with a huge, crooked grin on his face since I was hesitant.
“Come on.” His face was alight with happiness and mischief, and it was contagious. “Please?” So I put my hand in his and we walked down the wooded path into town. He kept handing me a new piece of gum and asking me to chew it and then give it back to him as we walked. I was pretty grossed out and wondered what on earth he was doing. When we got to the parking lot of the dance studio, he smiled at me and began pulling the already chewed wads of gum off of his forearm where he'd been storing them. I wrinkled my nose at him, but kept watching. He started sticking the little wads of gum all along the walkway leading into the studio. I started chewing more gum and sticking the wads down along with him as he explained that the girls would step in all the gum and then they'd get stuck all over the dance floor. I would know to walk in the grass though and I wouldn't get stuck.
“Where do you come up with this stuff?” I asked him while I was laughing.
“I just have a crazy twisted mind,” he shrugged and watched me place one last wad of gum. I liked that he was looking out for me.
I had never laughed on the inside as hard as I did later that day at practice and especially afterward as I relived it with Chase. Somehow, I had been the only one who had avoided the gum. Girls were whining and crying about all the gum they had stepped in and Madame Eileen had sent us all home so that she could clean up the mess. It had been my and Chase's secret.
I can't bring myself to put my hand in his, but I nod in the direction of the patio table. I don't know if he is still that same kid that always looked out for me, and I can't help but feel scared. Can I still trust this person after four years of absence? He reluctantly pulls his hand back, and when I look over to my right, Griff has disappeared. I know that he is giving us some privacy to talk since he'd already had the opportunity to do that. I know he'll be somewhere close by in case I freak out though. I am so damn lucky to have Griff.
I sit down in one of the six chairs and bring my knees up in front of me. There is a gentle breeze blowing off the lake and it is a beautiful day, but I can't focus on anything but the boy. . . er . . . man beside me. Chase sits down in the chair right next to me and I can feel his eyes on me. I glance up out of the corner of my eye and sure enough, he is watching me.
“I know you probably don't believe me, but I've missed you, Hayles,” he starts, and the intensity in those blue eyes of his is enough to melt my heart. . . a little anyway.
“You have a funny way of showing it,” I say as I wrap my arms around my legs.
“I deserve that,” he says softly. It hurts me that I am hurting him with my words, but then I think about all the pain and unanswered questions of the last four years. Isn't it only fair that he hurts now since I've hurt for so long?
“What are you doing here, Chase?” I don't know if I can handle his answer but I need to know what is going on. Why is he sitting here right now?
I watch as he takes his hat off and sets it down on the table. He rakes his long fingers through his thick brown hair, something I'd seen him do millions of times before. His hair has lighter streaks etched into it from the sun. More than he used to have when he lived here, so I imagine he spends a lot of time outside boarding. His hair is also a little longer than I remember, and when he pulls his hands free from it, soft strands fall across his forehead. I am overwhelmed with the urge to reach up and brush those strands back so that I can see his eyes more clearly. I clasp my hands together to fight the urge.
“The minute we drove out of here, my life changed,” he starts to speak, his eyes locked on mine as my heart hammers against my ribcage. “I had no one when I got to California. At least you guys still had each other. I did nothing for months. I was miserable and my parents weren't even around to notice. Dad worked even when he was home, which wasn't often, and Mom was all about becoming a Stepford wife. Everything was about image for her, attending charity events for this and that. Her own family was last on her list of concerns. I don't even know who they are anymore.”
I think I hear a catch in his voice then, and I try-really try-to imagine things from his perspective as he talks. I can't let him hurt me again, but I can hear him out.
“When school started, I didn't fit in, and that was such a shock from what I'd had here. Me and Griff could have ruled the school here in Wake Forest,” he says with a faint smile, as he holds his hand up in the direction of the high school. It was true too. The two of them had all the guys wanting to be like them and all the girls wanting to date them. They'd never been cocky or egotistical about it though, and that was probably what had drawn people to them even more.
“Californians are so different. People always talk about that and it's the honest to God truth. They're so standoffish and they walk around like they're better than everyone else, but they never take the time to get to know for sure. Everyone is fake and just about everybody is hiding something, whether it's some scandalous family secret or recent plastic surgery. I finally made friends with a guy named Dylan in a bunch of my classes who wakeboarded in the next town over. I went with him to check it out, and it was so different than here at Falls Lake, but at least I had a friend and I was boarding again.” He is looking out at the lake now with a distant expression in his eyes.
“I got noticed at a competition I'd entered with Dylan and the sponsor offered to pay for me to enter another competition, and then another, and another. People in the industry started to recognize me, and things got crazy busy so fast with phone calls and bookings and competitions and such, and I still had to juggle school along with it. So Dylan hooked me up with a friend of his who became my manager,” he chuckles a little even though there is a sad edge to the sound. “Never thought I'd need a
manager
for anything.” He looks back at me then and I realize I'm smiling a little bit as I listen. Doesn't sound all that bad to me so far.
“It was great for a little while, but I was still lonely. I wanted to tell you guys all about it, but so much time had gone by at that point that, well, I figured you guys wouldn't care anymore. You'd have written me off by then. Plus, California life started to suck me in, and not in a good way. I thought about you every single day, and I did stuff that I'm not proud of as a way to cope with the pain of missing you.” It doesn't escape me that he said 'thought about
you
every single day' and I can feel my face scrunch up at his mention of 'things I wasn't proud of.' What the hell does he mean exactly, and why am I sitting here worrying about the guy who left me behind?
“This last year especially my life was a giant vortex of screw ups and I couldn't claw my way back out. I finally hit rock bottom and I guess that's what it took for me to finally realize what I had to do to get back to the way I wanted to live, to the way I wanted to be. I had to come back here and try to make things right.”
What had happened to him that he was calling hitting 'rock bottom'? The thoughts and images of possibilites that are swirling in my mind scare the shit out of me. This is Chase, after all, and although I may be pissed off at him, I still care about him and don't want to think about what he might have been through.
I'm just about to ask him what he means by the term 'rock bottom' when he sighs heavily and shifts his gaze back out to the lake. I get the impression that he needs a moment, and I watch as his chest rises and falls with a heavy inhalation as he works on calming himself down. I've been wrong to assume that things have been easy for him. Unfortunately, we aren't done with the tough stuff yet. There is obviously more to his story. I'm not sure how much more he'll share with me and I need him to understand what I've been through as well. There can be no moving forward until we each stand on even ground as far as understanding the depth of what we've each lost. And even then, who knows if that will be enough?
“So, where's your dad's boat?” Chase asks as he looks out at Griff's dock where Dad had always kept his boat for the summer. My muscles go rigid as he turns back around to look at me. I press my lips together and can't possibly stop the tears that spring immediately from to eyes. He furrows his brow and tilts his head to the side trying to understand my reaction.
Oh God, he doesn't know! I had just assumed that his parents had heard from somewhere or were still in touch with someone in Wake Forest at the time of the accident. It had never occurred to me that Chase still didn't know about my dad. I know that he loved my dad. My hesitation to answer his question and the fact that tears are now pouring down my cheeks must have giving him a clue though, because his blue eyes darken to a steely grey and he starts shaking his head as if he can somehow change the past.
“I can tell it's bad; what is it? What happened?” he demands.
Ugh, he was going to make me say it. “My dad is dead,” I whispered.
“No . . .no, no, no. . .NO!” he gasps, still shaking his head as the painful realization dawns on him.
This kind of pain, the pain that I can see in his eyes and on his face right now, I can understand all to well. I reach my hand out and take his big hand in mine. “He fell asleep at the wheel one night driving home from a meeting at work,” I say softly and sniffle. “He didn't suffer. It was just a freak tragic accident.”
Chase continues to shake his head in denial. I remember that as well. When Mom told me what happened, I yelled at her and told her she was wrong. I'd just seen Dad earlier that afternoon and he was fine. I remember believing that they were wrong, that he couldn't be dead.
“When?” Chase's voice cracks as tears pool in his once-sparkling blue eyes. God, it was like living through those first few moments learning about my dad all over again. I wipe my own tears away with the back of my hand.
“A little over a year after you left,” I whisper the words. I'd never realized before how I had measured time based on when Chase Atwood had left Wake Forest. Is that normal? Is anything I do these days normal?
Using the hand I'm not holding, Chase leans forward on his arm and covers his face. I'm not sure if he is embarrassed about crying in front of me, but if anything, it just softens my feelings toward him. He loved my dad too, and he is grieving for both the loss of my dad, as well as for the last couple of years of not even knowing. The last time I saw Chase cry was the day he told me he was leaving. It's like I'm being transported right back there and my heart is breaking all over again.
“I'm
so
sorry, Haylee,” he says as he lifts his face and looks up at me again.
I nod my understanding, and I can't stop my hands from reaching up and wiping the tears from his cheeks with my thumbs.
“I had no idea or. . . or I would have been here for the service. . . for you.”
I had wondered back then if he would come back. With all that was going on at the time I never stopped to think that maybe he didn't know. It doesn't matter now though. It is in the past, and like Griff always reminds me, we have to keep moving forward.
“And Brynn. . . ?”
I chuckle at that and shake my head. “You wouldn't even know her anymore. She's a completely different person.”
I startle then at the sound of car doors slamming near by. We both wipe our faces again and look over toward the driveway. Great. . . so much for talking this through and getting answers. Griff comes out the side door just as the two guys who arrived are walking up. Griff greets them with their typical guy high fives and man hugs and my heart sinks with the realization that we are done talking for now. It's party time.