Page 45 of Married to Number 22
That doesn’t leave Luna much time.
“I put it off.” A wince. “I admit I did. I mean, it was crazy and when my dad and brother found out what she was offering they tried to fight it. But the lawyers say it’s ironclad. She’s not forcing me to get married, merely bestowing a gift on me if I do.” She sighs. “It’s a mess—was,isa mess, and I spent too much time dithering about what to do. I mean, at first I was so busy with arrangements and forcing myself to just get up and out of bed that I didn’t even consider it. Then I did, but—of course—I couldn’t getmarried. That would be insane. So, I resolved that I just needed to content myself with helping in other ways—my work at the nonprofit, selling my shares and donating to the proceeds to charity. Plus, I have this place. I have my job. That’s so much more than so many other people.”
“So what changed?”
She pushes off the bed, moves to the stack of boxes shoved into the corner and pulls out a battered blue-floral-printed box. “I found this.” She comes back over, sets the container next to me and opens the lid.
My heart pulses as I recognize my teenage boy handwriting scrawled all over the long notes we used to write each other.
She had a locker at the rink, gave me the combination to her lock.
I’d leave the notes in her left skate.
And she’d put ones for me in the right one.
“God,” I whisper, pulling out one of the intricately folded papers. “I forgot about these.”
“Me too,” she says. “At least until I moved back in here and started to unpack.”
“Unpack?” I tease lightly, glancing around the room filled with boxes, thinking about the row of rooms similarly adorned I walked by earlier.
She narrows her eyes at me. “I’ve been busy.”
I tug at her ponytail, wink, then I dig a little deeper—finding ribbons she won and medals, judge’s scoresheets and a CD burned with music from one of her skating programs.
And I wonder again…why did she stop skating? Why did she push me away so hard when I left for juniors?
We could have kept in touch. She could have kept competing.
Instead, it’s like she slammed the door on that chapter of her life and moved on.
I open my mouth to ask her…
But then I find the photographs.
And, Jesus, we were young. So young and I was clearly obsessed—staring at her like she hung the sun.
During that time I thought she did.
That’s why it hurt so much why she broke up with me.
And why, I suppose, if I’m thinking about it now, I closed the door on that part of my life and deliberately moved forward. If my life was hockey and only hockey, I didn’t have time to think about missing her.
Which worked…terribly at first and then reasonably well as the years went on.
But I always had that itch between my shoulder blades, that hole inside me, that well of loneliness.
Because I didn’t have Luna.
God, I’m an idiot.
I should have stayed in touch with her, should have sought her out anytime in the last decade, should have done so many damned things differently—she wouldn’t have been alone when Grams passed, wouldn’t have dealt with her brother and dad alone, wouldn’t have?—
“Aiden?” she asks quietly and I shove down the turmoil, the regret.
There’s no going back.
But I can go forward, can make sure to not waste any more time.
