Page 101 of This Kind of Forever
Pops smooth-talks the activities director into letting me join in on the fun. She has an extra easel and canvas, so she agrees on the condition I help her clean up afterward. I readily accept.
As I begin setting brush to canvas, the tension in my shoulders slowly lessens. It doesn’t disappear entirely, but it’s a start. Pops definitely knew what he was doing by convincing me to stay. Art has always been therapeutic for me. He was the oneto give me that tool, back when I was a quiet little girl with the weight of the world on her shoulders.
“Do you have anything else on your mind?” Pops asks gently. “Or was it only your mother?”
I thought I could get away without crying, but my eyes fill with tears at his question. I take a deep, fortifying breath. “I have to tell you something, and you’re probably going to be disappointed in me when you hear it.”
Pops places a hand over mine. “I may not always agree with your actions, Hallie, but I will never be disappointed inyou. You’ve made me the proudest a grandpa possibly could be, I reckon.”
His words cut me somewhere deep, and I feel even worse for what I’m about to reveal. I should have never lied. Never asked Gabe to help me.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but…my father reached out a couple months ago. I decided to meet him. When we were at Dockside, there was this whole thing about me being engaged to Gabe. It was a rumour, of course, but I…let my father believe it. I’ve been pretending Gabe is my fiancé.”
Pops sets his paintbrush down, his attention fully on me. “Why did you do that?” His tone holds no judgment, only simple curiosity.
I shrug, looking down at my hands. There are tiny flecks of blue paint on my skin. “Because I’m twenty-eight years old and I don’t know what I’m doing with my life. But the prospect of being engaged to Gabe made me feel like I had at least something figured out.”
“You wanted to impress him,” he says.
My cheeks heat in embarrassment. “Looking back, it was incredibly stupid. But things have changed and now I’m stuck, and the only way out is to tell the truth.”
“What was your original plan?” he asks.
I grimace. “I was going to fake a breakup with Gabe and pretend we decided we’d be better off as friends. Except now I can’t do that because…”
“Because?”
“Because I accidentally fell in love with him. Again.”
Gabe has always had my heart, but, like I knew he would, this version of him won me over all the same.
My grandfather’s laugh is hearty, filling the room. “Junebug, that just means you did it right.”
I cover my face with my hands, no doubt getting paint in my hair. “I didn’t stand a chance.”
“I always thought that boy took a special liking to you.”
I look up at Pops again. “He told me he loved me when we were eighteen. I didn’t take it well. That’s why I left for school earlier than planned. Then moving to his guesthouse, then into the main house, it was impossible to stop my old feelings from surfacing again.”
“So are you together, then?” Pops asks. Again, without any judgment, even though he really should be judging me for keeping all of this to myself for so long.
“We are, but…” I frown. “I asked him to keep us a secret from his family. It’s hurting him—I know it is—but I can’t seem to let go of what’s holding me back. I want to, but…I’m scared.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“That his family is going to think I’m not good enough for him. That I’ll do something to mess it up and he’ll hate me. That I’ll hurt him beyond repair. The list goes on.”
Pops is quiet for a moment, thinking over his words. “You just said that keeping your relationship from his family is hurting him. Do you think that, perhaps, your present reality should be more important than your fears regarding hypothetical future situations that may not even come true?”
The world seems to tilt on its axis. When he puts it like that…IknowPops is right.
“I get so caught up in my head sometimes, I forget about what’s right in front of me,” I admit.
He pats my hand. “Nothing in life is perfect, Hallie. If you are in this with Gabe,trulyin this, there are going to be moments where you disagree. Where you stumble. Yes, that might hurt a little. That’s the nature of loving someone. But if you prioritize the care you have for one another, I believe there is nothing that can’t be overcome.”
His words put me at ease. Pops has always been a steady presence in my life, and he has never once lied to me. If he thinks I can do this, then…I can.I will.
“How do we even go about telling people?” I ask. “Just thinking about it makes my stomach tie itself into knots.”
