Page 62 of Make it Real
I could have avoided her gentle question. Could have moved on or brushed it aside. I never talked about this with anyone but my family…and yet, I couldn’tnottalk about it with Callie.
“By the time they found her cancer, it was already too late. I’d been deployed overseas, and I couldn’t get leave until after. I wasn’t here for her.” I hated to admit I’d failed her that way. I’d been virtually unreachable while she slipped out of this world. “All I could think about was how many years I’d been gone, how much time I could have had with her if I’d just stuck around. I’d thought I had years and years to spend with her, and suddenly, there was nothing left.”
Her arms tightened around me, her hands offering gentle caresses in consolation. The guilt had chewed me up hard, regret over strings of choices that had led me to be on the other side of the world when my mother died. I hadn’t re-upped after, and I’d come home, but it was all too little, too late.
“But I had my pop. My brother and sister. Aunts and uncles and cousins. I can see why you and your grandma are so close.”
They must have been close anyway after her dad walked out, but losing her mom? They’d been through fire together.
“We had to lean on each other.”
“Are you sure you want to let her go to Florida?”
Her head moved in an emphatic nod against my chest. “Totally. She wants this, even if she’s being silly about leaving me behind. I know she wants to be with her friends, and I want her to be happy.”
This sweet woman’s huge heart would just give and give all her love away endlessly. I admired it. And sort of feared it. Because me? I’d just take and take.
“You ever think about going with her?”
“And ruin their Golden Girls lifestyle? Never. I’m good here. I love my job, my new friends. Magnolia Ridge is my home.”
A tension inside me I hadn’t recognized before eased, as if I’d needed that reassurance she wouldn’t move away to Florida one day, too.
“Anyway, what would I do without my boyfriend?”
“I expect you’d replace me pretty easily.”
Should have been a joke, but the pang in my heart knew better. I’d pretty well avoided thinking about how I’d have to give her up when all this came to an end, but that image barreled in now, stark and miserable. One way or another, we’d have to wrap this up. Either she’d remember all those reasons I wasn’t a good long-term bet, orI’dremember exactly why I wasn’t meant for forever.
Even if, lately, she made me wish I could be.
“Nah,” she said, rubbing her cheek against my chest. “You’re the only Jed there is. You’re irreplaceable.”
As much as I liked the sentiment, I needed to keep our endgame in mind. As soon as her grandma moved on to Florida, Callie would be free to do what she wanted. We were just temporary.
I’d never minded temporary before. I’d bounced from woman to woman, each so-called relationship shorter than the last, and I’d never been fazed.
This time around, when everything ended, I couldn’t be sure I’d recover.
TWENTY-ONE
callie
Nerves wound through my insides,tying tiny little knots around my organs so every time I moved, I couldn’t tell if I was in pain or about to be sick. I paced around the kitchen, trying to decide if a snack would settle my stomach or upend everything.
This afternoon was not the big deal my brain was making it out to be. Just dinner with Jed’s family. Just his entire family all at once, sitting down to a meal together. With me. Totally normal and fine.
I’d met them all a time or two, not like we were strangers. I’d watched their big family dynamic at a few gatherings now, so I had some idea how things would go. Still…watching from the sidelines wouldn’t be quite the same as sitting down at the table tonight as Jed’s girlfriend.
My stomach squeezed again.
“Oh, Callie, you look so pretty.” Granny walked into the kitchen, interrupting my fourth perusal of every last item in the cupboards. “That dress is a nice touch.”
She’d encouraged me to venture outside my usual shorts-shirt combo pack tonight. It’d seemed appropriate, but now, I couldn’t be sure. I’d chosen a green sleeveless sundress that would hopefully look nice without baking me in the heat, and I’d paired it with my navy Converse to keep it from looking too fancy. I hoped.
“I’m glad things are going so well with you and Jed.”
I tried not to laugh, I really did. She’d said some variation of the same thing several times in the last few days, but I wouldn’t stop her gloating. Especially since I’d found a couple more boxes packed up and sealed. I’d take all the gloating she wanted to dish out if it came with move progress.
