Page 5 of It Happened Back Then
“I’ve been legal for years.” She flashes her brilliant smile that charms everyone she meets. Meadow is fun, wild, and a shameless flirt. She loves the chase, and I’ve always been a bit envious that she’s so confident in herself.
I’m missing our older sister, January, tonight. She’s still in New York, and I never thought we’d be celebrating birthdays apart. In one way it hurts so much that she left us too, but I’m also proud of her for doing something forher. My mind wanders to Bennett, like always. And even a year later, I’m still wondering if I made the right decision by not going with him to Seattle.
Or at least telling him why I couldn’t go.
“I wish January was here. Do you want to call her?”
Meadow shakes her head. “I spoke with her earlier. She was going to a club with that guy Sean. She said she’d do a shot for me.”
I nod. I don’t know Sean, but my brother, Lief, doesn’t like him. And if I know anything about Lief, he will stay in New York City just to make sure she’s okay, despite what he wants for himself.
“Here we go!” Meadow’s friend, Anne, comes to the table with a tray of shots, and a pitcher of beer. She slides a shot to me with a grin. “Take it quick before someone sees you.”
“Med! Grab one!” We clink our glasses together then throw back the shot, me discreetly, and her wildly. She slams the empty glass on the table then throws her hands in the air and shakes her whole body.
The bar is full of people, and it seems like most are here to celebrate with Meadow.
We hang out for a while and I’ve been sneaking shots here and there to the point where I’m feeling pretty good. I’m feeling normal and enjoying the night out, not thinking about the fact my dad has missed another one of us turning twenty-one.
“Is this seat taken?”
A familiar voice startles me from my thoughts. Jumping up, I launch myself out of my seat. “Bennett? What are you doing here?”
He smiles, arms outstretched, and I step into his embrace. “I just drove back into town an hour ago. I’m off this week for Spring Break.”
“Spring Break and you come to Montana?” I tease him, pulling back to look up at him.
“Things are pretty great in Montana in the spring,” he replies with a wink that makes my heart flutter.
Bennett and I promised our long-distance relationshipwould work, but shortly after he left, I was reminded,again,that he’s too nice, too handsome, and too perfect in every sense of the word. I had to accept that all I would do is hold him back. Bennett deserves someone who doesn’t have family trauma, who isn’t still healing from a loss that she’ll probably never get over, and he especially doesn’t deserve a woman who keeps secrets.
But there wouldn’t have been a secret if no one reminded me that all I would be is a burden. So though our relationship had to end, no one was taking my best friend from me.
“Must be a spring thing.”
“Must be.”
We study each other for a moment, the shots of alcohol hitting me hard and going straight to my head, straight to my heart. My body aches for something I know only he can give because if nothing else, in our time together, he made me feel everything. I've replayed our nights together countless times since, always coming to the same conclusion: no one else has ever come close to making me feel the way Bennett did.
The way Bennettstilldoes.
Bennett has been woven into my life for as long as I can remember. He was the man I was going to marry. We’d raise our kids right here in the same small town we grew up in. We’d have the world behind our white picket fence.
But our white picket fence was crushed before we had a chance to paint it.
Between a conversation that shouldn’t have happened and a quiet hope that was quickly stolen away, I buried lies deep and covered them with silence and added another hurt to the tally I already had.
His small chuckle pulls me from my thoughts. “Still with those cowboy boots, huh?”
“It’s my thing.”
“You look really gre?—”
“There you are!” A loud voice interrupts as a tall, thin blonde sidles up beside him and wraps her hand around his bicep. “You weren’t kidding, this place is packed! I love it here, though!”
Bennett kisses her forehead when she leans in, and my heart seizes in my chest, my breath is stolen right from my lungs. I’ve never seen him with another girl before. Even though it feels like my heart was just stomped on, I plaster on a smile like I’m so used to doing.
“Savannah, this is Blossom.”
