Page 489 of One More Kiss

Forever & Always

Kimberly Halstead

Olivia

I’m almost there.I just need to round the corner at Stark Street and pass Angela’s Bakery and cross that damn finish line! This is my sixth time running for the annual Mental Health Awareness 5k. It’s also a yearly reminder that on this day six years ago my brother Lucas took his own life.

I remember exactly where I was, what I was doing, and who I was doing it with while Lucas took that fateful drive alone and ended his years’ worth of internal demons that riddled his mind. They made him believe he had no purpose for this life anymore. That he wasn’t worthy of love and saving.

I regret not being there for him. Not knowing behind the fake smiles and the corny jokes that he was dying inside. That he was struggling to survive and he didn’t want to become an added burden on someone else’s already full plate. Our parents were divorcing and I was heading off to college and secretly seeing his best friend slash Army brother, Julian. There was a six year age gap between me and Lucas, myself being my parent’s “oops.” But nonetheless we were extremely close, Lucas having taught me the basics while our dad was teaching the same ones to Donna down the street.

“It’s important for you to know how to change your own tire. I won’t be here to help you once I get deployed,” Lucas said.

He would deploy out to Afghanistan a few short weeks later.

I took off for Oklahoma State and continued seeing Julian in secret.

Julian Kelly, the neighborhood boy who had a smart-mouth, a wild temper, but knew how to treat a lady right, was the same age as Lucas. He drove a beat-up old Ford and worked as a laborer until college dreams became out of his league and he joined the military alongside my brother instead. The no-nonsense complexity of the military life shaped him into a better man and slowly tamed his wild ways, but I was not on the prowl to date my brother’s best friend. No, it was a Friday night bonfire and a few beers that my underage self shouldn’t have had. The boys were in town on leave but Lucas wasn’t at the bonfire as our dad took him on a fishing trip. Julian was there, however. And he looked damn good too!

Julian clears six-feet easily, he has broad shoulders and perfectly tan skin. He keeps his face baby smooth while enlisted, but I like the days when he grows out a stubble. That night at the bonfire he was wearing a plaid button-down with a white tee underneath, faded wrangler jeans with rips in the knees, and cowboy boots. We live in the quaint town of Cedar Mill, just an hour outside Nashville. We know outsiders when they roll up in fancier trucks than what was passed down to us from our granddaddy and by the condition of your boots. Julian’s boots were in rough shape so you know he belongs here.

“You shouldn’t be here and you shouldn’t look this damn good,” Julian said to me while rocking back on his heels.

“I can dress how I want,” I holler at him. “I’m eighteen now, Julian. I’m not a little girl.”

“Don’t I fucking know it.”

I brushed myself up against him while I watched the restraint of his self-control come close to snapping. “Don’t think that I forgot what you said in the treehouse, Kelly. You said one year. My birthday was last week.”

Wrapping his hands around my hips and pulling me into him, Julian leans down and brushes his lips over mine. “You’re raising me a whole lotta trouble, Olivia. If your brother finds out about us…”

“Us,” I warmly smile. “I like that sound of that.”

He kisses the tip of my nose and smiles. “Forever and always, baby girl.”

Forever and always came to a screeching halt just a few months later.

I round the corner at Stark Street and although the ladies from Angela’s Bakery are outside with cups of milk and cookies and other delicious pastries, I don’t fall into temptation and continue on running. The finish line is just within reach and I could feel my feet burning with each hard slap I make against the pavement. My heart is racing and my mind is lost to the music buzzing through my AirPods. I can see the faint yellow line drawn with chalk on the street and the cheering crowd going wild as the large FINISH sign tacked to the traffic light blows in the soft breeze on this warm autumn afternoon.

The second my old running shoes cross over the yellow line my body aches to collapse. The song in my ear ends and I can hear the excitement buzzing from the swarming crowd and a few volunteers make their way over to me to hand me a bottle of water and to slip a small silver medal around my neck.

I came in sixth place.

How ironic.

While maintaining my breathing and getting my heart to settle down, I slowly move onto the sidewalk and nod in appreciation while being handed many “congratulations.” I walk a little further past the masses hovering by the finish line to a more recluse part of the sidewalk when someone wolf-whistles at me.

“Damn, girl. I’m not sure if it was this run or you that just damn-near took my breath away.”

I turn around with enough saucy attitude to lay this asshole out but my heart paddles back when I see it’s Julian standing against a street lamp, his hands wedged into the pockets of his jeans with his face unashamed for cat calling me out in public.

“Julian HOWARD Kelly. You know wolf whistling is illegal, right?”

“First off,” he says as he pushes himself off the lamp post and strides towards me. “Don’t ever shout my middle name out in public again. It’s a family name. Dates back some odd number of generations. Secondly, I’ve read the rules of the road in Cedar Mill. There’s no law against whistling at one Olivia BARBARA Hawthorne.”

I slap a hand over his mouth as on-lookers drift their eyes in our direction. “Okay, okay. I’m sorry.” I can feel his smile beneath my fingertips as I remove my hand. “Why are you even here anyway? You never volunteer or sign-up to run.”

“I ran enough for charity in my day.”

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