Reclaiming the Sand(78)
Author: A. Meredith Walters

The life I had been building was flushed down the toilet and I found myself right back where I started.

Stuck and alone.

I woke up every single morning thinking about Flynn. I wanted to call him. I wanted to see him. I wanted to hold him and touch him again. But it seemed the longer I went without doing any of those things, the easier it became to convince myself that he was better off. That the only thing I could give him was pain.

After telling him that it was me who had burned down his house, I could never expect us to have a relationship built on anything other than distrust.

I knew I was being a coward by not at least talking to him, but the more time that went by, I became certain that there was no future for us. And it was easier to avoid him than to face the condemnation I was sure I would see on his face.

Numb and hard Ellie McCallum was fighting to make a comeback. The newly soft and cuddly Ellie McCallum was fighting just as much to hang on. And they were both miserable.

So even though I missed him so bad it was like a physical ache, I never called him. I never allowed my car to drive the familiar road to his house. But I could stop my heart from loving him or my mind from thinking about him.

There were some things I just couldn’t control.

And he it wasn’t as though he had tried to contact me either. And even though I knew, deep down, he was taking his cues from me, that perhaps he was feeling a rejection just as devastating as my own, it hurt that he hadn’t bothered.

As the weeks passed and the holidays came and went without a word, I realized I had ruined my chance at happiness. And now I was lost.

Because my life officially sucked.

I lived with a sliver of hope that Dania would snap out of it. That one day she’d wake up and be the old bitchy drama queen she used to be. But that never happened. And every day I felt more and more trapped because of it.

I tried not to resent her. But it was difficult. And the longer I went without speaking to Flynn the less bright and shiny my future became.

After the holidays, I started my new classes at Black River Community College. I had thought about dropping out, not sure school had any place in my life now. But the small campus was the only place I could pretend I was okay. But my excitement about school had waned and now I was just going through the motions.

Kara had invited me to go out a few times but I was less inclined to start a friendship that would go nowhere. Eventually she stopped asking. Even though she was still nice enough, a definite chill had taken the place of her easy candor.

I became more and more isolated, reverting back to the Ellie I had once been. It was like putting on a pair of shoes that I had outgrown. I wanted to wiggle my toes but they were tight and restrained.

I tried not to look for Flynn on campus. I tried like hell to pretend he wasn’t there at all. Repression had always worked so well for me in the past, this should be a piece of cake, right? I had once pushed my feelings for him away; I could do it again.

But my heart had evolved since the last time I had let him into my life and then discarded him. It wasn’t my heart to close off anymore. Flynn owned it. He owned me. And there was no getting rid of him.

Dania’s depression was catching. I found myself falling into a sad cycle of working at JAC’s, coming home and tending to Dania, and going to school. I rarely talked to anyone. I had given up. Just as Dania had.

We had lost ourselves.

I thumbed through the trashy magazine, counting down until I could get out of there. JAC’s was a little busier than normal but it wasn’t enough to stave off the boredom. I tried to stifle my jaw splitting yawn and wished I could prop open my eyelids.

I had been sleeping on my second-hand couch for months. I had never noticed how uncomfortable it was until I was forced to make it my bed. I spent most of the night tossing and turning, trying to find a position that didn’t involve a coil digging into my back.

I covered my mouth on another yawn and rubbed my eyes. The bell above the door dinged and I cringed, wishing Jeb would get it fixed already.

I felt the presence of someone standing on the other side of the counter and rolled my eyes. I was not in a help the customers kind of mood so I didn’t even bother to lift my head.

“Can I help you?” I asked snidely, yawning again.

“I hope so,” a voice said and I froze. My head jerked up and I met a pair of green eyes I hadn’t seen in almost two months.

Flynn, wearing his typical khakis and crisp, long-sleeved button down shirt. His brown hair was in a perfect mess and my fingers itched to touch him. To brush the strands back from his forehead.

What was he doing here?

My heart sped up the longer I sat there, looking at him. My tongue was ice in my mouth and my lips couldn’t form words. My eyes drank in the sight of him, dizzy on the rush of being in his presence again after all this time.

It felt like forever since we had gone to the beach together, but I had thought about it every night as I tried to go to sleep. The bittersweet memory was the only thing to put a smile on my face anymore. So much had changed that it felt like those smiles and memories belonged to another person in another life.

Flynn was staring at the counter but I could see his hands balled into fists at his side. He wasn’t rubbing them together but I could still tell he was agitated.

“You never came,” he said, startling me.

“What?” I asked, shocked by the vicious anger in his voice.

“You left and never came back. I’ve been waiting for you to come. But you haven’t. Why?”

I had both longed and dreaded for this moment. But in my head it never played out quite like this. I had thought myself prepared for his hurt accusations, but I hadn’t counted on the tortured pain on his face.

How could he feel sad over not seeing me after everything I told him?

“I just, well, Dania isn’t well. And honestly, I thought you wouldn’t want to see me,” I said lamely. I sounded pathetic. My excuse ringing falsely in my ears.

“Why wouldn’t I want to see you?” he demanded, frowning.

“After what I told you, why would you want to see me?” I countered.

“You never let me talk about any of it. You just left. You never called. You never came by the studio. Why would you do that?” he demanded. He was angry. I could see the vein popping on the side of his neck.

The bell dinged above the door again as several people walked inside.

“This isn’t the time to talk about this, Flynn,” I said quietly, trying not to cause a scene.

Flynn slammed his hand down on the counter. “When is the time to talk about this? Because you’re doing the exact same thing you did to me in high school! You said you were sorry for that! Why are you doing this to me?” He sounded agonized and I felt myself swaying under the weight of his unhappiness.