Near and Far

So much about those words broke my heart. So much I didn’t understand. “Even?”

Garth stood up, snagging his sandwich. “And now you and me are even, too, Rowen Sterling.” He took a huge bite out of his sandwich.

He might have had a warped view of being “even” with someone, but Garth Black was quite possibly one of the deepest people I’d ever met. What he’d done to get to me, combined with his words, proved that.

“Where are you going?” I asked as he headed for the front door.

“I’ve got work in the morning. I’m going to be late, but I’m guessing the rancher’s son will go easy on me when he finds out what I was up to.” Garth paused with his hand on the doorknob. “Oh, and I left you a present in your bedroom.”

“A present?”

“No need to thank me. It’s not from me. I was just the delivery boy.” Garth popped the last of the sandwich in his mouth and opened the door.

“You really think he can forgive me? You really think he still loves me?” I asked quietly. Garth twisted around, locked eyes with me, then winked. “There’s only one way to find out.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

THE INSTANT THE door closed behind Garth, I charged into my bedroom. I had no idea what the gift could be, where he’d left it, or how big it would be. As soon as I raced inside my room, all of my questions were answered. I covered my mouth as my eyes went glassy. On the big wall behind my bed was my painting. The one I’d made intending for no one to see and the same one that had turned into a weeks’ long bidding war. There was a note propped on my pillow, and I rushed to read it.

I couldn’t let this hang on someone else’s wall when I loved both of these girls. It’s where it belongs now.

I didn’t need the J to know who the picture and note were from, and I certainly didn’t want to know how much he’d spent or how much he’d had to go out of his way to purchase it. Grabbing a pillow, I scooted to the end of my bed and let myself admire it. When I’d been painting it, I hadn’t been able to admire it. It had been more therapy and less about art, but months later, the reverse was true.

Jesse’d been right. It was where it needed to be. It shouldn’t wind up on someone else’s wall when he’d loved both of those girls. When both of those girls loved him.

The painting was a self-portrait, but my face was cut down the middle. One half was the old me. The one who’d shown up at Willow Springs with black hair, dark eyes and makeup, and a vacant, almost dead expression. The other half was me now: lighter hair, light eyes, and lightish makeup. My mouth wasn’t turned up in a smile, but my expression was peaceful, my eyes hopeful.

The painting had been less about comparing and contrasting and more about showing how the two people I’d been had made me who I was. It wasn’t about what had been but what was. It wasn’t about unbalance but harmony. It was my life story in one painting.

I stared at it not with tears in my eyes but a smile on my face. I stared at the painting for so long my eyes became heavy. So heavy, I started to fall . . .

MY ALARM JOLTED me awake. I’d fallen asleep. I wasn’t sure if I was more shocked by that or by how long I’d actually stayed asleep. A glance at my phone told me I’d been asleep for almost eight hours.

Whatever dreams I’d been having or, maybe it was just getting a full night’s sleep, the fog of confusion clouding my head had lifted. Things were clear. So clear I practically leapt out of bed and ran to my closet.

Thanks to my day of cleaning, I knew exactly where everything was, so I had my duffel packed with the essentials in less than five minutes. After changing and combing the bed-head out of my hair, I was rushing out of my room when I ran back to snag the pillow from the end of my bed. Never go anywhere on a Greyhound bus without a pillow. I was stuffing it into my bag when something flew out of it. That little white button. I couldn’t seem to lose the thing, even if I wanted to. I picked it up and tossed it in my pocket before flying out the door.

I knew I had a dozen phone calls to make, and I probably needed to do a million other things before boarding that bus, but they’d have to wait. Everything could wait except for one thing. One person. A person I’d made wait for too long.

When the alarm had jolted me awake, one thing was at the front of my mind. Something Rose had told me at the start of the year, when she and the family had been about to leave after helping me get moved in. She’d taken me aside, given me one of her Rose hugs, looked me in the eyes, and said, “Our priorities aren’t what we say they are. They’re what we show they are.”

I knew they were powerful words at the time, but somewhere along the way, I’d lost them. I’d forgotten the power and truth behind them. But I’d found them again, and I was ready to show what my priorities were.

Once I’d grabbed a breakfast bar from the cupboard, I stormed toward the door. I’d decided what I needed to do, and I couldn’t move fast enough. Unlocking it, I twisted it open and hurried out. Right into a wide and strong chest.

We both made sounds of surprise.

“I was just about to knock.”

“And I was just about to leave,” I replied, breathless from all the running around or the person standing in front of me. Probably both.

“Good timing, then.” Jesse slid a chunk of my hair behind my ear. His hand hovered at my cheek for a moment after.

“I wanted to see you. I wanted to talk to you.”

Jesse shifted his weight. “I wanted to talk to you, too.”

“You first,” we said in unison.

Jesse smiled. Either that smile or him being a foot in front of me after weeks of separation was going to render me speechless. Soon. I had to get it out quick.

“Okay, how about the person who has the most to apologize for go first?” I said.

“Then that would be me,” he interjected. I crossed my arms. “How about ladies first then? Since we can’t agree on who has the most to apologize for.”

“I’ll take it.” I uncrossed my arms and kept myself from running into his. “I’m sorry, Jesse. I’m sorry for so many things. Things I could control and things that maybe I couldn’t, but it doesn’t make me any less sorry.” I stopped long enough to recompose myself and my thoughts, then got back after it. “I’m sorry for lying about the internship, and I’m sorry for the way you found out. I’m sorry for throwing Mar back into your life like that, and I’m sorry for what that did to you.” The image of the broken shell of Jesse flashed through my mind. I shook my head to clear it. “I’m sorry that I left you at Willow Springs when I knew you needed me. I knew you were pushing me away because you were afraid of hurting me, and I still left you. I’m sorry for this past month and not reaching out just so you knew you were on my mind. Because, Jesse, you were the only thing on my mind. And I’m sorry, most of all, for failing you. On so many levels. You were the one person I never wanted to let down, and I did in so many ways.” I’d managed to say everything while looking in his eyes, but finally, they dropped. “I’m sorry.”

Jesse’s hand cupped my chin and tilted it up. He didn’t let it go once my eyes were realigned with his. “You know what? I’m not sorry for any of that, Rowen. Not one bit.”

I hadn’t heard him right. That was the only explanation. “Why?”

“Because here’s what I realized. Finally.” He exhaled, rolling his shoulders back. “I had to be at my worst, and you had to see me at my worst, in order for us to both know if we loved each other enough to make it work.”

I wrapped my hand around his wrist. If he got to touch me, I wanted to touch him, too. “But, Jesse . . . we broke up.” We hadn’t made it when he was at his worst. We hadn’t come through the fire unscathed.

“And yet here I am, standing in front of you right now, asking you, begging you . . . I’ll get down on my knees . . .” He did. He actually got down on his knees, which was kind of wonderful in an uncomfortable, what-do-I-do-now kind of way. “ . . . to ask you to give me a second chance. Not because I deserve one but because we deserve one. We might have taken a break for a while, but we don’t need to make it permanent.”

Since I couldn’t decide what to do and having him look up at me that way made me more uncomfortable with each passing second, I got down on my knees too. That made him smile . . . making me smile. “So you’ve seen me at my worst, I’ve seen you at your worst now too, and we’ve seen our relationship at its worst. You know the only direction from here, right?”

His smile went higher. “I believe I do.”

“Since you’re in such a divulging kind of mood and I’ve got you on your knees”—I crept a little closer to him—“mind telling me what changed your mind? What made you decide I wasn’t ‘better off without you’?” I made air quotes and rolled my eyes. “Because it certainly wasn’t anything I said.”

He cleared his throat. “I remembered something I said to you last summer.”

“You said a lot of things to me last summer.” I gave his arm a squeeze and crept closer still. If any of my neighbors were to walk by, I could just imagine the funny looks we’d be given.

“What I said to you about not being afraid to fall. To not spend your time trying to keep from falling, but to spend your time finding that person who would help you up when you did.”

“Oh, yeah. That was a good one.”

“I found the person willing to stand beside me and help me up if I fell. And when I did fall, when I fell big time, I was so scared of bringing her down with me, I pushed her away to protect her.”

I crossed my arms. “You about done pushing?” Everything he said was thoughtful and deep and was making me swoon, but I wanted to get to the point. I needed to know why he was there and if it meant what I hoped it did.

Jesse lifted his finger. “I wasn’t quite done yet. There was more than one thing I needed to be beat over the head with to come back to my senses.”

I nodded, waiting.

“I wanted to be the best person I could be, Rowen. To prove I wasn’t the boy I’d grown up as or anything like the people that gave birth to me. But when I realized I wasn’t that person, and that a part of the old me was still there . . . it scared me.”

I cleared my throat to fight the ball threatening to form.

“Then someone told me you didn’t love me because I never . . . messed up.” Jesse smiled, I guessed at a private joke.

“I don’t. I love you because of the way you love me,” I replied, grabbing his hand. It was warm, solid, and responded to mine like it had before all of that went down: with certainty. “I love you for all of your pieces, not just a select few. I love you for your dark, dirty secrets too. I love you, Jesse. I love . . . you.”

His eyes closed for a moment as he let out a long breath, almost like he’d been holding it forever.

“So . . . are you about done pushing?” I repeated.