Pinpoint (Point #4) (31 page)

Still, I let February bleed into March with no more friendly dinners, texts, and phone conversations with Oscar. Oh, he still invited me out. He showed up at my office with lunch for Violet and me, just to ‘hang out.’ Every interaction was awkward for me, but Oscar acted as though it was the most natural thing in the world to pursue a reluctant woman. More than socializing, he came to get information on the Sterling wedding. Oscar continues to insist that he will fill in for me.

No matter how much time I spend with Oscar, no matter how wonderful he continues to prove himself to be, I can’t help but wonder why he won’t give me all of him. If he wants to be with me as badly as he claims, why won’t he tell me about his family? A big chunk of his life is off-limits to me. I can’t help but wonder what else he won’t want to share with me. If I’m willing to show him the not-so-pretty parts of my past, I expect the same from him.

Yet you don’t have the guts to tell Oscar you gave him your virginity.

The voice of reason never fails to remind me that I’m not being completely honest myself. None of this adds up to a strong foundation for a relationship.

March slides into April first.

After a particularly grueling day of work, Violet and I trudge upstairs to the loft. While I order a pizza, Violet takes Rocky on a quick walk. I change into a pair of leggings and a baggy t-shirt, ready to relax. I am falling onto the couch when Violet and Rocky scurry back into the apartment.

“Whew! It’s wild out there.” To punctuate her point, Rocky does a full body shake, splashing droplets of water all around the floors. Violet’s rain jacket is heavy with water, and she has to take her rain boots off on the front mat to avoid dragging more liquid into our apartment.

“I don’t know if Cameron will make it back tonight,” she muses. “The wind is ferocious, and there’s plenty of lightning out there.”

“April showers,” I murmur.

“I’m ready for May flowers.”

Once she feeds the dog his dinner and changes into lounge clothes, Violet flops down next to me and clicks the remote to activate the television. The programming is paused with an interruption from the local weather station. The weatherman rattles off tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings, waving at a colored map.

“Holy cow,” my sister whispers.

“That’s cutting right through Winter.”

We turn to face each other, our faces mirrors of worry and concern. A knot forms in my stomach. A tornado can lead to catastrophic results, and that terrifies me. What will happen to the people I’ve known my entire life? My parents?

Noticing my fear, Violet screws her features into a brave face. “There’s nothing we can do. The weather is out of our control.”

I nod in reluctant agreement.

“Let’s watch something else. Otherwise, we’ll go wild with worry.” Violet clicks to another channel, but the sitcom does nothing to distract me. Each time the wind howls outside, I jump. When the deliveryman rings the buzzer, I jog downstairs to get our food. The fierce winds make it difficult to push the door open, and after only standing outside for a few moments, the man holding the pie is nearly soaked through with water.

“The weather seems to be getting worse,” I tell my sister when I’m back inside.

Violet tsks. “I know you can’t help it but try to think about something else.”

The cardboard box trembles in my hands. “They’re out there. Our parents, the community, the place we called home.”

“That was never a home,” Violet snaps. I know she’s not directing the anger at me but at the shadowed memories of our youth.

“Fair enough,” I concede. “Like it or not, Winter had a part in building us. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget it. And even though that place wasn’t good to me, I don’t want anything bad to befall the people there.”

Violet squeezes her eyes shut. “I don’t mean to sound uncaring.” She blinks her eyes open, sorrow plain. “It still hurts to think about mother and father. No matter how far away I get from home, no matter how much I tell myself that I’m over what happened; I’m not.”

“Me either,” I confess. “This is why people have therapists, right? To talk about how their parents messed them up.”

Violet grins a little at that. “Come on. The pizza’s getting cold.” She has the coffee table set with plates and napkins and has set out a glass of red wine for her and seltzer water for me. “What do you think about
Casablanca
tonight?”

“Sounds good.” Violet has a list of movies, music, and television shows she wants to watch because Father prohibited the consumption of most popular culture in the home. Sometimes, Violet and I would sneak out and go to the movies, and of course, we watched
Sister, Sister,
but for the most part, we obeyed the rules.

Once the movie starts, I’m able to lose myself in the love story. Thoughts of Oscar and wicked twisters momentarily halt while we eat. During the film, Cameron calls Violet to let her know he won’t make it back from Florida until after the weather passes. That likely won’t be until the middle of the next morning, so my sister decides to stay at our place for the night.

The moment the movie ends, Violet turns off the television, not giving us the chance to check the local news. I know it’s an intentional decision. If we don’t watch the news, then we won’t know what happened. While I clean our dirty dishes, Violet rushes Rocky outside for another quick walk. By now, the torrential downpour is a steady rain.

I don’t have the strength my sister does to avoid bad news. When Violet comes back into the apartment, I’m sitting in front of the television watching the local channel. “What?” she asks desperately. Apparently, my expression shows the grief roaring through me.

“It’s bad.”

She stands at the edge of our couch, watching the devastation alongside me. Despite the inky black sky, bright lights from a television crew onsite illuminate the destruction left in the wake of the tornado.

Violet voices my thoughts. “We have to go.”

“First thing tomorrow morning,” I agree.

“I’ll email our clients and move any appointments.” Violet thumbs through her phone, sending a flurry of messages and reviewing the schedule. Frozen at my spot on the sofa, I watch the carnage left from a tornado that ripped straight through Winter. My stomach cramps with worry. Even though it’s highly unlikely my parents are at home or that their phone is functioning in the wake of the natural disaster, I dial their number . . . and get a busy signal. I am about to put my phone away when it starts vibrating in my hand.

Oscar calling.

Before I can think of all the reasons I have not to answer, I accept the call and press my phone to my ear.

“Hi.” Violet looks up from her phone sharply to where I’m answering the phone.

Oscar,
I mouth. She nods and I make my way toward my bedroom for privacy.

“I saw the news.” Oscar’s reassuring tone soothes some of my jangled nerves. “How’s your head space?”

“Not so hot. I—I called my parents’ house, and no one picked up. I didn’t really think there was a chance they’d pick up, but I couldn’t help myself.”

“Because that’s what you do, Iris. You care about other people. You nurture. You want to take care of others even if it's to the detriment of yourself. It’s one of the things I admire about you.”

I climb onto the center of my bed, curl onto my side, and tuck my phone against my ear. Knowing that somewhere in the city Oscar’s out there thinking about me is a show of support that resonates with me. Deeply.

“Violet and I are driving down there early tomorrow. I thought it would be years before I ever went back to Winter, but how can I stay away? It doesn’t matter how far away I get from Winter; I’ll always know where I came from. They’re struggling. And not just my parents, but also the community. I can’t turn my back on Winter.” Oscar didn’t ask for a justification of my reasoning, but I need to explain to myself why I’m running back to a place I had no real desire to visit again.

“What time are you leaving? I’ll come with you.”

For a moment, I am literally stunned silent. “Oscar, you don’t have to do that,” I breathe in astonishment.

“I don’t have to do anything. I want to come with you. It won’t be easy, and you’ll need support,” he says firmly. Oh, his sincerity makes my heart ache. For the first time, I wonder if Oscar really has changed? What if he genuinely wants to be with me? Offering to drive two hours away from the city to dig through rubble is not something a casual friend does for the other.

“That’s why Violet will be there,” I argue halfheartedly. Oscar coming along is tempting. “And don’t you have to work? Tomorrow’s Tuesday.”

“Work can wait,” Oscar says firmly.

“As much as I appreciate your offer, I think this is something Violet and I need to do on our own.” It pains me to say this because, more than anything, I want Oscar’s shoulder to lean on in this situation, but Violet and I need to climb this hill without distraction.

The silence on the other end of the line weighs heavily. Eventually, Oscar releases a short breath. “You’ll need to call me when you get there. And when you’re on your way back and when you get home.”

The ache in my chest intensifies.

He cares.

He really cares about me.

And I’m in love with him.

The world tilts and my mouth goes dry with the realization.

“Okay,” I say faintly.

“Do you want to talk longer? You sound upset,” Oscar says with concern.

Shoot. He’s dismantling every excuse I built one by one.

“Thank you for offering, but I should go be with Violet. Cameron didn’t make it back to the city yet because of the storm, and I don’t want to leave her alone.”

“You’ll call me if you need anything,” Oscar demands. “Even if that means you wake up and want me to drive down with you two.”

“I will.”

After we end the call, I climb off the bed and move back into the living room where Violet and Rocky are curled together beneath a fuzzy white blanket. Violet waves me over.

“What’s up with Oscar?” Though she says it casually, I note interest gleaming in her expression.

“He heard what’s happening in Winter.” Grabbing another throw blanket off the back of the second couch, I cuddle into the corner opposite of my sister. “He wants to go with us down there. I told him no.”

Violet looks as stunned as I felt a few minutes ago. “He wants to go with us to Winter tomorrow,” she repeats slowly.

“He said he wanted to support me,” I mumble the rest. Suddenly ashamed of how I turned him down—how I have continued to turn him down since the day at the site of his new restaurant on the lake.

“Men don’t make those kind of offers unless you’re their sister or they are dating you. Are you and Oscar secretly dating?”

“Of course not,” I say, affronted.

“There’s one other option,” Violet says with a straight face.

“What’s that?”

“Oscar Alexander is smitten by you, Iris. This is how he’s showing you that he wants more than a friendship. Well, this and all the non-creepy stalking like bringing us lunch and dropping by just to say hi.”

“You’re right,” I say miserably. “I’ve been pushing him away because I’m scared that I’m a phase. Two weeks from now, he could turn around and say he doesn’t want a relationship with me.”

“You have a right to be skeptical, for sure. To play devil’s advocate, the man hasn’t given up. If you even have the tiniest inkling of ‘what if,’ don’t you think you owe it to yourself to see what might happen? In any relationship, there’s a chance that it won’t work out, but that doesn’t mean we sit at home and hide from love. I’m not trying to tell you what to do, Iris, because it’s your heart to protect, not mine. All I know is, if I gave up on love after losing Max, I wouldn’t have Cameron, and by extension, I wouldn’t have you. Meeting him gave me the first push toward pursuing all my goals.”

“This has never happened to me, but I think I’m in love with him.” I blurt out the words before I can get embarrassed.

Violet looks at me with understanding but doesn’t say anything further. I’m grateful she gives me the time to process my thoughts.

“I don’t know a better man. He gives and he gives and doesn’t have the slightest clue of the extent of his generosity. And whenever he sees someone in distress, he offers a helping hand. When I’m around him, I can be myself. We laugh together, and he takes me to all these different places to have new experiences. He listens when I speak and remembers what I say. He encourages me to be honest with you and, most importantly, with myself. He believes
I’m
talented.
He’s
wildly talented and not overly arrogant. He’s . . . special and chivalrous, and there’s no way I’m not in love with him.” Anxiously, I struggle to sit straight. “Will he forgive me? When he told me he wanted to be with me, I said I couldn’t trust him. But that’s not true. I do trust him.”

“Welcome to the restless world of first loves,” Violet says drily. “Take a deep breath.”

When my breaths remain shallow, she nudges me with her foot until I comply.

“First of all, let’s address the scariest part. There’s no doubt he’ll ‘take you back.’ I don’t think you were ever gone in his mind. Case in point: he calls you the moment he hears bad news from our hometown.”

Inhaling a calming breath, I nod in hopeful agreement.

“Here’s the thing about love. It’s a huge risk. The
biggest
risk. You’re opening your heart to complete vulnerability and giving the key to someone else. Everything could go right in your relationship. Every single thing. But still, it can fall apart. That’s the thing about love; the whole concept is riotously out of control. That’s what makes it terrifying and dizzying and thrilling all at the same time.”

“You are wise beyond your years,” I mutter battling back a bittersweet smile. “What you’re telling me is this won’t be easy.”

“It never is,” Violet concurs. “In the end, you get this.” She slides her phone off the coffee table, unlocks the device, and pulls something up on the screen. Then she passes it my way. It’s a goofy picture of Cameron and Rocky together. Cameron holds the dog in his lap and sign in front of both of them. It says
We love you!