So Much It Hurts (26 page)

Later, when Tori and Lisa had gone to the bar for some more drinks, I interrogated Shannon. “What are you doing?”

“What?” she responded innocently. “I’m just finishing up these mozzarella sticks,” she said as she popped the last bite into her mouth.

“No. I’m talking about when you agreed that I would go for a walk with Chris. What were you thinking? I’m married, Shannon.
Married
. I can’t just be
alone in the dark,
on a beach with a guy anymore.”

“Come on,” Shannon replied. “You’re just going for a walk. To talk. To catch up. To reminisce.”

“Yeah, but you don’t understand the history we had or the connection between us.”

“I know enough to know that you won’t do anything you’d regret,” she said with a smile.

I looked down at my hands, not knowing how to respond.

Chris caught my attention from the stage as he was helping the stage crew set up his band’s equipment. He looked absolutely amazing in his black Affliction Henley. I couldn’t believe that I was staring at the same guy I fell in love with eight years ago. For a moment, the image of Michael reading a bedtime story cuddled up with Eli in his bed seemed like a cloudy, distant memory. Instantly, a flood of guilt washed over me.
Michael.
I shook the feeling away, and tried to focus on this moment with Chris.
Who gets this chance? The chance to revisit the past? The chance to make amends? The chance to reconnect with someone who once had your heart?
No, tonight I would enjoy the moment, and tomorrow I would have no regrets.

“Hey Kaitlyn, are you ready to take that walk?” Chris smiled as he walked up to me.

I grinned sheepishly. “Sure!” I replied.

The girls congregated on the dance floor with the rest of Chris’s band mates. I had been sitting by the bar, secretly hoping that Chris would take that moment to steal me away. We walked side by side out the door. I caught a glimpse of Shannon as I passed by her. Her smile spread from ear to ear. At that moment, I felt certain she was living vicariously through me.

The moon was bright against the dark sky. The waves kissed the shoreline in a constant rhythm. We began our walk in silence, lost in our own thoughts. Our shoulders brushed each other, and the spark between us sent a shiver down my spine.

Chris finally broke the silence. “Kaitlyn?”

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Have you ever thought about me—about
us—
over the years?” he whispered, looking at the ocean where the moon’s reflection illuminated across the water. Stuffing his hands into his pockets, he sloshed his feet in the lapping waves as he walked.

Sighing, I slumped my shoulders and scuffed my toes against the gritty, wet sand. “More than you know,” I finally admitted. I felt defeated, knowing that it didn’t matter. No matter how much I had thought about him over the years, it still didn’t change the fact I had exchanged vows with someone else.

Chris stopped in his tracks. I took a step or two before I realized that he had stopped behind me. “What’s wrong?” I asked, turning around to see why he had stopped.

“I just can’t believe we are here…together. I just can’t believe I’m having the opportunity to see you, talk to you, and be with you again, even if you are married.” Absently, he picked up a flat shell and skipped it across the water. He continued, “You have no idea how many times you crossed my mind—how many nights I dreamt of you after I left. You don’t know how many times I picked up the phone to call you, but couldn’t do it. When I saw you last night, my heart did somersaults in my chest.”

“Mine too.” Tears had already begun to sting my eyes. “Why didn’t you?” I asked him.

“Why didn’t I what?” he asked, seeking clarification as he skipped another shell across the lapping waves.

“Call me,” I answered.

Chris turned to stare at me. Even in the darkness I could see his jaw twitching with an emotion I couldn’t quite put my finger on. “Kaitlyn, it wasn’t that easy. Juvie was harder on me the second time around. They enforced stricter rules on me. I wasn’t allowed to use the phone for the first three months. I guess the judge had it out for me so I would never grace their doors again, but I wrote you letters.”

I froze. “Wait, what?” My eyes narrowed. “You…wrote…
letters
?” I paused after every word, spitting them individually as if each of them were poison in my mouth.

“Yeah, why?” Chris sounded confused as he tossed the last shell across the water and crammed his hands into his back pockets, rocking back on his heels.

“Because I never got any of your letters! Not one!” I cried. “My mother must have intercepted them and hidden them from me.” My anger flared in the pit of my stomach. I vowed at that moment that I would get to the bottom of this little secret my mother had kept from me. How dare she interfere with my life, regardless if she thought she was protecting me.

“Yeah, I started out writing letters every single day for the first few weeks, but I never heard back from you. After the first month, I just wrote letters once a week. Then, once every two weeks. But, I never gave up, not until I finally had the chance to use the phone. When I finally got a chance to call home, my little brother told me he saw you in town and it looked like you had already moved on with someone else. I just wanted you to be happy. I didn’t want to interfere. I mean, it had already been three months, you know? For all I knew, you were done with me and had forgotten all about me.”

“Chris, I never stopped thinking about you. I was sinking deeper and deeper into my depression after you left. Not hearing from you only made it harder. I figured I would never hear from you or see you again. Then I met Michael, and he helped pull me out of the deepest depths of depression. I didn’t know what else to do. I wanted more than anything to be with you!”

Why? Why couldn’t I have seen him six years ago? Why did I have to be married before I had the chance to see him again? Now the vows I took six years ago were preventing me from grabbing him and kissing him on the spot!

I couldn’t help but curse fate. I nearly shook my fists toward heaven.

“Kaitlyn, I’m sorry.” Chris gently wiped the single tear that had escaped my eye. “I didn’t want to make you cry tonight.”

“It’s not you,” I said, taking a ragged breath. “It’s just that I never imagined I would see you again. I’ve been happy these last eight years, but seeing you last night brought back a flood of emotions that I wasn’t prepared to handle. I’m sorry. I’m really happy to see you. You just have no idea how happy...” my voice trailed off as Chris took a step toward me.

“I do have an idea. That is, if you are even a tenth as happy as I am. Kaitlyn, I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you something fierce these last eight years. I never thought I’d see you again, and yet, here I am with you, the most beautiful woman in the world. I don’t want this weekend to end. I don’t want you to leave, and reality to set in—the reality that I will probably never see you again. I am so happy you’re here. But part of me wishes I hadn’t seen you at all. I thought I had healed from the pain of losing you the first time. Seeing you again just ripped that scar wide open. Knowing that you’re
married
with a kid…I don’t think I’ll ever be able to recover from that. My heart has always belonged to you, but you belong to someone else. I just can’t take it.” He reached out to hug me, swallowing me up into the warmth of his arms.

My body went rigid; it was the first time I had felt intimacy like that, with someone besides Michael, in a long time.

“I’m sorry.” Chris pulled away from me.

“No. Don’t be.” I leaned in toward him, silently begging him to reach out again.

He slipped his hands around my shoulders and ever so gently pulled me closer to him. I breathed the scent of his cologne. It was a similar musky scent I remembered from high school. I wrapped my arms around him and laid my head on his chest. Silently he swayed me back and forth and we danced to the rhythm of the lapping waves. Our breaths fell into a synchronized rhythm. I heard his heart pounding in his chest and felt mine doing the same. Our bodies seemed to fit perfectly together like the opposite poles of two magnets. I felt melded to him.

And the two shall become one.

The phrase resonated in my mind. Quickly, I pulled away. “I’m sorry!” I said, suddenly feeling very panicky.

“What’s the matter?” Chris asked alarmed.

“I’m sorry. It’s just...I’m married. I can’t let myself feel this way with you. I just can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Kaitlyn, it’s okay,” Chris reassured me. “I understand. I’m sorry, too. I never should have brought you out here. It’s my fault.”

“I’m so sorry!” I cried as I turned to walk back toward the bar. The tears freely fell from my eyes.

I just wanted to turn the clock back a few years! I really needed this moment! What a dirty rotten trick for fate to play on me!

“Kaitlyn, wait. Let’s start over. I’m sorry. I won’t put you in that position again. Just walk with me. Please.”

I slowed my pace and considered his offer.
What would it hurt?
“Just a walk?” I asked.

“Just a walk,” he confirmed.

So, side by side we were strolling again on the sand down by the water.

“I haven’t walked out here at night in ages,” Chris stated, trying to avoid the obvious tension between us.

“Really?” I feigned interest. “Wow, if I lived here I’d be walking on the beach every night.”

He shrugged. “I guess I’ve just been too busy.”

“It’s so beautiful out here,” I said.

“I guess when you live here you take the beauty for granted.”

“Yeah...”

The awkward conversation served as a pitiful mask for the emotions stirring in our hearts.

“Kaitlyn, I’m sorry.” Chris stopped walking and looked earnestly at me. “I can’t do this. Being with you like this is harder than I thought it would be.”

“Yeah, I get that feeling too.”

“Maybe we should go back,” he sighed.

“Yeah, maybe we should.”

The walk back to the bar was the longest, most painful walk I have ever had to endure. The intense throbbing pain deep in my soul reminded me of the time I fell out of the tree and broke my collar bone when I was eleven years old. Back then, I had sprawled out on the ground moaning from the ache that pulsated across my chest and radiated down my arm. I had prayed I would never feel a hurt like that again.

What happened to seizing the moment? What happened to no regrets?

Either way, it didn’t matter. We had made our way back to the bar, and Chris had opened the door for me to step inside. Chris’s band was setting up on stage.

“Looks like you’re up,” I said, hiding my anguish.

“I guess so,” Chris said. “Thanks for the walk...and the chat.”

“It was my pleasure,” I grinned at him playfully. My pathetic attempt at flirting did nothing to disguise my heartache.

“So? How was it?” Shannon squealed when I plopped down into the booth with the rest of the girls.

“It was good,” I replied, shrugging my shoulders.

“Good? Just good?” Tori asked inquisitively, eyeing me suspiciously.

“Yeah,” I said, glancing down at the trembling hands in my lap.