Angel Falls (Angel Falls Series, #1), Babette Jongh [books for 6 year olds to read themselves .TXT] 📗

the damp highway. We stopped at the spot where twin ditches pushed past broken trees and mangled shrubs into the chasm. So far down.

A stout Cypress guarded the river’s edge, skinned of its bark where the car had smashed.

If not for that tree crushing the driver’s side, Melody might still be alive. But if not for that tree, we would’ve sunk into the river, been sucked down into the mud, and Melody and I might both have drowned. Covered by spindly reeds that lifted their arms up out of the narrow scrim of waterlogged limbs and dirty plastic milk bottles, we’d have been entombed while the river rushed by, relentless and uncaring.

It was a miracle Ian and Wilson and the rescue team had found us as quickly as they did. A miracle they’d found us at all.

Ben squeezed my hand. I squeezed back, and we stood together, looking down. Holding each other up by the strength of our clasped hands.

We didn’t speak. Not then, not on the walk back down the narrow highway, and not as we got back into Ben’s car. I could have asked him if he was okay. He could have done the same. But we already knew. Neither of us was okay.

Ben pulled back onto the road. The skies opened up again and hurled fat raindrops at the Cherokee as it gathered speed. “I drive past here all the time,” he finally said. “On the way to the airport.”

I looked over at him, wondering how we could be here, having this conversation, both of us dry-eyed.

“It’s the drive back that’s the hardest. Driving the same direction y’all were going. It’s usually at night, and I can’t see where you went off the road, but I always know when I pass by.”

“I’m so sorry, Ben.” The tears I’d denied earlier came so fast I didn’t have time to guard against them. “It should have been me. Melody had so much to live for.”

“Hush.” Ben took his hand from the wheel long enough to wipe the tears from my cheek with his thumb, but his tenderness only made them flow faster.

I turned my face away to stare out the window but saw nothing of the rain-drenched view. “Just give me a minute.”

Ben dropped his hand and let it rest for just a moment on my thigh before returning it to the steering wheel. “Do you remember that time you and Melody kissed me in Kindergarten?”

I gave a little hiccupping laugh. “I couldn’t remember whether we got our turns.”

“Yeah. You did. After you held me down for all the other girls.”

“I’m really sorry about that.”

“I’ll bet you are.” His tone was teasing.

“No, really.” I wiped my eyes. “You must have hated it.”

He chuckled. “I’m sure I was scarred for life.”

I sniffed as quietly as I could and rubbed my hands across my cheeks to wipe away the last of the tears.

“Look in the glove box. I keep some tissues in there.”

I dug through the glove box. “I must look hideous.” I flipped down the lighted mirror on the visor. “Oh, God. I do look hideous.” I repaired as much of the damage as I could with the Kleenex, spitting on a wadded end and wiping at the smeared mascara under my eyes.

“There’s a hairbrush under the seat if you need it.”

“If I need it. You’re a master of understatement.” I added a layer of fresh makeup from the kit in my purse. I might end up looking like a hooker, but that was better than looking like I’d been crying. I’d deal with the tangled mess of my hair in a minute.

A few minutes later, we pulled into the restaurant’s parking lot and Ben parked under a big magnolia. When he cut off the engine, I turned to him. “Do I look okay?”

“Beautiful, as always.” He leaned across the console and gave me a quick kiss. “Let’s eat.”

I started to open my door, but he stilled me with a hand on my leg. “I’ll do that.”

He came around the hood, took my hand, and steadied me as I stepped down from the Cherokee. This was how I’d imagined we’d be all those years ago, going out to dinner together on weekends while our kids spent the night with my parents, or his.

But Jake and Maryann and Amy weren’t our kids. They were his kids. And this moment was nothing I’d dreamed of all those years ago, even though a snapshot photo would have looked exactly the same. Stuck again in a Twilight Zone of what-ifs, I followed Ben into the restaurant.

“We have reservations,” he told the hostess. We followed the young woman to our table where Ben ordered my favorite wine without asking. We sipped the smoky Cabernet and talked some more about the kids, my studio, his job, and deer-hunting—a subject we’d always disagreed on. For long moments, I saw him as himself. Not Melody’s husband, not my lost lover, not the man who’d betrayed me with my best friend. I saw him as Ben, simply Ben, his good and bad qualities all rolled up together.

For the first time in forever, I gave myself a little credit.

I could have gone all Jerry Springer when he left me for her. Instead, I had strangled my infant love for him and embraced his newly adopted relationship with Melody. Or at least, I’d tried. But that strangled love wouldn’t die. Denied the right to grow and mature as it should, it became a stunted, misshapen monster. My best-friendship with Melody had become twisted as well. Paired with jealousy, it created a conjoined-twin love-hate relationship that made me hate myself more than I hated Melody for taking Ben from me.

“Madame?” The waiter leaned toward me to catch my attention. “Are you ready to order?”

“Oh, yes.” I glanced down at the menu and blurted out the first thing that caught my eye.

We were just finishing our dinner when I looked up to see Ian talking to the maitre’d.

His hand rested at the waist