Fall Guy (A Youngblood Book), Reinhardt, Liz [best free ebook reader for pc .TXT] 📗

he'd have any future other than the one he thought fate handed him. Now?" Her chuckle shakes the most delicate flowers. "Now that man would forget he was ever humble, young, gorgeous-as-all-get-out Lee Early, factory worker and part-time sharecropper with nothing but his charm and work ethic to get him where he needed to be. That's why I'm around. When he gets low, I retell the story of how he got where he is. And when he gets too full of himself, I remind him what a huge debt he owes his patient, brilliant wife for his success."

The truth of my grandparents' story is so beautiful and romantic, it almost blots out the backbone-lacking tale of my parents' marital failure.

"What did your family say? What did Granddaddy's family say?"

For the first time, my grandmother's smile falters. She shakes her head and squares her shoulders, but I don't miss the glint of tears she does a really good job of hiding.

"When you're young and strong-willed, you have to know that you'll wind up upsetting the people who love you. My parents were mad as hornets, of course, and his predicted the failure of our marriage and our future unhappiness every time we saw them until we came to our senses and stopped seeing them." She plucks stray leaves that don't meet her exacting bouquet standards. "But I loved your grandfather. Loved him with my whole heart, and we decided that the love we felt was going to have to be enough. Whoever couldn't accept it would have to move aside. I can't lie to you, love. It hurt. Sometimes I questioned if the hurt was worth it. But in my heart?" She puts one hand on her silk blouse, just above her heart. "I knew. I knew I made the right decision."

"It must have been hard." My words are pressed small.

"Nothing as good as what we have comes easy." She squeezes my shoulder and kisses my forehead, then presses the vase of flowers into my hands.

I take them up the stairs and reread his too-short note a thousand times. I lie on the bed and stare at the ceiling. I call Brenna and tell her all about my grandparents and the flowers and, of course, she tells me to call him, but I can't yet.

I think about what my grandmother said as I squirm in my kilt in world history at St. Anne's the next day. I think about it when I fill out my college applications, and I think about it while I take long, hot showers and cry against the cool white tiles, sometimes for reasons I can't put a finger on.

I miss him in a million ways every day. Part of me is grateful we only got a single night together, and part of me is so damn full of regret that I didn't grab and yank and claw for more when I had the chance.

I miss talking to him. I miss the sweet, slow smile that was so hard to pry out. I miss his honesty, his caring, his tough, in-control, always-loving ways. I know I have it bad when seeing Gramma's chicken and rooster salt-and-pepper shakers makes me get a big lump in my throat because any happy couple, even little ceramic condiment-holding ones, make me weepy.

But I keep going back to the way Gramma talked about her heart.

How sure she was.

How much they lost.

How much it hurt.

The thing is, my grandparents were strong enough and in love enough that their life together trumped their losses.

And there's the crux of my problem with Winch.

He loves his family. I tried to accept the way they are. I secretly hoped I'd fit in. I wondered if he might walk away. But nothing worked; nothing was going to work. His family and I couldn't accept each other, and I'd never ask him to choose.

I kept coming back, over and over again to the reality of our situation: part of me would always love him, but we would never work.

"That's it?" Brenna's voice crumples with defeat. I unbutton the hideous yellow uniform blouse and toss it and my plaid skirt into the hamper. I slide on pajamas and gather my knees to my chest and the phone to my ear.

"I've thought about it all week, Brenna. It's done. There never really was a way for it to work, but I couldn't accept that." I press my forehead to my knees and clamp my eyelids tight against the tears. "Now I can."

"You're an idiot," she cries. "You have to try to make this work!"

"You told me it wouldn't have worked. I should have listened from the beginning and saved myself all of this pain now."

I burrow under my covers and peek out at the creamy flowers, wilted and drooping. I'll have to throw them out soon, but my heart clutches at the thought of getting rid of his last gift to me.

"I was an idiot," she protests. I can hear her clicking hangers up in her closet, thumping things from place to place, moving things around. She's frustration-cleaning. All sounds suddenly stop, and her voice brightens like she's had a revelation. "Tomorrow is Saturday. You still have community service."

The knot that's been tying itself tighter and tighter in my stomach since the last time I saw him pulls again. "He might be there. Maybe not. I never replied to his note."

"He didn't text or call?" Brenna asks, but she knows the answer. As much as I've tried not to obsess about this, Brenna is the one person I've unloaded ever Winch-related-detail of my life to. "You guys are so weird. It's almost like you're torturing yourselves. Just call him."

"No. Can't. It would just be more stupid promises he can't keep and me getting my expectations up. I have to face reality, Bren, even if it hurts. And trust me, it hurts like crazy. Like a thousand papercuts in a lemon juice bath."

I run my hand over the cool, empty expanse of