Promise Me This (Between Breaths 4)

Mom was a spiritual person—you’d have to be to practice Reiki, just like her mother had before her—and she always said she felt Dad around her. I felt him too, but it was more in the advice he gave, the lessons he taught.

“It’s in my blood,” I said and pulled out a chair to sit down. “Just like it was for him.”

She nodded and sipped her tea, pleased with my answer.

“So tell me more about Nate.”

“You know Nate. I’ve mentioned him before.” My stomach tightened. “He grew up in Bridgeway, so he knew where all the cool bridges were.”

“And?” her eyebrow arched.

“And what?” I asked wondering what she was getting at.

“There’s something you’re not saying,” she said, placing her fingers on my arm. “Your energy changed as soon as I mentioned him.”

I couldn’t get anything past my mother. She had a rare gift for reading people. Her customers had stayed with her for years. She could lay her hands on your skin and practically see straight inside your soul. She’d been the first to feel the cancer energy inside my dad. But then it spread too rapidly.

“We’ve always been casual friends,” I said. “And I never really took him very seriously. But on the ride up we got to know each other better and . . . I began seeing him differently.”

“If only people took the time to do that, before passing judgment,” she said. “They’d see we all have the same simple truths hidden beneath the surface.”

My parents had always believed in acceptance and equality across the board and they were pretty hard to hold a candle to. I only hoped to have the same strength and wisdom.

We lapsed into a comfortable silence, me reading the headlines from the newspaper sitting on the table and Mom staring out the window at the bird feeder, lost in her own thoughts. I wanted to tell Mom more, tell her everything that happened between Nate and me, but I wasn’t exactly sure if I understood it all myself. Not yet.

So . . . what else happened on this road trip?” she finally asked, her eyes seeking mine.

“The more I got to know him, the closer I felt, and . . . I realized how attracted I was to him,” I said, being completely honest. “I even told him a few things about Dad.”

“Oh, honey,” she said, her eyes growing moist as she reached out to touch my hand.

“And then my tire blew out and we had to stay over to get it fixed in the morning.” I sighed. “We ate dinner, went to some country bar, and had a ball together.”

My mother waited on me to say what I was essentially trying to avoid.

“We . . . we kissed,” I said, running my hand over the back of my neck. “And it was, whoa.”

My mother brushed my hair away from my face. “You did more than kiss, honey.”

I nodded, my cheeks heating up. Even though I’d always been free to talk to my parents about anything, discussing sex was still pretty uncomfortable.

“Well?”

“It was kind of . . . amazing,” I said, biting my lip.

“But?” she stood and dumped her remaining tea in the sink.

“He kind of freaked out after that,” I said. “Almost like he was afraid of his own shadow.”

My mother’s eyebrows etched in concern. “Why do you think?”

“I think he’s had a really rough childhood, where he wasn’t treated all that great and it’s affected his relationships with other people,” I said keeping away from the gritty details of Nate’s family history.

“Oh honey, I’m sorry,” she said. “So now what?”

“So now nothing.” I shrugged. “It all started making sense, why he was never with any girls, at least not for more than a night, if that.”

“He’s got a lot to work out.”

“Yeah,” I said. “So, it was fun and I’ll continue to be his friend.”

She weaved her fingers through mine. “You’ve got to protect your heart too, you know.”

“I will,” I said.

My brother bounded down the stairs in his jeans and football T-shirt. He had sprung up in the last year and now towered over both my mother and me. He was a good-looking kid with a decent head on his shoulders, just like my dad.

“Hey, squirt,” I said. That was my childhood nickname for him, but I was pretty sure I wouldn’t get away with it for much longer. Definitely not outside the house, anyway. “You ready?”

As we piled into my mom’s car I felt amazingly better having spoken to her about Nate. Talking with my parents always had that same effect. They’d give me much needed perspective and I’d walk away feeling settled and strong. My heart ached wishing that Nate had had the same support growing up.

Chapter Twenty-four

Jessie

The first quarter had already begun as we climbed through the crowded stands. Cameron and his friend Ryan were bouncing with excitement, and as I took in all the die-hard sports nuts in the home team’s cheering section, I realized that college games didn’t look much different than high school games. The stands were larger, had more rows, but the fans were probably the same.

“Sit wherever you can find a spot for all of us,” I yelled up to my brother who had looked back at my mom and me questioningly. He went about halfway up the stands and then began scooting past people to get to the middle of one of the rows. As I made my way over people’s legs, I immediately spotted Nate in the seats below and froze. Shit.