“Not gonna lie, I’m not sure where the hell to start.” His honesty allowed the muscles in my shoulders to relax, knowing I wasn’t alone with my nerves. He was always so good at portraying calm, I didn’t know what to think. In the past, I saw beyond it, but a lot had changed. It was stupid to assume I could still read him. “Honestly, all I can think to say to you is how sorry I am.” My heart stopped. No. No, no, no. I didn’t want to face this yet. “I’ve wanted to say it—” He stopped when he noticed my shaking head. “What?”
“It’s okay. We don’t have to do this. Really. Let’s just . . .” Just what? I didn’t know. I inhaled as deeply as I could, exhaling the pressure building there and collected my thoughts. “Let’s just not, right now.”
Kevin nodded his head slowly, his brows pinched. “Um, okay.” I swallowed the lump in my throat, calming my racing heart. “How about we start simple? How are you?”
Simple? Ha. Nervous, nauseous, scared, overwhelmed, happy. They were all accurate. Instead, I settled on, “I’m good. How are you?”
His eyes scanned my face and his smile grew wider. “I’m great, Ana. Better than I’ve been in a while.”
“Good.” Seeing the sparkle in his eyes made my cheeks heat. Turned out it didn’t matter how long we’d spent apart, I could still read the look in his eyes and knew he was happy to see me. I would’ve known that look had we been separated a hundred years.
“Well that didn’t last long.” He chuckled. “How was Vanderbilt?”
“For the most part, stuck up.” He laughed again and the sound settled into my bones, making me feel weightless. I used to love making him laugh. It was like I’d won a reward for being me. “Not everyone. I made some good friends, but I didn’t always quite fit in. You know how I feel about country music.”
“Oh, yeah. Living in the country music capital must have been awesome for you.”
“It’s about seventy-five percent of all radio stations down there. I had to invest in Pandora.”
“You poor thing.” He gasped, pulling his hand to his chest.
I nodded. “Just horrible.”
“Did you stick with teaching, like you’d originally planned?”
“I did. I already did my student teaching in Tennessee, so I only have a few things to finish up here. What about you? What’s your major?”
“Much to my parents’ dismay, I gave up soccer and eventually settled on marketing with a focus in sports marketing.”
“That fits you.”
A long pause fell over our table. The sparkle from his eyes faded into sadness while he stared at my face. I looked away as I took a drink of my coffee. My hands trembled and a knot formed in my throat.
I could do this. I could keep it light. It was okay.
I could do this.
The repeated words did nothing to stop the ache from spreading through my chest. I needed to get the conversation going again, something to divert the attention away from how we were both so obviously remembering the past. My mind scrambled for a rope to grab on to. “How are your parents?” I finally asked.
“They’re good. Dad retired around my sophomore year, so they’ve been traveling a lot.”
I smiled, remembering all the times his mom talked about what they would do once she convinced his dad to retire. “I’m glad she’s finally getting what she wanted.”
“Yeah, she’s enjoying herself.” He swallowed hard before asking a question of his own. “How was living with your dad? Or better yet, his girlfriend?”
“Oh, you mean his wife?” I nodded as his eyebrows raised in question. “Yup, had a small ceremony last year. Said she didn’t need many people or a big wedding, as long as Jesus was there.”
“Interesting.”
“It sure was. But you know what?” Taking a deep breath, I admitted something that took me a while to accept. “I held onto blaming her for taking my mom’s spot, but it faded. She wasn’t that bad. She was easy to make fun of for all her weirdness and Jesus talk, but she was also hard to dislike because of how nice she was. Especially after we had the talk about how I wasn’t going to church with her anymore.”
“Oh yeah? How did she take that?”
“It was okay. She said she would say prayers for me and would hopefully meet me for brunch afterward. I decided that was an acceptable halfway point for us. It was nice since my dad wasn’t really around. Too busy with work. So, she was a decent companion while I was there.”
“I’m sorry your dad wasn’t around more. I know how you missed him. I’m sure you hoped being there would allow you to get closer.”
Of course he did. Just another thing that drove home how well he knew me. We sat across from each other and pretended like we were old friends just catching up.