Chapter 9

After a very long hug, Charlotte reluctantly let Jeremy go. She reckoned that she could’ve stayed wrapped up in him ‘til the end of time. But she knew that her thoughts were inappropriate, considering his situation.

They each took their seats and shyly smiled at each other. Charlotte took the initiative to speak first.

“It’s so good to see you. You haven’t changed at all, well, except you don’t look as tall as you used to. Either way, you look really good,” she said with a slight blush in her cheeks.

“I could say the same thing about you. You still look like the same 18 that hugged me that day at graduation,” he started. “I can’t believe this. Wow.”

“I know. I have to be honest with you, though. I thought about not coming. I wasn’t sure what to expect,” she told him matter-of-factly. “I’m having a hard time with some things and I didn’t want to burden you with them, considering.”

He didn’t know what to say to that. He was feeling the same way. With both of them, they really wanted to see each other, but it was simple fact that, as far as they both knew, the other one was in relationship with someone else. Plus, it was ten years later.

“I know exactly what you mean. But I look at it like this: we were friends back then and we can be friends now. I mean we already kind of picked up the other day where we left off ten years ago. It’s as if no time has passed at all. I think once we get over the initial shock of seeing each other after all this time, things will get back to normal. I mean, I would like for them to get back to normal, wouldn’t you?”

He could look in her face and tell what she was thinking. She knew, just as well as he did, that he was rambling to cover up what he really wanted to say. He was grateful that she was kind enough not to tease him about it.

“I would really like that. I missed you, for most of the years we were apart,” she joked, “but I seriously can’t wait to really catch up with you and see what’s been going on. I know there is so much to tell you about what I’ve been through and done and seen and…” she paused and looked him in the eyes, “and all the mistakes I’ve made and things I let slip by.”

She looked away from him and closed her eyes after she said that because his stare was too intense for her to bear. She took a couple of deep breaths to try and get her heart’s pace back to normal. She couldn’t believe she’d just said that to him. Sure, she was known for her bluntness, but when it came to her feelings about him, she could never find her tongue. She hoped that he wouldn’t press her right then. Maybe later she could explain.

“Lady, are you feeling okay? I’m gonna get you some water,” he told her as he stood up from the table.

“No, no, I’m okay. I think I just need to get some air. Can we sit at one of the tables outside? I feel like the room is closing in on me.”

“Of course.”

Charlotte stood up and Jeremy put his hand on the small of her back and let her out the side door of the restaurant. Where his hand was placed, if felt as if all the heat in his body radiated through her skin and straight to her heart. She was in deep and she had no idea how she was going to make it through the rest of the evening. They’d only been talking for about 10 minutes. She had to pull it together.

“Wait, do you mind if we get something to eat?” She felt she needed something to keep her mind and hands busy.

“Oh, yeah,” he shook his head as if he was remembering something, “I totally forgot where we were. I’ll get it, if you want to stay here. What do you want?” he asked.

That was the Jeremy she remembered. He’d always been such a gentleman, pulling out chairs, holding doors. She knew that his wife was getting the royal treatment from him. Then she immediately thought about Damien. He never did anything like that for her.

“Um, get me whatever you’re getting. I’m good with that,” she said. She trusted him.

He headed off back into the restaurant. As soon as he was out of eyesight, Charlotte let out a high pitched squeal. She couldn’t believe that she was there with him. Just like old times, she thought.

She craned her neck around the pillars on the side of their table to look in through the window. She could see him placing their order. She watched him as he reached for their glasses and for the plates handed to him by the server. She was watching his body. He stilled moved fluidly, as though he was floating on air. It was so effortless. And his body… even beneath the shirt she could visually outline every muscle and each individual pack in the six pack.

She tried to make it seem like she wasn’t looking when he came back out of the restaurant, but she knew she was caught.

“Enjoy the view?” he asked, joking with her. “I saw you eyeballing me.”

“Yeah, I was trying to see if anything had changed. Are you still overdoing it in the gym?”

He laughed. She always did tease him about always working out and staying in shape. He knew that it was all in fun because she used to go with him back in the day.

“I do what I can, you know how it is. But after eating this,” he said, pointing to his plate, “I’ll be spending hours each day in there.”

She looked down at her plate and nodded.

“I know what you mean, but we can’t help it. It’s just too good.”

They both laughed and agreed as they dug into their food.
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“Let’s go hit The Spot, get a drink and talk some more,” Jeremy said.

They’d already finished their food and were talking for two hours. The Spot was a small bar that he went to sometimes after work. It was quiet and mellow, the perfect place to talk about the past.

“Okay,” Charlotte readily agreed.

They then went to their cars, which Charlotte noticed were not parked next to each other, but across lanes from each other.

Once they made it to their second destination, they found a corner, ordered some drinks and jumped right into the all important conversation.

“Okay,” Charlotte began, “I have a confession to make. I originally had an ulterior motive to contacting you after all these years. I don’t know what I was doing the other day, but something had me rummaging through my Memory book.”

She stopped and looked up at him. His eyes, she realized, she would have to stop looking into. They were mesmerizing.

“I came across the note you left in the back of my book. Do you remember me giving you my book and you telling me not to read what you wrote right away? Turns out I’d never read it until the other day. I don’t know how I could’ve missed that. But anyway, when I read it, I started thinking about you, something I realized then that I hadn’t done in a long time. I couldn’t believe that I’d let all this time pass and I hadn’t spoken to you. So I reached out using the last number I had for you, and thankfully your mom kept that number. I was so elated to talk to you that I forgot my main purpose in calling you.”

She didn’t want to ask him her next question, but she knew it would bother her if she never did.

“What did that message mean? I mean, if I’m reading more into than you meant, please let me know, but I have to know if it meant more. I have to know if I meant more.”

She could finally breathe after confessing that to him. No, it wasn’t all that she had to say, but it was a start. She could tell him the rest, or not, after she got more information from him.

Jeremy looked at her for some time without saying a word. She didn’t want to press him and make him not tell her what he had to say, so she waited patiently. Besides, she wasn’t so sure she wanted to hear what he had to say. It could’ve been bad.

“Well,” he sighed, “I don’t even know where to begin.” He paused again for a moment before starting again. “I… when I wrote that, I meant for us to have this conversation,” he said gesturing between them, “right then. Ten years is a long time, you know.”

He watched her, as eyes dropped, no longer meeting his. He thought she looked hurt, as though she was expecting something that she didn’t get.

“But,” he said, trying to recatch her line of sight, “that time hasn’t changed the way I felt, or feel, about you. Lady, I’ll be honest with you. From the time I met you back in Pre-K I felt like you were my best friend, that person I could lean on and run to if I needed it. You had always been that. And then one day, I saw you as something more, someone so beautiful. I mean, don’t get me wrong, you have always been pretty to me, but this was different. My feelings for you changed into something much more than I ever thought I could feel for someone. At first, I didn’t know what it was, but I knew that I had to control it. You were my best friend and I didn’t want anything to ruin that. And then you had a boyfriend. So to keep from going crazy over you being with someone else, I started chasing girls.”

“You and I were never single at the same time, so I never acted on my feelings for you. And please believe me when I say that they have never gone away. I do regret not doing anything about it because, well, who knows what could’ve happened?”

He finished and slumped down into the sofa they were sitting on. Charlotte was still lost in craziness of what he’d just told her and was unmoving.

After a minute of her not saying anything, Jeremy moved closer to her.

“Charlotte, are you okay? I don’t blame you for being speechless, I know this is a lot to handle and you probably never saw me as anything more than a brother, but I must say that it feels good to finally get this off my chest. You know, come to think of it, you probably never even loo…”

Charlotte kissing him cut him off. She had no idea what to say to him, but everything in her entire being told her to just kiss him.

But apparently, she wasn’t the only one feeling that way. Jeremy was kissing her back.