Genre: Romance
"She's on Winter House."
I frowned; it took a moment for the full impact of those words to hit me.
Cora is here.
Our last day together came at me in a rush of phrases and images.
The sky had been pastel blue. Oddly, I remembered looking up, seeing the white trail from a passing plane. But when I'd turned to her, I'd seen what I should have noticed before.
She'd been crying.
That was not so unusual, of course; those were the days when Cora had cried all the time. Her mom died and her dad left. She just lost so many important people in her life.
The difference was, this time; she wouldn't let me get near her. I couldn't remember precisely what I'd said, how I'd tried uselessly to comfort her. What I'd did recall was how she finally quite, and the sight of Cora, my Cora, looking dull and cold had scared me.
"I had sex with a boy last night." She'd said it without preamble, as if she'd wanted to cut me with her confession.
I had pulled the whole, sleazy story out of her, one painful syllable at the time, and when she was finished, I knew all the facts, but they hadn't added up to a whole truth I could understand.
If I'd been older, more sexually experienced, I would have known the question to ask, the only one that mattered: Why? But I'd been seventeen and a virgin myself. All I'd cared about was the promise me and Cora had made... to wait for each other until we're ready.
Hurt and anger had overwhelmed me. She'd lied to me, and she hadn't loved me as much as I'd loved her. I'd felt stupid and used. I'd waited desperately for her to throw herself at my feet, to beg for forgiveness, but she'd just stood there, close enough to touch and yet so far away I couldn't see her clearly. Or maybe it was my tears that we're blurring the world, turning her into a girl I'd never seen before.
"Go ahead," she'd said, staring densely up to me. "Go. It's over."
I'd had to leave fast-before she could see that I was crying. I'd turned away from her and run back to my car. I'd drive hard and fast, trying to outdistance the pain, but it had raged inside of me, thumping with every beat of my heart. Everywhere I'd looked, I'd seen her... in the shade of Miss Walter's big oak tree, where I'd gave the promise ring to Cora the previous week... in the darkness of the city park's driveway, where we'd once set up our lemonade stand. And finally, on my parents' land, where I'd kissed her for the first time.
Then I stopped. For the first time, I wondered what in the hell in the world I was doing, running toward my first love as if eight years hadn't passed, as if I'd seen her yesterday.
I released a deep long steady breath. There was no turning back now.
I slowly walked down the direction and stepped up onto the balcony. After another fast breath, I knocked.
And she answered.
The moment I saw her, I understood what had been missing from my life.
"Cora," I said, my voice was barely audible and it hurts to say her name. She was beautiful that for a second I couldn't breathe.
"Noah," she said, her eyes widening.
I didn't know what to say. I feel like a seventeen-year-old kid again, dumbfounded in front of the prom queen. I was sweating suddenly and my throat was painfully dry. All I could think was, Cora's home, and she was standing in front of me and I didn't want to say the wrong thing, but I couldn't imagine what the right thing was. "I...uh...Are you up for a walk?"
She closed her eyes for a second, and then looked up at me again. "Okay."
And with that, we walked, side by side, not talking and headed down to the beach. The hot sun beat down on her cheeks.
Finally, we reached the beach.
"We used to play sand castle here all the time." She said softly.
"Things change, don't they?" I just stared up the sky.
A quite settled in between us. Maybe I was just waiting for her to reply.
"I'm sorry, Noah," she said. "I didn't want to hurt you."
Finally, I looked at her, facing her. "You didn't want to hurt me? Fuck, Caro, you were my whole world."
"I knew that. I just... couldn't be someone's world then."
"I tried to take care of you after your mom died and your dad left, but it was hard. You were constantly picking a fight with me. But I kept telling myself that you'd get past it, that everything would be okay and come back to me. And I kept loving you."
She stared at me for a minute, maybe trying to read my mind or maybe she was trying to remember the day she'd broke my heart. She sighed. "You believed in something I didn't. Every time I closed my eyes at night, I dreamed about you leaving me, just like what mom and dad did. I always heard your voice in my nightmares. I kept on searching but I could never find you. I couldn't stand waiting for you to leave me. To stop loving me.
"What made you so sure I would leave you?"
"Come on, Noah... we were kids, but we weren't stupid. I knew you'd go off to some prestige's university I couldn't afford and forget about me."
Our faces were close together, and if I'd let myself, I could have lost my way in the deep brown of her eyes. "So, you leaved me before I had a chance to leave you."
She smiled weakly. "Pretty much. Now, let's change the topic. Tell me about your life. How is it to be a super bachelor?"
"What if I said I still love you?"
She gasped. "Don't say that... please."
I took her face in my hands, gently forced her to look up at me. "Did you stop loving me, Cora?"
I felt the soft exhalation of her breath against my lips, but before she opened her mouth to answer, her lips met mine and the only sound she made was a quiet sigh that tasted of surrender.
And for a few brief, heart-stopping seconds, it's like our past faded like a wind left in the hot sun.
When I drew back, she slowly opened her eyes. "I know your fear of abandonment was so deep it had calcified in your bones and you'd lost your ability to believe that anyone would catch you. But I've waited a long time for a second chance with you, Cora."
She pushed me away. "I can't do this. It's too much...too fast. You've always wanted too much from me."
"Damn it, Cora," disappointment all over me. "Have you grown up at all?"
"I won't hurt you again," she said.
I touched her face. "Oh, Cora...just looking at you hurts me."
"I can't give you what you want. It's not in me."
I brushed the hair away from her eyes and my fingertips linger at her temple. "You ran me off eight years ago. I'm not a kid anymore, and we both know, this thing between us isn't over. I don't think it ever was."
