Chapter Ten

The next morning Sarah absentmindedly pushed the cart down the cereal aisle.

Cannot believe I forgot my freaking list, she grumbled to herself as she tried desperately to remember a single thing that had been written on the tiny dry-erase board hanging on her refrigerator.

Oh, well. Keep circling, maybe I will see something that jogs my memory. But nothing did.

She was almost to the end of the aisle when a completely unexpected memory came at her out of nowhere – her and Tim, smiling, walking closely together as they shared cart duty.

Captain Crunch? she’d suggested.

With berries, he chimed in, and she had nodded and put a box in their cart.

We need to do this more, he’d announced.

Come shopping? Well, yeah, otherwise the food runs out, she’d teased.

Yeah, come shopping, but together. Everything is more fun with you, Sarah. Even trying to pick out cereal. I can’t wait for us to get a place together, and I wanna pick out cereal with you for the rest of our lives…

“Are you all right, sweetheart?” the little old lady asked.

Sarah came back to the present and was horrified to realize she was standing in the middle of the aisle with tears streaming unchecked down her cheeks.

She looked at the woman who had spoken to her for a long moment before she managed to whisper, “No.”

Then she abandoned the cart with a lonely yellow cereal box in it and made a beeline for the door.

***

“What’s wrong?” Karli exclaimed with a gasp when she opened her front door and saw Sarah standing there.

“It’s never gonna go away,” Sarah blubbered, and fell forward into her best friend’s outstretched arms.

Karli was shocked. Out of everyone she knew, Sarah Genard was usually the most together, the most level-headed, and the most laid-back woman of any group. To see her so obviously distraught tore at Karli’s soul.

“Oh, honey,” she murmured softly in Sarah’s ear, “come on in and let’s talk it out. Okay?”

“O… okay,” Sarah said in a whimper.

Karli reached around and closed the door, then guided Sarah to the kitchen table.

“Coffee?” she asked.

Sarah nodded, still crying.

“Coming up,” Karli confirmed, pausing only to place a box of Kleenex in front of Sarah before heading over to grab two mugs from the cupboard.

A few minutes later Karli was seated next to her best friend.

“Okay, hon, what’s going on?”

“The past is kicking my butt lately,” Sarah managed.

“What do you mean?”

“I told you I was engaged once, right?”

“You mentioned it,” Karli said carefully, “but the look on your face told me you didn’t wanna talk about it.”

“I think… I think I need to,” Sarah admitted.

“Let it out, honey. It’s a safe space here, you know that.”

Sarah smiled gratefully at Karli before taking a sip of her coffee. She closed her eyes and took a couple of deep breaths, then opened her eyes again and began to speak.

“Tim was my everything,” she told Karli. “We started dating the summer before our freshman year. When we graduated, he went into the Army, but by the time boot camp was done he proposed, and I said yes. Because I knew he was my one and only. So, we planned our wedding, and it was supposed to be perfect,” she sighed. “And then…”

“And then, what?”

Sarah swallowed hard.

“It was the night before the wedding. I knew Tim and Kevin were gonna have one last boy’s night out, and I was fine with that because I trusted him, you know?”

Karli nodded.

Sarah continued, “We were out of milk and butter. Dad had gotten called in to work and Mom was already in bed with a migraine, so, I drove to the store. I parked and got out of the car, and I noticed movement across the street in front of the pool hall, so I glanced that direction. And I saw them.”

“What? What did you see?” Karli whispered.

“My fiancé kissing the town slut,” Sarah mumbled. “It was already dark outside, but they were under a streetlight, and it sure looked like he was into it. I couldn’t think, couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe. I got in my car, and I drove back to my mom’s house. I packed up my things, and I put my engagement ring in an envelope with his name on it and left it where my friend Jenny would find it. I waited until I was certain my mom was asleep, and I left town.”

Karli was stunned.

“You didn’t confront him?”

“No,” Sarah told her. “It crushed me. He was my entire world. He was my first… you know…everything. And all I could think of was to get away.”

“Did he try to come after you or find you?”

Sarah shrugged as she stared into her coffee mug.

“No idea. I changed my email and phone number the next morning, and I didn’t tell anyone where I was going. I called my parents later to let them know I was okay, but I made them promise not to tell him they’d heard from me,” she confessed quietly.

“All I could think was that I didn’t want to be stuck in that tiny little town where I’d have to see them together. Seeing her live the life with him that should have been mine would have killed me.”

Now she lifted her eyes to glance at Karli, and it hurt Karli’s heart to see the haunted look on Sarah’s face.

“And then I started to regret not at least talking to him before I left. My mom brought me a letter he’d sent to the house letting me know he’d deployed, but that’s the last time I heard from him. I sent letter after letter but never got an answer, so I figured I was too late. That was over two years ago, Karli, and I still love him. I still miss him. It’s like a bad dream I can’t wake up from. I want to move on, but I can’t. I don’t know how.”

“Is that why you don’t date?” Karli asked her gently.

Sarah nodded.

“I’ve tried a couple of times, but I just… I can’t get Tim out of my head.”

She reached over and grabbed Karli’s hand.

“But I need to. I need to move on from this. Help me think of a way to move on, Karli. This is killing me.”

***

“You don’t look so hot,” Jordan observed that evening. “You getting sick? There’s a bug going around.”

“Could be,” Tim admitted. “Didn’t sleep worth a damn, either.”

Jordan cocked his head to one side and gazed at his rig partner.

“Yeah, you do look tired. What’s going on?”

“Shades of the past,” Tim muttered, then waved his hand when Jordan raised an eyebrow in concern. “Never mind, dude. I’ll be fine.”

“You know I’m here if you need someone to listen, right?”

Tim smiled.

“I know. And I appreciate that. Maybe I’ll take you up on that sometime, but I’m not ready to talk about it now.”

Jordan held up his hands.

“Fair enough, man. The offer stands.”

“Thanks,” Tim answered. “Now, we gonna get to work or what?”