99 Reasons Why It Wasn't Love

4 | Reasons Three and Four

So, here's my latest preamble. Many people have asked me if there is going to be 99 chapters for 99 reasons - the answer is no. There will be just as many reasons for - well, you'll see. It all depends on how long it takes me to get to where I need it to go. Second order of business - sorry it took so long to get this up! Gah, I had a terrible time writing it. I must've written twenty pages I didn't use. Last thing before I stop rambling - the song on the side there? I found it, and I thought "OMG THIS SONG IS BRONWYN! HOLY CRAP HOLY CRAP!" So this is sort of like her theme song, get it? It's freaky how much it resembles her. Hope you enjoy!

Reasons Three and Four 

I thought that Thatcher was over and done with, one exciting night of my past to be tied up with a little bow and labeled as finished. As much as he intrigued me, and as much as he made me permanently perplexed, I wasn’t willing to fabricate my own soap opera. Not again. But sometimes fate has other ideas, and they throw you a curveball. More often than not in the produce section.

I was carefully examining two apples when I saw him. The back of his head bobbing near the celery display, beant over the leafy green stalks as some sort of moral evaluation. My heart rate immediately sky rocketed, my jaw dropped, and I turned away before he could finish.

The rules never covered this.

I was usually quick to make sure that the majority of the men I dated where from out of town, at least the next town over. That way, I didn’t have to study the hurt in his eyes or throw together a sub par response to why I had never returned his calls, shying away from the door when he knocked. When I did see them, I could usually just slide my sunglasses further up my nose, resume business per usual, and the problem was averted. By then, I was usually just a distant memory.

Now, however, I was having trouble planning an escape route, and in less than ten seconds I had determined that I was, in fact, screwed.

As some sort of involuntary reaction, I reached for my sunglasses, only to find that they were vacant from their usual place on my head. It was raining; I’d left them at home.

Thatcher started to turn, muttering something, so I held one of the apples in front of my face.

Maybe he would believe that I was some sort of analytical woman who was examining her apple for microscopic pesticides.

As if.

Thatcher, still muttering about dryer sheets and strawberry-rhubarb, took a step forward. Without missing a beat, he teased, “I wonder who could be behind apple number one?”

Defeated and completely depleted of ideas, I lowered my apple in surrender.

“Bronwyn.”

“Thatcher.” There was a pregnant pause as we finally met eyes, and I tried not to seem too guilty, even though I could feel it squirming in the pit of my stomach, like I’d swallowed a can of worms. Disgusting.

“I thought you’d died,” he admitted finally, sauntering over to the pyramid of apple and apple themed product behind me. He was examining pie filling when I spun around, sputtering and now thoroughly flabbergasted.