Love Endures All

Chapter 1: The Beginning

During the summer I turned sixteen, Brady got a job working at the mall at Old Navy with Jayson. Bryson still worked for the same Insurance Company so I was always at home alone; which didn’t bother me because I was able to lay out in the sun in peace and work on some songs. Every evening I made sure supper was done when the guys got home from work and cleaned up before our nightly card game; which always lasted until bedtime. Every night I would lay awake staring at the moon wondering if my dad, Brandon or Bethany ever thought about us; and then I would drift off to sleep. One afternoon Bryson called and told me he was inviting someone to dinner and that I needed to cook extra food and set out extra places at the table. Bryson came home early so he could get ready. “Bryson, who are you getting dressed up for?” He smiled, “this girl I met a few days ago at the grocery store. I accidently hit her buggy and we got to talking. I gave her my number and she actually called me. I talked to her earlier and invited her to dinner.” I walked over to his closet and found him something nice to wear. “What is her name? Her name is Sara Newton; by the way what’s for supper?” I told him as I was going back downstairs. Bryson was setting the table when the doorbell rang; it was Sara. He introduced us and got two beers out of the fridge and they went outside. When Jay and Brady got in that night we ate and then sat down to play cards. All five of us played Bullshit. It’s my favorite game and I almost always won.

On the days Jay didn’t work we would be together; unfortunately only as friends because he had a girlfriend named Amanda. One day we were hanging out and I was going through my old yearbooks showing him all my old friends, guys I like and people I couldn’t stand. As I looked at my yearbooks from the past, I had to admit that I had fallen extremely short when it came to relationships in my life. The last serious relationship I had was when I was in 7th grade, with Steven Bradley, and there I was now a sophomore in high school. The closest people to me were Jayson and my brothers. I mean I had the girls on the cheerleading squad, the basketball team and the softball team that I hung out with but I really wanted someone to get serious with. Would I ever find him? “Hey Bailey, are you in there?” I came back from my happy place. “Yeah, I am waiting on you,” I said as I tossed a pencil at him and he tossed it back, turned his hat around and we played a few songs. We wrote songs based on how we felt, we wrote solos for each other, duets together and very seldom we wrote songs for ourselves. The songs we came up with we wrote down in our heavy duty notebooks so we had three of them; one for him, me and our duets. Some of our duets were songs that were already famous, but we loved to play them anyways. I sat up straight and followed him as he started one of his songs.

As we were playing, there was a knock on my bedroom door; it was his girlfriend. She walked up to him and kissed him. “Amanda, you know that when we are playing we don’t like to be disturbed.” I took off my guitar and walked upstairs to the kitchen where I found Bryson making some fresh lemonade. “Hey, do you think I will ever find love?” Bryson smiled at me and said, “I sure hope not.” He elbowed me in the arm, “of course you will find love. Bryson I want to experience love before I am old. Bailey, you are sixteen years old.” About that time Jay walked in, “Bailey, I will be back in a few minutes.” He followed Amanda outside; I watched from the kitchen. I heard Bryson say from over my shoulder, “Besides I think you have already found love.” I turned around on a whim, “Jayson is my friend…..that is gross. You say that now but you wait, y’all will eventually get together. Bryson you are crazy.” I walked over to the window and watched. “Bryson, if you haven’t noticed there is a skinny, un-tanned, ugly girl standing in the way.” I saw Jay leaned up against her car and she was pointed at my house and fussing. I walked back into the kitchen, “I don’t know though Bailey, you are enough to make him single though. What does that mean? Bailey, look at you, you are a beautifully talented sweet girl and she is definitely not.” I blushed and looked down at my feet. “Besides, she never gets to spend time with him because you two are always together. Yeah, but not like that Bryson, we work on our music, not each other. But how does she know that? She doesn’t, she should trust him. All I am saying sis, is that if my girlfriend was always with her boy-friend……in each other’s room……all the time……alone……that I would be jealous too.” Just then Jay came back in. “Bailey are you ready to get back to work? Yeah, I will be right there.” I looked at my brother. “He is only a friend and I love hanging out with him, Jay chooses to write music with me than hang with her.” I tapped my finger on the table and walked out and back downstairs to my room. I closed the door behind me, “is everything okay?” He sat on my bed and blew, “yeah, she is just mad because she says I spend too much time with you and not enough time with her.” I sat on the stool thinking about what we had just talked about in the kitchen. “Jay, I don’t want to lose you….that’s just it Bailey, you were here first.” I held that thought in my head for a few seconds before he walked over and put his arm around me, “if I am not with you I feel miserable.” Just then Sara called down, “Bailey, can you come up here for a minute?” I sat down my notebook and went upstairs. “Why don’t you go with us? We are going on a date tonight and we can find you someone to go with; if you would like. I looked at Jay and he smiled, “I don’t think she is talking to me.” I was confused. “You mean me? Yes goofy, you are going with us so get dressed. We are going to the movies and out to eat so wear something nice” and then she went upstairs with Bryson and shut the bedroom door.

I turned to look at Jay who was quietly laughing at me. “I’ll go but you have to find me something to wear. How am I going to do that, I have no idea what I am doing. What do you think looks good on me?” He walked over to my closet and pulled out four dresses, some black slacks with a blue button up shirt and then a khaki skirt with a black spaghetti strap shirt. “Try on these.” He turned around while I put on each outfit and it came down to my red topless dress, blue sleeveless dress and my blue-jean dress. “So which one do you think? I don’t know. I will take a shower and have Sara help. Well go get her and then get in the shower. I’m not leaving; not until I see how you look. Do you think you are gonna see me naked? Seriously Bailey, I have seen you in a bathing suit that’s pretty much the same thing.” He was smiling devilishly when I walked out of my room. I found Sara and Bryson getting ready. I was beginning to panic, “Sara, help me.” I closed her door. “Jay wants to wait to leave until I get out of the shower and get ready. Okay, what is wrong with that? He is gonna wait in my room. Okay! I will be naked. Oh, I see ……Bryson butted in, “well this is when you need to decide if you want to stay friends or become more. If you stay friends, don’t worry about it, but if you want more then make sure he knows it. Okay, but I do need Sara to pick out an outfit. Jay saw all of them on me and now it is down to three. Okay, I will be down there soon. Go ahead and take a shower.” I went back downstairs and into my room. I started taking off my clothes and noticed Jay getting a little nervous and antsy on my bed. I stood there in my bra and panties chewing on my hair. I looked up at him and he was checking me out. He stood up and walked over to me. As he was walking towards me, Sara came in so he pretended he was going to the bathroom and passed by me. Sara smiled and pointed to the blue dress. Before she walked out she held her thumb up and mouthed “wow.” I opened my bathroom door like it was nothing to me and got out two towels and sat them on the sink. I have to admit that I tried to take a peek at him but his back was standing towards me so I couldn’t see anything. I stood leaning up against the door frame and when he walked by he brushed up against me and for the first time I noticed how wonderful he smelt. I turned the shower on and closed the door so there was a crack and if he wanted to look in on me then he could. I got in and let the warm water beat down on me and then washed my hair and body.

When I got out I opened the curtain and grabbed the towels and wrapped them around me and then walked out. Jay was laying on my bed propped up writing something down in his music journal. “Close your eyes.” He laughed and put his face in my pillow. I quickly put on my blue panties and blue bra and then noticed that Jay had been watching. He stood up and walked over to me. He got close enough to kiss me and I put my hand on his chest to stop him. Since when did he have such a ripped chest? He softly whispered, “when did you change from the freckled face, pigtail wearing, girl I once knew into this……beautiful young woman that is standing in front of me?” I dropped my head and smiled to myself. “Jay,” he put his finger under my chin and lifted my head up to look at him. I leaned in to kiss him. When we kissed he wrapped his arms around me. He quickly realized what was going on and stopped.  He walked out of the room until I had my clothes on. When I tapped on the door he walked back in and had a look on his face, “you look very nice but I think I better go.” He turned to leave, “Jay, are we okay?” He turned around, “yeah, just call me tomorrow if you want to play some. I will.” He closed the door when he left. I dried my hair, curled it, put on a little makeup, slipped my heels on and then went upstairs to the kitchen and waited. When Bryson came down I blurted out, “I did it; I actually kissed him. You did, really? Yes, but I don’t know what came over me to make me do it. I do, you love him Bailey. Sara walked in, “Wow, Bailey, you look so beautiful.” A few minutes later there was a knock on the door and I never felt so nervous. Sara opened the door and Bryson’s friend stood there waiting.