Breathless

Chapter 30: Wonderful Words - April 4

She found him sitting under a tree. Looking outrageously gorgeous in the light of a dying sun. Green grass spreading out under him to run in four directions across the lawn of their old high school. There was a pleasant breeze stirring the air around them. The sky had been brilliantly painted in shades of rose and violet as the slumbering sun turned the horizon golden.

"This is where it all began," he breathed. "For me, at least."

He glanced up at her. Then at the tree.

"This is our tree, you know." His eyes found hers again.

"Our tree? What makes it so?"

But she recognized the spot now. What she had forgotten – what had lain buried under the mists of time – suddenly resurfaced. A vision of Blaze as a darling seventeen-year-old boy instantly floated up out of the recesses of her mind.

"This is where I first laid eyes on you," he whispered. He stood up. "This is where you handed me..."

"A package of Ho Hos," she breathed as she reached out her hand to him.

He lifted his own hand reflexively as his gaze dropped to hers. But she didn't take his hand. Instead, she set something in it. His eyes widened in surprise.

Ho Hos.

"You knew?" he gasped.

"I suspected," she clarified.

He grinned at her suddenly, and the sun rose in her heart.

Oh, yes.

That grin was beloved. That face was dear to her in ways that surprised her. She had never felt for Owen the things that she now felt for Blaze.

She had been a rose tightly sealed in Owen's grasp. Perhaps her heart had always known that it wasn't safe in his hands. She'd wrapped her velvet petals firmly about herself to keep out the chill winds of his indifference and his spite. But the ardent sun of Blaze's love had shone down on her with warmth and cheer until he'd begun to coax her petals open. She was now fully unfurled before his heat. Wallowing in the welcome of his lavish love.

"Can you forgive me?" he whispered.

A tremor rippled across her face. "For what?"

She felt a cool wind slip past her soul.

"For so many things," he sighed.

His eyes met hers again. "First of all, for not fighting for you back in high school. I loved you, and I knew Owen was a jerk. I saw him kissing another girl during the second month of my senior year. While he was dating you. I wanted to tell you, but I lacked the courage to break your heart. We weren't friends; I didn't know if you'd even listen to me. I thought you'd hate me if I told you. I wasn't brave enough to lose even your indifference.

"But now... Oh! How I wish I'd told you. Even if you'd hated me, you would have been forewarned. Perhaps forearmed. Maybe it would have stopped you from marrying him. So that's the first thing I'm sorry for."

He took a deep breath.

"You saw Owen kiss another girl?" Her eyes were wide open now as she stared up at him in horror. "He cheated on me from the very beginning?" But it wasn't anything she hadn't already suspected.

She narrowed her eyes. "Was she wearing a red Cardinals cap?" she asked suddenly.

Blaze started. Now his eyes grew wide. "How did you know that?"

She growled, "He missed my sweet sixteen birthday party to go to a baseball game. With her, apparently. Not with his father. I knew it!" she exclaimed.