But really, I am desperately trying to keep my mind from thinking about Annie. I can’t figure out how to shut these feelings down. I’ve never had anyone stuck in my head like this before. When I close my eyes, I see her face. I hold her in my dreams, and I hear her voice in my ear when I’m waking up. I imagine leaving her after the wedding and my fists ball up.
I rub my chest.
It’s time to talk to someone. Shifting from my knees, I sit in the grass and scrape my hands through my hair wishing I could scrape these thoughts out too.
Before I talk myself out of it, I pull out my cell phone. Miraculously, I have service right here in the dirt of Mabel’s garden. I press the contact name open on my screen.
He answers on the second ring. “Will? What’s wrong?”
“Why do you automatically think something is wrong? Can’t I call my brother for no reason?”
“Not at six a.m. you can’t. And not after ghosting me for several weeks.” I hear the shuffling of covers and a female voice ask who’s on the phone. Hannah. Of course she’d be in bed with him. They’re a couple, and couples sleep together. All night. Side by side.
My mind flashes once again to Annie—the way she looked waking up on my chest yesterday morning. I think of her soft blue eyes flashing up at me under her thick dark lashes and the curve of her smile. And suddenly I think of seeing that every day for the rest of my life, and that painful tug in my chest happens again.
Ethan whispers to Hannah that he’ll be right back, and then I hear a door shutting softly. “Okay, what’s going on? You’ve been dodging all of my calls and texts for weeks, and now you’re calling at the crack of dawn?”
“Hardly the crack of dawn. Some of us live a whole life before six a.m.”
“I’m not one of them. I haven’t had coffee yet, and I feel like shit before seven, so you better have an amazing reason for needing me this early.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, and my words are followed by a thick pause. “Not for calling early. I mean, I guess I’m sorry for that too. Or, no I’m not. You should wake up earlier. It’s good for you.” I clear my throat when I realize I’m nervously rambling. “I’m sorry for not supporting you, and for generally being an asshole about the engagement. I was never truly upset with you for proposing. I think I was just jealous and bitter that you were able to when I wasn’t. And honestly, I didn’t understand before…about you and Hannah.”
“But you do now?”
“Support you guys? Yeah, I—”
“No,” he says, quickly. “You said you didn’t understand before. But you do now?”
Damn. I walked right into that one.
I drag in a deep breath. “I—uh—maybe.” Shit, this is painful. I’m so used to being the one who has all the answers, who plows the way and teaches Ethan everything he knows. I’ve been protecting my brother from the world since we were kids. And now I feel lost and…terrified. “Ethan, how did you know that it was worth it to love Hannah?”
He laughs quietly on the other end as it sounds like he’s opening a bag of coffee. “You make it seem like there was a choice in the matter. Believe me, if I could have chosen, I would still be living in my lonely one-bedroom apartment in SoHo. There was no choice in the matter, Will, and I’m thankful for it. I met Hannah and I fell in love completely against my better judgment.”
Those words land with a dramatic superhero comic book Thunk! into my brain. I have no choice in the matter, my heart wants Annie.
“Okay then…” I say, thinking of how to rephrase my question. “How did you know your feelings were worth giving in to?”
“Hmm.” He’s quiet for a minute. “I guess when I realized it felt scarier to live life without her than with her.”
Any other answer besides that one. Please. Any other answer and I would have been able to shove it under a rug. But that one…I can’t dismiss it.
“Did you meet someone, Will?”
“Sort of.”
“And you’re scared?”
“A little. I’ve generally tried to not need anyone since I was a kid and realized that needing people usually ends in something painful.”
There’s a taut silence. “Hey, Will?”
“Hmm?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever really said thank you before. For everything you were to me and did for me growing up.” I sit silent, unable to form any words. Ethan continues, “I’m not sure I ever realized the differences in our childhood quite as much as just now when you said that. Because I don’t have the same reaction toward needing people as you do—largely because when I needed you, you were always there for me.”
“I wasn’t there for you when I left after high school and joined the military.”
“Are you kidding me? You sent money home to me every month. You even made it back to see me off to prom. You might not have been there day in and day out after you left home, but I never doubted that you were always one phone call away and you’d drop everything to be there for me. So…thank you.”
I swallow and clench my jaws—only barely managing to get my words out without tears. “No problem.”
Ethan chuckles lightly, understanding how deeply uncomfortable I am with, well, feeling my feelings. He has mercy on me. “All right. Now tell me about her,” he says, and I hear the smile in his voice. I imagine it’s smug and over-the-top. I wish I could withhold information about Annie just to piss him off, but unfortunately, I’ve been dying to talk to someone about her for weeks now.
“She’s cute. Like in that wholesome, blindingly happy sort of way—but she has so much grit under the surface that it makes her almost dangerous. She’s kind and empathetic, and so damn passionate and exciting in a way I’ve never really known before…and she’s way too good for me.”
He laughs. “So you love her?”
“That’s why I called you, Mr. Hannah. I don’t know. I don’t know that I’m even capable of love. I mean…you were there, Ethan. You were right beside me when we had to close ourselves in my room and blare our radio just so we didn’t hear the screaming matches between Mom and Dad. You heard the way he talked to her and how she would throw things at him. I’m so scared that’ll end up being me one day, and I won’t be able to leave. I’ll be just like them—stuck in a loveless toxic relationship that doesn’t seem to have an exit. How the hell did you get over that?”
“Quite frankly, therapy.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. We had dysfunctional parents, Will. We spent our entire adolescence in an emotionally unstable environment and were made to feel like we were the problems most of the time. You more than me, obviously, because you shielded me from a lot. It’s not something you just get over or choose to un-feel. And I think the day I came to terms with that was when I started truly healing. I’ll never be able to shove it down with some elbow grease. It’s going to take time, and work, and patience from my partner as I unpack it.”
“I hear you, but I spent most of my life feeling absolutely miserable every day. I don’t want to risk that ever happening again.” Even though in my heart I know that Annie doesn’t have the same hurtful traits my parents had.
“Will, we were children. We didn’t have a choice. But you’re an adult now—you always have the choice to leave a bad situation.”
“What if I can’t see that it’s bad?”
“I’ll tell you.”
“What if I’ll be the one that’s bad for Annie? What if I’m like Mom and Dad and the only way to protect Annie is to not let myself have her?”
“Shit, Will. Have you been carrying that thought around this whole time? Is that why you’ve never settled down with anyone?”
My silence answers that question.
“That’s a lie. You are a good person, with a damn good heart. You deserve love and to give love.”
I have to clear my throat against the lump. And I wipe my face because apparently I’m sweating out of my eyes. “Thanks, man.”
“Now, here’s the flip side from a divorce lawyer: I’m still not convinced marriage is for everyone. So if you’re one of those people it’s not for, Will, that’s okay. It doesn’t make you a bad person or less worthy of happiness, or even love, than anyone else out there. It means you had a messier start in life than most people. However”—he says with emphasis—“if you are one of those people who always said he would hate it and then changed his mind—that’s okay too. Just be honest with yourself about what you need, or else you’re going to be miserable in or out of love.”
I chuckle and shake my head. “And you said you’re not good at six a.m.”
“Yeah, well, don’t make it a habit.”
“Ethan?”
“Hmm?”
“I do love her. And I’m scared to death.”
Ethan’s sigh is dramatically long. “I’ll give you the name of my therapist. She does virtual appointments too. Might want to consider twice a week for a while.”
I laugh and wish I were near enough to give my brother a hug. I miss him and suddenly have the distinct feeling that I’ve kept myself too busy. That maybe the safety I thought my constant work was bringing me was actually hurting me.
Ethan and I hang up a minute later after I’ve told him to change the sheets on his guest bed because I’m coming for a visit soon. The second the call ends, I set my phone down and put my face in my hands. I’m not sure I feel much better, but I do feel closer to accepting my feelings.
I’m interrupted by a throat clearing to my left. I lift my head and find Mabel standing on her front porch in her light pink robe with a blue-and-white-checkered flannel gown peeking out the bottom.
“How long have you been standing there, nosy woman?” I ask her with a teasing smirk.
“Long enough to know that you love my Annie and you’re scared and I would really like to pay your mama and daddy a visit,” she says in her blunt fashion, and it makes me laugh. She smiles and doesn’t say anything else, just opens her arms.
I stand and walk over to her before stepping right into her arms and letting her fold me in the most comforting hug of my life. Mabel doesn’t say anything, she just squeezes me tight. I squeeze her back and bury my head in her neck, feeling a lot like the little boy who used to climb that magnolia tree just wishing for a hug like this.
Mabel doesn’t release me, but she pats my back affectionately. “Now…should I be worried that you were lying in my flower bed at six a.m.? I swear the young people in this town are always doing something concerning.”
