Conception (The Wellingtons #4) - Tessa Teevan Page 0,98
whole battalion of artillery and then some. And I still lost the war.
“I don’t have a choice.”
“The hell you don’t. You know where she is.”
“Dad needs me here.”
“There’s nothing here I can’t handle.”
I want to believe him. But I made Mom a promise, and if I take off, Dad will try his damnedest to go back to work before he’s ready.
“I need to be here, Clay. You still need to focus on school.”
“And yet your heart is still there,” he reminds me.
I sigh. “You’re right. Each mile I got farther from Crystal Cove was agony. I could feel it in my bones. How wrong it was. It’s been weeks and I miss her more than I ever thought possible. More each day.”
Clay raises a glass. “She’s the one, bro.”
No shit.
“I miss her like oxygen,” I tell him. “Like she’s the air in my lungs, and without her, I’m left breathless. Sometimes it’s only in the back of my mind. Like when you’re standing on the shore and the tide recedes. You miss the water, but you know it’ll return. Other times, like when I’m lying in bed at night and it’s quiet, it’s so intense it feels like drowning. Like I’ve gone underwater and, no matter how hard I struggle, I can’t come up for air. Without her, I don’t know if I ever will.”
“Because you love her.”
Because I love her.
“But my life is here and hers is…everywhere,” I reply. “Our futures are out of sync. Heading in complete opposite directions.”
“Is that what she said?
I recall her words: Our lives are intersecting lines, never to meet again.
“Basically,” I tell my brother. “She doesn’t want to be rooted to Tennessee, and the roots I have here are firmer than a white oak’s.”
“That is quite the conundrum.”
“It is what it is. I’ll get over it. Eventually.”
He knows it’s bullshit as much as I do.
Clay shoots me a pointed look. “Or you won’t. But you’ll know where to find her when you figure out you won’t ever be able to live without her. It’s going to happen, Knox. The only question is: How long do you plan on torturing yourself?”
I don’t get over it. Not even close. Hell, I move in the opposite direction. And like Clay predicted, I torture myself day in and day out.
The days grow shorter, with Mother Nature taking pity on us and ending the heat wave, offering relief with cooler temperatures as the leaves turn from green to oranges, yellows, and reds.
All it does is make me think of Amelia.
Summer will always be a reminder of her. The cacophony of crickets and cicadas echoing all around us. The moonlit sky reflected in dazzling eyes that gazed at me intently. The sound of rain, the crash of thunder, the flash of lightning. The sweltering heat and droplets of sweat.
But it’s not just summer. Now that autumn is here, I wonder what she’s doing. Is she out photographing the changes in the trees? Does she still spend time at the lake now that the summer heat’s faded? Is she even still there? Do I cross her mind even half as much as she crosses mine?
The holidays come and go, and I wonder where Amelia is, who she’s celebrating with. Is it just her and her Grams, or is she back with the gang in Crystal Cove?
I graduate early, ready to take on more work at Wellington, but Dad won’t hear of it. He claims it’s still my last semester whether I have classes or not and says, “Get your ass out there and have fun while you still can.”
I begrudgingly listen, and all that does is turn me into a third wheel to Clay and Maria.
They drag me to wine tastings, art shows, and restaurant openings. I love my brother, and Maria’s obvious adoration of him endears her to me, but the more I witness their relationship, the more I’m reminded of what I could have had with Amelia. What I want with her. I need a fucking break.
That’s how I find myself as part of a foursome on the golf course even though I’m pretty shit at the game.
But that’s the nature of the business. Come for the golf, leave with new clients. Since I was a kid, Dad taught me that just as much business can be done on the course or in a bar as it can be done in a conference room. He wasn’t kidding.
After ending the afternoon one under par and in last place of