The Dream - Whitney Dineen Page 0,35
see each other every day while I’m here so we can store up a bunch of fabulous memories.”
“How long are you staying?”
“A couple of weeks. I don’t want to hurry the process of closing this chapter of my life. I need to thoroughly immerse myself in the past so I can leave it behind without regret.”
“You never regretted leaving here,” I tell him.
“I regret never convincing my grandmother to move to London with me. I know it was completely outside her comfort zone, but I feel bad that I didn’t spend as much time with her as I should have after leaving for college. That woman spent her life taking care of me after my parents died. I should have paid her back better than I did.”
“Your grandmother was proud of you, Buck. Every time I saw her, she bragged about what you were up to. I think she was in awe that you made so much more out of your life than she ever did.”
He releases a pent-up breath before shaking his head. “Life is such a journey, isn’t it? Not only is it never quite what we expect it to be, but it brings gifts and disappointments we never would have imagined in our younger years.”
I think about all the expectations I had for my life when I was a kid. Like Buck, I was going to go off to college and then hit a big city, never to return to Creek Water. Actually, I was going to come back, but only long enough to pack up my mom and move her into someplace way fancier than she’d ever lived before.
Unfortunately, her illness kept me from making those dreams come true. There was no way I could have afforded to go away to school after Mom died and when I finally got my degree, my zeal to set the world on fire had decreased dramatically. Somewhere along the line, I decided that all I wanted was a nice comfortable life in a small town.
I look over at my friend and wonder if I made the right choice. He looks so polished, confident, and debonair that I feel like an imposter next to him—like I’m pretending to be something better than I am. What happened to the girl who was going to prove to everyone in the world that she was just as good as they were?
Chapter Nineteen
May 2, 2008
Dear Molly,
Davis and his friends had dinner at the country club before prom, instead of eating the meal the PTA provided as part of the cost of our tickets. Davis walked into the gym looking like a god. Just as he laid eyes on me for the first time, Buck started to seriously choke on his entree. Davis ran across the room and gave him the Heimlich maneuver.
Jessica was hot on his trail so when Buck finally coughed up the obstruction, it catapulted out of his mouth and flew right down her gorgeous icy blue dress. She screeched at the top of her lungs, “Oh, my GOD!! GROSS!!!” Then she danced around in a circle gyrating the whole time, trying to move the wad of partially chewed poultry toward her hemline. I can’t make this stuff up.
I’m still fully freaked out about Chad attacking me in the hall. You see crap like that in the movies and on television, but you never think something like that can happen to you. My back aches where he slammed me into the locker and my lip is swollen to twice its normal size from him biting it. TBH, the whole biting my lip thing brings his aggression to a whole different level of scary.
Davis never asked me to dance, but he was still my hero twice. First by saving Buck from choking to death and then by saving me from Chad. All the same, instead of feeling happy after prom, all I want to do is cry.
Memories of our senior prom nearly overwhelm me as Buck and I drive to the country club. It’s like I’ve fallen into a hole in the space/time continuum and am watching the past in real time on a movie screen in my brain.
Right after Buck’s near-death experience during dinner, I turn to him and say, “Look, Buck, we’re not exactly a love connection. I know my mom and Sammy roped you into this whole thing and you probably had no intention of ever going, but I think we should dance at least once. That way when we’re