| |
“Fancy seeing you here,” Mick grinned. He pushed himself up off the car to greet Carly. She was a sight to behold. One that could cure every broken heart, comfort every beaten ego, and sate every yearning desire.
“You asked me out, remember?” Carly teased.
“And I’ve been looking forward to it ever since.” Mick held the door of his car open for her. “Ready for our date?”
“Where are we going?”
“Hang on,” Mick shut the door after making sure she was all tucked in safely. He couldn’t help but notice everyone peering at them from behind the cafe windows. If he dared to look around, he’d have seen it wasn’t just the people at the cafe watching them, rather the whole of Main Street. Mick jogged around to the driver’s seat and got in, continuing what he’d began to say. “I thought that we could go to Carlton Bay.”
“Next town? But why?”
Mick could feel Carly pushing back; but why, he couldn’t figure out. She’d promised him six days, and he was going to try his darndest to get it right. He had to get it right. Since Carly’s been in his life, things had changed for him. Waking up with a purpose other than chasing businesses or money made his life seem worth living. There was more meaning to it. “I thought it would be good to get away from prying eyes—give us a chance to relax and just hang out. Is that okay?” He turned to face Carly, and it was a big relief when she smiled.
“That’s a great idea.”
Mick started the engine and pulled out of the parking space, merging on to Main Street. “I’m glad you think so.” That was reassuring to Mick. He wondered if maybe the whole town knowing about their relationship might’ve had something to do with the tense vibe he was getting from Carly. That smile she gave him certainly eased his nerves.
“I know how intense it can get. It’s not easy to do something when the whole town is watching your every move.”
“Tell me about it!” Mick agreed. “That was one of the reasons I’d left when I was so young.” Mick was grateful. It felt like they were setting off on a good start.
“Is that why you moved?”
“Well,”—Mick paused—“it was one of the reasons.”
“You left when I was quite young. I didn’t really have anything to do with you then.”
Mick laughed. “You were a baby when I left.”
Carly laughed softly. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”
“I remember when you were born, it was the talk of the town. And then we all had to attend your christening.” Mick shook his head at the memory. “That was some time ago, huh? So much has changed. Look at you now.”
Carly didn’t say anything.
Mick glanced at her. “Did I say something wrong?”
“No,” Carly said with a sigh. “Do you think... never mind.”
“Ask me,” Mick encouraged her. He tentatively reached for her hand and when she didn’t pull away, he sighed within. “This is what the next six days are about. It’s a chance for us to get to know each other more—to be honest about ourselves and see where we can go from here, right?”
“It’s just—I was just wondering if you thought that maybe,”—she hesitated—“that maybe the age gap between us is too wide? I mean, like you said, I was a baby when you left town to go off on your own.”
Mick did wonder about it. In fact, he’d thought about it so many times that the answers confused him. “Does it bother you?”
* * *
DID IT BOTHER HER? Carly thought about it for a moment. “It does...I mean, sometimes. When I think about it.” If she couldn’t be honest about her health just yet, Carly thought that she should at least try on other counts.
“Fair enough,” Mick said.
Carly closed her eyes and enjoyed the feel of Mick’s hand over hers. It was firm, yet reassuring. Warm and comforting. “What do you think about it? This whole thing?”
Mick breathed out. “I think, at the end of the day, it’s what’s between the two of us that matters. How well we get along, if we enjoy each other’s company. Do we laugh together? That sort of stuff.”
“Do you ever wonder what people might think?” Because she did. And that was a problem. Carly wished she didn’t care about what other people thought so much.
“Not really—not anymore, at least.” Mick shrugged. He took the freeway to Carlton Bay, which while only twenty minutes away, had its own character and vibe. “I used to. As I got older, I realized that what others think of me isn’t really my business. I don’t really care about what other people may or may not think of me.”
“I wish I could do that.” Carly sat upright. She wondered if Mick thought she was too young. The way she acted, the things she talked about. Carly was filled with an overwhelming sense of self-consciousness.
“I’m not immune to it though, I should say. I did think about what people would say about us, but then I thought—who cares?” Mick chuckled.
“Mick, why did you really leave Willow Oaks?” Carly asked, keen to change the subject. She knew only of what Charlotte had told her, but no more than that.
Mick replied after a brief pause. “There was a girl, back when I was a teenager. Jodie Ann Keller,” he said.
Carly twisted in her seat to face Mick. She listened, not wanting to interrupt him with any unnecessary questions.
“Jodie Ann Keller.” He said the name slowly and chuckled to himself. “We were about sixteen or seventeen. I thought I was so in love with her. You know how it is when you’re young. You think that everything is now or never.”
You know how it is when you’re young. The statement stabbed her deeper than she knew it should have. Carly shook it off. She was overthinking things again.
“She was my girlfriend, and I was her boyfriend. But her parents didn’t approve of me.” Mick glanced at the rear-view mirror and took the right lane. “One summer, they decided to move to New York. It was a shock for us—me and Jodie Ann. We didn’t know they’d been making plans.”
At that moment, Carly’s heart ached for Mick.
“It all happened so fast. She ran to my house that morning in tears. Said that they were moving and all that.” Mick huffed. “It didn’t take long for her father to follow in his car. He’d ordered her to get in.”
Carly tried to imagine it. It was heartbreaking to even think about it.
“Her father had to drag her to the car. I tried to stop him. My dad, he came out to see what the commotion was about.”
She couldn’t imagine the kind of trauma that would bring to two teenagers. Relationships were always hard—at least, they had been for her.
* * *
“I TRIED TO REACH FOR her, but my dad held me back and pulled me away. I was a scrawny kid—I was no match for my father.” Mick clenched his jaw. He recalled the scuffle he’d had with his father. That was the first time Mick had ever been punched. And it took a long time to understand why his father had done it. Now that he thought about it, Mick wasn’t sure he understood even now. “We promised that we would never lose contact. I said I would follow to New York and bring her back home.”
“That must have been so hard, Mick. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you both.”
Mick adjusted the rear-view mirror. Not that it needed to be adjusted. He just needed to do something. “My dad said people like Jodie Ann Keller and her parents didn’t mingle with people like us.” He felt his knuckles pushing against his skin as he gripped the steering wheel tighter.
“What happened then?”
“My dad said that nobody would want their daughter with me, because I was a dumb kid who couldn’t read. He said that I was only good for the farm and that I should get ready to work with him for the rest of my life.” The pain surged through him, raw and fresh as if it was just yesterday.
“Why would he say that?”
“I couldn’t read.” Mick took the exit ramp to Carlton Bay. “It took a few years to learn that I had dyslexia.” It was bound to come out sooner or later. Mick couldn’t see any reason to delay the inevitable. It had always been a sore spot for him, his dyslexia, but he no longer gave it the power to control him. He had learned to overcome his disability.
* * *
IN A SHORT SPAN OF just twenty minutes, Carly had learned much more than she ever thought she would about Mick. Her heart ached for him and what he had gone through as a young teenager. “Did you ever manage to reconnect with her? With Jodie Ann?”
Mick shook his head. “After that fight with my father, I saved up as much money as I could by doing odd jobs for people around town. Then, I went to New York and tried to find her.” Mick held a breath in. “But I had the door shut on my face,” he said quickly.
Carly gasped. “By Jodie Ann?” She couldn’t believe it.
“By her mother.” Mick kept his eyes on the road. “She said that Jodie Ann no longer wanted to see me and that if I didn’t leave, she would call the cops on me.”
“Oh, Mick...” Carly’s voice trailed off.
“It was a long time ago.”
“What did you do?”
“I was basically a child. I got scared, so I left. But I couldn’t go back home. Not after how my dad treated me. And I’d spent all my money to get to New York. I didn’t have much left.”
“But your mom... your brothers... and Jenna.”
“I kept in touch with Mom. Told her not to look for me. Sure, it was rough, but I guess I didn’t think about things like that at the time. In hindsight, I may have done things differently. But back then, I did what I thought was best for me.”
Carly thought of the number of times she had wanted to run away in the past. The unwanted attention, lack of freedom to do what she wanted to do, and the pained looks that the townsfolk had given her every time they saw her was too much. Carly learned early on that cancer made people change how they acted around her. But she’d never been brave enough to leave. She never had the courage to do it. “I think you were very brave.”
Mick shrugged. “It all worked out in the end. I have that much to be grateful for, at least.”
“How did you do it?”
“What do you mean?” Mick glanced at her.
“You were seventeen—in the largest city in the country. No money, no family or friends. How did you come out of it? You’re so successful now. I mean, that’s what people say.”
Mick rested an elbow on the window’s edge. “I stayed in shelters on cold nights. The soup kitchens were helpful. One afternoon, I was camped outside a real estate office. I’d been sleeping there for a few nights. It was sheltered, and the corner gave me a place to tuck myself in at night. Anyway, that afternoon, the man who owned it—Jeremiah Halliday—he came out to talk to me. I thought he was going to tell me to leave. Instead, he asked me to deliver some brochures for him. There must have been hundreds of them. He told me that when I finished, I should go see him inside for a meal.”
“And then?”
“So I did it. I didn’t have anything to lose. I was hungry. I took the brochures and dropped them into every mailbox I came across. And when I finished, I went into his office. He’d invited me to his home for dinner with his family.”
Carly gasped. “Weren’t you afraid?”
“I guess, but when you’re faced with little choice, the fear takes a step back. As it turned out, that was the best decision I’d made. They were a nice religious family. Didn’t ask me questions and waited until I was ready to talk. On the first few nights, I slept on the couch. And then Mrs. Halliday, she asked if I wanted to stay with them. When I said yes, they bought me a single bed, and I moved into a spare room they’d used as a small home office. They told me that I could stay as long as I wanted to. Their children, Aaron and Hannah, they were nice too. They were only little then, maybe eight or nine at the time.”
“So you stayed?”
“Yes, ma’am—so I stayed.”