His Heart

Chapter eighteen: Lizzie

Charlie was so quiet.

A lot of men were quiet in comparison to me, but Charlie hardly said a word. Content to listen to me ramble on.

I had so many questions. About him. His kids. His wife. But instead, I let him listen and hold my hand.

He looked at the leaves above and I wondered what he was thinking. But he turned back to me and squeezed my hand gently before I could ask him.

I thought about the drawing of his wife he had tucked under his arm and wondered what he was doing here.

Was he ready for this kind of thing? I thought of Archer and his problematic dating life. Moving on too soon could be just as bad as not moving on at all. You needed time to adjust. It didn't matter how long it took. When you lose someone you wanted to spend the rest of your life with, you need to allow yourself to grieve properly before moving on.

I guess we would see how much he could handle.

He turned to look at me and smiled. It was a smile that said I'm scared. A smile that screamed I'm not ready.

Maybe I would just have to be patient. Because when it comes to love, you couldn't rush anything.

I squeezed his hand gently and he smiled again, this one looked happier. More relaxed. I hoped he would relax enough to let me get to know him. But I had a feeling he was holding back to reassure himself that his wife was still his number one.

"Do you want to go to the park?" He asked.

"Sure." I agreed.

We put our drawings into the car to keep them safe and strolled along, our linked hands swaying gently. I dipped into a shop and bought a bottle of white wine and some paper cups.

He led me under the trees and we sat down, I handed him a cup and filled it with wine.

"Do you think it's possible to fall in love again once you've lost the love you thought was going to be the one?" He asked.

"Yeah." I said. "It just takes time, that's all."

"Why did you divorce your husband?" He asked, turning to me.

"We just grew apart." I shrugged. "I still love him, he still loves me. We just weren't compatible anymore. He still wanted that freedom to drop everything and travel whenever he wanted and I wanted something more settled. We had kids. We changed. I didn't want to be the person who held him back and made him unhappy. He still sees the kids. He just doesn't want to be tied down."

He nodded.

"I used to travel a lot when I was younger." He said. "Before I met Jasmine and had kids, in my early twenties, I went on holiday to Peru and just kept travelling. I hopped from place to place until I met Jasmine in Mexico and we travelled here."

I listened.

"She got pregnant and we ended up settling here. We always planned to travel again when Madeline was born, but we ended up finding jobs and life got more serious." He said, wistfully. "We never made it to Japan."

"Japan?"

"A month before she got pregnant, we planned to travel to Japan and see the cherry blossom trees and ride the bullet train." He explained. "We were planning it and almost booked a ticket but then the positive pregnancy test came back. We realised we needed to build a home here, since we both had family here at the time, and visit Japan later."

He looked across the park and I wondered what he was thinking. Wondered if he was remembering what had been. Imagining what could have been. If they had only had the time.