Why Now?

Chapter Two

Eli and I texted back and forth every once and a while. When I got that first text from him, it was a wild experience. It wasn't even what he said, that only started it. After reading his text, I noticed the amount of time that had lapsed between it and the last message that was sent. That caused the spiral of scrolling through and rereading all of our texts. I couldn't even respond for a couple days. All the memories that resurfaced made me question if reconnecting with him was the best decision for me. It was difficult to go back and reflect on what I really wanted.

On the one hand, everything came tumbling down so quickly. We stopped communicating like we normally did and that ended up ruining everything. I understood the hurt place that he was coming from, but all the trust that I had in him crumbled with the way things ended. Of course he wasn't the only one to blame; if I had said anything, no matter how extremely vague it would have been, to him about what I was going through, things might have ended differently. Even still, I didn't think that gave him the right to speak to me the way he did.

Then again, I was the happiest I ever was when I was with him. He was the most patient person I ever met and nothing I said or did scared or pushed him away. The pace of our relationship never seemed to bother him and he never held anything over my head. Whenever I expressed my frustration with myself not being able to live up to any expectations or that I could never plan or do anything that could compare to the things he did for me, he always reassured me that those things didn't matter to him. He always told me, "being with you is more than enough for me." The way he looked at me and made me feel took my breath away and always made me feel like I was important and that I mattered to someone. He made me feel loved.

The feelings that I had for him that still lingered and the want to have that connection with him back were what led me to respond to him. He requested we meet up to talk. It took some convincing on his part. For a couple weeks we went back and forth; I tried getting myself out of meeting up with him for as long as I could, but eventually, I hesitantly agreed. Max was against it, but he didn't say too much since he got to spend one-on-one time with Callie.

When the day I arrived, I was still unsure if this was a good idea. Whether it was or not, I knew I had to keep my guard up. I didn't want my feelings for him to completely blind me in my decision making. I wasn't sure of what I exactly wanted to get out of this meeting, but I knew I had to forgive him to be able to move on and move forward in life; and I desperately wanted to forgive him. However, I wasn't positive that meeting up with him and having a conversations with him was the way to go about it. Time would only tell.

I got to the cafe early to see what this place was like and come up with a potential exit strategy in case I felt I needed it. I scoped out the place before waiting in line to order something. Once I had my food and drink, I found a small round table that was open and sat facing the door. I pulled out my phone to text Max, asking how Callie was doing. It was my first time out without her and it was making me extra anxious. He responded quickly with a video. At first, it started facing him saying, "it's my honor to introduce to you... Sherriff Callie." Then he turned the camera around and panned down, "the toughest cowgirl in all of the wild west." She had a pair of Max's ridiculously large sunglasses on her face and a red bandana placed over her chest under her neck. Neither of which seemed to bother her at all; she just laid there kicking out her legs and waving her arms up and down. My heart swelled with happiness and I smiled as I saved the video and played it over and over again.

The sound of the chair across from me being pulled out of its place caused me to jump and look up. Eli was sitting down, "sorry. I didn't mean to scare you." I shook my head at him and started to dismiss his apology when Max's voice started talking again from the video that was still playing. I quickly locked my phone and shoved it into my back pocket, then took a sip of my hot chocolate.