Say Something

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Addison flagged a taxi down and dragged her feet once she got off to walk a spot so familiar she could see it as if it were the back of her hand. How many times had she spent sitting in that tree, waiting?

Waiting for something that never came until today.

“Ten years later.” Addison couldn’t believe who she saw standing in front of her, leaning against the tree they climbed as kids like he never left town. “Ten years later and you’re back. Why?”

“I heard you were getting married,” Carver said, “and I couldn’t think of a reason why I shouldn’t come.”

They were only a few feet from one another and Addison took the opportunity to see the man that stood in front of her. She had imagined this moment in a thousand times in hundreds of different scenarios. She had imagined that he’d come back to her and now that he had, she didn’t know what to do.

His hair was still as unruly as it was when he was 16 and his eyes were just a bright. Addison couldn’t help but swallow painfully – he looked almost exactly the same and that saddened her more than anything.

This was her Carver. The boy that brought her flowers and played guitar in her room before sneaking out the window when they heard her father come in. Carver, the one person that stayed up with her late at night, talking to her through nightmares no matter what time it was at night. This was the same boy that was her first kiss. The same boy that promised her he wouldn’t leave her behind.

“You look great.” Carver was watching her the same way she was observing him, but he didn’t seem shy about it. “But you’ve always looked good.”

“Why are you back?”

“I told you, because I heard you were getting married.”

“Why would that matter to you?”

Carver chuckled under his breath, his arms still crossed against his chest as he stared straight into her eyes. “You’re still my ‘why’ Addison, aren’t you?”

“I’m not yours,” Addison snapped. The thought of him still thinking that she was his made her angry, made her remember all the times she wanted to be his but couldn’t because he left. “I shouldn’t have come,” she mumbled under her breath. “I don’t even know why I came.”

“Because you miss me.” Carver walked up towards her, his hands dropping to the side, until he hovered over her, his nose a hair away from hers. “You’ve missed me as much as I’ve missed you.”

That did it. Addison raised her hand and slapped him across the face. The heat flaring up in her hand was nothing compared to the fury brewing inside of her. “You missed me?” She couldn’t believe the audacity of his words. “You were the one that left me!”

He caught her wrist before she could hit him again. His grip firm but gentle as he stared into her eyes. “Do you ever wonder why?”

“Every day,” she said candidly. “Every fucking day I would wonder what I did for you leave me when you promised you wouldn’t. Every day I would always go back to how we were and think about whether I ever did anything to give you a reason to leave. I wondered why you left me, Carver. It fucking consumed me to the point where I couldn’t think of anything else.” She took a shuddering breath and clenched her hand into a fist. “So tell me, why did you leave?”

“It wasn’t your fault.” Carver dropped her hand and sat down on the grass, his back against their tree as he looked up at the night sky. “I left because I couldn’t do it anymore. I hated that everything was planned for me here and I wanted to run to a place where no one knew me, a place where there weren’t any expectations but mine.”