Love in the Details
ZONDERVAN
Love in the Details
Copyright © 2015 by Becky Wade
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ePub Edition © September 2015: ISBN 978-0-310-39597-3
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Publisher's Note: This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.
Interior design: James Phinney
For the One who makes all things possible, even novellas.
Thank you for entrusting me with this ministry and for
equipping me to write each and every page.
Contents
I'm grateful to Becky Philpott, my editor at Zondervan, for
inviting me to participate in this wonderful collection of wedding-themed novellas. Thank you, Becky! You're kind, outgoing, and a pleasure to work with. I truly appreciate the opportunity you extended to me.
Many, many thanks to my agent and
Love in the Details
' very first reader, Linda Kruger. Your feedback on this novella was extraordinarily helpful, Linda. Oh, how I value your insight and friendship.
My husband has staunchly believed in my writing since the very first time I ever mentioned to him that I might like to attempt a novel of my own. His hands-on
help
(making dinners, watching the kids, doing the dishes, and giving me pep talks) made this novella possible. I love you!
And lastly, to my kids, who (almost) never complain about the hours I spend working. I'm so glad that I get to be your mom. Thank you very, very much for supporting my writing.
Josh,
Since I broke up with you, I can't stop crying. Can you please forgive me? I love you. I'm certain I'll always love you.
Today would have been our eight-month anniversary. When you left for MIT a month and a half ago, I never imagined that we wouldn't keep dating or that I wouldn't see you again at Thanksgiving. The long-distance thing has been miserable but our marathon phone calls and our back-and-forth e-mails throughout the days were getting me by.
Now I've lost all of it, and I'm heartbroken without you.
Here's what you don't know and what I can't tell you. Your mom came to see me. She drove to UT San
Antonio
, met me in my freshman dorm room, and took me to lunch. She cried, Josh. She cried because she's so upset over the fact that you're unhappy at MIT. She said you told her that you wanted to leave and come back to Texas to be near me.
She's a single mom and you're her only son and she loves you. My heart went out to her.
You've
worked
so hard. You're a genius and you've earned the financial aid scholarship that MIT offered you. Please understand I don't want anything to get in the way of that, especially me. You deserve to go there and you have to make the most of this opportunity because your mom can't afford to pay for you to go to college anywhere else.
She held my hands and, with tears streaming down her face, asked me if I'd break up with you. She said that so long as we were dating, you wouldn't be able to pour your whole focus and determination into your education. She said you'd always be torn between two places.
Maybe I should have stood up to her and refused to break up with you. Maybe I should have told you about my meeting with her, even though she begged me not to.
Your mom has always been wonderful to me, Josh. I respect her and I care about her and I couldn't turn her down. So I called you and ended our relationship without giving you any good reason other than that my feelings had changed and that I wanted to be free to date here at UTSA.
My feelings haven't changed, Josh. I don't want to date anyone but you. And I can't stand the fact that I let you think otherwise. Since our breakup, I haven't taken your phone calls and I haven't returned your e-mails and I won't mail this letter. But it's not because I don't love you. And that's why I can't stop crying.
You might not know it yet but you're going to do great things. I know it. I love you. And I'm very, very, very sorry for hurting you. Can you ever forgive me?
With all my heart,
Holly
The moment Holly had imagined, dreaded, and obsessed over
had arrived. Josh Bowenâoh, my goodness it really was him,
Josh
, um, holy smoke!âwas walking toward her down Martinsburg's Main Street sidewalk. Josh had returned to town temporarily, and thus, she was about to come face-to-face with her high school boyfriend for the first time in eight years.
Holly came to a halt, sensing the coffee inside the three to-go cups in the cardboard tray she held sloshing at the suddenness of her movement. Her heartbeat sped into nervous panic mode.
He hadn't spotted her yet. She could dash into the candy shop and hide. Or maybe the children's boutique . . . Only, she'd known for some time that Josh planned to visit Martinsburg, Texas, for Ben and Amanda's wedding. She'd been giving herself pep talks about this very moment, steeling herself to confront him again, practicing, even, what
she would say. She shouldn't hide. She should deal with this, with him.
Thank God, she'd actually taken a bit of time on her appearance this morning. While her jeans, white top, and well-worn-in brown leather jacket weren't what she'd have picked for this reunion, they were decent enough.
Josh.
He
looked
much like he had at eighteen, except taller, his facial features less soft, his whole bearing more international. He no longer dressed like a graduating senior from a small-town Texas high school. In a navy pea coat open down the front, gray sweater, and flat-front charcoal pants, he gave off a hip and urban vibe. He
was
hip and urban now. Since she'd seen him last, Josh had leveraged his brilliance into a ridiculously successful tech company and moved overseas.
A piquant mixture of sweet memories and bitter heartache rose within her.
He glanced at something in a store window, giving her a view of his clean-lined profile. Then he turned his face forward and his attention intersected with her squarely. His expression went blank. His stride faltered.
Oh, boy. Holly attempted a pleasant smile. God had been merciful to her by allowing her to see him first, at least.
Josh seemed to recover himself and continued toward her at a slower pace.
A good number of people, mostly tourists, strolled the sidewalk. At a quarter past ten in the morning on this third day of November, many of the shops on Main had just opened for the day.
Holly stepped to the side, close to a section of brick in between two storefronts. Here, they could say hello to one another without blocking traffic like a boulder in the middle of a stream.
Josh came to a stop facing her.
She could hyperventilate, say something, or run. She chose the second option. “Welcome back.”
“Thank you.”
“It's good to see you again.” The intimacy they'd once shared had been as enormous as China. In the face of that, her paltry sentence felt as small as Luxembourg.
His brown eyes assessed her with a tiger-like intensity that caused all the things she'd planned to say to slide out of her brain. There was something in those eyes that hadn't been there before. A shadow. A shadow of guardedness and hostility.
What had she expected? They'd loved each other once. Then, without warning or explanation, she'd shut him out of her life.
“Ben told me that you were planning to come to Martinsburg early for his wedding,” Holly said.