Meet Me at Taylor Park (14 page)

Brandon looked disarmed and sheepish. “That was nobody. Just some girl I hired to make you jealous.”

“Well, it worked. Why would you want to hurt me like that?”

“Because you hurt me,” he spat out.

They stared at each other in the brightening clearing, frustrated that they were at an impasse.

Brandon exhaled loudly. “Why didn’t you tell me about Steven? I asked you on the plane.”

“We had such a good thing going. I didn’t want it to end. I want things to go back to the way they used to be.”

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.” He shook his head.

Katie felt like a little girl who had disappointed her teacher.

He pointed to her. “If you want things to go back to the way they used to be, it means you still love me. I know you do.”

He looked at her. She was getting teary-eyed.

Brandon held out both arms. “So why are you still with that guy?”

“It’s not that easy. I love him.”

Brandon looked hurt. “Did you love me?”

“You know I did,” she said flatly. “Did you love me?”

“What kind of stupid question is that?”

Katie was hit by a strong feeling of déjà vu. She remembered asking him the exact question on the hill at Taylor Park years ago and she remembered him giving this exact answer.

“Then why didn’t you come after me?” Katie picked up a fragile leaf and started playing with it. “That day in the hallway. And all those years.”

Brandon looked at Katie with blazing eyes. “You left me. Why do I have to be the one chasing after you?”

Katie felt her ears burning. “Why didn’t you let me chase my dreams? Don’t you think that’s selfish?”

“You want to talk selfish? How about abandoning me while you ran off to New York? You were all I had. I was all alone after you left.”

Katie looked at him. He looked down, but not before Katie saw his bloodshot eyes.

His confession disarmed her. Katie felt a pang of guilt, but then shoved it aside.

“That is not fair.” She felt anger rising in her chest. “You knew I had to go do my thing. I always wanted to be a fashion designer, since I was a little girl. And you knew that I always wanted to leave this city. You knew that I was going to go one day. I told you right from the start.” Katie crumbled the leaf in her hands.

He looked up at her. “I know,” he said flatly. “And I stupidly fell for you anyway.”

“Yeah, you did,” she said bluntly.

They passed the next little while staring at each other in silence, listening to the sounds of the early autumn morning. A crow cawed. Then, a distant train horn blared. The wind rustled the frail leaves on the trampoline.

Brandon examined her finger. “Where’s your engagement ring?” He pointed to her hand.

“I know that you have the one I gave you. Where’s the one from Steven?”

Katie reached into her pocket, but felt only plastic. “I left it at home.”

“And why would you do that? Why not bring it to show me? Then I would know it’s over. Don’t lead me on like that.”

He looked her in the eyes. She looked like she wanted to cry.

Brandon softened his voice. “I know you still love me. This doesn’t happen to me a lot. I have never found a girl I love this much since you.” He took her hands, cradling them in his own.

“And I know you still feel the same, or else you wouldn’t be here with me.”

He stroked her cheek with one finger. “Why don’t we try this again? We had something real. Do you know how rare real love is? It would be so stupid to throw it away.”

Katie absorbed everything that he said. She wanted desperately to be with him, but things were different now. She was an engaged woman. And she was not a cheater like her father. And she still had doubts whether he really loved her, or whether he had wanted her to stay just for himself.

Before she could react, he latched onto her, enveloping her with his arms. He gripped her so tight that she thought she would suffocate.

Brandon kissed the side of her face, and then worked his way across to the nose, and all the way to the other cheek. “I lost you once. I’m not going to lose you again this time. I’m not going to lose you again.”

They trembled as if they were at an earthquake fault line. He put both hands on her cheeks and kissed her lips like he was a man that just got out of prison.

Overwhelmed by the intensity of his kiss, Katie kissed him back passionately, gnawing on his lips as though she had not eaten for years.

He began to undress her, tearing her shirt open, and then tugging on the straps of her bra.

Katie wanted nothing more than to let him, but the guilt was all consuming, clawing at her insides.

She backed away and reached for her shirt. “I can’t, Brandon. I can’t,” she said, shaking her head and putting her ripped shirt back on.

Brandon looked like he had just gotten out of the swimming pool. His hair and face were dripping wet.

“Why not?”

When she did not answer, she pointed to the light-streaked sky. “When there was turbulence on that plane, the first thought I had was what if we died without being together? We can’t let that happen.”

He leaned in and whispered in her ears, “I was always supposed to be the one to take care of you.”

At that point, Katie began to cry. She scrambled up and hopped off the trampoline, and then turned around to face him. He was a silhouette in the weak sunlight.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice cracking.

Brandon sneered. “Yeah, that’s right. Just leave me again. Just leave when things get tough. Running away will solve everything.”

Katie wiped her eyes. She felt her ears and cheeks burn up again.

“That is not fair,” she said, her voice cracking. “I was OK before you came back into my life again. I was fine! And I’m getting married.”

She pulled Brandon’s ring out of her pocket and chucked it at him. The ring hit him in the chest, and landed on the trampoline.

Brandon’s eyes widened. He looked surprised at first, but then recollected himself. He calmly picked the ring up and put it back in his pockets.

Katie turned away. A strong icy gale blasted her hair in all directions.
 

She was about to dash off when Brandon shouted, “Just tell me you don’t love me anymore. Tell me you don’t love me and I will never bother you again.”

Katie turned around. “I don’t love you anymore,” she said softly. Then, she added, “I don’t even know if you really ever loved me. If you had, you wouldn’t have hurt me with another girl one day after we broke up.”

Brandon opened his mouth in protest. The only sounds that came out were incomprehensible babbling.

Katie waited for a response. It was deathly silent.

Moments passed.

He just stared at her, all tongue-tied.

Then, he extended one arm, and Katie turned around.

“Don’t you want your fairy tale ending?” Brandon shouted. “You can have it with me.”

Katie wanted to spin around and leap into Brandon’s arms, but there was too much to deal with. She felt like her brain was going to explode. She knew she had to get out of there. The guilt was eating her alive, gnawing on every part of her body.

She turned around, but did not leap into his arms. Instead, she said, “You’re all talk and no action.” She could feel the acrimony leak out in her voice, but there was nothing she could do about it.

She spun around and sprinted into the branches of the small path, stepping back into the real world and leaving the sweet fantasy world with Brandon behind.

*

Chapter 11

Katie sprinted home, her lungs nearly collapsing on her. Her encounter with Brandon left her in a state of emotional paralysis. She did not know how to feel.

Her legs moved, but she could not feel them under her. Somehow, she finally got home.

In the thin rays of dawn, she bolted up to her mother’s house and opened the door. She barely had time to catch her breath or wipe the sweat cascading down her face. She noticed that she had company.

Someone was in the kitchen. At first, she thought it was her mother, but the person was too young to be her mother.

Katie moved closer and saw a slender girl her age with curly black hair and a wide smile.

When Katie realized who it was, relief flooded her.

“Stasha!” Katie exclaimed. “How’d you get here?”

Stasha got up and hugged her. “Your mom let me in and then she went to work. I was worried about you and I had some vacation time from the hospital, so I thought I would fly over.”

Katie eagerly received her hug, glad to be in the arms of a close friend. Someone who made sense to her. Someone who was there for her. Someone who would not hurt her.

Her friend wrinkled her nose and moved back. “Have you taken up running in the early morning without deodorant?”

Katie shook her head, her hair all over the place. Then, she laughed. She laughed so loudly that Stasha looked worried. It felt good though, like rain after a drought.

Katie led Stasha to the table and they sat down.

Katie felt a bead of sweat drip down her forehead to her cheek. She wiped it away, and let out a long sigh.

Stasha examined her with worried brown eyes. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

Katie nodded. “I just saw Brandon. I slept with him in our special place. Taylor Park.”

Her eyes growing big, Stasha put a hand to her cheek. “Oh my God.” Then, she pointed an accusatory finger at Katie. “I knew you still had feelings for him.”

Katie shook her head. “I don’t.”

“Then why did you meet him and then sleep with him?”

Katie did not know how to respond.

Stasha put a warm hand on Katie’s hand. “It’s OK that you want your first love back.

Most people dream of this, but it doesn’t happen for them. I want my first love, but I can’t have him. He’s married. You actually have a chance.”

Katie shook her head again. “It’s not that easy. I care about Steven. She added as an afterthought, “I love Steven.”

Stasha furrowed her eyebrows, and then scrutinized her. “You see, I don’t think you do.”

Katie was indignant. She furrowed her eyebrows. “Excuse me?”

Stasha tried to do some damage control. “I don’t mean to tell you how you feel, but friends tell each other the truth. There’s something about the way you talk about Brandon versus the way you talk about Steven that makes me think you definitely love Brandon more.”

Katie just stared dumbfounded at her friend. “What do you mean?”

“Just in your face. There’s this faraway look in your eyes when you talk about Brandon.

I hear it in your voice too. When you talk about Steven, there’s nothing there. No excitement.”

Kate just stared at the flower vase on the table.

Stasha leaned forward. “Do you really Steven? Why?”

“It’s a long story.” Even though Katie had just awakened, she felt like going back to sleep.

Stasha leaned forward. “It’s so obvious that you’re still in love with Brandon. I just don’t understand why you won’t leave Steven.”

Katie sighed. “Alright, I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you everything.”

*

1989

The winter after graduation, Katie found herself at the receptionist desk on the sixth floor of Prattico’s Building in New York City. She was staring at her computer, trying to organize her supervisor’s schedule.

“Kaylie,” a gruff male voice said.

Katie looked up and saw Mr. Defoe, her supervisor. He was in a black suit and tie.

Sporting a bald head, thick black-rimmed glasses and a stocky physique, he looked like a grumpy Mr. Potato Head.

“Yes, Mr. Defoe?” Her supervisor had been calling her Kaylie for the past three months, but Katie was too scared to correct him.

“Have you finished my itinerary to Milan?” He pushed his glasses up.

“Yes, you’re taking the 10:05 flight from JFK on Monday.”

He nodded. “Very well, carry on.”

He turned around and Katie saw his wide behind.

Mr. Defoe was about to walk out of the room when Katie called out.

“Mr. Defoe?”

He swiveled around and glared at her, as though he had more important things to do than chat with a lowly subordinate. “What?”

Katie felt his throat clamp up. She coughed, and then mumbled, “I was wondering when I get to do some actually design stuff. I’ve been doing nothing but intern duties for the past three months.”

Mr. Defoe lumbered up to her and stopped right in front of her receptionist desk. He stared down at her as though he were a giant.

“Let me tell you something, Kaylie.” He glowered at her, his eyes bulging out. “Any young person your age would be thrilled to be working as an intern for the world’s most promising up-and-coming designer. Mr. Prattico is a very busy man and doesn’t have time to chat or have coffee with you.” He stepped back and crossed his arms. “And nowhere in your contract does it say that you will actually be doing design work.”