Until Then (Cornerstone Book 2) (13 page)

Guys weren’t normally allowed in the girls dorm hallways, but moving days were always an exception to the rule. While Michelle was packing a few things into her suitcase, a voice from behind startled her.

“Is Maggie around?”

She turned and came face to face with the mystery guy from the roller rink. The blow dryer she’d been holding slipped from her fingers and landed on her foot. “
Ah
!” she cried out in pain.

“Are you OK?” He rushed toward her.

She held her hand out to stop him and retrieved the dryer. “I’m fine.” She was in shock that he was standing in her dorm room.

Recognition suddenly flickered in his eyes. “Hey, it’s you.”

“Uh … hi.”

“Are you Maggie’s roommate?”

“One and the same.”

“Michelle, right?”

She nodded, surprised he remembered her name after their brief encounter.

“Small world.” He laid a hand on his chest. “I’m Ben.”

Michelle’s stomach dropped.
This is Ben? Maggie’s Ben?
Michelle had no words. Of all the guys at the roller rink that night,
he
had to be the one she made out with?

“Do you know where she is?”

“Uh, she’s in the bathroom,” she stuttered.

“OK. Well, I’m giving her a ride home.” He glanced at the pile of things by the bed. “Is this her stuff?”

“Yeah, but I’m not sure if she has everything packed up yet.”

“I can wait.” He stood quietly in the doorway.

Michelle didn’t know what to do or say. She couldn’t believe her horrible luck. If Maggie ever found out about them, she would be crushed.

She glanced over at Ben and caught him checking out her backside.

He looked away as if he knew he’d been busted, and anger began to bubble up within her.

She turned to face him. “Maggie’s an amazing person and a good friend.”

He nodded in agreement. “She is. She’s the best.”

Michelle thought for a moment. “I don’t like to see my friends get hurt.”

“Neither do I.” He looked at her searchingly.

Her eyebrow raised.

“Look, we had no idea we both knew Maggie when we met. And she’s my friend, not my girlfriend, so we did nothing wrong.”

“But you know how she feels about you,” Michelle stated.

He shrugged his shoulders indifferently. “I’m more interested in how
you
feel about me.”

“Really?” Her sarcasm was unmistakable.

“Hey, I had fun with you that night.” His gaze intensified. “And I know you had a good time, too.”

Michelle chewed on the inside of her bottom lip as she remembered their intimate make out session. At the time, it had been exactly what she wanted, but that was the old Michelle. Now, she felt only shame. And the fact that he completely disregarded Maggie’s feelings made her anger boil over. Her eyes narrowed, but just as she was about to rip into him, Maggie breezed into the room.

“Ben!” Maggie threw her arms around his neck. “You’re here!”

He gave her a quick hug. “Hey, Magnolia. You ready to go?” His eyes were still locked with Michelle’s.

“Just about.” Maggie scurried around the room gathering her bags, never noticing the tension or the stare down between her friends. “This is my roommate, Michelle.”

“Nice to meet you, Michelle.” Ben continued to stare at her.

Michelle shook her head and rolled her eyes. “Why Magnolia?” she asked Maggie.

“Oh, that’s just what Ben calls me sometimes.” Maggie had the same smile on her face she always got when she talked about him.

“It’s a high school thing,” he added in a patronizing tone. “Guess you had to be there.”

Ben finally turned his attention to Maggie when she began handing him things.

Maggie hugged Michelle, then grabbed her last couple bags. “Merry Christmas. See you next month.”

“Merry Christmas. Call me if you need me.” She watched Maggie exit the room with a bag over each arm.

Ben looked back over his shoulder. “Bye, Michelle.”

Michelle was more sure than ever that Ben was no good for Maggie. But how could she tell her without breaking her heart? Or worse, without losing her friendship?

After Maggie’s departure, there was only one person left to see before she headed off to Chicago. Knowing she would be back and see her friends again in a month gave her some comfort. But Sean … this might be the last time she ever saw him. She didn’t know what to do with that or with the guilt and sadness that still weighed heavy on her heart. Sean might not blame her for his leaving, but she couldn’t help but feel responsible.

As she finished packing the last of her clothes in her suitcase, there came a soft knocking on her already wide open door.

She glanced up at Sean’s smiling face. Her heart leapt.

“Hey.” He took a couple steps toward her.

“Hey.” Her sadness was impossible to hide.

“So, I’m about to head out.” He tilted his head toward the hallway, then took another step.

She softly chewed on the corner of her lip.

Another step. “And I wanted to say—”

She launched herself forward and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Don’t say it. Please, don’t say it.”

His arms enfolded her, and he kissed the top of her head. “I’m gonna miss you so much.” He leaned back and looked at her, his arms still locked around her. “I was thinking … we both live in Chicago. Maybe we can see each other while you’re home on break.”

“Yes!” She knew she was smiling like a lovestruck fool, but she didn’t care. “Yes! That is the best idea ever!” She squeezed him tightly, which elicited his wonderful laugh. When she pulled back and looked at him again, the right side of his mouth curved up a little. He smiled at her in a way that seemed reserved just for her.

She smiled sweetly in return.

He gazed into her eyes, adoration swimming in a sea of blue, and her heart soared. Emotions she had never experienced welled up inside her. Emotions she thought might be the closest thing to love she had ever felt in her life.

He leaned closer, the warmth of his breath caressing her face. Their noses brushed, and her lips parted.

“Until then,” he whispered.

“Until then,” she whispered back as his lips softly met hers.

7

“You miss me, don’t you?” Sean asked at the start of every phone conversation.

“You know the answer to that,” she always replied.

“How’s Michigan?”

“It would be better if you were here. How’s Northwestern?”

“It’s great. Very different than Cornerstone, but I like it.”

They talked about classes, new people he had met, the lovely campus in Evanston, and her recent choice to major in psychology. He liked his new roommates. She liked having only one roommate. Not that she didn’t miss Emma, but the extra space was nice. He liked being close to home. She wished he was closer to her.

Their plans to get together over winter break had been thwarted by his parents, who did not approve of Michelle. They never came right out and said it in so many words, but she knew they had probably figured out she was the one he had been with. She understood. She had ruined their son’s plans. If she were them, she probably wouldn’t have let him spend time with the likes of her either. Even if she
had
found Jesus along the way.

“We’ll see each other,” Sean said on the phone one day.

“There’s always Spring Break.”

“What? You don’t have plans to go to Florida with the girls for Spring Break?” He chuckled.

“
You
are my Spring Break plans,” she responded sweetly.

“
Mmm
. I like the sound of that.”

Long distance calls weren’t cheap, especially three-hour-long conversations. So when they couldn’t afford to talk on the phone, they wrote letters to each other. Michelle looked forward to her daily walks to the mail room. Every other day, there was a card or letter from Sean. She had never been much of a writer, but she found herself scribbling page after page of the happenings around campus and the things she was learning in her classes and in chapel. Sometimes their letters crossed in the mail, because she was too anxious to wait for his next one before she sent hers.

With every letter, they opened up to each other about what had happened between them and how they felt about the whole thing.

“When I came home to Chicago, I was angry at myself for being so weak when it came to you and not standing strong in my beliefs. And I questioned everything and went through the long list of what ifs. I wondered if I had done the right thing, leaving Grand Rapids and transferring to Northwestern. I still wonder that. Because I miss you. I hate being so far away from you.”

When he said things like this, her heart melted.

“I wonder a lot, too,” she wrote. “I wish you had transferred somewhere closer so we could see each other, because I miss you. It’s totally my fault all of this happened, and I don’t think I can say sorry enough. I care so much about you, Sean. I wish things had turned out differently.”

The next correspondence from Sean was a card with a sweet sentiment about never having regrets and always seeing the good in every situation. He filled the blank side of the card with words of his own.

“You know I do not blame you for what happened. I take full responsibility for my part in it. If I could go back and do it all over again, I’m not sure I would change a thing, because I don’t regret you. Not one bit. And I don’t question what came after. I stand by my decision to go to the dean. I will never question that, because I know it was the right thing to do. I can’t help but regret leaving you, though.”

Michelle read the card probably a hundred times over the next few days. She went to Meijer one-hour photo, made a copy of a picture Maggie had taken of the two of them, and sent it off to him with a simple note. “I don’t regret you either.”

In the following week’s letter, Sean declared he was coming to visit on a very special day that was all about hearts and flowers.

Michelle immediately marked her calendar with a giant red heart over February the fourteenth.

But the night before, she returned to the room to find a note from Maggie telling her Sean had called to let her know he wasn’t coming after all. She called him back, but there was no answer.

A belated Valentine card arrived a few days later. “Michelle, I’m so sorry I didn’t make it over to see you. I hope you had a good Valentine’s Day. I was thinking about you every moment.” Above the
i
in her name, he had drawn a little heart, which brought a smile to her face.

Over the next two months, the frequency of Sean’s letters began to dwindle. Michelle continued to write him every few days, letting him know what was happening and how much she missed him. His letters were brief. He had a big course load and was playing some intramural basketball, which took up more of his time. She understood, but she found herself hating the walk to the mail room, because she didn’t know whether she would be happy at the sight of a letter or crushed when the mailbox was empty again.

“I’m sure you’re busy,” she wrote one night. “I know classes can be time-consuming and difficult, but I hate not hearing from you. I want to know how you are and what’s going on there. I tried calling, but you’re never there. The silence on your end is making me feel like something is wrong.”

Two weeks later came Sean’s reply. She practically yanked the door off the little mailbox when she saw his return address. The small envelope was torn open in a matter of moments. She was anxious for his words.

“I’m sorry I haven’t written lately. I’ve been really busy. Classes are killing me, but I’m loving intramurals. Hope life at Cornerstone is treating you well. Sean.”

She leaned back against the wall of mailboxes and stared at the single sheet of paper.
That’s it?
She flipped the paper over hoping for more, but that was definitely all he had written. Tears stung her eyes, and she walked as fast as she could back to her dorm room before she completely lost it. She burst through the door, wadded up his note, and tossed it at the picture of the two of them she had framed on her desk. The tears came then and didn’t stop. She climbed into her bed and cried herself to sleep.