“Did I scare you?” she asked, concerned. I shook my head.
“No, I just didn’t know that you were here, that’s all,” I told her. She smiled and stood up, then crossed the room and put her arms around my neck to hug me. I was a little taken aback by her actions, but put my arms around her waist as well.
“I missed you Isaac, and I’m sorry about what happened,” I heard her say. I pulled away from her to look at her face, and she gave me a sincere smile. “I hate it when we fight. Why is it that you’re the only person in the world who can turn my life upside down when we fight?”
“I don’t know, it must be a special talent of mine,” I answered with a teasing grin. She laughed and nodded.
“I guess so,” she agreed.
“But don’t think that I’m the only one with a talent like that. You should see some of the songs that I’ve written since we’ve been here… I think I’m going to call this my ‘Blue Period’,” I told her, picking a stack of papers off of an end table and handing them to her. Willow sat back down and leafed through the papers, and I sat awkwardly beside her. I hadn’t actually meant to have her look at them right there at that moment. Even at that stage in my career, I was still a little insecure of people reading the first drafts of my music in front of me. After a moment, Will looked over at me and handed me a page.
“Can you sing this for me?” she asked. I looked down at the paper and recognized the song that I had written one day when I was feeling sorry and being guilty about the whole situation. I grinned a little.
“You’ll have to forgive the choppiness of the song, I haven’t quite finalized it yet,” I said, reaching for the guitar I’d set down earlier. I paused for a moment to collect my thoughts, remembering every note in the song before starting.
“I guess we messed up good this time, our lives are pushed apart, but if I could go back to then, I’d mend your broken heart,” the song started. “But then while we were in that day, my heart you could heal too, then things would be back to normal, and I’d go on in secret loving you.”
I couldn’t stand to look at her face as I sang, so I focused on my fingers on the neck of the guitar, and the carpet on the floor at my feet. When I finished the song, I was unaware that I was holding my breath as I finally managed to look at her. She smiled a little, but I saw something else in her eyes besides a smile. She was sad, but didn’t want to show it.
“That’s a really nice song,” she complimented.
“Thanks.”
“Do you have a title for it?”
“I was thinking maybe Secret Regret, but I’m not sure. I still have to go through editing it with Taylor and Zac, so I’m sure we’ll figure something out,” I answered with a shrug. Will shook her head, and I gave her a confused look. “What? You don’t think that’s a good title?”
“No. I like Happy Ending better,” she answered. I looked down at my paper, still confused for a moment, trying to tie the title in with the meaning of the song, and that I realized what she was talking about. I looked back up at her again, and she was smiling. I let out my breath slowly, feeling as if I was suddenly walking on egg shells.
“I like that title,” I told her. She nodded.
“Me too,” she agreed. Then she paused for a moment to think, and I moved a little closer to her. “But then you’d probably have to change the end of the song, and then it would change the whole meaning, and you already had a set meaning to begin with, so-”
“Willow?” I interrupted her awkward stream of words, and she seemed almost relieved.
“Yes?” she replied quickly. I looked in her eyes searchingly, trying to possibly read her mind and understand what was going on with her.
“What’s going on with us?” I asked. She opened her mouth to reply, but I continued. “Because I’m tired of having to dance around our feelings. You already know how I feel about you, and I know how you feel about me too, and we deserve to be happy. Now whether we choose to be happy together, or happy with other people, we need to decide that right now, because I can’t keep doing this.”
“I know,” Will agreed quietly, blinking quickly. I could see her eyes get watery, but I didn’t attempt to comfort her. I sat still and rigid, trying to prepare for anything to happen. “I can’t keep doing this either, because I know the pain that you’re going through. I feel it too.”
“Then what? What do we do?” I questioned. She shook her head, and I looked back down at the floor.
“I don’t know. But I know that my decision is to be with you.” Her answer caught me off guard, and I looked up at her quickly. She looked worried, almost unsure of what she had just said.
“It is?” She nodded, and I couldn’t help but smile. “Really? Because I want to be with you too. But you already knew that.”
She nodded again, smiling with me. “Yes, I knew that.”
I reached over and put my arms around her to hug her, and she held me tightly. “I’m so glad, Willow, because I’ve felt that way for so long. But something has always gotten in the way.”
“Nothing is in our way now,” she whispered. I pulled away a little and looked at her face, brushing some of her hair away from her forehead. She looked back at me with a look on her face that I can not describe but that I will never forget.
“Calm down Zac,” I called. Zac turned around and narrowed his eyes at me.
“Oh don’t get all wise and mighty now. You said yourself that we were going to call the police if he wasn’t back by five,” he shot back. I rolled my eyes, but couldn’t argue because I had agreed to do so. When we had all returned from seeing a movie the night before, Willow and Isaac were no longer in the apartment where we had left them. There was no note or indication of where they had gone, except that their jackets and Ike’s Xterra were gone, and so were they.
“Sorry if we worried you, we just went out for a drive,” Ike explained, looking over his shoulder at Willow, who had stepped into the apartment behind him. She smiled and waved a little.
“Yeah, sorry. We should have left a note or something,” Will agreed, smiling up at Isaac. Okay, now I knew something was up. I gave them strange looks, but Ike just grinned and shook his head, then walked past me and Zac to go down the hall to his bedroom. Will hesitated for a moment and looked at Zac. “Did you have a good time last night?”
“Yeah, we had fun,” Zac answered, then turned and walked over towards me as Will went down the hall to Isaac’s room as well. “Apparently, not as much fun as some though.”
“Zac, shhh!” I insisted, trying not to laugh. He grinned.
"What? You actually think that going out for a ‘drive’ is all they did last night?” he asked. I shook my head at him, indicating for him to mind his own business, and then went back to my computer. I finished the e-mail to Megan and sent it, then signed off the internet and shut my computer down.
“Hello?” I greeted.
“Hi baby, welcome home,” Megan replied. I smiled.
“Thanks hun. How’s work?”
“Eeh, same old same old. I need you to do me a favor. I set my day planner on the kitchen table this morning and left for work with out it. Do you think you could drop it by the studio for me this afternoon? I have a doctor’s appointment today and I forgot what time,” she said.
“Ok, no problem. I’m leaving right now,” I told her.
“Thank you! I love you, I’ll see you in a bit.”
I hung up the phone and went into the kitchen to get her planner, then flipped it open to today’s date. Indeed, she had written down a doctor’s appointment for 4:00. I didn’t remember hearing her ever mention another doctor’s appointment after the one she went to a few weeks ago, and a few weeks before that when she had been feeling ill. Something didn’t click right, and I decided to ask Meg about it when I got to the recording studio that she worked at as a receptionist.
“You are the best husband in the world! Thank you for bringing this to me,” Meg greeted me, giving me a hug and a kiss when I got to the studio. “Mmm, I missed you. How was the trip?”
“It was good. Zac says thank you for the CDs we got him,” I replied, handing her the book. She took it, but I didn’t let it go right away. “Meg, I couldn’t help but notice that this is the 3rd doctor’s appointment you’ve had in a few months. What’s up?”
“Nothing, they’re just regular checkups to make sure that the flu bug I had is definitely gone. Nothing to worry about,” she insisted, smiling at me. I accepted her explanation without question, but I suspected that there was more behind the story than she was letting on.
“Whoa, calm down,” he replied, and it was all I could do to stop myself from jumping up and down in excitement. "What is going on?"
“My parents! I talked to my parents and my mother wore my father down, and they’re letting me go home!” I explained excitedly.
“Really? That’s awesome,” Zac said. “When are you leaving?”
“Next Tuesday. Zac, I’m so happy… This is a sign that they’re starting to accept us.”
I heard Zac hesitate a little. “Well, I wouldn’t jump to conclusions so fast like that. Let’s just be happy that you’re going home, ok?”
“Ok, ok, Mr. Voice of Reason,” I teased him. We talked for a little longer before I had to hang up the phone when my aunt knocked on my bedroom door. She didn’t really approve of me going back home again, but there was nothing she could do about it. My parents had left the decision up to me, and I was definitely going back to Oklahoma.
“Hi sweetie, welcome home,” she greeted as I held onto her tightly. Nearly 5 months away from her had made me miss her more than I had realized.
“I missed you,” I told her, then grinned at her. "Thank you for letting me come home and everything."
“You’re welcome. The house just wasn’t the same without you,” she replied, linking her arm in mine as we walked off towards the baggage claim area to get my suitcase. Once we had gotten the rest of my stuff, we went outside to find the car.
“How is dad?” I asked once we had put my bags in the trunk of the car. She made a face over the top of the car at me.
“He’s as stubborn as usual. But he missed you too,” she answered. I smiled secretly. It took us about 20 minutes to get home, and I sighed a little as we pulled into the driveway of the house. I was home, finally. “You must be worn out from all your travel. I’ll help you take your stuff upstairs and then you lay down for a while. I’ll fix you something to eat.”
“Thanks, mom,” I told her. We carried my bags upstairs to my room and she left me alone to rest. I looked around my old room for a minute. Everything was as I had left it back in June. I sat down on my bed and looked at my night table. There was a picture of me and my friend Mariah in a frame, and I squinted at it in thought. I didn’t remember having that picture in that spot before. I could have sworn that there had been a picture of me and Zac together there before. Confused, I opened the little drawer of the table and sifted through it, and found the frame that held the picture face down. I smiled and moved Mariah’s picture off the table, replacing it with the picture of me and Zac.
“That’s better,” I whispered, staring at the innocent smiles on our faces in the picture. It had been taken a few years back, back when everything was simple. Satisfied, I kicked my sneakers off my feet and lay back on my bed, not tired but still worn out. I absently rubbed the palms of my hands over my stomach, amazed at the roundness that I now felt there. It kind of freaked me out that there was something living growing inside of me, but it was intriguing at the same time. I moved around a little until I found a comfortable position to lay in, closed my eyes, and ended up falling asleep soon after.
“Really?” I asked, trying to conceal the excitement I felt. Ike knew me better than that though, and he could head the happiness in my voice.
“Yes really. Reagan flew back to Tulsa today, and Zac and I have just a few more things to pack up, then we’re starting the drive home,” he explained to me. I couldn’t help but sigh a little at his news.
“Oh good, I’m glad… It’s weird not having you around,” I told him. He laughed a little.
“Lonely, isn’t it?”
“Well, yes. I guess so,” I answered.
“Now you know how I felt all those years that you were gone,” he said, and something in my chest tightened a little. If I was missing him so much and was so anxious to have him back now, after only being away from him for about 10 days, I couldn’t imagine how much he must have felt when I had moved away. Sure I had missed him back then, but I was younger and was able to fill my time in other ways. Besides, I hadn’t really felt back then the way I felt for him now.
“Yeah, well, I’m back now. Indefinitely. And you’re coming back too,” I replied.
“Yes I am,” he confirmed. We had to get off the phone then because I was at the office and had work to do. He promised he’d see me in a few days, and I told him that I couldn’t wait, and then we hung up. Someone cleared their throat from the doorway and startled me, causing me to jump. I looked over and saw Alex standing there, a tight smile on his face.
“Working hard?” he asked. I smiled back weakly.
“Uh, yeah. It’s never ending,” I answered, then started going through some files that had been left on my desk. “Um, is there something I can help you with?”
“Yeah, I just need you to sign a few things,” he told me, walking into my office and handing me some papers. I looked down at them, starting to skim the paragraphs, but he shoved a pen into my hands. “Don’t worry about reading them now, they’re just little things about employee earning statements and the such. But they’re due on Jefferson’s desk in about half an hour, so if you’ll just sign on all the places I highlighted, I’ll have Marie make a few photocopies for you and you can review them later.”
“Half an hour? Why didn’t you bring them to me earlier so I could read them?” I asked, finishing skimming the first page and feeling satisfied with the contents.
“You were busy,” he answered simply. I frowned.
“I could have found time for this,” I informed him. He shrugged and looked away as I finished signing the few papers, then handed them back to him. He grinned.
“Thank you, Marie will have the copies back on your desk in a little bit.” With that, he turned and walked briskly out of the office. I shook my head a little at him, feeling completely lost as to his sometimes hot, sometimes cold personality towards me.
“Well, I’m not sure my mom is completely convinced of our reasons for wanting to go to Ohio in the first place, but she seems generally happy that we’re home. And dad, well, I don’t think he’s really connected our homecoming with Reagan’s yet, but he’s a bright guy and I’m sure it will dawn on him soon. But I’m just glad to be back,” he answered, and I couldn’t help but laugh a little.
“Ok, that’s all well and good, but I was talking about us,” I said. His brow furrowed in confusion.
“What about us?” he asked.
“Did you tell them about… you know, us being together?” I asked, entwining my fingers with his. He smiled, but shook his head, and I gave him a look.
“Not yet, but I will!” he promised insistently. I smiled teasingly.
“Yeah, I’m sure you will… someday.”
“Hey, none of that now. I will tell them, I just want to let things settle down a little right now, that’s all. I’ll give it a week at the latest,” he told me. I nodded, smirking, then reached for my cell phone as it began to ring.
“Hello?” I answered. The voice on the other end of the phone belonged to my boss, and he did not sound happy. “No, Mr. Jefferson, that’s ok, I was just… What papers? I didn’t sign any… Ok, first thing tomorrow morning, I promise. Yes sir, no problem. Goodnight.”
I hung up the phone with a sigh, and Isaac was giving me a confused look. “Something wrong?”
“He has these papers that have my signature on them that authorize pay cuts for all the people working in my area, but I didn’t sign any pay cuts,” I told him. Ike’s eyes narrowed in thought for a moment.
“Maybe he just thinks that it’s your signature,” he suggested, and I nodded. “I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding, nothing to worry about.”
“Probably,” I agreed, but I didn’t feel so sure about the situation. For some reason I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened, and I knew something wasn’t right about those papers.
“Why don’t you join us?” Meg invited, giving me a little wink. Reagan grinned and held my hand in hers as we went into a restaurant together. As we sat down, Megan looked at us happily. “You both must be happy to be home.”
“You have no idea,” Reagan agreed. I just simply nodded and looked at Reagan. I was just happy to be where ever she was.
“Dude, if I have to deal with another sappy, depressed love song again, I swear I’m gonna puke,” I threatened Ike playfully, sifting through some pages of lyrics he had written. He looked up from his seat on the couch in the recording room with his acoustic and scowled at me.
“Dude, if I have to deal with another complaint from your mouth again, I swear I’m gonna puke,” he retorted. I made a face.
“Real mature, Ike, real mature,” I said.
“Ok, I am now strictly enforcing a ‘no talking’ rule between you two. Got it?” Tay interjected from his position behind the master sound board. I rolled my eyes and sat down behind my drum set. After a second of thinking, I tapped out a beat with my foot and began to play. I didn’t recognized what it was that I was playing, I was just fooling around. After a couple minutes, I heard a guitar playing along with me, and I looked over to see Isaac. He grinned.
“Sounds good,” he commented.
“No talking rule!” I reminded him, nodding over at Taylor. Ike just laughed and shook his head. I looked through the glass at Taylor and the door of the booth opened. It was one of the studio’s producers. He waved at me to get my attention.
“You have a call on line 5,” he told me. I nodded at him, then stopped playing and got up from the drum set to go answer the phone in the booth.
“Hey, this is Zac,” I greeted.
“Hi, it’s Reagan,” a voice replied. I smiled.
“Hey babe, what’s up?”
Reagan laughed. “You’re hopeless. Will you ever stop calling me that?”
“Mmm, no, I don’t think I will…” I said.
“Yeah, ok. Anyway, I was just wondering if you’re very busy today,” she asked.
“Not really, we’re just kind of playing around today. Why?” I answered.
“I’m going to visit Mariah and the studio is on the way there, and I was thinking I might stop by to say hi real quick,” Reagan told me. I smiled a little, although confused.
“What, your parents are letting you use the car?”
“Yup. Cool, huh?”
"Um, should you be driving? I mean, is it safe and all?” I asked uneasily. I heard her sigh.
“Are you calling me fat?” she demanded jokingly.
“No, no of course not,” I said quickly. “I mean, it’s just…well, you’re 8 months pregnant… and you really look it.”
“Gee, thanks Zac,” she said flatly.
“Not that that’s a bad thing or anything!” I insisted. “I just don’t want you to do anything risky.”
“I’m fine, Zac, I can drive. I will be there in 5 minutes, ok?” I hung up the phone and sighed. She was stubborn, oh yes. Joy for me.
“Sure, why not? Zac has already been done for an hour now,” he commented, and we looked over at him and Reagan sitting on the couch together. Tay and I smiled at each other, happy to see our younger brother happy again.
“Hey, we’re done for the day, so if you two want to leave or whatever, feel free,” I said to them. Reagan glanced at her watch.
“Yikes, I gotta get to Mariah’s,” she said. Zac stood up and reached down to help Reagan stand up also. She grinned when she was on her feet. “This is getting more and more to be a major pain in the ass.”
“Yeah, well, wait another month and say it again,” I told her, grinning. We all gathered our stuff out of the booth, then locked the door behind us on our way out.
“See you guys tomorrow?” Tay asked. Zac and I nodded, then waved as Tay headed off towards his car.
“Call me when you get to Mariah’s so that I know you got there, ok?” Zac told Reagan. She rolled her eyes a little, then nodded and smiled.
“Yes, dad,” she teased. “I’ll be fine.”
“I know you will,” Zac said. I said goodbye to them both before walking across the paring lot towards my Xterra. When I got home, I smiled to see Willow sitting on the couch with a stack of papers in her hands. She returned my smile.
“Hey there,” she greeted.
“Hey yourself,” I replied, setting my jacket and keys down. I sat beside her on the couch and she set her papers aside, then I put my arms around her.
“How was the studio today?” she asked, smiling and laughing a little as I tickled her neck.
“Lazy, very lazy… just playing around, getting some stuff together,” I answered. “You?”
“Long,” she replied, then looked over at the papers. “I have a lot of work to do tonight.”
“Aww, really? Do you have to do it all tonight?” I complained teasingly.
“I should get it finished,” she said sympathetically. She leaned forward and gave me a kiss, then stood up. “I feel in the mood to cook dinner tonight. Are you hungry?”
“No,” I answered, standing up also and following her into the kitchen.
“Well then, what do you want?” she asked, giving me a perplexed look. I grinned playfully.
“Not food,” I replied. Will’s jaw dropped slightly, and she shook her head at me. She turned towards the fridge, but I captured her hand in mine and pulled her back towards me as I slowly started baking out of the kitchen.
“Seriously, Ike-”
“I am serious,” I interrupted. I glanced over my shoulder quickly to make sure I wasn’t going to back into anything, and kicked my bedroom door open with my foot. Will raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, so you’re tired now?” she asked. I merely smiled.
“No,” I said.
“Then what are you?” she questioned. I pulled her up and put my arms around her waist, leaning down so that our noses were just barely touching. I looked in her blue eyes and couldn’t help but smile.
“Determined,” I answered.
<--Back
<-<--Home
Installment Seven
Installment Nine