Forgiving You: A Bluebell Valley Novel (4 page)

“Who is that?” Stacy asked.

“Sam?” Austin replied, not looking at the camera anymore, but at the car that was driving down the road to their farm. It wasn’t the car model that had given her away, but her blonde hair behind the wheel.

Not paying attention to Stacy, who was trying to keep him on the couch, he stood up and left the living room. He had to know what she was doing here. Once he was on the porch, Sam’s car finally came to a stop.

He couldn’t believe she was here. Not after what she had told him.

He couldn’t hide his happiness.

Sam

As she stopped her car, Sam caught a glimpse of Austin. Even though he looked more than handsome in his fancy suit, Sam couldn’t imagine him wearing one every day. It wasn’t like him.

It’s who he is now
, she thought. But even if her brain was trying to keep her as far away from Austin as possible, the rest of her body badly wanted to see him. She couldn’t stay away from that man.

Looking over at the passenger seat, she stared at the box she had brought to the orchard. She had found it last night before going to bed. She was looking for a shirt to sleep in when something had caught her eye on the top shelf of her closet. That box had been there for years already, and after so long, she’d stopped noticing it. But last night, it had magically appeared.

After Austin had left for college, she had realized there were a lot of things he had left at her place. She’d put all of them in a box, hoping she could give it to him when he came back to Bluebell Valley. But she never had that chance. Last night, it had seemed like the right excuse to see Austin again.

This morning, she wasn’t so sure about it anymore. She had jumped in her car as fast as she could, making sure she wasn’t going to second-guess herself. She knew she wanted to do it, but if she stopped to think about it, she was going to stay home.

So Sam had put the box in the car and had started driving. She hadn’t allowed herself to stop on the road, as her brain started shouting things at her like,
Turn around. You’re just making a big mistake. You’re going to get your heart broken again.

Now that her car was parked in front of the Cole’s Orchard, her thoughts were louder than ever. Why was she really here? Why couldn’t she just have stayed home instead of stirring up the past?

She laid her eyes on Austin and her brain quieted for a second. She looked at the man through her windshield, knowing she had a legitimate reason to be here. She couldn’t let him go back to New York without understanding what had happened to him. Even if she had a lame excuse to be on the orchard, it was for a greater purpose.

Sam noticed the smile on Austin’s lips and it made her relax. He wasn’t mad at her for the way she had reacted yesterday. That was a good thing.

By coming here, she was putting her heart on the line and she was happy to see that Austin wasn’t hiding behind a wall. He was there too, ready to talk.

Maybe they could really make things better, after all these years.

When she opened her door, Sam noticed Austin coming down the stairs in her direction. Before he said anything, she grabbed the box on the other seat and got out of the car.

“It’s nice to see you,” Austin said as he approached. “What do you have here?”

“Just… stuff you left at my parents’ place before you left for college. I’ve had it for years and I wanted to give it back to you,” Sam said. She had rehearsed that sentence so many times in the car. She realized, now that she said it, that she hadn’t thought about what was going to happen
after
. She handed the box to him, but he didn’t take it.

“You don’t want it?” Sam was confused. She didn’t know what she was expecting, but she had never thought Austin wasn’t going to take the box full of old memories.

“You can keep it. They probably mean more to you than they do to me,” he said, barely looking down at the objects. His gaze was stuck on Sam and she could feel it. She was about to grab an old CD when a bunch of people came out of the house, cameras in hands.

“Hi! You’re Sam, aren’t you? I have to be honest, I expected to see a man,” a woman all dressed in black said as she got closer, holding her hand out.

“I’m Sam… And yes, I’m a girl,” she replied, confused. Who was this woman?

“It’s nice to meet you. I’m Stacy. We’re shooting an episode about Mr. Cole’s life and it would be really nice to have you in it. If I understood correctly, you two were best friends during your childhood?”

“Yes, but―” She hadn’t even finished her sentence when Stacy had grabbed her by the arm and led her inside the house.

Sam looked at Austin, hoping he could stop whatever was happening, but he was only smiling, looking at her being dragged away.

Since Austin wasn’t too worried, Sam decided to relax. Okay, they were doing an interview about her old friend. It couldn’t be that bad. She wasn’t really prepared to be interviewed, though. Her hair was messy and she barely had any makeup on.

“Sit here,” Stacy said as she positioned Sam. Someone had grabbed her box out of her hand and put it down somewhere. Now that she was empty-handed, Sam could only do what Stacy asked her to. “Alicia is our makeup artist. She’s going to work on you a bit, and then we can ask you a few questions.”

Stacy took a step back as Alicia took her place. Sam let her put a thick layer of foundation on her face. When she had hopped in her car this morning, she had never imagined she would stumble upon a TV crew. But then, Austin had told her he was filming about his life and that was the only reason he was here.

“There you go,” Alicia said as she touched up Sam’s lips. The woman reached behind her and found a mirror that she handed to Sam.

Sam gasped. “Whoa!” The woman in the mirror wasn’t her. It was such a different version of Sam that she couldn’t recognize herself. “Isn’t it… a bit much?” she quietly asked, hoping that maybe Alicia would remove some. The only thing she liked about herself right now was how great her eyes looked. They were shining like they never had before.

“You look amazing,” someone said next to her. When she turned her head, she realized the voice was coming from Austin. Her cheeks lit up. She felt like she didn’t deserve a compliment from a man as handsome as him. He probably knew dozens of models in New York City that she couldn’t even compare to.

Sam’s eyes stayed for a few seconds on Austin, wondering what was going on in his head. He had a secretive smile on his lips. He was so different than the boy she had grown up with.

“Let’s get started,” Stacy said.

Sam snapped out of her trance and blushed when she realized how intense her moment with Austin had been. She didn’t understand him, but he seemed to see right through her.

Someone turned a light on and Sam was blinded by it. It took her a few seconds to get used to it.

“Are you ready?” Stacy asked as she sat in front of her.

“I guess,” Sam replied, not knowing if she would ever be ready for this. What kind of questions were they going to ask? They didn’t even have any time to prepare.

“Tell us a bit about you.”

That’s an easy one
, Sam thought.
Start from the beginning.
“I’m Samantha Decker, but everybody calls me Sam. I’m from Bluebell Valley, like Austin. My parents have… well, my mother still has a bakery in town. It used to be her mother’s, but my dad took over it. He passed away a few years ago, so now I take care of it with my mom.”

Sam searched for Austin. She wasn’t even sure he knew about her father passing away. Maybe his mother had told him? He didn’t seem surprised when he heard it, though.

“Mr. Cole told us that you two were friends. When did you friendship start?”

“Oh, it was a long time ago,” Sam said, trying to hide her smile as she thought back to that day. “We were still children. I don’t think we had started school yet. Our mothers liked to talk a lot, so we kept ourselves busy by playing together.”

“And what kind of child was Mr. Cole?”

Sam looked up at Austin, who was standing behind the camera. All those memories were coming back to her and she started regretting how they had left each other. They had been great friends, but now there was a wall between them, that she didn’t really know how to deal with.

“He was shy. Even when we started school, he would only hang out with me. I don’t think he had many other friends. But that was fine with me. Through the years, I tried to introduce him to as many people as I knew. Once he was introduced, he always lost a bit of shyness and would loosen up. He rarely approached someone, though.”

“That’s very interesting! So considering his position as CEO of Cole Technologies now, what do you think changed?”

“College changed him,” Sam admitted. When her eyes came across Austin’s face, he was looking at the floor. He was avoiding her.

“You say that as if it was a bad thing,” Stacy observed.

Sam didn’t know if she wanted to get into the details of her complicated relationship with Austin. But maybe this was her chance to set the record straight. Even if this was in front of a camera, she had the opportunity to tell him how she truly felt.

“We used to be so close. When he was still living here, we spent most of our time together. We were inseparable. I knew Austin had to leave for college eventually, but we had plans to meet after I was done high school. But that never happened, because he changed. We grew apart and I stayed here.”

“What changed in him, exactly?”

Sam’s eyes were on Stacy, as she didn’t want to look at Austin right now, even though his eyes were probably on her.

“That’s something you’re going to have to ask him, because I don’t know. He just stopped answering my calls and replying to my e-mails. I just know he stopped caring about me and I stopped caring about him.”

“When was the last time you two saw each other?”

“The night he left,” Sam murmured. “I guess that was about ten years ago.”

“I see,” Stacy replied. “Let’s go back to the time when you and Austin were still friends.” It wasn’t hard for Sam to notice that Stacy was a bit unsettled by her answers. She was probably expecting a happier story. “Tell me more about Mr. Cole during that time. Did you expect him to be as successful as he is right now?”

“I knew he would go far, yes. But I didn’t expect him to do it the way he did,” Sam replied. Stacy had tried to take the subject back to a more positive one, so she made an effort to help her. “Austin was always very smart. He would help me with my homework when I had trouble, but he was also smarter than that. He
understood
how things worked. He could see a broken toy and fix it. Austin was good in math and science, but he was also great with his hands. He’d build ladders, baskets with pulleys, and anything you can think of that helped with picking fruits in the summer. It was unbelievable to watch him do things like that. He never made a plan first. He just picked up whatever he needed and started building.

“That’s why I knew he was going to go far in life. Austin was too intelligent to let that go to waste. He always wanted to make the world a better place, and I guess he did… But in the meantime, he became a different person.”

Stacy nodded and took a look at her notebook on her lap. Sam wasn’t making it easy for her to showcase Austin as a good person. This was probably not the footage they wanted. She considered leaving, since this was such a bad idea, but Stacy started talking before she had the time to do anything.

“Do you have any siblings?” the woman asked.

“No, I don’t. I’m an only child.”

“Did you consider Mr. Cole to be the brother you never had?”

“It was more than that,” Sam admitted as she remembered the way she used to feel with Austin. He was more than a brother to her—he had been the person she wanted to spend her life with. He had been her first love, even though they never had a chance to be together.

“What do you mean?” Stacy asked, leaning forward to hear her answer.

“It’s just…” Sam tried to brush it away, hoping Stacy would move on.  “Nothing. We were just best friends.”

“In all those years that you were friends, did you ever develop feelings for him?”

“No,” Sam said in a rush. She realized how suspicious it was and decided to explain herself. “I don’t think this question is relevant―”

“So you never had any feelings for Mr. Cole?”

Sam’s cheeks were red from embarrassment. She wasn’t ready to admit to Austin that she used to love him, especially not in front of the camera. She didn’t mind letting him know how disappointed she had been, but this was a lot more personal. This was something they had to talk about in private.

And why was this woman asking her those questions? Wasn’t she supposed to film a documentary about how Austin got to where he was? How did her feelings for him change any of that?

“I’ve… I’m sorry, I can’t do this anymore.”

As she stormed out of the house to get some fresh air, she walked past Austin, not even daring to look at him.

Sam was heading for her car when a hand grabbed her arm and stopped her.

“Please, wait,” Austin pleaded as she faced him. “I’m sorry. It’s my fault. I didn’t know Stacy was going to push you like that.”

Sam just wanted to go home, but she decided to give him a few more seconds to plead his case, to give her a reason to stay. “So, did you?” Austin finally asked. “Did you have feeling for me back then?”

“Yes, I did!” Sam shouted without a second of hesitation.

From the look on Austin’s face, he didn’t know. How could he? They were just friends… But it still seemed unbelievable that her best friend hadn’t even had a suspicion.

“I was in love with you, Austin, but you never saw it! Or you never did anything about it. I didn’t want to tell you, because I didn’t mean to ruin our friendship. But then you left, and
you
ruined it.” Sam couldn’t believe it had taken her ten years to admit it to Austin. It was finally off her chest, but she didn’t feel any better.