Sparks in Scotland (18 page)

“You too.” Darn tears started filling my eyes, and I looked away and blinked. Gave his parents huge hugs and warm thanks. Finally turned back to him one last time and dared to reach out and take his hand in mine. I couldn't resist the impulse. “Well, then I guess this is good-bye.”

His face was a stiff mask, but he clutched my fingers, his hands slightly chilled. “Good-bye.”

As he walked away with his parents, I lingered on the corner, watching the tattered pieces of my heart follow him around the bend.

Chapter
Eighteen

S
o how was New York?”
I asked Corinne with a huge grin as we settled in my bedroom. “I can't wait to hear all about it. You just got home last night, right?” I took her overnight bag and propped it beside my computer desk, where she took a seat in my wheeled chair.

The August heat was just as intense as July's, so I moved to stand over the air-conditioning vent and stuck my face in it. My cheeks were flushed, and a bit of sweat dribbled down my back. Crazy how I still longed for Scotland's more moderate weather.

Hard to believe a month had passed now since I'd been there, wearing fleece and thin sweaters to combat the brisk breezes. Even this tiny tank top felt like too much clothing on.

Corinne sighed with pleasure, and her cheeks had a slight pink tinge. She didn't seem bothered by the heat at all. “It was amazing,
Ava. Not just seeing our painting on the wall of a real live gallery, but . . .” Her dark-brown eyes turned to me, and the uncharacteristic warmth and love I saw radiating from them surprised me. “Matthew and I are together now. We're officially dating.” She squealed and popped her hands over her mouth. “Oh my God! He said he loves me, and I just can't get over it all.”

I squealed and ran over to give her a hug. “I knew it! I told you it would work out!” A couple of weeks ago, I'd been at Corinne's house spending the night when she'd gotten the call about her and Matthew's painting winning the big art competition. The main prize: a trip to New York City to see their painting displayed in a legit gallery.

At the time, Corinne had been both pleased and crushed, because she and Matthew had had a falling-out. But I'd encouraged her to admit her feelings to him.

Apparently, she had. And it had worked out.

A nervous flutter built in my stomach, and I pulled back from her to sit on the edge of my bed. Corinne had taken my advice to be honest and admit her feelings. Then again, it wasn't a question of Matthew liking her. He'd been open and up-front about that. It was her fear regarding their compatibility that had kept them apart.

Different situation altogether from mine.

Corinne dug into her bag and showed me her copy of the official certificate. Her face shone with pride. “I wish you could have been there with me,” she said. “But I wanted to tell you how much
I appreciate and needed your support. I was a total mess, and your advice got me through it. Thank you.”

An unexpected burst of tears flew to my eyes. I blinked and waved them away. “I'm so happy for you.”

“If you're happy, why do you look so awful? No offense,” she said with an apologetic smile. “That came out wrong. But you don't look like yourself, and you haven't since you got home. What's going on?”

It was right on the tip of my tongue to spill the beans to her about Graham. But I didn't want to detract from that glow she had going on. After so much angst and anxiety, Corinne was happy. She deserved it.

“Is this about that guy you met there? We never did finish talking about him, by the way. Somehow we got sidetracked into talking about Matthew instead.” I stiffened just a fraction, and her eyes narrowed shrewdly; the girl didn't miss a thing. “Uh-huh. Thought so. Talk.”

“Seriously, it's not a big deal.”

“You're not one to cry at the drop of a hat.”

“I'm just . . . thrilled for you. And it's superhot in here,” I replied with dramatic flair as I waved my hand to my face. “Anyone would cry from this heat.”

Her face fell, and I could hear the hurt in her words as she said, “We're best friends, Ava. You can tell me anything—but you know that already. God knows you've listened to me talk on and on about Matthew. I just want you to feel like you can do the same.”

The soft-spoken words pierced through to my heart. She was right—she'd opened up to me many times, but I wasn't showing her I trusted her enough to do the same . . . despite my promise in Scotland to stop hiding the truth from the people I cared about.

Shame tightened my chest. “I'm sorry,” I said in all sincerity. “It's just . . . hard.”

She nodded. “I know. Trust me, I get it. Being vulnerable is scary.”

I stared at my fumbling fingers for a moment, wondering where to start. My pulse throbbed in my veins, and I wiped away the sweat that had gathered on the sides of my face. “As I told you before, in Scotland, I met a guy.”

“The local one with blue eyes,” she supplied. “I remember. He was the guy who showed you around.”

I nodded. “His name is Graham.” I reached down and grabbed the folders of photos Mom had developed last week from the trip. Photos I hadn't dared look at because I knew he was in many of them. My hands trembled, but I made myself open them and pull the images out.

Over the next half hour, I showed the pictures and confessed it all to Corinne, who sat quietly and just listened. I talked about meeting his friends, about the girl in America he'd fallen for, how I'd admitted the truth about David to him—something I hadn't done with Corinne until our conversation post-Scotland.

Her face showed a pinch of hurt when she realized he knew
about it before she did, but she quickly wiped the look off and nodded at me. “Go on.”

“Before I do, I need to say I'm sorry.” I squeezed her hands. “I've come to realize I have this . . . problem with opening up and letting people see these things that hurt me and make me look foolish.”

Her eyes grew deeply sad, and she clenched my hands. “Don't you get it? I'm your best friend. You could never look foolish to me. I'm sorry you felt like I would judge you or something, but I wouldn't. We both know I've screwed up so many times, I have no right to judge anyone.” Her wry laugh cracked the edge of tension in the room.

“Thank you. I mean that.” I continued my story and told her about the two of us holding hands in the garden, then about exchanging contact information in St. Andrews. My heart began its irregular stutter as it always did when I thought about those last couple of days in Scotland. “I couldn't figure out why he only gave me an e-mail address to contact him. And then I found out the truth. That he was moving to America—Ohio, actually, to live with his mom's parents. I guess he didn't want me to know.”

That familiar throb in my chest grew and swelled as Corinne gave a sad little sigh. “Oh, Ava. That had to hurt so badly. I can't imagine how you must have felt.”

“I felt stupid. Like all this time, I'd been letting down my guard, letting him into my heart, and it was never meant to be anything other than a little vacation thing.” I stared down at the
picture of me and Graham standing in front of Loch Ness. The sun glowed on our faces, glinted off my blond hair, highlighted the brilliant blue of his eyes.

Corinne pointed at his face. “That smile is real. This boy wasn't dragging you along. What did he say when you asked him why he never told you?”

I swallowed, and guilt flared anew. “I didn't.”

She blinked in surprise. “Wait. So you just got on a plane and left? Did you ever e-mail him after you got home?”

“Why would I?” My voice sounded edgier than I meant, and I tried to lower the defenses that had started rising. “Sorry, I didn't mean to sound so crabby. But he has my contact information too, and I never heard from him.”

“And you're too proud to reach out to him and tell him you love him. Oh, Ava. Girl, you're in a mess.”

Big tears streamed down my face, and I let that ache I'd been pushing down for a month come out and spill over. “I know,” I said with a choked sob. “And over the last month, I can't stop wondering if I was wrong not to reach out to him. After all, he did tell me about that girl he liked who broke his heart. Then again, why only give me an e-mail address? Isn't that a message in itself?”

Corinne got out of the computer chair and sat on the bed beside me. Her hand made soothing circles on my back. “Ever think maybe he was too scared to give you more? I mean, what if he wasn't sure how
you
felt? If he'd given you all his American con
tact information, what if he never heard from you after the trip, and then he'd put himself all on the line for nothing?”

“But I was supposed to do the same for him? Which I did, actually—and it didn't matter,” I said miserably. “Because I haven't heard a word from him, either.”

I'd checked my e-mail every hour for days after that trip. There was nothing in there, or on my cell phone, or in the mail, or on my social media. Gradually I stopped looking as much.

A message wasn't ever going to come.

Corinne's laugh wasn't unkind. “Oh wow. I totally see what this is. You're both
so
stubborn. Someone's gonna have to bend if you're gonna make this work. You can't each wait for the other person to be the one to reach out, honey. You know that.”

I sniffled and swiped at my tears. “But why does it have to be me? Aren't I worth the effort of someone pursuing me?” My voice broke on that last word, and I swallowed back another sob.

Corinne wrapped me in her arms and stroked my hair. She let me cry for a moment until I started to feel calmer. Then she pulled me away and stared me right in the eyes. “Of course you're worth it. But you haven't given him a chance to pursue you—and your silence doesn't give him any reason to either. It just tells him you're not interested.”

I bit my lower lip. Was she right? Once more I mentally scanned through those last couple of days in Scotland. How I'd kept a brave face on and hadn't let him know he'd hurt my feelings.

In fact, I hadn't ever told him I liked him. I'd just assumed he'd
figured it out. After all, my feelings were painfully obvious to me, Tilda, my mom, even Jamison.

But what if he hadn't seen it? What if he'd been just as scared as I was, thinking my emotions weren't genuine? And then I'd done exactly what that other American girl had—gone to my home and seemed like I'd forgotten all about him.

I pressed a shaky hand to my mouth.
What have I done?

“Ava, Graham is not David,” Corinne continued. “Don't let yourself get confused and treat him as such. Make sure you're giving him a fair chance before assuming he just meant to use you. You need to talk to him. You need to tell him how you feel. Otherwise, there's no way you guys can work things out.”

“What if it's too late? What if he's over it all now?” After all, so much time had passed. Days and days of me slogging through the rest of my summer, trying so hard not to think about Graham so I wouldn't hurt like this. Fat lot of good it did me.

“Do you still feel the same about him?” she asked me plainly.

I nodded. Despite the pain, I couldn't quite let him go.

“I doubt his feelings changed that quickly either. But if they did, he was never the right guy for you in the first place.”

“I'm scared,” I confessed.

“Trust me. I know. It was the hardest thing in the world for me to tell Matthew how I felt. But the risk is worth the payoff.” She smiled at me, and the understanding look helped soothe my aching heart. “If you want someone to risk it all for you, you have
to be willing to risk it all for him, too. Don't let him go, honey. Not without at least being honest.”

I'd been honest with my mom, with Tilda, with Corinne. But I hadn't been fully honest with him. She was right. How could he know I cared if I never told him?

I nodded, filled with resolve.

“I'm gonna go downstairs and talk to your mom for a bit,” Corinne said, then continued before I could protest. “So you'd better sit yourself down at your computer and write this boy an e-mail. Don't hold back. Tell him everything. And I don't want to see you downstairs until you do.” She gave me a stern squint and wagged her fingers.

She closed the door behind her, leaving me alone with my hundreds of thoughts. I ran a hand through my hair and sighed.

What should I say? Was I ready to take that risk, a jump in the dark? Was Graham worth it?

I thought about him confessing his Nessie obsession to me. How he loved fairy rings. The passion in his eyes as he talked about history.

The warmth in his hands when he stroked my fingers.

Yes, it was worth the chance.

I opened my e-mail and grabbed the folded scrap of paper I'd abandoned in the corner of my desk. His scrawled handwriting with his name and e-mail address. I started a new message and made myself type all the things in my heart.

Dear Graham,

I'm sure this is a big surprise for you, hearing from me out of nowhere. After all, it's been a while since I left Scotland.

The weather is superhot here. We're in the middle of another heat wave. Lucky us.

But . . . maybe you know this already, huh?

You see, the morning we got back to Edinburgh, I overheard your dad telling my mom that you were moving to Ohio to start school here in the fall. Not sure if it's happened yet or not.