Within This Frame (32 page)

Maggie opened her mouth, but the severe look her sister shot her way shut it back up.

“I have no talent. All I have are my good looks, my drive to stay in shape, and my children and husband. That’s what my life is made up of. I love my life, I do, but it would be nice to have a talent of some kind.”

She looked at Maggie. “Yes, it gave me a small amount of pleasure when you gained weight, but the pride I feel that you’re getting in shape outshines any petty envy. I truly am happy that you’re getting healthy.” Nora’s tone was sincere, as was her expression.

“And what does he have to do with it?” She jerked her head in the direction of Lance.

“I didn’t ask him to help out of spite, or for whatever reason you think I did. I did it because . . .” She hesitated, looking at Lance before redirecting her gaze to Maggie. She stepped closer and lowered her voice. “Like I said before, I did it because I knew, if anyone could motivate you, it would be him. And, well, he’s the guy.”

Maggie swallowed as she looked into her sister’s green eyes. She refused to look at Lance, but she felt him nearby, watching her. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Nora gave her a chastising look. “Yes. You do. He’s the
guy
.”

She shook her head, denying what she knew in her heart. What she’d always known, since she was a fifteen-year-old girl awed by the beauty and charisma of a sixteen-year-old boy.

Her sister wrapped her arms around her, squeezed her tight, and whispered in her ear, “I wanted you to see him again. Just once—one last time to either push him away or pull him close. You’ve never been as happy as you were when you two were in love. I see glimpses of it now. Do what your heart says, even if it disagrees with your head. Your head is smart, but it isn’t always right.”

Nora straightened, brushing hair from Maggie’s forehead. The gesture was kind, as were her eyes.

Maggie jabbed a finger at her sister, voice firm as she told her, “Don’t call me Bacon anymore, unless it’s Turkey Bacon, which is all I’m allowed to eat.”

She smiled. “You got it. Come eat soon. Like Mom said, the food’s getting cold.”

Her sister quietly walked from the hallway.

Maggie wiped the back of her hand across eyes that were damp, her lower lip trembling as she waited for Lance to either leave or speak. He spoke.

“When your sister called and asked me to take the job, I said no. Because I wanted to see you. Because I knew you wouldn’t want to see me.”

She looked at Lance’s blurry image and blinked him into focus.

He watched her, dark eyes unveiled to show all the emotions he generally hid. “I don’t think,” he said slowly. “You are aware how much you really meant to me.”

“I know you loved me as much as you knew how. You told me,” she whispered hoarsely, her arms crossed as though to protect herself from her own heart.

“I did love you,” Lance said in a low voice. “But you have no idea how much. I didn’t even know it until it was too late. And I’m sorry about that. When—” He faltered, took a breath. “When you were hospitalized, I sat in the waiting room, crying and pacing. Begging. Praying. I knew I wouldn’t get to see you. I knew it didn’t make a difference if I was there or not, but I had to stay. I had to know you were okay. I didn’t leave the hospital at all that night.”

Maggie’s eyes shot to his face, frozen by the stark pain she saw in the lines and edges of his features.

“That’s all I wanted—for you to be okay. And that was how I knew how much I loved you. I couldn’t be selfish with you anymore. As soon as I knew you were going to be all right, I left.” Lance rubbed his eyes, revealing a sardonic smile when he dropped his hands.

Maggie splayed her fingers, palms down, and studied them.

“Judith found me in the waiting room early the next morning, told me everything was going to be okay with you. Gave me some words of advice.”

“What did she say?”

“Basically, that I was toxic for you, and if I cared about you in any way, I’d never try to see or talk to you again.” He shrugged, averting his gaze. “So I left.” Lance took a deep breath, the stricken look on his face crushing any lingering uncertainties Maggie had about her feelings for him.

She loved him, and she didn’t know if she’d ever stopped.

“I have to tell you this. I know it is years too late and it doesn’t change anything—we had our time together and it’s passed, but—I have to say this, at least once, okay?”

She jerked her head, swallowing hard.

“I ruined you. I ruined you, and I can’t take that back,” he whispered hoarsely. Eyes filled with regret, mouth a slash of self-recrimination across his face.

Lance cupped her jaw, and Maggie placed her hands over his. His thumbs lifted to her cheeks, brushed across them like they had the power to heal past misdeeds. Maggie’s fingers tightened on his, pressed his palms closer, held him so that he couldn’t let go, not that time.

“After it was over, I never thought I could miss someone the way I missed you. I didn’t think I was capable of caring that much. When we broke up, I was shredded, but I was able to deal with it because I could at least still see you. I was still working with you.

“I did a lot of bad things after that, all to prove to myself and to anyone that was paying attention, that I didn’t need you, that I’d never loved you, and that I was okay without you. It was all a lie. I ruined you, Maggie, but you ruined me too.” His hands dropped from her face.

Tears burned her eyes. Maggie looked down as they made themselves known, sliding across her cheeks as proof of a love once known, and never forgotten, no matter how briefly it was theirs to hold. She nodded, her throat thick, and moved away from Lance. His words echoed through her head, all the things she’d wanted to hear at one time. He was right—they’d ruined one another.

Maggie met his eyes, saw the pain she knew was mirrored in hers. For something that occurred so long ago, it felt the same as a fresh wound.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“For what?” He swallowed, dropping his gaze.

“I gave up on you.”

Lance laughed and shook his head. “You had to. I didn’t give you a choice.”

“When you love someone,” she said in an uneven voice. “You don’t give up on them, no matter how justified it is. I could have tried better to understand. To be there for you in some capacity, even if it was only as someone who’d once loved you.”

“You hated me.” The rawness of his expression told Maggie he’d never gotten over her saying that to him, and that hurt her.

“I always loved you, Lance,” Maggie confessed, conviction filling and lowering her voice.

Lance took a ragged breath of air. “I always loved you too, Maggie.”

I love you now
, her head and heart whispered. But what she said was, “We were idiots.”

A sad smile touched his lips. “We were young.”

“We’re not anymore.”

“No. Well,” he amended. “I hope we’re not idiots anymore.”

Then he smiled, and it was like the first time he smiled at her, over a dozen years ago, the smile her soul felt, and reciprocated. It was sweet, and hopeful, and full of insecurities and arrogance. It was Lance.

“Why did you really decide to do this, become a personal trainer?”

The smile faded and Lance looked down. “I told you.”

“You did, but there’s more to it, right? You did it . . .” Maggie swallowed as he met her gaze. “You did it because of me.”

“Not because of you. For you. Call it penance, or a need to understand, but yeah, when I decided what I wanted to do with my life, you were in the back of my head.”

Maggie reached for him and Lance crushed her to him, holding her so tightly it hurt to breathe. She didn’t think about the future, or what his departure would do to her. Maggie refused to dwell on anything outside of that hug, and the way she cherished his warmth and strength, the way Lance held her back, like she was fragile and precious to him.

“Thank you,” she said in a wobbly voice.

“It wasn’t like I did it for free,” he gently teased.

“Thank you,” Maggie repeated.

Lance held her closer. “You’re welcome.”

“It’s about time,” her dad exclaimed good-naturedly from one room over. “We’re starving in here!”

They pulled away, Maggie laughing as Lance smiled.

“We should eat before the food gets cold,” Lance whispered.

“It’s probably already cold,” she whispered back.

“We should go in there before one of them comes out for us—again.”

“Please do,” Maggie’s mom called.

It felt natural to hold hands as they entered the dining room, and when they sat down beside one another, everyone pretended like they hadn’t been listening in on the entirety of their conversation, voices loud and exuberant as they talked about nonsensical matters.

With the dim lighting, blush-toned walls, candlelit meal, and happy chatter, Maggie enjoyed her family, and Lance.

LANCE—1998

I
T WAS A MONTH
before she called him.

Lance was watching an episode of their show, that in itself proof that he had issues. Seeing Maggie onscreen helped, and made him miss her more. Cold pizza sat half-eaten in a box on the couch next to him. He scratched his jaw stubble, not sure when he’d last shaved, or showered.

Not getting many phone calls those days, at first the shrill sound of the ringing phone confused him. When it sank in what the noise was and that it could be Maggie on the other end, Lance dove for it, banging the receiver against his mouth.

“Hello?” he answered, his heart pounding, hands shaking.

“Hi.” Her voice was soft.

Lance tightened his grip on the phone, closing his eyes. “Hi.”

“How have you been?” Maggie whispered the words, but he felt the scarring of them all the way to his core. Even hearing her voice hurt.

“Not good,” Lance said. A part of him, the light and energy and joy, was gone without Maggie.

He heard the sad smile in her voice as she replied, “Me either.”

“What have . . .” He swallowed, throat dry. “What have you been doing?”

“Just hanging out with my family, mostly. Getting all my schoolwork finished for the year.” Maggie paused. “Did you see the article on the show in TV News?”

“No. I’ve been . . . busy.” Busy drinking, trying to forget what he was missing, moping around, obsessing over Maggie. Busy. “What did it say?”

“Oh, you know, the usual. You’re charming. Tabitha is beautiful. I’m . . . not so beautiful but a truly gifted actress.”

Lance’s pulse tripped. Over the years, instead of getting used to the media, Maggie resented it more and more. She gave it too much authority over her as a person.

“It didn’t say that.”

“No.” Maggie sighed. “But it was there, between the lines. It’s always there.”

“You’re beautiful,” he said brokenly, fervently, picturing her expressive eyes, porcelain skin, and fiery hair. She was uniquely beautiful, and that was better than being a copy of somebody else’s beauty, like Tabitha. There were lots of blonds with blue eyes, and only one Maggie.

“Thank you. I needed to hear that. I needed to hear your voice,” she added.

“Come back,” he pleaded. “I am a wreck, Maggie. This was a horrible idea. Please come back. I didn’t want this.”

She didn’t answer for a long time. “But you did, whether you want to admit it or not. You did. I’ll come back in another month, and we can talk then.” Her voice shook.

Anger pulsed through his veins. Lance slammed a fist against the pizza box and it toppled over to land on the floor. “This is bull shit and you know it. You’re trying to punish me for having doubts.”

“No,” she insisted in a ragged voice. “I’m trying to give you space so you don’t have those doubts anymore.”

Lance didn’t know what to say to that. His throat worked, but no sound came forth.

“Goodbye, Lance.”

No ‘I love you’. Just a goodbye and then a dial tone.

Lance called her on her eighteenth birthday. She answered, but was distant and the phone call ended up making him feel like they were more strangers than boyfriend and girlfriend. Did it really only take weeks of separation to fall out of love? Was that what was happening? And if it was, what did that say about them?

Maggie called on his nineteenth birthday, a few weeks after the first time she called. Lance didn’t answer the phone. He finished styling his hair in the bathroom as her voice played from the answering machine in the living room. Lance’s image was pale and hollow-eyed. It felt like they’d already broken up. He’d needed her, and she’d stayed away. Maggie broke his heart and she didn’t even know.

Lance turned from the mirror, erased the message, and left.

Donovan Randolph had been Lance’s friend since they were four and their dads decided to combine their solo lawyer firms into ‘Denton and Randolph’. Short and stocky, Donovan had a blindingly white smile that could get him any girl and piercing green eyes set in a mocha-toned face that worked to help his boyish appeal. Lance was in wonderment of him on a routine basis.

The party was going strong when Lance got to Donovan’s, the deck and pool area cramped with people. Richard Randolph’s house was three levels of gray-blue siding with large windows. A glance through one of them showed people dancing and talking, most of the space taken over by teenage bodies. Lance’s eardrums thrummed with bass and drums as he moved down the walkway to the back of the house and climbed the steps to his birthday celebration. Lanterns swung from the railing of the deck and lit up the night.

Donovan spotted him immediately, saying something to the girl beside him before heading for him. His green eyes wavered between humor and concern. “Happy Birthday, and for the record, you look like shit.”

Lance gave him a dark smile. “Celebrating without the honored guest? Tacky.” He took Donovan’s beer and slammed it, wiping an arm across his mouth.

“Dude, really?” Donovan motioned to the empty cup Lance returned.

“Didn’t you know that this is what happens when you accidentally fall in love?” he questioned, gesturing to his face.

“I don’t want to fall in love if I’ll end up looking like you.”