Truth Of The Matter

To tell you the truth, I was really surprised the Lindsay was pretty much begging me to give Josh another chance after everything that had happened. And as much as I loved her, I couldn’t even bring myself to think about being with him again – maybe I could be sort of a friend but to be with him? When Jordan and I were just starting to discover what it could be like between us?

I wasn’t that stupid. I had no desire to ruin my relationship and friendship with Jordan for something that wouldn’t even get out of the gate.

“No,” I shook my head. “I’m not giving him another chance Lindsay – we’ve used up every single chance we had and it’s past time to call it done.”

“But Aunt Anna –”

“No buts,” I brushed my hands together to remove the sand that stuck from the first pail Jesse and I dumped. I started to get up, when her next words made me pause.

“But I told him you would talk!”

“You did what?” I stared at her. “You talked to Josh about me?”

She didn’t say anything.

“Tell me you didn’t talk to him Lindsay!”

“I did!” Her eyes narrowed as she glared at me. “Josh called yesterday while you were working, he was looking for dad but dad wasn’t home. He asked how I was and -”

“And you thought it would be alright to talk to him about me?” She nodded. “Lindsay! How could you?”

“I-”

“You had no right to talk to him about me!” I cut her off before she could even say anything. “Did you tell him to come here? Did you lie to him and tell him I wanted to see him?”

She lowered her head in shame and mumbled, “Yes.”

“Oh my God!” I raked my hands through my hair in frustration.

“I just thought that it would be ok,” she whispered.

Shaking my head in disbelief, I had to bit my lip to stop from yelling at her. Taking a deep breath, closed my eyes and cursed silently. “Lindsay,” I said as calmly as possible a minute later. “I know you like Josh – he included you in our plans and you had fun, I know. But honey, just because he’s nice and fun to hang out with, it doesn’t mean that you should be talking to him about me or telling me to go and talk to him. You can’t make the past disappear.”

I felt really horrible when she looked up at me with those big brown eyes of hers. “I’m sorry,” she said meekly.

“What did you think I would do?” I asked her curiously. “Did you think I would go running to him and beg him to take me back? Do you think I’m about to forget about Jordan like he doesn’t matter?”

“I didn’t know about Jordan,” she replied defensively.

“If you did, would you have still talked to him about me?”

It wasn’t a difficult question but she hesitated and that told me everything I wanted to know – she didn’t want me with Jordan. “I’m sorry you feel that way,” I said as I stood up. “I know you like Josh but I’m with Jordan now. It’ll take a hell of a lot more than Josh showing up here for me to forget about my feelings for Jordan.” I took a deep breath and asked her if she understood why what she did was wrong.

Nodding sadly, she repeated that she was sorry. “What are you going to do now?” She asked me.

“Well,” I glanced back to our spot on the beach where Josh had made himself comfortable. “I’m going to have to tell him that you lured him here under false pretenses.” She started to shake her head but stopped when I gave her a stern look. “I’ll have to tell him the truth Lindsay. I’m going to tell him that I’m seeing Jordan.”

Lindsay’s shoulders slumped as I turned away from her and headed off to talk to Josh – to tell him that he was wasting his time if he thought I wanted him back.

“Hey,” I plopped back in my spot on my blanket and turned to him. “Lindsay didn’t have the right to tell you to meet us here. She shouldn’t have lied to you and told you that I wanted to talk to you.”

The smile that was on his face faded. “Hello to you too,” he said sarcastically. “I’m fine, thanks for asking,” he continued. “How are you?”

“Josh,” I groaned, this isn’t going to go well.

“You know,” he leaned back on his elbows as he gazed at me. “I knew it wasn’t a good idea to come here today. Not because it was Lindsay who invited me but because of the conversation I had with your brother when I finally got hold of him last night.”

I guess I didn’t react the way he hoped because he pushed back into a sitting position. “I would be lying if I said I was shocked to find out that you were seeing someone else already.”

“So Zack told you,” I shrugged. “It’s not like it’s a big secret.” Anymore.

His eyes darkened as they narrowed. “No, I guess it’s hard for you to be alone for too long.”

I blinked. “What?”

“Since he didn’t tell me who it was, it wasn’t that hard to figure out.” Leaning towards me he asked me how long. “Did you even wait for me to leave that night before you went to him? Was I even on the road before he knew every inch of your body?”

Slap.

“How dare you!” I hissed as pain shot up through my hand from the smack I gave him across his smug face. “What I do with Jordan is my business Josh – you broke up with me, remember?”

“It wouldn’t have mattered if I did or not,” he rubbed his jaw. “You were all over him long before I was even out of the picture!”

“Do you want a smack across the other cheek?” My hand balled up into a fist and inside I was daring him to give me a reason to hit him again.

“Why deny it Anna? You’ve never been faithful in your life.”

I reeled back in shock. Oh my God! What an ass!

That’s when I realized that I didn’t need to sit there and listen to his bullshit. “Believe whatever you want,” I told him as I stood up. “I really hope you find some way to ease that bitterness inside Josh.” I started to walk away but stopped and turned around. “For what it’s worth, I don’t blame you for thinking that I was unfaithful, the feelings I had for Jordan weren’t that easy to ignore.”

“So you admit to cheating on me!” Josh got to his feet.

“We kissed once Josh, you know about that.”

He didn’t reply so I walked away.

A half hour later, I returned to my blanket to gather up our stuff. I tried to ignore Josh as I pulled the blanket off the sand to fold it – the last thing I had to do - but he wasn’t about to let me. “I don’t need help,” I told him when he grabbed the other end of the blanket. He didn’t listen; he brought his two ends together and waited for me to do the same.

Once the blanket was folded, I draped it over my shoulder and grabbed our cooler. “Anna,” Josh reached out and held my arm to stop me from walking away.

“I don’t want to fight with you,” I told him.

“Me neither,” he sighed. “But that’s all it seems like we do.”

“We haven’t seen eye to eye for a long time,” I agreed.

“I know,” he replied. “And it was my fault.”

My gaze jumped to his face. “How do you figure?”

Dropping his hand from my arm he told me that it had to be his fault. “When I feel that something is slipping away, I try to hold on and it never works. I knew, even before the kiss, that things weren’t right between us but I couldn’t admit it.”

“Josh it’s not all your fault, I had a big role to play in our relationship too.”

He snorted. “That may be so but you aren’t the one who refused to admit it because you didn’t want to be alone.”

“Why would you think something like that Josh?”

Rolling his eyes, he told me it was obvious. “I’m not getting any younger Anna and so far, I haven’t been all that lucky in the love department. I saw you slipping away and I didn’t want to see it so I did what I could to hold onto you – I asked you to marry me.”

That hurt.

“Well I’m glad you got that off your chest,” I replied angrily. “God knows I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I thought that you actually cared about me.”

“No,” he protested as he grabbed my arm. “I didn’t mean it that way. I did care for you – I still do – I just said that I asked you to marry me because I didn’t want to lose you.”

I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t even think he knew what he was saying. “Josh,” I placed the cooler back on the sand and slipped my hand over his. “I’m sorry that we didn’t work out and I do wish you all the best in the future but talking about the past isn’t going to change what happened. We broke up and I’ve moved on. I hope you can do the same because you deserve to be happy.”

He stared down at me for a while and then finally asked me if it was true. “Are you really happy with Jordan?”

I couldn’t help but smile as I replied with a simple ‘yes’.