“He looks happy,” Blaire observes.
“He does.” The jealous part of me wishes he was happy with me. I’d settle for just being a part of his life now, as a friend. Someone he feels like he can share his accomplishments with. I grab my glasses off the table so I can read the article.
The article starts off with how Gray and Rowan started the company from their dorm room in school. And after naming all the success they have had in the last four years, the journalist starts to talk about how the new multi-billionaires are now listed as the top bachelors in the United States.
Blaire whistles. “He is a billionaire? Holy shit.”
In the picture, he is smiling, shaking Lei Zhang’s hand, but the smile isn’t reaching his eyes. To everyone else, he is the happiest man alive, but I see the loneliness in his blue eyes. Regardless, he is the most handsome man I’ve ever seen. He has really grown up. Gone is the boyish look, and what replaces it is a sharp, square jawline covered in neatly trimmed facial hair.
I never imagined Rowan wearing a suit. He hated those things growing up, especially ties, which I do not see in this picture. Of course not. Instead, he is wearing a cream-colored blazer with a white shirt that is open at the top near the neck. What a smoke show.
Still, even though he is all man now, I see the boy I once knew staring back at me. I see the boy who punched Malcolm in the face the night of the bonfire all those years ago. I wipe a tear away quick before Blaire can see. These memories, it’s like they never happened. Like I dreamed them up. Everything happened so long ago; it’s hard to remember what’s truth and what’s not.
I sit the newspaper down on the old oak coffee table and get up to meander to the entertainment center that holds all my crafts. I open the drawer and grab the scrapbook I’ve been making of Rowan and I since we were just kids. The last five years have just been of him, obviously, but I like to keep all of his achievements. Anytime I see him in the paper or a magazine; I place it in the scrapbook.
It’s a way for me to be close to him without actually having to be close. I sit back down on the couch, open my kit to grab my scissors, and start cutting the front page out. Once I have the photo cut out separately from the article, I glue it in the book, right along with all his other accomplishments.
“You still do that, huh?” Blaire asks.
I sigh as I lift my shoulder, “I know. It’s silly, isn’t it?”
“No, I think it’s great. I still believe you guys are meant to be together.”
“Blaire—”
“—I know, I know. You don’t think there is a chance in hell, but something tells me there is. You don’t do that for someone you’ve given up on, no one does.” She points to the scrapbook in my hand. It’s old, and the binding is starting to tear. No matter how many times I’ve superglued it and taped it, it just keeps falling apart. Like it’s telling me it is time to let it go, but I refuse.
I’ll never let it go.
I rub my temples when her words strike a headache. “Blaire, we have been over this. Really. He doesn’t do the same things I do.”
“That you know of.”
“That I know. Rowan hates me. End of story. I deserve for him to.”
“You only did it because that’s what you thought was best at the time.”
“Yeah and look where it got me.” I run my fingers over the tattoo I got a few years back, my skin heating at the memory of the needle piercing my skin.
“You are different people now. Don’t give up hope.”
I swallow the heavy emotion in my throat. I lost hope a long time ago. Now I just need to get on with my life and straighten it out so I can get a job doing something I love. “It is what it is, I’m fine, Blaire. Really. Rowan and I are old news. The oldest news. He is someone I’ll never be able to forget, and I’ll always love him, but both of us have moved on.”
She lifts her brows at me, giving me a look that says she doesn’t believe a word I say. “You’ve moved on so well; you’re gluing his article to your scrapbook.”
I tap my fingers against the cover and stare at the picture of him and I on the front when we were eight, maybe nine.
“Whatever,” I mumble. “I can be proud of him and want to celebrate his successes. It doesn’t mean I’m in love with him anymore.” Liar. “We are different people now. We probably wouldn’t even like one another even if it wasn’t for the history between us.” Excuses, excuses, Everly. Just keep telling yourself that.
“Riiight,” she drawls. “Well, while you sit over there in your denial, I’m going to hop in the shower.”
Once Blaire vanishes into her bedroom, I lean my head against the couch cushion and wonder when my entire being will stop yearning for Rowan. I don’t believe a word I said to Blaire, not fully. I want to believe it. I know the treatment I get from him is what I deserve. I don’t expect anything less than a cold shoulder for the rest of his life. I left him in a horrible way, but I never stopped caring. Will never stop caring.
No matter how my actions when I was eighteen contradicted that.
So yeah, I keep all of his awards and achievements I find in a scrapbook because it is
