Page 53 of When Sky Breaks
This means I’m as hopeless now as I was then. Still in love with the one woman who’s emotionally and physically unavailable. Yet I can’t help but acknowledge the electric tension in the air whenever we’re close.
It’s not hate. It’s a deep-seated need vibrating between us. The longer I’m around her, the more difficult it becomes not to act on my impulses.
I’m in town for good—I’m not going anywhere, but is she? What if she moves forward with Johnny and commits to him? Marries him?
Bile snakes its way up my throat, and I swallow it as I turn into my driveway. I put the truck in park and lean my head on the warm leather of the seat.
Even if there was a way to get her back, would she give me the chance? To prove I’m not the same guy anymore? That I’m more than capable of earning her trust and loving her far better than anyone else?
I straighten my spine and my resolve.
What Sky and I had was real; she nor I can deny it. I fucked it all up, which means only I can make it right.
That night, I dream of a life for us. One without the burden of my sins. I wake up with a new determination, a new purpose.
Earn her forgiveness or go to the grave trying.
* * *
“Mr. Moore, do you want me to get started on the Compton order?” Alex asks as soon as she hangs up her jacket in the backroom and clocks in for her shift.
“Yes, but please quit with the Mr. Moore. Sounds too much like an old man, and I’m not even twenty-five. You’ve been here long enough. It’s August, okay?”
I click the staple gun at her before finishing the small canvas Ginger requested. A picture of a cute kid wearing crooked oversized glasses reading a book with the saying: Life Begins in a Book.
“Got it,” she giggles and begins pulling materials to prep for the fifty canvas prints we’ve got to have done in time for the festival.
Mayor Compton wanted a custom canvas made of the town square. After I stood on top of a massive ladder and snapped the picture encompassing as many of the small businesses as I could squeeze in the frame, he paid us triple out of the town’s budget to get these done for the town council booth at the festival.
All the proceeds will go toward the church and their weekly soup kitchen, so I don’t mind hustling for that. Back when I was living in my car, Louise would often hook me up with some leftovers after the Tuesday crowd was done. I owe her for her kindness and pity on nineteen-year-old me.
When Colonel asked me to take over Snaps, I didn’t realize how much I missed the small-town life until I was immersed in it. The days sometimes creep by, and you have to hold your eyelids open with pieces of scotch tape, but more often than not, the charm wins out every time. I can get ice cream and coffee or jog across the street to read on a break. It’s an easy trek down the street to the hardware shop, the flower shop, and even the bakery and pet shop.
This tiny town square also holds a lot of memories with room for more if I let it.
Make no mistake, California was beautiful with its majestic mountains all the way to its often overcrowded with socialites beaches. I photographed from tip to top. Sometimes, even going as far as Canada, stopping in Oregon and Washington to become somewhat of a coffee snob. I’ve snagged pictures of redwoods I could drive through.
Yet nothing hit me harder than the sun reflecting off every head of blonde hair I’d see through the lens or the spark in a pair of blue eyes that belonged to a stranger. Those false images burned into me nightly as painful reminders of the girl I loved and left. She was everywhere and nowhere at the same time.
“Uh, you okay?” Alex asks, pausing her finger on the mouse of the computer.
I blink away from the canvas displayed on the shop wall. The one bearing witness to just how far gone I am for Sky. Only a select few would know that it’s her delicate fingers posed in the perfect shape of a heart in the clear blue sky.
“Yeah, I’m good, sorry. How’d the picture turn out?”
Alex pulls it from the printer and holds it up.
“Can you resize it? It’s looking a little pixelated.”
She nods, putting aside the sample to rework the settings.
My phone buzzes from my back pocket. So wrapped up in what I was doing, or rather who I was thinking about, I forgot about my weekly call with my uncle. “Hey, what’s up?”
I indicate to Alex that I’m stepping out front and make my way to the bench facing the bookstore. The wood is cold under my legs, but the sun is out and soon I’m warm under my black Henley and dark jeans.
“Did you get my email?” he rumbles out.
My uncle isn’t one to waste minutes with small talk, yet he spares time every week for me. Older than my father by six years, Spencer Moore is the complete opposite of his little brother. Driven, capable, and works his body along with his mind. He’s always been someone I looked up to. So, when he offered me an opportunity to work with him in California, I didn’t hesitate. A roof over my head and a means by which to make something of myself was too good to pass up. For too long, I believed I was a fuck-up, and with my uncle’s patient yet firm guidance, I went farther than I ever dared.