Goodbye to the Love I Lost Eight Years Ago novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Curb

Annie borrows Dale as a fake fiancé, Elliot sees her wheelchair for the first time, and Courtney pushes it with a smile.

On Saturday morning I called the only person who owed me nothing and had never stopped paying anyway.

"Dale," I said. "I need you to be my fiancé for one lunch."

He was quiet for a second.

"Annie, I fix transmissions."

"You also kissed me in a parking lot once."

"I was paid five hundred dollars and I have regretted it for eight years."

"Then regret it one more time, for free."

He laughed, and then he stopped laughing.

"Who's the lunch with?"

"Elliot."

He swore, quietly, and said he would be there in an hour.

Mom stood in my bedroom doorway while I pulled on the only dress that still fit.

"You told that boy you never loved him," she said. "Now you want to tell him you're engaged."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because he is walking in there with a pregnant fiancée and the best version of his life."

"And I'm walking in there in a wheelchair."

"If he sees me alone, he'll feel sorry for me."

"I would rather he think I moved on than watch him feel sorry."

Mom sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Eight years ago you lied to him to save him," she said. "What are you saving him from this time?"

I did not have a good answer.

"A speech," I said. "He'll want to apologize, and I'll have to forgive him, and I can't do that today."

She pressed her lips together and handed me my cardigan.

"I'm staying home," she said. "If I come, I'll throw a plate."

Dale arrived with a twenty-dollar ring from a pawn shop and a shirt with the creases still in it.

He knelt on my bedroom floor and slid the ring on my finger.

It was a little too big.

"You look terrible," he said gently, and I loved him for it.

"I look like a woman who just had a hip taken apart."

"You look like my fiancée who doesn't take anyone's crap."

"I'll meet you there," he said. "Don't come in together. Let him see you first."

At twelve fifty, a gray sedan stopped in front of my house.

I rolled myself onto the porch.

The passenger door opened before the driver's.

Courtney Stahl got out first, one hand on her belly, her light brown hair in a loose braid.

She was beaming.

"Annie!" she called. "Oh my gosh, it's really you."

She ran up the walk and hugged me, carefully, around the shoulders.

She smelled like lemon soap.

"I'm so sorry about your surgery," she said into my hair. "Judith told me everything. You poor thing. I've been sick with worry."

"Thank you for the roses," I said.

"Of course!"

Then the driver's door opened, and Elliot got out.

He was taller than I remembered.

His hair was cut shorter, and he had lines at the corners of his eyes that eight years ago had not been there.

He had come around the car with his mouth already open to say hello.

Then he saw the wheelchair.

His face went still.

He looked at the footrests, my legs, the blanket across my knees.

I watched him count what was wrong.

"Hi, Elliot," I said.

"Annie." His voice came out rough. "Mom said surgery. She didn't say..."

"It's only for a few weeks."

I said it brightly and did not know whether it was a lie.

He stood there with his hands open at his sides.

Courtney touched his arm.

"Babe, let's get her in the car. She's getting cold."

He nodded.

He folded my chair himself and put it in the trunk without saying anything else.

Courtney helped me into the back seat and tucked the blanket around my knees.

"Is that comfortable?" she asked. "I can move the seat up."

"It's fine."

"If you feel sick, just tell me, okay? I get car sick when I'm pregnant, so I always have bags."

She held up a little paper bag and winked.

I laughed, because she was funny, and it made me feel worse.

Elliot started the car.

In the rearview mirror, his eyes found mine for half a second and moved away.

"How long are you home?" he asked the windshield.

"For good, this time. Surgery was the last one."

"Last one," he said. "How many were there?"

"Eleven."

His hands tightened on the wheel.

"That sounds like a lot of..." He stopped. "Mom said you got sick a few years ago. She never said how sick."

"Your mom doesn't tell stories that aren't hers," I said.

Courtney twisted around in her seat.

"Elliot told me about you a month ago," she said. "He said you were the girl next door. I wish I'd known you then!"

"You'd have hated me," I said. "I stole all the tomatoes from his garden."

"I knew it," Elliot said, and it was almost a smile.

Then it was gone.

He pulled into the lot of a steakhouse with white tablecloths and a doorman.

"Before we go in," I said, "I should tell you. My fiancé is meeting us here."

Elliot turned off the engine.

He did not turn around.

"Your fiancé."

"Dale Ferris. You'll like him."

Elliot's knuckles were white on the key.

"The boy from the parking lot," he said quietly.

"Yes."

"You're engaged to the guy you cheated on me with."

"Eight years is a long time," I said.

He got out of the car and slammed the door.

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