17. Chapter 17

"Ican't believe he's getting married." Evan said as he stared down at the cell phone in his hands.

"Who is getting married?"

His eyes rolled up to meet mine and then he cocked his head to the side questioningly. "Figured you would know before me." I shrugged my shoulders and raised my eyebrows to question him right back. "What the hell do you and your little pen pal talk about in those letters you're always writing to one another?"

"Max?" I asked.

"Do you have another pen pal I don't know about?"

"Evan, I clearly have no clue what you're talking about. Would you just spit it out? I'm going to be late if I keep screwing around here with you."

Jack gifted me the infamous barn I'd always hidden out in and helped me turn it into an office space for Evan and me to work out of. The loft area was turned into a studio apartment for me as well. I didn't mind staying in Jack's house, but he thought that privacy might be something I needed as a young woman. It was his way of telling me that he didn't want to see if I brought someone back home to hook up with them. I'd never disrespect him that way, but it was cute that he was thinking of me.

"My brother is getting married." He flipped his phone toward me and there was a picture of a wedding invitation taking up the whole screen. Maxwell Grant Carter was to marry Elizabeth Brighton Murphy. Their wedding was set for two months from today. He hadn't even told me he was dating anyone, that he'd proposed, or that marriage was imminent.

I turned away from the phone wondering if Max ever really shared anything with me or if our letters were just a joke to him. I poured my heart out into those letters, told him about my first kiss, the fact that I was no longer a virgin and how I felt about it. He also had to hear about the inevitable breakup that followed losing my virginity. I'd given him all those important pieces of myself, and he'd given me nothing of substance. I got anecdotes from work and funny fishing trip stories.

I wished Evan would disappear because the sting in my eyes and the constriction in my chest told me that there was going to be no way to control or hide my reaction to any of this news or how it made me feel.

He hadn't even told me he was seeing anyone. In fact, more and more over the past couple months, he'd alluded to the fact that he wished I lived closer to him, so that we could go out on a date. The pencil in my hand dropped to the drawing table and I clutched at my chest, as if it would help hold the pain in that I was feeling.

"Posie?" Evan's concerned voice only made things worse. I wanted him to leave and wrap his arms around me to hold me together all at once. It was humiliating to know that he was about to witness my heartbreak over his brother. The same brother who apparently still didn't see me as a person worth his time. When would my heart get the memo? He never saw me, didn't want me, and was only stringing me along out of some sort of weird obligation to his family.

The first sob broke free as I doubled over into Evan's arms. "Holy shit, Posie. What's going on?"

"I tell him everything." Those four words were a struggle to get out. My heart ached in ways I hadn't felt in years. "Everything, Evan. And for what? I thought we were friends, he said if I lived closer he'd like to take me out on a date. He… He's never given me anything back but silly fishing stories and half-truths, and I'm only just now seeing that."

"What… Who are we talking about, Posie?" His question was a whisper on lips. His mouth entirely too close to my own. His blurry face came into view as I slowly looked up to meet his gaze.

"No! Tell me this isn't about Max. He's the one that always put that one smile on your face, the look of longing when I catch you staring off out the window? My stupid fucking brother who couldn't claim you when he should have because he was too concerned about his job. I thought you were over him. He's the same one you're still saving your heart for?"

What could I say? If I denied any of that, I'd be a liar and I wouldn't stoop to Max's level.

Evan growled and released his hold on me. "I've been fighting an uphill battle all this time against my own fucking brother," he mumbled.

"You never saw me like that," I reminded him.

"There was a time, when we worked on that first book that I did, Posie. I just wasn't willing to climb the mountain someone else put between us. When you started dating people, I thought maybe you were finally ready to move on from whatever fantasy you'd built around my brother. He was never planning on coming back home. Not for me, our family, and definitely not for you."

That callous admission brought about more violent sobbing. "Shit. I'm sorry, Posie. That wasn't fair to you."

"No, it was…" Pulling myself together was no easy feat. "It was true though. He never even told me he was dating anyone, let alone getting married. Invitations were printed and mailed out, that means this isn't something new. It's been in the works. He wrote me just yesterday and never mentioned…"

I would ignore everything Evan just confessed to. Knowing he someone held a torch for me while I pined away for his brother was just a bit too much. I'd never seen Evan as anything more than just a friend and workmate and I didn't want to lose that.

Whether Evan realized it or not, if he truly had strong romantic feelings for me, he never would have been able to stand back and watch me date someone else without imploding our lives. The Carter boys were a bit too passionate when it mattered for him to have been able to sit back and watch me love his brother from a distance and then date someone else.

"Posie, why Max?"

I shrugged my shoulders, feeling like that girl who was huddled into the corner of this very barn watching the boy she had a crush on as he made out with someone else. "I've had a crush on Max since before he knew who I was," I admitted to my best friend even though he obviously already knew. "I was crushing on him and the first time he ever even noticed me was when I was sitting right over there," I pointed to the corner of the loft where I'd been hiding and while sketching my day away.

I shook off the memory because it was entirely too painful for far too many reasons. "You would think that seeing him with someone else like that might have killed my crush, but it didn't. I just kept thinking that one day… One day, he would see me. Really see me. Then, I'd be the girl he was kissing." Evan's eyes were full of pity for me. That made everything I was feeling so much worse.

"I tried, Ev. I dated. Kissed other boys. I'm not exactly a virgin anymore, you know? I tried to forget about him, but then there were our letters. The things he said in them felt so sincere, like we were building this relationship with our words. I shared my life with him and thought he was doing the same. Sure, sometimes, that meant that we were sharing things like our experiences with other people, but it always came back to just the two of us."

I turned to stare out that stupid window again. It was the one I always checked. It was like I had been waiting for the day when I'd see him out there, knowing he would come for me when it finally dawned on him that I was the person he'd been waiting for too. That had just been a little girl's dream that carried over to an adult woman's fantasies. It was never bound to happen. If nothing else could have stripped me of that dream, that fantasy… Seeing that wedding invitation did. Not only did he never tell me about dating someone seriously, but I wasn't invited to his wedding either.

"I know we were supposed to get some work done today, but I'd appreciate it if you just left for the day."

"Posie." Evan's voice was quiet and reverent as he spoke my name and placed his hands on my upper arms. He pulled on me gently, so that my back connected with his chest. Then he wrapped his arms around me and hugged me fiercely. "I'm sorry my brother is a blind fool. It"s not you. Before I found Jennifer, I would have stepped up to the challenge of making you forget Max even exists."

"Thanks."

"Do me and yourself a favor."

"What's that?"

"Maybe you need to put away childish things now. That includes your childhood crush. Stop writing to him. Stop reading any letters he sends. Let him go. Not for him and his relationship, but for you. I thought, when you started dated, that you'd already done that, but you obviously never really moved on from the idea that you two might have ended up together. It wasn't right of him to keep you dangling on the end of his line while he was busy living his best life and falling in love with someone else. You should never be someone else's second choice or backup plan, Posie. You're too amazing to be that for anyone."

Evan leaned down and placed a sweet kiss on the top of my head before hugging me one more time. Then, he let go and gave me the space I needed to mourn the loss of his brother and the future I'd been dreaming of having with him.

Once I had the place to myself again, I sat down on the overstuffed couch with my sketchpad and started drawing. The image that came to mind was from that day so many years ago when a 16-year-old girl wondered what it would be like to feel his lips on hers like they were on the girl he'd chosen.

I closed my eyes and remembered the way my stomach had pulled tight, how my chest made it hard to breathe. Her candy-sweet perfume and his citrus and spice cologne had mixed, mingled, and wafted to me in the corner where I'd hidden myself away long before they decided to use my refuge as their make out spot.

My pencil flew across the paper as the memories assailed me. Her profile came into being, lips pursed, eyes glued adoringly to his face, and his fingers tangled in that silky, flaxen hair. Then his face started taking shape. Swollen lips as he smiled down at her face with that cocky little smirk of his tipping up just the one edge of those lips that I'd always wanted to brush my own against.

I could close my eyes and be transported back to that moment. The first time I ever felt a crack through my heart that wasn't from the death of someone I loved. I was too young then to understand it was a death of sorts. It was the death of a potential future, of my dream. I should have left it there in the shadows of that old barn instead of allowing myself to carry that same flame for him all these years later.

My phone dinged and I glanced down before thinking better of it to see a notification that I had an email from Max. Evan was right. I needed to cut him from my life before he ruined me completely. It was obvious that we weren't meant to be anything more than two strangers who wrote letters to one another out of boredom. It was time to end that.

I deleted the notification. I'd delete the unread email later when I had the strength to do it. Until then, it could sit there. After setting my phone back down beside me, I turned my attention back to the sketch in my hands. His eyes were the last thing I drew, only instead of having him look down at her, I shifted them to look back toward the corner where I'd been hiding that day. The juxtaposition of him looking back at little mousy me while loving up bold beautiful Cheyenne made it seem as if he was taunting me with that look.

It felt a lot like the blow I'd received today. I put the sketchpad on my drawing desk and took the stairs up to my bedroom in the loft. I would allow myself one day to wallow in self-pity, cry, and sleep the hurt away. Then, I had to carry on as if I'd never even known Max Carter.