Ordinary World Soap Opera
An Online Soap Opera

Episode 467: Never Let You Go

The bi-level whitewashed vacation home sat atop a bluff, the nearest house a dot on the horizon. A matching staircase led to a wide expanse of sandy beach with no public access, sparkly curls of ocean rolling in and washing out, leaving shimmering tide pools in its wake. Early afternoon sunshine rendered everything all the more idyllic as Ava joined Sebastian at the car to see if there were any more groceries or luggage to carry inside.

She looked around her, thought, this is my birth mother’s life, Sarette summered here as a girl, her son had probably learned to swim here, built a sandcastle or two, maybe if things had been different, this place wouldn’t be unfamiliar, she would have-

Ava banished the thought, shoved it to the far reaches of her mind. She wasn’t here for that. She was here for this.

Sebastian caught her around the waist. "You didn’t have to come back out, you could’ve watched Shelby catnap, I’ve got this covered. I’m glad you’re here though. I was missing you."

He smiled. She smiled. Their lips brushed. In the most deliciously relaxed way. She wasn’t sure how it had happened. Or even why. But they’d broken though the wall. They were getting there. In a process that wasn’t as much an escape, as a very intense, very necessary journey back.

Turning in Sebastian’s arms, Ava breathed in the view. She gestured to a point on the bluff. "That makes me think of your cliff," she said. "I remember the first time you took me there. As usual, you had me spinning. On the one hand, it was, wow, his favorite place isn’t a flashy nightclub, on the other hand, you played another of your games. I thought you might drop me." She playfully elbowed his ribs. "You terrified me."

"I was terrified too," he confessed, his voice serious. She turned to look up at him, surprised, questioning. "You didn’t notice that normally I jump at any chance to be alone with you, yet I balked at my dad’s idea of us going together?" At the time, Ava hadn’t thought about it. "You scared me," Bas continued. I mean what I felt for you scared me."

"You’d recently confided in me about your mom."

He nodded. "I put a lot of trust in you without meaning to. It made me feel vulnerable. Too vulnerable. Then we’re at that diner, and you’re mad and shaking about the cliff, and the waitress didn’t help my cause any by being a girl I’d ticked off in the past. Our balance of power was so out of whack. I trusted you, but you weren’t giving me any trust back. You didn’t need to be scared on that cliff. I would never have let you go."

"You never have let me go." There’d always been a certain comfort in that, in knowing he’d be there, even when she’d wanted him so gone, even when she was in love with someone else. Which made her feel just a teensy bit guilty. "I let you go. Time and again." What if she hadn’t always been so quick to dismiss him for his mistakes? Would he have learned from them sooner? Would they be standing here now, with so many things to work through?

"You were right to let me go. I was so mad at you some of those times, seething, but you were right," he assured her, caressing her face. "I wasn’t ready. I’m still not."

Episode 468: Irreplaceable

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