Anything for You

“What do I have to do to prove that to you? I never wanted to hurt you, then or now. You were my best friend,” John continued before Trixie could challenge that he hadn’t changed in the least.

“How about we just keep the past in the past?” she offered, fighting against the memories—good and bad—that attempted to surface.

But John couldn’t do that. Something inside him snapped. In one swift motion, he crawled over Trixie, forcing her to lie back in the cool grass as his weight and the cage his arms made as they supported his body, as not to crush the girl beneath him, trapped her.

“John! What the hell? Get off me!” She swatted his chest and wiggled beneath him, as if to get away. But the truth was, though John might have been thin and gangly when they were younger, he had added some mass and muscle over the years; where Trixie once could have slipped from his grasp and reversed their roles, John now held her firm underneath him.

“No,” he all but growled, his hazel eyes holding her shiny blue orbs hostage. “We aren’t supposed to be left in the past.”

“Let me go!” she yelled, but he ignored her.

“Not until you hear me out.”

Trixie kept wriggling, but to no avail, and when she realized she had nowhere to go, she stilled. Her eyes were still held captive to John’s and though she knew she wanted anything but, she reserved herself to the fact that she would have to let him have his say.

John sighed, letting out a breath he hadn’t known he had been holding. His voice was softer, almost a whisper when he finally spoke. “We were both drinking. That night shouldn’t have happened. Everyday I wish that we could go back and do it over.”

“What’s done is done, John,” Trixie breathed just as quiet as John, calmer than either of them expected.

“That’s just it, Trix. It done, but it’s not over. It never will be.” Trixie raised her free hadn’t to his chest, a protest on her lips, but John cut her off. “You can’t honestly say that you’ve left it in the past, that you don’t think about that night, because you’d be lying. If it was over and done with, we wouldn’t be like this—unable to look or speak to each other.

“I can’t take this—whatever this is.” He rested his weight on the elbow of his handcuffed hand as he motioned between them with the unbound one.

“It’s not that easy.” She sighed, looking away from him for the first time. After a heavy pause, she reconnected their eyes. “You really hurt me, John.”

It was John’s turn to avoid her gaze. “I know,” he whispered, barely loud enough for Trixie to hear. “And I’m sorry. More than you’ll ever know. And I’ll spend forever trying to make it up to you, if you’ll let me.

“Please let me.”

Trixie paused, contemplating the honesty, loyalty, and sincere apology in John’s eyes before nodding slowly.

A smile broke across John’s face, but before the victory could take root in his mind, she clarified, “You’re on thin ice, though.”

John’s smile faltered for a second before he promised, “I won’t mess this up.”

Trixie smiled crookedly. “You better not. ‘Cause I missed my best friend.”