"You know what all this feels like? Fate."

- The Best of Me, coming to theaters October 17

CHAPTER 3

July 18,2006

Dear Diary,

Today was a bad day. River and I had our first real fight. The day started out so good too. He came by and picked me up around four. The plan was to drive down to Myrtle Beach and hit the Pavilion. We ate dinner at one of the little swanky seafood places in North Myrtle Beach. It was candle lit and all types of romantic. We shared a piece of double chocolate fudge cake for dessert. On the drive back to the Pavilion he held my hand the entire time. Everything was perfect. There was nothing in the world that could bring me down. Boy, I was in for one hell of a rude awakening…

“So,” he started, taking my hand in his, “What do you want to ride first?”

He rubbed his thumb over the back of my hand, causing these little tingles to dance all along my skin. “What about the Ferris wheel?”

“Ferris Wheel?” He tapped his chin and pretended to think about it for a second. He was killing me with how sexy he looked just standing there.

“Aw, come on River. You know you want to ride it,” I teased him.

His answering grin was absolutely infections. “Okay fine. You twisted my arm enough. Ferris wheel it is then.” He then draped his arm over my shoulder and started to lead me in the direction of the ride. We took our places in line and he wrapped his other arm around me, making me feel warm and safe in his hold. His chin lowered to the top of my head.

“You’re crazy,” I said, snuggling into his shirt. “You know that right?”

“Hey, what can I say? What my pretty girl wants, my pretty girl gets.”

“Damn straight,” I told him and then he laughed. I felt it reverberate in his chest, tickling my cheek.

It was a few minutes later before we were getting on the ride. Being the gentleman that he was, River allowed me to get in the car fist. After the lap bar was put in place, he wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me right up against him. I went willingly and rested my head on his shoulder.

The ride started to move slowly and I stared out over the Pavilion. It was beautiful from way up here. The higher up we went, the quieter it become. We stopped at the very top and I watched the lights twinkling in the distance from the other rides. For all the chaos that was going on below us, It was incredibly peaceful up here. I could sit in this car all night long as long as I had River at my side.

“Look,” River said, pointing up at the stars in the sky. “Do you see them? There are literally thousands of them up there, shining brightly for millions of people all over the world to see.”

“What?” I sat up a little and turned to him. “Are you talking about the stars?”

“Yeah, the stars or actually,” he said looking down at me, “I prefer to think of them as our special summer lights.”

“Really?” I asked him, definitely intrigued. “Why summer lights instead of stars?”

“Because in six months from now, when I’m missing you like crazy, I know all I have to do is look up at night and I’ll see our summer lights. Then I can reflect on special memories, memories like tonight.” He bent his head down a placed a soft kiss on my forehead. “I’ll be able to remember all the time we spent together making each other happy. I like to think that you can look at those same stars and think of them as our special summer lights too. Stars that hold the memories of us and this summer.”

I laughed. The whole idea was quite silly when you thought about it. “Why do that? Why don’t I just call you or better yet we can Skype. That way I get to see your sexy face. I don’t need the stars to remember our summer.”

River slowly sat up straighter and pulled his arm from my shoulder. “Shayla, I need you to listen to me, sweetheart.” He looked away and rubbed both hands over his face before staring back at me.

I was confused now. I had a bad feeling I wasn’t going to like what he was going to say next to me. “What is it?”

He took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. I watched his face the entire time. “I’ve been thinking,” he said, “When we leave each other at the end of the summer, I want us to have a clean break.”

I’m pretty sure my jaw just hit the bottom of the car we were sitting in. “You, what?” I whispered incredulously. My mind was stuck on the words ‘clean break’. I couldn’t believe he was even suggesting this.

“I mean, I think we need to be real with ourselves. I’m going to be on the other side of the country and well,” he lifted his shoulders up in a tight shrug and then dropped them. “Well, and you, you are going to be here. We’ll both be busy and God only knows when we’d get to see each other again. I’ll be interning over the summers so coming back here would be next to impossible. You’ll be working just as hard with your major as well. You even mentioned that you may want to do a semester abroad. We’ll both be doing our own thing and I think it’ll be best if we just end it at the end of the summer so that we can both fully experience the college life without feeling guilty about it.”

The ride jerked to a stop, the car swinging precariously in the air. I barely noticed the movement at all. “Are you seriously suggesting that we just walk away from each other at the end of the summer? No phone calls? No emails? No texting? No nothing?”

He grabbed both my hands held then together in his lap. “Think about it. College is stressful enough without adding the pressure of a long distance relationship. Besides, I know that I would personally go crazy wondering what you were doing every day and who you are doing it. I’d never get through all my classes and I’d bet it would be the same for you.”

I was speechless. This came from out of nowhere and smacked me square in the face with the force of a semi-truck.

He continued to talk seemingly oblivious to my heart shattering into a million tiny pieces right here beside of him. “I think that we should take each day for the rest of the summer and live it to the fullest. By the end of the summer well have a boat load of memories perfect memories to last us a lifetime. The way I look at it is if fate truly wills it, we’ll eventually find our way back together. Until then we have to live our lives to the best of our ability. If you think about it, it what makes sense.”

The ride stopped again and the guy that was running the controls lifted the lap bar from our laps. I shook my head in disbelief and stood up from the car before I said something that I’d regret later. I stepped out and started for the exit. Sense my ass. This guy was a few french fries short from his happy meal if he thought I was going to spend the summer with him, fall in love and then just walk away from it all because he thinks it ‘makes sense’.

“Shayla!” he yelled. “What’s wrong? Why are you running away from me? I was only stating the facts.”

I stopped in my tracks and whirled around on him. “Facts?” I yelled right back. “Let me state a fact for you, River. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m falling in love with you.”

Now he was the one whom looked stunned speechless.

I put both hands on my hips and fought back the tears that threatened to spill down my cheeks. Instead I forced a fake laugh that echoed a little too loudly into the night. “Yeah, that’s right. File that away with your facts. I, Shayla Wright, am falling in love with you, River. And now you’re telling me that when the summer is over you expect me to just walk away as if the summer never happened. How is that fair to me?”

He still didn’t say a word. All he did was stand there and stare back at me with those intense stormy green eyes. He didn’t have to say anything though. His lack of response told me all I needed to know. He didn’t feel the same way.

I turned around, hating the way that he was watching me. “Forget it,” I whispered. “Just forget I said anything and take me home please.”

I didn’t wait for him to reply. Humiliated, I fast-walked to this car. He stayed close but wisely kept his distance. We drove back to Wilmington with tension packed silence surrounding us. He pulled up in my drive way and before he could put the car in park, I hopped out and ran into the house. I was done.

Present-2014

Shayla had been so angry. Not just angry, she’d been hurt too. The two of them had been growing closer together by the day. At least she’d thought they had been growing closer together. At the time she hadn’t realized that River never intended for this, whatever this was that they shared, to go beyond the summer.

She still didn’t understand how he could have expect her to just walk away from him with only the memories they created that summer together and move on. Had the boy gone and lost his ever-loving mind?

Well, eight years later she knew for a fact that he had all his wits about him. He just hadn’t cared. He never fell for her as hard as she’d obviously fallen for him.

It was a hard lesson for her to learn, but learn it she did. Love was a bitter sweet emotion. Love wasn’t something you chose to feel, it just happened. It wasn’t something you could turn off at the drop of a hat. Love was supposed to be momentous and unpredictable and because of its erratic nature, love could also be dangerous. Dangerous to the heart and to the soul. But without love, you have nothing. Those are the lessons that she learned that summer.

July 25, 2006

Dear Diary,

It’s been a while but I had to tell you that things are so much better now between River and me. I had a little scare last week but the morning after our big fight, River brought me a huge vase filled with beautiful, sweet smelling flowers. He apologized over and over for the fight and told me that I just drive him crazy all the time. Crazy in a good way. I told him that was okay because he drove me crazy too. He then kissed me senseless and everything was forgiven. River won’t admit it but he really is a romantic at heart and tonight he made me fall for him just a little bit more…

Right now, everything is perfect. River just bought me flowers and told me how sorry he was for acting so stupidly the other night. He missed me just as much as I missed him.

He pulled me close and buried his lips in the side of my neck. “You make me crazy, pretty girl. Crazy in a good way. Sometimes I think my life really hadn’t started until the day that I first met you.”

I grinned. His lips were driving me completely mad. “I’m going to take that as a compliment,” I told him. “And just so you know, the feeling is mutual. You drive me crazy too.”

I stood in the circle of his arms, content with just being here. Mama had said all good relationships have their share rocks in the road. The true test was weathering through those rocky roads and finding our way on the other side. We’d weathered the roads and from where I was standing I could tell that we were going to be just fine.

I wasn’t crazy enough to think that there wouldn’t be more rocks ahead. Because there would be, I had no doubts about that. But I was willing to take the good with the bad as long as it brought me back to this same place every time, in the circle of River’s arms.

My nose brushed against his shoulder. I breathed in his familiar scent and let it wash over me. Calming me. I knew our biggest test would lie ahead when we both went off to college. We would be hundreds of miles apart from each other most of the time. Trust would be a big issue. But I held firm to my faith. I trusted River and I hoped that he’d trust me too.

He picked up one of my curls and wrapped it around his finger. “I want you to make me a promise,” he said, staring down at his finger with my hair wrapped around it.

“Depends. What kind of promise are we talking about?”

“Do you remember what I said about the stars?”

“You mean our summer lights?”

He chuckled. “Yeah, that’s the ones that I’m talking about. Our summer lights. I want you to promise me that if you ever get lonely or feel like nothing is going your way that you’ll go outside and look up into the night sky for our summer lights. I want you to watch them and think of all the happy times we’ve had this summer and know that I’ll be watching those same summer lights too. I’ll be watching them and thinking of you, pretty girl.” His hand cupped my cheek. “I’ll be thinking of how amazingly beautiful you are, how incredibly sweet you are, how freakishly smart you are and how damn crazy you can make me. And as long as those summer lights will shine, I’ll be thinking of the next time that I’ll get to see you and hold you in my arms again. Will you promise me that?”

I didn’t even think about it. Standing up on my tip-toes I kissed his unshaven jaw. “That shouldn’t be too hard, especially since I think about you all the time. I think I can manage to keep that promise.”

He smiled down at me. It was official. I was head over heels in love with River Ferguson. I didn’t want to be with anyone else. Today I realized the he was both my greatest strength and my greatest weakness.

Present-2014

Shayla closed her eyes. She hadn’t dared to look up at their supposed summer lights in years. When she was out at night she looked every which way but up. She just couldn’t do it. Knowing that something she’d once thought was so beautiful was nothing more than just a cheesy pick up line from a teenager who wanted nothing more than to get in her pants tarnished the memory.

She snorted out loud. River had a ton of lines that summer and she fell for all of them, hook, line and sinker.

No more. She would never be that naïve again. She now knew that pretty words were just that, pretty words with no value or meaning.

Opening up her eyes, she forced herself to continue reading.

August 6, 2006

Dear Diary,

I’m in love. There is no doubt about it. I am so in love with River Ferguson that I am bursting at the seams. Tonight, he told me that he loved me too and then he proceeded to show me how much by making sweet love to me…

River’s Aunt was gone for the evening and we were alone in his room. Taking his time, he trailed his fingertips up my arms and then trailed them down my shoulders. “Do you know how much I love you?” he asked, dipping his fingertips down the center of my chest.

“I want you,” I told him honestly. “I love you too and right now I want every part of you.”

Clothes were quickly discarded until the two of us stood in front of each other in our most natural state.

“I’m going to make love to you,” he whispered next to my ear. His lips lingered at that special spot just below my ear and I shivered.

“That’s what I was planning on.” I looked him over from head to toe and hissed out a breath. River was a fine specimen indeed. I wrapped my arms around him. I wanted him and I’d told him as much.

With strategically placed kisses and a torturous touch in all the right places, he slowly started to drive me insane. In a matter of minutes, I was burning for him.

Deciding that I wanted to return the favor, I raised my hands and stroked his chest. I took my time exploring his skin, testing the different textures, drawing out the process while driving him to a state of mindless desperation.

We both crawled onto the bed and began to kiss each other. It started out softly but quickly grew into so much more. My pulse beat faster with each new touch.

And then it was time. He rolled me beneath him and showed me just how much he really loved me. My face felt flushed and our combined breaths sounded ragged. Time stood still as we surrendered to each other. In a blinding frenzy, it all came spinning back to us in a tangle of loose limbs and fiery passion.

Afterwards, we both just laid there totally spent. Our bodies intertwined. It could have been hours or it could have been minutes. I didn’t care. We had no concept of time. All we knew was that we were together and honestly, that’s all that really mattered.

Present-2014

For days afterwards Shayla remembered being so blissfully happy. She remembered feeling like there was nothing in the world that could bring her down. The two of them were practically inseparable. There was no more talk about the summer being it for them. No more conversation about them not staying together. They were in this for the long run. At least that is what she had thought at the time.

As time has revealed, she’d been so wrong.

They didn’t stay together. The summer had been it for their fairy tale romance.

There was only one more entry written in the diary. She already knew how it all played out but felt deep down that this was something she needed to make herself read. She needed to relive it through the eyes of her teenage self if she really wanted to finally get past the rock that River had placed in her road and move on with her life.

August 18, 2006

Dear Diary,

He did it. He left me. River actually left me without even saying good-bye. I went down to his house and all his aunt could do was stare at me with those stupid sad eyes and then dared to tell me that he didn’t want me trying to contact him at all. I even tried calling his phone but it’s been disconnected. He’s gone and I have no way to get in touch with him. Even if I somehow managed to find him, he made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t want to talk to me. Our summer fling is over. My heart hurts so badly. I don’t think I’ll ever recover from this.

“Mom, I’ll be back in a bit. I’m going to say bye to River.”

“O-kay sweetheart,” she yelled from somewhere in the kitchen. “Just don’t take too long. We want to be on the road before the traffic gets to crazy.”

Pulling the letter that I wrote for him out of my back pocket I rolled my eyes. Every year my parents wanted to beat the beach traffic but it never mattered. We could leave early in the morning or later in the afternoon and we would still hit congestion somewhere along the way. I wasn’t about to waste my time to point that out to her. I really wanted to get this letter to River so he’d know just how much he really means to me. He’d said that he didn’t want to try the long distance relationship because long distance relationships never last. He thought we needed to give ourselves a chance to live our own lives while we do the whole college thing. What I don’t think he understands is that he is my life. I don’t care how many miles separate us; River Ferguson will always be the one for me and I need to make sure that he knows that. “I won’t mom. I’ll be back soon.”

Knowing the letter was in my pocket and that it contained everything that I felt for him had my heart fluttering in my chest. I had no doubt that once he read the letter and realized how certain I was that we could both handle the long distance relationship then all our problems would be solved.

I love River Ferguson and I know that he loves me. It was as simple as that. Nothing in the world keeps us apart.

Reaching his aunt’s house I virtually skipped up the stone covered pathway and ran up the steps until I reached the front door. Leaning in, I had a smile on my face as big as Texas when I pressed the doorbell.

It wasn’t long before I heard the screech of the screen door opening. “River-“ I started, turning around and then stopped when I found myself face to face with his Aunt. “Oh,” I stepped back, knowing that I was looking a little more than eager to see him.

She stepped out onto the porch, letting the screen door slam closed behind her. I watched her take a deep breath. A sense of foreboding crawled over me. “Shayla…” she said and then she stopped, covering her mouth with her hand.

When she didn’t say anything else I finally had to ask her. “Is River around?”

She shook her head from side to side. “No, he uh, he left late last night. He took the red eye back home. You didn’t know?”

My whole body froze. That whole sense of foreboding that I was experiencing a few seconds ago was now crashing down on my head. He’d already left? “No.” I whispered, not quite sure if I’d actually said the word aloud. It couldn’t be. He wouldn’t have left without at least saying good-bye.

She stepped forward and gently placed her hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I thought you knew. He said that the two of you talked and decided on a clean break.”

Covering my ears, I started to shake my head and back down the steps. I didn’t want to hear the words his Aunt was saying to me. Clean break? He’d said it before but I thought we’d decided against it. I thought that he felt the same feelings for me that I felt for him. I thought that together, the two of us could endure anything.

“He didn’t talk to you?” she asked.

I couldn’t answer her. There was a lump the size of a golf ball lodged in my throat. My heart was splintering into a thousand pieces and I couldn’t think beyond the pain to speak even a single word.

“He made it sound like that this was what you both decided.” Her lips curved into a frown. “I don’t understand? Why would he say that if he hadn’t spoken with you? Something is not adding up here.”

I didn’t want to listen anymore.

I ran full sprint all the way home, fighting tears the entire way. I refused to let his Aunt see me falling apart at the seams.

I had been wrong. So, so wrong. I had been nothing more than a fling to River. Something to keep him busy while the days of summer rolled past. Now that he was going back to California he made it clear that he wanted nothing more to do with me.

My chest ached. It was a feeling that I’d never experienced before. It was like a gaping black hole that I couldn’t do anything about. I felt used and helpless.

The tears started. I couldn’t hold them back. They started out slow and by the time I hit our driveway a broken sob erupted from my chest.

I stopped at the mailbox and using the back of my hand, wiped furiously at my face. Pulling the wretched letter out of my back pocket, I tore it into hundreds of tiny pieces and let all my feelings that I’d wrote out especially for him fall to the ground. River had done the unthinkable. He’d broken me. After everything that happened, he found a way to break my heart for good and there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it.

Present-2014

Shayla snapped the diary closed and quickly put it back in the drawer. That was the end and she didn’t want to remember anymore. She’d remembered feeling the flutter of butterflies dance in her stomach after falling in love. She was woman enough to admit that experiencing those feelings for the first time had been wonderful and exhilarating. But then she was forced to feel the pain of having her heart obliterated and that sadly overshadowed all those wondrous feelings. She’d hurt so bad for months on end after she left the beach house. It finally came to the point where she’d started to avoid men and relationships at all costs. She didn’t have it in her to let anyone close to her. At least not as close as she had been with River.

Over the years there had been a few times that she considered trying to locate him and see if what they shared had been as real to him as it had been to her. But every time that she started to Google his name, she chickened out. She would cut off the computer and force herself to walk away. He’d made it clear that he didn’t want anything to do with her when he left without as much as a simple text good-bye. She wouldn’t force herself on him.

After reading the diary she wrote so long ago, Shayla came to a realization. It was high time she started to get on with her life. Now that the beach house was sold she really needed to decide what she wanted out of this life that she was living. Now would be a good time for her to find herself a steady job somewhere, settle down and remember that River Ferguson was nothing more than a distant memory from her past. A memory that she’d didn’t need to resurrect.

If she was smart then she would make an attempt to dip her feet back into the dating pool or else she was going to end up being the bitter old cat lady that everyone talks about. Sad and alone.

Standing up, she brushed her hands on the side of her jeans. She was ready to put her nose back to the grind and finish getting the beach house packed up. It was the only way that she’d be able to successfully leave it all behind with all the good and bad memories this old house held.

Rolling her neck, she bent down to pick up a box. Settling on her knees she opened up the box. By the time she had the box folded so that it was standing upright and ready to be filled, her cell phone rang. She glanced over at the clock on her dresser and saw that it was just a little after nine. She frowned. It was odd that she’d be getting a phone call this late in the evening.

Pulling her phone out of her pocket, she glanced at the screen and recognized the number immediately. It was Sandy, her realtor. She cursed under her breath. She had an inkling that a late night call wasn’t going to be necessarily good news. A knot of tension formed in her stomach. Her first thought was that the buyer was going to back out of the deal. If the buyer backed out then she was seriously going to be screwed six ways from Sunday.

She shook her head and sighed. She couldn’t very well ignore the call. The Realtor would just call back and the news would still be the same. Her only viable option was to answer the phone.

Fiercely dreading the conversation she was about to endure, Shayla rapidly swiped her finger across the screen and brought the cell phone to her ear with trembling fingers. “Hello?”