Long Way Home Read Free

thought we were friends now. I
heard you crying.  I’m just trying to be nice, but you bite my head
off.  That time in third grade when I tripped you aside, what have I ever
done to you that has made you treat me the way you have?  Because I pushed
you away when we were five?  I was a little butt to you, I get it. 
You’ve made me pay a thousand times for it, every day since…but I thought we
were past all that.”
    She sighed.  “I know.”
    “Wanna tell me why?” he asked, shoving his
hands in his pockets.
    “You are Shane McCanton.  Even in
Kindergarten, all the girls wanted to be yours; your friend, your
girlfriend.  Yours.  I was no different.”
    “Yeah, you told me we were going to get
married one day, when we were big.  Way to freak out a five-year old boy,
by the way,” he chuckled, and felt a strange little fluttering in his stomach
when she actually smiled slightly back at him.
    “I learned my lesson.  I’ve never
brought up any of my dreams again after that day.”
    He cut his eyes sharply over at
her.  “You dreamed about me?  In Kindergarten?”
    She sighed.  “I’ve always
had…interesting dreams about people I know.”
    Not quite sure how he should reply to
that, Shane chose to change the subject.
    “So, why are you sitting here alone in
the dark, crying?”
    She raked her fingers through her long
blonde hair, sweeping it away from her face to push over one shoulder.
    “Steve and Stacy and some of the others
were talking about me earlier.  They didn’t know I was there.  What
they said…well, I don’t blame them, really.  I mean, I have made a habit
out of beating up on one of the town’s favorite sons.”
    “They were saying something about you and
me?”  She shrugged.  “Well…what did they say?”
    “It’s nothing.  Don’t worry about
it.”
    “It’s not just nothing if it made you
come over here and cry.  You’ve been a lot of things over the years, but a
crier has never been one of them.”
    “I really don’t want to talk about it,”
she said, standing and trying to walk past him.  He reached out and placed
his hand on her arm, stopping her.
    “Talk to me, Tess, don’t walk away.”
    “Shane, please,” she said softly, her
voice breaking slightly.
    “You’re always walking away.  What
would it hurt to stay and see what happens?”
    For a moment they stood silent, each
staring at the other, trying to convey in a look what the other was
feeling.  When the band began the opening chords of “I Cross My Heart” by
George Strait, Shane’s hand shifted from her arm to her hand.
    “Dance with me?” he asked softly.
    She sucked in a harsh breath and closed
her eyes, as if his words physically hurt her.  He saw a tear slip down
her cheek and used that moment to pull her closer and began slowly swaying to
the music with her.  Tessa held herself rigid right at first, then allowed
him to pull her closer, one arm around the small of her back, the other hand
laced with hers, held against his chest, right over his heart. 
    “Stop thinking,” he whispered to her, his
lips close to her ear.
    Tessa shivered and tried to pull away but
he tightened his hold on her.
    “Come on, Shane,” she said, pulling her
head back enough to look up into his eyes, “I’m the enemy, remember?  We
aren’t supposed to even talk to each other, much less dance together.”
    He chuckled.  “That was for when we
were kids.  I think we’re both mature enough now to handle being friends,
don’t you?”
    “Hey, so long as you don’t try to rub
dirt in my face again, I’m good,” she said after a moment, a smile touching her
lips.
    Shane laughed.  “You gotta admit,
you would have deserved it.”
    “Ha!” she laughed up at him. 
“Never!”
    He gave her hand a light squeeze. 
“See?  This is nice.  We can dance and have a conversation and even
be nice to each other.”
    “Guess that means we’ve grown up, huh?”
she said, and he couldn’t help but