The Shadow Grove Chronicles - Book I: Fated Reunion

III - Request Denied

We visited several of the boutiques scattered around town, chatting with some of the owners we were friends with. Frankie had some new antiques in but we had just stepped in to talk with her. After a few more stops like that, Becca and I went on to the small clothing stores on the north end of town. Becca and I tried on several pieces and I bought a couple of nice looking tops. She, however, just wasn’t happy with how anything fit. This is understandable as everything she tried on either fit like a tent or was too tight and threatened to bust the seams as soon as she zipped up.

“I swear girl, I should just get a dressmaker's dummy and a sewing machine… Just make my own clothes. That is after I’ve figured out how to use the damn thing. Every time it’s either I’m too short or too curvy to fit into most of what we’ve been finding. Maybe if I was built like a supermodel,” Becca said while holding a sequined dark green dress up to herself in a mirror. The dress glinted from the store’s overhead lighting. She scrunched her face up, showing what she really thought of it.

We wandered around for a few hours then got lunch at a bistro on the other side of town before we parted ways, Becca returning to her studio, and promised to each other do this all again next week. When she left I pulled out my tablet and connected to the wi-fi, pulling up a news app I occasionally used. As usual, there was a lot of political bullshit. This time over a presidential recount in Ohio over an election already over for a few months now. Personally, I had thought that they were both creepy, so I voted for a third party candidate. There were three murdered girls found in Dallas, several thugs who had gone missing, and one more person with more money than they would ever really need went up into space. Business as usual…

Why did I do this to myself? Reading the news is depressing. I switched over to scan my social media feed while I ate the rest of my sandwich and chips and nursed a cup of soda while I read about the personal news of family and friends I don’t really talk to anymore. Not since the move. That was ten years ago. My daughters and I were close to everyone of them at one point. Now I felt like we were estranged from them all. I swiped on, thinking that it was still nice to see how they were doing online.

There was a new friend notification: John Delaney. Now there was a name I hadn’t heard in a while. I tried to picture what he looked like in high school; overly tall, broad shoulders, freckled skin, and intense dark brown eyes. While most of the boys at my time at school were starting to get some kind of facial hair, even if it looked terrible, John didn’t have even a single whisker, but you could still see the short, light colored peach-fuzz almost everyone has, showing that he didn’t shave.

I remember because I would often catch myself looking at him, trying to figure out what was going through his head most of the time. He was hard to read with his stoic face, rarely expressing emotion. His eyes showed them better and often they looked like he was painfully sad and that he had deep thoughts. I knew he was smart, we partnered up often sophomore year in Ms. Tacker’s math class. I had always meant to look him up but I decided against it. Derrick monitored my social media and if I added any male to my friends list, he would go ape-s**t.

Pulling up his page, I browsed through the pictures he had posted in the long time he’d been on the platform. There weren't many just of him, but one pic looked like it was taken soon after graduation and was exactly as I remembered him, just with longer hair. I looked at some of his newer pics, he had long dark auburn hair in long tightly coiled spring-like curls usually held back by a bandana or pulled into a ponytail. There was a full beard on his face of a deep copper red that was speckled throughout with fine threads of gold and silver hair. His face had very few lines and, despite the beard, he still looked much as he had but the sadness from his eyes was no longer there and a wide smile was on his face. It was good to see that.

From what I gathered, he was married and had a baby girl by her. I was actually surprised that he had married, let alone to a black woman with dark chocolate colored skin. Honestly I was surprised he married at all. He was always so quiet and aloof. His wife was rubanesque and had a pretty smile with a thick mop of thinly spun dreadlocks. His daughter had a beautiful shade of olive skin and I could see his eyes and mouth but his wife’s wider nose as I scrutinized the face of the little cherub. Her big, toothless smile seemed to light her eyes and chubby little cheeks. She was just so cute!

I sighed as I deleted his friend request. As fun as it would be to catch up with him, I knew it would be a bad idea. It would jeopardize what domestic tranquility I had at home. I felt very alone the moment after I clicked the “delete” button, like I was the only one in the room even though there were about twenty people all around me. It made me feel really sad, my eyes burning as I stopped myself from tearing up. I took in a deep breath and went back to my sandwich. When I finished my plate, I left a fiver for a tip and gathered up my bags. I waved at my friend who owned the place, Cassie, on my way out, telling her that I would see her again soon.

The drive home felt quiet, even with the radio playing. I tuned out the music as I thought about last night and what Jessica and Rebecca said to me earlier this morning. I also thought about that boy with the sad eyes and serious face that I once knew in high school, and the man he had now become. I thought about what I would do if I had a time machine. If I could go back and do things over, would my life be any better than it is now? I shook my head trying to get that last thought out of my head. Regrets were just a way to be unhappy with yourself and I didn’t regret my daughters even if the one who fathered them was a sadistic, neglectful jackass in private.