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Return to Me

By Deborah Pierson Dill

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The buzzards circling overhead should have been her first clue.

Actually, her stupid car’s air conditioner—busted again on this, the eleventh day in a row of triple digit heat index—should have been her first clue. But the buzzards circling overhead, waiting for something to drop dead from heat stroke, should have been the clearest clue that this day would soon go completely down in flames.

Audrey Rhodes clutched her purse, raising it to her chest like a shield, and stood blinking, frozen despite the heat in the middle of the Prickly Pear Café, face to face with the boy who had thoroughly broken her heart ten years ago. Since that time she had referred to him only as, “what’s-his-name.” But not because she couldn’t remember his real name. Try as she might, she would never forget him.

The years hadn’t changed him, except to add a definitive manliness to his looks and generally improve on what Audrey already considered perfection. He had the same head full of wavy, dark blond hair; the same green eyes that hinted how he could show a girl the time of her life; the same dimpled, easy smile; the same lean, muscular build.

Now he stood three feet away, directing that smile at her, like he just knew he could still make her toes curl if she’d let him. Her heart began to skip and palpitate, and her stomach went all twisty inside like it hadn’t done since she’d been a girl. But even as every nerve screamed for her to cross the distance between them and slap him, she felt a slow smile emerge.

Then he opened his mouth to speak.

“Hi, Audrey. Remember me? Brent Thomason?”

That did it!

Every shred of sentimentality vanished. Audrey turned and slapped a twenty-dollar bill down, the sound of her palm hitting the counter underscoring the hush that had fallen all around. The whispering voices of former classmates bringing lunch companions up to speed on the back-story may have been real or imagined. But either way, in the span of about twenty seconds, he managed to make her a public spectacle yet again.

Audrey snatched her change from the confused looking teenaged girl behind the counter and grabbed the sack full of burgers she’d come for. Then she turned around to face him again.

How dare he! How could she have, even for one second, forgotten the insensitivity, the callousness of this…this…boy? The audacity of him, reintroducing himself like that! As if what had gone on between them had been so inconsequential that she might not even remember him.

“Brent.” She ground out his name and pushed past him coldly.

“Audrey, wait.”

She gritted her teeth and turned back to see him throw his check and a few bills on the counter, then thrust his hand out impatiently for his change while the poor cashier rang him up as fast as she could. She knew the value of a dollar as well as anyone, but that bit of action only served to irritate her further. Let him chase her if he wanted to talk.

“Audrey, wait!”

She’d made it halfway across the sizzling asphalt parking lot before she heard him call. She yanked the car door open and tossed her purse and the burgers across to the passenger seat as he caught up.

“Audrey...” He sounded incredulous. Like he couldn’t believe she wouldn’t weep for joy and throw herself into his arms at this chance encounter. “That’s it?”

Audrey stopped and turned to face him. Was that actually confusion registered on his face? “Well, Brent, let’s see. I could say how good it is to see you. But, you know, it’s really not. I guess I could ask how you’ve been. Except that I don’t care. What else is there?”

“Well, there’s ‘hello,’ for one. Or, ‘what brings you back to town?’And I get the distinct impression that maybe you do care a little.”

What right did he have to be so contentious? After the way he’d treated her…

Audrey narrowed her eyes and glared at him for a brief moment, then got into the car and slammed the door, remembering too late that the action wouldn’t put an end to their conversation because she’d left the windows down.

“Come on, Audrey–”

“OK, how about this? You never called.”

He gave his head a perplexed shake. “What?”

“I believe your exact words were, ‘I’ll call you tomorrow. I promise.’”

Brent blinked at her. Clearly, this wasn’t the line of conversation he’d hoped for.

“Audrey, I’m sorry...I just didn’t–”

“You know what? Never mind. I really don’t want to hear your pretend apology. It’s about ten years too late, anyway.”

Brent placed both his hands on the car door, preventing her from putting up the window. But she didn’t even try. Earlier she’d nearly branded herself with the seatbelt buckle. The car door had to burn like the handle of a hot iron skillet. A silent minute ticked by as she waited for him to move.

“Sure is hot out today,” he said at last, as a little bead of sweat trickled down the side of his face.

Audrey froze, her hand poised to turn the key in the ignition and steer the car away, not bothering to care if she ran over his foot in the process. Then she felt it; the smile that emerged slowly, without her consent. She tried to subdue it. It started somewhere inside, in response to what, she couldn’t even say. Anger boiled right up to the surface when she looked at him. Still, there he stood with that unpretentious, irresistible smile, thoroughly honest about and unapologetic for the kind of guy he was. In her wildest dreams she never thought she could feel glad to see him again. But some part of her did.

She sighed. “Yes, it is.” Then she turned the key, started the car, and put it in gear.

“Maybe I’ll see you around?” He sounded hopeful.

Audrey shook her head. “Not if I can help it.”

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