Can't Go Home (Oasis Waterfall) by Angelisa Denise Stone Read Free Book Online Page A

of me. Always,” he said, his eyes tearing up. Wiping his eyes, he shook his head, and said, “I wanted us to have one last day together, making love and trying to hold on to what we no longer have.”
    “What we—huh?” Confusion set in.
    “I wanted to give you one last day of wonderful,” he admitted. “You deserve an eternity more. But … but … I’m not the one to give them to you. I don’t want to be the one to give them to you.” I sat up, covering myself with the blanket, suddenly feeling overly exposed and vulnerable. Dropping his gaze from my face, he continued, “I’m just not into this anymore … into us.”
    “Theodore, are you … are we …?”
    “It’s over, Katie. I’m just not in love with you anymore. We have no future.”
    Theodore was right. We didn’t have a future. After flooding my campus in my tears and eating my weight in ice cream for months, I finally pulled myself together and started getting on with my life. I finished school, stopped burying my sorrows in food, got my English degree, and moved out of state to start anew, landing a job at the Seaside Literary Agency. And finally, I stopped being “Katie” Howell, the girl everyone walked all over and felt sorry for.
    Theodore and I remained amicable, because he “couldn’t imagine me ever becoming someone he once knew.” Theodore is always very sentimental, beautifully romantic, and aggravatingly practical. There was no reason to fight and battle our way into mutual hatred and detestation. Just because we once loved each other, didn’t mean that we needed to switch gears and start to despise one another. We held special, intimate places in each other’s hearts.
    Sadly, people spend entirely too much time on fueling fires and burning bridges, when in reality, they should marvel at those magical moments they were able to cherish and experience. Theodore’s wise, I’ll give him that. As always, he was right; we have the nicest, most pleasant ex-relationship in the world.
    After Dre showed up at Seaside during my lunch break, I didn’t stop thinking about him all day. I wanted to spend the evening with him—getting to know him better. I mean, the man is beautiful, perfectly crafted for the visual pleasure of any woman (or man) on the planet. How could I not want to spend the evening—and possibly the night—with him? I may have a “type.” I may be drawn to the intellectual, be attracted to ambition and education, but I’m not an idiot. When someone as sexy as Dre Donley enters the picture, I’m certainly going to zoom in and take the shot. It’s not like I’ve been inundated with dates and offers since Theodore and I broke up either.
    Anyway, I spent the majority of my dinner with Theodore thinking about Dre, and the way his muscles looked in his tight, gray t-shirt and the way his jeans hung loosely on his hips. It was the first time that I was ever in Theodore’s presence that I was not captivated by his words, his intelligence, his … everything. However, last night, Theodore, my Teddy Baker, couldn’t hold my attention. I was focused on someone, something entirely different, right up until Theodore dropped the bomb.
    I was swirling my finger around the top of my wine glass, absently thinking about what it would be like to trace my finger around Dre’s bellybutton. (Give me a break; it’s been a while, a long, lonely while.) Theodore was rambling on about his girlfriend, Melody. Six months ago, Theodore called me and told me he’d met someone. I only felt mildly upset, and that was only because her name was “Melody.” I didn’t care (too much) that he’d moved on.
    Actually, every time that he’s mentioned her name since then in our phone calls or text messages, I giggle. Melody. If he and I didn’t end up together, I wanted him to marry an “Eleanor,” like from the Chipmunks —not of the Roosevelt variety. I was convinced that he was destined to be with an “Eleanor.” All Teddies end up