Page 9 of Give Me a Reason
He wouldn’t be a fire captain if she hadn’t left him. His face had lit up as he talked to Bethany’s students about how much he loved his job. He deserved that joy and that sense of accomplishment. She’d made the right choice. She couldn’t regret it. She shouldn’t.
“Maybe I’ll get my degree and act. Who knows? I’m just toying with some ideas.” Anne spread Camembert on her crusty bread with feigned nonchalance. “I haven’t had time to give it much thought, with the move and all.”
“Moving is a pain in the neck, even when it’s local.” Joe led the conversation to calmer waters. Anne knew she liked him. “I can’t imagine how hard it must’ve been to move back to the US from Korea.”
“It wasn’t easy.” Anne kept her tone light, not wanting to sound like she was complaining.
But it had been an absolute nightmare. She had accumulated so much stuff during her ten years in Korea.
Deciding what to bring with her and what to leave behind had taken years off her life.
“Speaking of moving, have you two decided where to live after you get married?”
“Culver City,” Coraline blurted, too quick and too loud, and sent her fiancé a sidelong glance.
Vertigo washed over Anne as Bethany’s words rang in her head.
He is a fire captain with the Culver City Fire Department.
She gripped the edge of the table with both hands.
Oh my God. Was Coraline marrying Frederick’s lieutenant?
No. There had to be more than one fire station in Culver City.
They might not even work together. Then why was Frederick volunteering in Bethany’s classroom of all places?
“Actually, we haven’t decided yet,” Joe said tactfully, even though it was obvious this was a point of contention between him and Coraline.
“I think it would be best if we live in Downtown LA near Coraline’s work since she has to commute every day, whereas I only drive to the station every other day for five days, then get four days off. ”
“But I don’t want Joe to have a long commute after a twenty-four-hour shift.” Coraline narrowed her eyes at him. Her fiancé jutted his chin, holding his ground.
Anne wanted to bury her head in her hands. Were there no safe topics?
Exhaustion washed over her as the couple’s silent staring match stretched on. She couldn’t find the strength to defuse the tension at the table. But she had backup in the form of the Hong family, minus the angry bride-to-be.
“Who’s ready for some boeuf bourguignon?” Uncle Paul boomed with forced cheer, pushing back from the table.
“Let me help you.” Bethany hopped to her feet.
Anne was about to escape to the kitchen with them when Juliette said, “I could never live in the city.”
“Of course not, my dear,” her father agreed. “Cities are much too… coarse for someone as delicate as you.”
“And the smell…” Juliette delicately waved her hand in front of her nose as though just talking about the city smelled foul to her.
Anne’s left eye started to twitch again.
Joe’s likely connection to Frederick had jarred her more than enough.
She did not need her father and her older sister to taint the evening with their nauseating elitism.
How had she endured living with them? Whatever thick skin she’d developed had been sloughed away during her ten-year sabbatical from her family.
She could not take much more of Juliette and her father.
“Oh yes. And the vagr—” her father began, warming up to the subject.
“Anne,” Coraline practically screamed across the table to stop him from finishing his sentence. “What are your plans for Thanksgiving?”
“Thanksgiving?” Anne was so relieved by her cousin’s intervention that she nearly missed the question.
She didn’t know what she would’ve done if her father had shown his true colors in front of Coraline’s fiancé.
She cleared her throat, gathering her thoughts.
“Gosh, I haven’t celebrated Thanksgiving in so long…
I didn’t even realize it was coming up.”
“Yeah, it’s just around the corner.” Coraline smiled brightly, her argument with her fiancé already forgotten—or postponed. “Joe and I would be so happy if you can join us for Thanksgiving dinner. Mom and Dad are going off to Tulum that whole week, so Bethany will be with us, too.”
“I…” Anne glanced around the table at her family.
Before she went to Korea, she’d been the one to host Thanksgiving dinner, cooking all day long. She couldn’t imagine her father or Juliette having planned anything. Besides, giving thanks wasn’t their forte. That left Tessa. Anne raised her brows at her younger sister.
“I’m ordering in Chinese and working on my paper because my sadistic advisor thought it would be fun to have a paper due on the Monday after Thanksgiving.
” Tessa huffed a sigh. “I’m kidding. Not about the due date, but about my advisor being sadistic.
She’s just a genius who forgets about trivial mortal nonsense like major national holidays. I’m so sorry, Unni.”
Tessa was a PhD candidate at USC’s computer science department. Between her classes and her research work at the prestigious Information Sciences Institute, she hardly had time to sleep. She shouldn’t have to worry about Anne.
“You don’t need to apologize.” She patted her younger sister’s hand across the table.
Then Anne looked once more at her father, who was chatting with Joe, and at Juliette, who was scrolling through her phone. While they were nowhere near as busy as Tessa, they obviously had no interest in how she spent her first Thanksgiving back in the States.
Not allowing herself to feel disappointed, she turned to Coraline. “I would love to join you guys for Thanksgiving dinner.”
“That’s wonderful. Joe’s on duty this Thanksgiving, so we’ll be celebrating at the station.
” Her cousin met her fiancé’s adoring eyes and didn’t continue for a moment, seeming to forget the rest of the world.
“Where was I? Oh yes. It actually works out perfectly, because two of the groomsmen will be there. Chief Lin and Captain Nam.”
Anne accidentally swallowed her tongue. Or at least, it felt like it.
Her eyes bulged, and she couldn’t breathe.
Tessa handed her a glass of wine and watched with concern as Anne gulped down the entire thing.
She forced a closemouthed smile at her younger sister’s questioning glance even as panic slammed into her.
No, no, no. She had to get out of it. But how?
She’d just told them she was free. A part of her wanted to fess up and tell Coraline the truth about her relationship with Frederick, but Anne didn’t want to bare her soul to her cousin over something that happened a decade ago.
Coraline probably wouldn’t understand why Anne was still torn up over Frederick.
Even her aunt didn’t know how deeply she had loved him.
Anne had met Frederick at a party while she was a senior at UC San Diego and he was a sophomore at San Diego State.
They connected right away, like pieces of a puzzle sliding into place.
They talked on the roof deck for hours until the sounds of the party faded and the sun rose around them in a haze of blue, washed with warm orange.
In some ways, that morning had felt like the first morning of her life—a wondrous, vibrant new beginning—and it had been. They were together for the most glorious six months and nine days of her life before she ruined… everything.
Now she couldn’t even remember what it was like to feel so alive . She’d forgotten how it felt to be whole and content. How could she when she had a yawning fissure down her soul? Maybe she was being a touch melodramatic, but she couldn’t care less. She was due for a proper mope.
“The only people missing from the wedding party will be Tessa, because of her genius advisor and her ill-timed assignment.” Coraline’s voice sounded far away, like it was coming from the bottom of a canyon.
“And Aiden, Joe’s younger brother, because he’s a medical student at Johns Hopkins, all the way in Baltimore. ”
“We nerds never get to have any fun,” Tessa said with an impish grin.
“I thought working on the paper was your idea of fun.” Coraline laughed when Tessa stuck her tongue out at her. Then she turned back to Anne and said, “Anyway, it’ll be like a prerehearsal dinner. Those of you there can get to know one another before the wedding. It’ll be great.”
“Yes,” Anne agreed weakly. “Great.”
Auntie Sharon smiled and nodded at something Tessa said, oblivious to Anne’s distress.
Her aunt must not know that Joe worked with Frederick.
No, she just didn’t know that Captain Nam was Anne’s Frederick.
She had no idea that spending Thanksgiving at the fire station meant Anne had to spend a cozy holiday dinner with the one that got away .
What would her imo think if she knew? Would she still think that Frederick wasn’t right for Anne?
But Anne couldn’t feign much interest in what her aunt thought.
She was too busy reeling from her shifting emotions.
Dread prickled her scalp as her blood pounded in her ears in rhythm with her pounding heart.
But butterflies also took flight in her stomach, and a delicious shiver ran down her spine.
She was scared yet electrified by the prospect of seeing Frederick again. He would be cold to her—and it would hurt—but she would take pain over the numb apathy that had taken up residence inside her. For too long, she had watched her life drift by, like a spectator with nothing to lose.
Was it selfish of her, since seeing her would only remind Frederick of the pain she’d caused him? Or could this be a blessing in disguise? Being in Joe and Coraline’s wedding together might give Anne a chance to set things right with Frederick.
She had no idea how, but she would find a way to ease the hurt she’d caused him. Then she could move on.
But why did the thought of moving on break her heart anew?