For Better, for Worse, Forever Read Online Free PDF

composure. She owed him an explanation but wasn’t sure how to begin. “I’m sorry, Brandon. I didn’t know that was going to happen. I was caught off guard.”
    “Exactly what
did
happen?”
    “Memories,” she whispered. “Just when I think they’ll never come back, they do.”
    Again he kept silent.
    She said, “My parents brought me to St. Croix to help me get over something. You see, back home, I knew this guy … we were very close.”
    “I knew it!” Brandon stopped walking. “I knew you were too good-looking to not have a boyfriend.”
    She turned to face him as the waves washed sand out from under her bare feet. “He was more than my boyfriend. Mark was my fiancé.”
    A somber look crossed Brandon’s face. “Oh.”
    “But he’s dead.”
    He looked jolted and his face went pale. “How …?”
    “Have you ever heard of cystic fibrosis?” She told him slowly, haltingly, about Mark and his disease, his love of racing cars, his accident. “He would have made it—the crash wasn’t that bad—if it hadn’t been for the CF. In the end, it won.”
    Brandon listened intently. She couldn’t read what he was thinking, but she knew her story had affected him because it showed on his face. “Life stinks!”
    “But we can’t change how life turns out,” she said. “Mark didn’t deserve to have CF and he didn’t deserve to die so young. After he was gone, I hated being in New York without him.”
    “So you came here.”
    “Winter up there is awful … the sky all gray and cold. Bare trees.” She shivered. “Everywhere I went reminded me of him. Last June, when I graduated, my father wanted us all to go on a family vacation, but at the time I was involved with Mark and I didn’t want to leave. Once he was gone …” She shrugged, leaving the sentence unfinished. “I love it here … the ocean and all.”
    “What were you doing that day I first saw you up on the hill? It had something to do with Mark, didn’t it?”
    “CF robs a person of his breath, so blowing up a balloon was a pretty big deal for Mark. He used to blow up balloons for me as a present. Sometimes he’d tuck little notes inside. This time,
I
blew up a balloon for him, and I sent it up into the sky on the chance that he was up there, looking down. I wanted him to know I was thinking about him. And that I loved him.”
    “Mark was a very lucky guy to have had you.”
    “No, I was the lucky one.” Tears brimmed in her eyes. “We were right in the middle ofplanning the wedding when Mark died. Seeing that wedding chapel … well, it brought everything back.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “You had no way of knowing.” She turned to face him, smiling tentatively. “But you’re right, it is beautiful.”
    Brandon shifted from foot to foot. “Now that I know about you and Mark, it explains some things to me. I understand that you might not want some guy pressuring you and coming on to you. But let me be honest. I still would like to see more of you. Nothing heavy,” he added quickly. “But I do know every inch of this island and most of the surrounding water. If you’ll let me, I’d like to be your friend. I’d like to take you around and show you my island.”
    His request was eloquent and simple and it touched her. She recognized that Brandon wasn’t some kid with a hidden agenda. Like her, he was lonely. He also had something buried deep inside his psyche that was painful. She guessed it had to do with the loss of his mother. She wouldn’t probe. If he wanted to talk about it, he would.
    “I would like that very much,” she said.
    She gazed out to the open sea. A sailboat leaned into the wind against the horizon. “You know, I’ve watched those boats from the first day I arrived, and I’d love to go sailing on one. Do you think we could do that sometime?”
    A dark expression crossed his face, prompting her to ask, “You do sail, don’t you?”
    “We have a boat. A nice one, but it’s in dry