The Reunion Read Online Free PDF Page B

shot back, her lips set firmly.
    Like a dam unable to hold back the water any longer, Ebony burst into tears again. Her whole body trembled.
    “I needed him,” Ebony said in a broken, frail voice. “I needed him as no human being should ever need anybody. But he deserted me just when I trusted him the most. You’ll never know what I went through. It was like dying. Every time the phone rang, I thought it was him. Every knock at the door, I thought it was him. Every letter I got, I thought it was from him. But he never came. Year after unending year, he never came.”
    “Oh, what a world we live in. That someone could hurt such a sweet person. It makes me so angry.”
    Ebony put the note back in the envelope and tied the yellow ribbon around it. “He gave me this ribbon at the Stillwater the day he asked me to marry him. He bought it from some gypsy when he traveled in the Ukraine on a high school trip. She said it was a ribbon of love and that when a man and woman chose each other, they were to symbolically hold it and express their eternal union. We did that, but Ethan ran away and broke the vow. The ribbon reminds me that some people cannot be trusted, no matter what they say.” She put it in the bottom drawer of her bureau and then came back with a pained expression. “That note is a constant warning for me to be on guard.”
    Rebecca squeezed her hand. “Are you sure you can’t come with me?” She paused. “No, don’t even bother answering that.” She kissed Ebony on the cheek and walked to the door. “If there’s anything I can do, don’t hesitate to ask.”
    “I know, Rebecca. Thank you.”
    Rebecca opened the door, but then closed it and turned back to Ebony. “How are you going to face him? I mean, if he really has moved back, you’re going to have to see him sooner or later.”
    “Preferably later. Much later.”
    “It may be sooner than you think.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “He offered to help Ron with the moving tomorrow. If you come by, you will almost certainly see him. You are going to help us, aren’t you?”
    “I promised I would, and I keep my word.”
    “What are you going to do if you meet him?”
    “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. But I’m hoping he’ll leave tonight and crawl back under his rock.”
    “I wouldn’t count on it,” she said with a strange look.
    Ebony noticed it. “What, Rebecca?”
    “I could tell by the way he was looking at you that he…” She hesitated and looked tentative.
    “He what?”
    “He still loves you, Ebony.”
    She angrily shook her head. “He never loved me!”
    Rebecca paused a moment longer and then left. Ebony took a deep breath and poured herself another cup of tea. She sat in silence for a long time, thoughts coming and going and a great sense of dread pressing down on her.
    Just before midnight, she stoked the stove again with a few of her last remaining pieces of wood. She climbed under the blankets and something suddenly occurred to her. Maybe this was all a dream. Yes, it was a terrible, foolish dream from which she had just awakened.
    She looked out the window and saw lights on at Ethan’s island cottage, smoke rising from the chimney.
    * * * *
    As she lay in bed, thoughts came into her head like drunken tumblers. She tried to chase them away, but they wouldn’t leave. She remembered the moment she and Ethan met, literally the precise moment in time when their eyes locked onto each other’s. After that, it was a whirlwind as they began meeting every day, traveling to the city together, going to movies and dinners. The day of the proposal particularly stood out in her mind. They were alone in the forest on a beautiful, warm day in May. Ethan spread out the blanket, and they lay on it, soon kissing with abandon. He undid her blouse and kissed her neck, then lowered his warm, seeking mouth to her breasts. Without Ebony even feeling it, Ethan unsnapped her bra and lifted it upward, exposing her small breasts topped