Emancipating Andie

The ma

Colin.

She hadn’t realized she’d stopped breathing until she heard the quick intake of breath and recognized it as her own.

The last time she had seen him was over three months ago, the night she declined his proposal. They had only spoken twice after that night, and both were short phone conversations.

Both before he knew about her and Chase.

He had been cold, and formal, and she had understood. They made arrangements to return each other’s things, and Colin wanted to do it in a way that would not involve them seeing each other. It was then Andie realized that as much as she wished she could talk to him, as much as she wanted to explain things to him, he was not ready to hear it. And for the first time, she understood that he might never be.

It hurt her to think that. To think that someone she truly cared about, someone who had been important to her, would never be in her life again. But when she thought of the alternative, thought of what her life would have been like if she had never turned him down, she knew it was worth it. Everything she had done, every tough decision she had made, had brought her to Chase. He was beyond worth it.

Yet as she stared out the passenger window at him, she couldn’t help the twinge she felt in her chest.

“It’s okay to miss him,” Chase had said to her one night when she had been particularly quiet, seemingly lost in her thoughts. “I miss him too.”

Her last memories of Colin were so awful: the look on his face the last time she saw him, the aloof way he had spoken to her on the phone.

What he had done to Chase.

Neither one of them had had any contact with Colin after the night he’d hit Chase. Andie still felt responsible for what happened that day, despite the amount of times Chase assured her he had brought it on himself.

Chase was right about one thing, though. It was okay to miss him. She could finally admit that to herself as she looked out the window at him, sitting at the table. She didn’t miss him romantically, or even sexually; nothing in her wanted to be with him again. She just wanted to be able to talk to him, to see him smile, to hear him laugh again. To erase those unpleasant memories of her last encounters with him.

To know that he was going to be okay.

Andie sat up a little straighter in her seat, bringing her eyes forward, but seconds later they were on the café again. She recognized the guy next to him immediately; Sean, one of his good friends from the office, leaning over and pointing at something she couldn’t see. Colin nodded, saying something in response, and Sean laughed.

The car in front of her moved, and Andie reluctantly pulled her eyes from the café, moving up a spot before she turned her attention back to the passenger window.

There were also two women at the table. She knew one of them was from his office; she couldn’t remember her name, but she had been introduced to her at an office party once. She was pregnant at the time, newly married. Her husband was a teacher, Andie remembered. Her child was probably several months old by now.

The second woman was someone Andie did not immediately recognize. She could only see her profile, but suddenly her attention was pulled back to the other side of the table, where Colin had his head thrown back in laughter.

Andie’s breath left her in a soft rush as she smiled, her eyes stinging with the threat of tears.

He was laughing.

She didn’t realize how badly she needed to see him happy until that moment. It actually felt as though a weight was leaving her chest. Her smile grew more prominent as Colin said something and laughed again, the table joining in with him this time.

A loud horn blast caused her to jump, and she brought her eyes forward, realizing the car ahead of her was gone.

She blinked quickly, shifting in her seat and inching the car forward as she rolled down her window. She handed the slips to the teller, answering her questions about the transactions, and as the woman turned to enter information into her computer, Andie looked back out the passenger window. They were standing now, all four of them, the woman Andie recognized putting her purse on her shoulder. She watched as Colin walked around the table and helped the woman she didn’t know into her jacket. She said something to him, touching his arm, and he smiled.

“Thank you, have a good day,” she heard the teller say through the speaker, and she whipped her head back around to find her deposit slip and the money she’d withdrawn waiting in the drawer.

“Thanks,” Andie said, taking her things, and by the time she had put everything in her purse and looked up, she could only see their backs as the four of them turned the corner and down the opposite street.

She inhaled slowly, a smile lighting her lips.

She didn’t know who that woman was. She had no idea if it was a friend from the office, or a casual acquaintance, or a love interest. But it didn’t matter.

He had been the Colin she remembered. He looked great. He looked healthy.

He was laughing.

She smiled again as she blinked back the moisture in her eyes before it fell, pulling out of the bank’s parking lot and onto the road that would bring her home.

A little while later, she pulled into her parking space, her stomach fluttering as she saw Chase’s car next to hers. He was early.

She jogged up the stairs quickly and swung the door open; he was lying on her couch reading a book, and when he heard her come in, he brought it down just enough to reveal his eyes over the top of it.

She could tell by the shape of them that he was smiling.

In a second she was across the room, and he tossed the book to the floor just as she leapt onto the couch, wrapping her arms around him and immediately putting her mouth on his.

He laughed against her lips and pulled back slightly. “Well, hello there.”

“Hi,” she whispered, kissing him again, softer this time, and he responded in kind.

“You started without me?” she asked.

“Not by much,” he said as Andie sat up, and he reached down to grab the book he had dropped. The Guide to Literary Agents.

Chase had been amazing throughout the entire process. When Andie finally decided she was ready to take the plunge and start attempting to market her book, he spent two hours at the bookstore with her that first day, finding and buying every piece of literature that existed for aspiring authors. And then he spent the next couple of days helping her sort through all of the information.

He had come up with the plan of finding and querying two agents a week; his thought was that only doing two at a time made the process seem less overwhelming, plus that way she could take the time to research the people and find those who would be the best match for her.

Every night since then, he’d helped her with her homework, as he playfully called it. He would look through the book of agents, reading up on various ones, giving her the names and stats of those who sounded like they’d be interested in what Andie had to offer, and then she’d pull up the agency’s site on the computer, researching them further and discussing them with him.

His encouragement was vital, his help invaluable, his unfailing support like air to her.

“Got anyone for me yet?”

“Actually, yeah,” he said, taking the book from her and flipping back a couple of pages. “This one. Leslie Melden. She’s with the Feller Literary Group. It says here she’s looking for new authors in contemporary fiction. She’s got an impressive clientele list. And apparently this agency houses Lara Heady.”

Andie gasped. “Okay, I’m on it,” she said, leaning over and pecking his lips a few times in quick succession, causing him to laugh again.