Chapter Thirteen

Day One Thousand Three Hundred

It had been roughly three weeks since her fallout with Owen and while they were still technically together, the bulk of their contact was now condensed down to text messages and a few awkward interludes when she had to visit the apartment for the odd possession. It literally hurt to see him in pain from her absence in his life and while she felt the same amount of pain over not being to touch him with the same ease that she once had, she knew that they had to deal with the giant elephant between them or they would inevitably fight about the same matter again. Or, something else that was similar to the issue that they were dealing with at the moment.

But neither was willing to take the first step in repairing the damage that had been done. Clare figured that it was Owen's ego that was keeping him from doing so and she couldn't because, honestly, she had no idea where to begin. Trust was a big deal breaker for her since most of her other relationships had ended because of that factor. She just never thought it would have factored into her relationship with the one guy she had seen herself marrying and spending the rest of her life with.

Now she was alone, stuck in a sort of limbo with one man and having a professional, yet enjoyable, relationship with another man. Another man who had been talking incessantly since the moment she sat down at the table in favorite café but was currently silent with a curious expression painted on his face. Clare cursed her fair skin, feeling her face grow enflamed with embarrassment, and offered him a tremulous smile, hoping that he hadn't figured out just how long she had been checked out of their conversation.

"You haven't heard a word I've said since you sat down, have you?" Eli asked with a smirk.

She could feel her face darkening from a sunburned pink to a cherry red as she shook her head apologetically. "I hate to admit that I've been less than professional by flat out ignoring you but I've had a lot on my mind lately."

Eli cocked his head to the side. "I'm guessing the distraction has to do with your relationship. I hope you don't mind me putting my nose in your business but is everything okay with you and Owen? I mean, you wouldn't stop gushing about him on Valentine's Day but I haven't even heard you say his name in the weeks since. Did you two break up?"

"Technically, no," she answered. She nervously licked her lips and pressed them together for a moment, trying to gain the courage to ask what she most needed the answers to. "Eli, did it bother Daphne when she found out you were going to be working with me? I mean, we had a pretty dramatic hot and cold relationship for what was considered a high school romance. So, did she have a lot of trouble dealing with the fact that you had sought out the girl you had once crashed your car for to edit your next book?"

"I'm going to guess that Owen did." Clare nodded. "I like to think that all love starts off passionately. It is chemistry and hormones and the feeling of something brand new all colliding together that creates this all consuming passion that keeps two people together in the beginning. We had that, Clare; we had that like no one else I've ever known in my life. I'm guessing you and Owen have that as did Daphne and I."

Clare cringed. "You're making me think that Owen was completely right not to trust us working together and I should watch my back around your lovely bride."

Eli chuckled, shaking his head. "Let me finish. What people don't take the time to realize is that passion is like a fire. It can be this wild firestorm that renders everything around it to nothing but ash and then it's gone as quickly as it started. It feeds on everything it its path until it's so huge that no one can control it and you have to destroy it before it destroys you because it will never shrink to a size that's manageable. That was us, Clare. Our relationships never had a buildup, they just happened out of the blue, and our passion was so overwhelming that it nearly ruined us every time. We were a forest fire gaining strength until Mother Nature dumped rain on us."

"Going with your analogy, what would be the other kind of passion?"

"The other kind of passion is slow burning and tends to last for months, years and even a lifetime. It's a campfire or a winter's flame that's built in a hearth. You take the effort to keep it going by feeding it whatever it needs because it sustains you and when it goes out, you actually feel the loss of its heat and the comfort of its flames. A lot of couples are so busy searching for the firestorm because it brings excitement that they hardly take the time to notice the smaller flame that is, in all actuality, the more important of the two. Sometimes, the smaller flame is what you have from the start and you never have to look for the firestorm which is how it was with my parents," Eli explained.

"But you said you and Daphne had the firestorm. You also said that Owen and I do too. How is it that the two of you are still together? And does that leave any hope for Owen and myself?" she questioned.

"I'm getting to it. See, there are a small amount of couples who have both. They started with the firestorm but they were able to figure out how to bring it down to a size that's manageable and it becomes that slow burning flame that lasts. When you find that person who is worth giving everything you have inside yourself, you learn how to quench that all-encompassing passion until it becomes nothing more than the flame of a candle. A steady, flickering light that shines defiantly and lights up every part of your life, a beacon in the night and the thing that keeps you secure when the storms keep raging on. That is what I have with Daphne and that is what we never would have been able to obtain," Eli finished.

Clare offered him a watery smile at the explanation. "You've become awfully poetic since you decided to become the next Nicholas Sparks. I know I've only read the first three chapters but this book is about you and Daphne isn't it?"

"Actually, it's not. I didn't know her in high school and that's where the story begins."

Now, she was officially confused. "Then, who the hell are the real life counterparts? Because almost every relationship that I can remember happening back then ended the moment the caps and gowns were put away."

A grin slowly spread across his face and he scarily resembled the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland. "Did I tell you that I ran into Alli Bhandari last year? I was a little surprised to see her in Vancouver where we were visiting Daphne's parents but hey, she was a familiar face and I thought that it'd be nice to have my new bride know a little more about my past. I thought she'd be a lot like the girl I knew in high school and all we would hear about was clothes and make up and whatever guy she happened to be dating. Imagine my surprise when it wasn't her love life she wanted to go on and on about but the romantic interludes of my ex-girlfriend that she couldn't stop gushing over."

"You're kidding, right?" Clare could feel the familiar thrumming in her temple that announced the arrival of a stress migraine and placed a hand on either side of her head to hopefully soothe it before it became unbearable. She didn't quite know if she was ready to hear what had been said behind her back by the woman who was more or less a sister. However, she did know that there was a good chance of going to prison for murder by the time the night was over. "What tales did Alli weave this time?"

"Just the truth, Clare, about a girl and a guy who would never seem like a match made in heaven but are perfect for each other in every way possible. Two people who are both more stubborn than they care to realize and always seem to get stuck in their own path without ever really realizing it. Enemies who were given the gift of time and found that that thin line between love and hate really is razor thin," Eli confessed. "I spent a long time looking for a love story to write and who knew that I would find it in my past."

"I miss him, Eli. I miss him so much that I spend my nights crying and forgetting how to breathe during the day," she choked out, hands dropping to her lap. Tears swam on the edges of her eyes and all it would need for them to fall was for her to blink. "I just want to be us again."

He covered one of her hands with his own. "Owen's not gone, Clare. He's waiting for you to take the first step just like you're waiting for him to do the same. You both just need to get over yourselves and let the natural progression of your relationship happen."

"Owen was so hurt that day, Eli. And I was just…pissed off because he couldn't see that I would never jeopardize us for you or any other person. I couldn't recognize that his anger wasn't anger at all but pain," she whispered. "I don't know how to be the one that takes that step, even if I know that it needs to be taken to get us back to where we were."

"Do you want me to have a man-to-man conversation with him?" Eli asked with a crooked grin on his face.

Clare chuckled and shook her head. "I don't think that would be the best idea. You know, seeing as he might want to kick your ass right about now. But thank you and I'll keep you in mind for when plans a through z fail."

"You know, you should let him read the chapters."

"What? No, those are your private thoughts. It wouldn't be right."

"Clare, those private thoughts are about to be read by millions. I think that the one person who matters most right now should be the first to get a glimpse on what we're working on here," Eli argued. "It might make him feel more settled on the idea of you working with me on this."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

She silently thought his idea over for a moment before shaking her head. "No, thanks for the offer but I don't want to use your book as a crutch to make my relationship work. I just got to put my big girl panties on, be an adult and confront my problems head on. Now, enough about my relationship woes and let's take a look at chapter three again. I feel like there's something missing."

As they began conversing about the characters and their interactions, Clare was once again in editor mode. Eli knew that as long as she was focused on the writing before them, she would never focus on the real issue which was the state of her personal life. And he decided that he had to help her fix things despite the fact that she was against the idea. Because he had done a lot of messed up things to the woman beside him when they were dumb kids and, for the first time, he had a way to make it up to her.

- O-C –

Day One Thousand Three Hundred One

The package arrived at Degrassi Community School by courier to a small office attached to the school's gymnasium. There was no return address and a simple Post-It that had the words Read Me was stuck to the top of the stack of papers that had lines upon lines of typed words written on them. Owen Milligan poured himself another cup of coffee from the small pot plugged in on the shelf behind his desk and settled into his office chair, not quite knowing what to expect but mentally preparing himself on the off chance that another tidal wave was set to crash over his life.

However, no matter how much preparation he could partake in, he could never truly be ready for what his eyes would spend the next two hours skimming over. The names were different and some of the facts had been played with to better resemble a work of fiction, but the story was his all the same. And even more importantly, he could tell that the story was hers as well.

Catherine Isabelle Everson, Cate as she was known by all, arrived in this world almost docile. The doctor who delivered the seven pound bundle of blue eyes and reddish hair expected screaming and wailing like all children tend to do. But this girl was different. Sure, she whimpered at the change in her environment and grasped blindly for the mother she had been ripped from but that reaction was temporary.

A fleeting display of emotions that gave way to a sort of inquisitiveness that was practically unheard of. Those blue eyes so bright that there was no question if they would change into a color darker blinked twice before flitting around to gaze at her surroundings. There was no question that this girl was special and the doctor and his nurse just knew that there was an intelligence behind those eyes that was older than the few minutes the girl had been alive.

Oliver James Michaels was the opposite. The year before the girl's arrival, Oliver came into the world screaming so loud that that same doctor was worried he would rupture his vocal chords before he could even say his first word. A ball of red that spent the first five minutes of his life kicking and screaming, there was no doubt in Raina Michaels's mind that her son would grow up to be a fighter.

She named him Oliver after an uncle that passed in a war when she was a child, hoping that some part of the characteristics of his namesake would somehow find their way to her son's personality. And they did. Oliver was strong, independent and as hardheaded as a mule, less of the protector she dreamed her son as being and more of the troublemaker she had feared him becoming. As he grew up, he became less like the uncle she had loved dearly and more like the husband she tolerated at best most times.

While Oliver was growing up and finding himself fitting in with the type of crowd that sets every parent on edge, Cate found a home with the academics of her generation. She kept her nose in dusty tomes of literature and science instead of the latest fashion magazine or gossip rag. She kept to herself for the most part, even going as far as dressing in the uniform from her previous Catholic school days, never caring that this often garnered looks of mild disgust from her peers.

They were so different that they were on the opposite ends of the social spectrum, neither giving much thought to the other as neither ventured around the other's orbit for very long. However, the years between growing up and being grown happen quickly and are wrought with change. Each passing year brought new people into Oliver and Cate's lives and it wasn't long before their universes crashed on more than one occasion.

Cate was fifteen the first time Oliver fully crashed into her life when he had spent so long on the border. She had given up the uniform and the glasses in exchange for the newest trends and contact lenses, giving into the pressure to act and look the way her peers did. She was still an academic by every standard but Saturdays were spent at the mall or with friends instead of in a museum or the library. And she had new friends that were nothing like the ones she had known all her life.

It was these new friends that had Oliver busting into the content world she had created for herself like a hurricane on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

Oliver was stubborn and held steadfast to old prejudices, causing him to lash out at Cate and her friends. There was violence and anger and soon, Cate's perfectly kept life was in an upheaval. They became enemies the day he threw her friend through a window and she swore that whatever past mistakes she had forgiven would never be forgiven or forgotten again. She had never hated anyone in her short life but Oliver James Michaels quickly became the first.

They learned it was best to avoid each other and soon, what had been an effort just became natural. Oliver slowly began to grow up and his choices in life began to reflect that. He became the hero of the school instead of the bully and even found it in himself to apologize for past wrongdoings. Oliver started to become the man that his mother had envisioned on the day he was born.

You would think that this would mean that Cate and Oliver became friends but you would be wrong. While Oliver was growing up, Cate was acting out and rebelling against the status quo that she had been so used to following. They still traveled in different social circles, the jocks and the misfits, and neither of them was willing to step a toe past the barrier that separated their groups. And the past is a tricky thing to overcome.

They eventually stopped purposefully ignoring the other's existence. Soon, they just naturally forgot the other one was alive. Each became a fleeting memory, something that was only brought to the forefront when a name was spoken or old pictures were rifled through. High school ended and real life began and not even those memories that were once so crystal clear entered their minds. They simply became fuzzy pictures that lingered in that place between dreams and the waking world.

But Fate can be a tricky mistress. And nearly a decade later, what was forgotten was soon remembered in all its Technicolor glory. They weren't the same people that they were when they were teenagers, that much was evident by the first chance meeting in the dimly lit hallway of a dingy apartment building. Time had soothed old wounds and softened rough edges and Fate finally had her chance to make what had been foretold come to fruition.

And it all began again with a phone call the morning after a one night stand.

End of Prologue

Who had sent him this and why? Owen wondered this as he flipped through the pages again to find some indication of the identity of the mystery writer. He opened the envelope the pages had come in again and found his answer in a piece of notebook paper that was crumpled at the bottom. Reaching his hand inside and pulling out what had almost been tossed away, he shoved the story to the side and smoothed out the wrinkles of what appeared to be a note from the author.

Owen,

She'd kill me if she knew I sent this to you but Clare isn't thinking clearly or is she in her right mind at this time. Only those who've dated her know how truly stubborn the woman can be so I hope that you can see why I had to do this behind her back. If it works out the way I want it to, it won't matter and you can let her in on this little secret. If it backfires, please do me a favor and forget you ever received this package so I can still have my life tomorrow.

Did you like what you read? I bet it feels pretty familiar what was written on those pages. That's probably because it's inspired by you. Well, you and Clare and the story of how you got together. That's actually what the book is about and you should know that you are in possession of the prologue. I would have sent you the first two chapters but your girl is currently editing them for me and she is a perfectionist. Which is something that I desperately need since I have practically lived in chaos all of my life.

I know that you wonder why I chose Clare to edit my novel. I would too if I was in your shoes but I feel like I should first assure you that I am still happily married and I am on my way to becoming a first time father. So, my decision had nothing to do with unrequited feelings for my ex-girlfriend which is what you probably assumed and rightfully so. Clare has always been talented and she has always seen things in my writing that I was either too manic or too stubborn to see myself. And she's not afraid to tell me when I'm wrong and would never dare to walk on egg shells around me, something that I've needed since the last editor I worked with hated confrontation and never felt like she could address things properly.

The other reason that I chose Clare to be my editor is because she is my inspiration for the book. Well, the both of you together is the inspiration. I find inspiration in raw emotions and true love and—don't tell anyone—simple romance. The power behind human emotion is a catalyst for a lot of literature in this world and I wanted the emotions you share with Clare to be out there in the world, easily attainable for those who may never experience it firsthand themselves. I was all set on giving up my writing career after the last book tanked but then I ran into an old friend and she shared this story of two enemies who first became friends and, later, lovers. It's your story, I'm just writing it down.

I guess I just wanted to let you know that you have nothing to worry about with me. Yes, it's true I loved Clare. And yes, it is true that there is a chance that I might always love her but that's what happens when your first love is a girl like Clare Edwards. But in the same respect, it's also true that I have never and will never make her happy the same way that you do and that you can. There will probably never be another man out there that will make her soul soar the way that you have. And that day that you saw us in the coffee shop, trust me when I tell you that you were the only topic on her lips that afternoon.

I'm going to wrap this up before I get too mushy even though I'm sure you'd point out that that ship has sailed. I guess I wanted to send this to you to not only alleviate some of your worries but also to let you know that she misses you. Your break—not break up, she was very adamant about that—is slowly killing her. I've never seen her so disheartened in my life and I'm worried about her. I'm worried about you too if you are half as affected by this mess as she is.

I hope things work out between the two of you. I hope that you two can have a conversation that is not done through text messages because just hearing your voice could be what she needs. And if you really want us to not work together, if that is what it is going to take for things to work out between you two, I will gracefully exit stage left. I don't want to be the cause for the light leaving her eyes like I was once before.

Best of luck,
Eli Goldsworthy

Placing the pages belonging to the next Eli Goldsworthy novel along with the letter back in the envelope, Owen opened his bottom desk drawer and slipped it inside. He hadn't realized it before but it was this piece of reassurance that he needed to hear since that fateful Valentine's Day. Maybe on a subconscious level he knew that he needed the man who had been an integral part of his girlfriend's life to tell him that the last of his feelings for Clare were on a professional level only. But he would've never admitted it aloud that this had been the obstacle that had kept him from facing the woman he loved.

Gathering his jacket and duffel bag, he shot off a quick text to Alli to find out where the women were spending their evening as they had been spending most days out of the week together since Clare moved back to her parents' house. Owen supposed he would be spending as much time out too if he were living with his parents but it still put him on edge to know that his taken girlfriend was spending almost every night out with her single friend. He knew that there was always a chance that she would realize that she could do better than him, especially now that they were officially on a break.

Owen was almost to his car when a beep alerted him that his text message had been answered. She's at home. Jake's wedding is tomorrow, remember? He hadn't remembered the upcoming nuptials amidst all the drama that he was recently immersed in but he should have. After all, he had spent hours in small boutiques all over Toronto searching for the perfect wedding present and she had accompanied him on both trips to the tailor to make certain that the fit of his suit was perfect.

He doubted that she still wanted him to be her date but with all the money he had shelled out on the gift and to the tailor, as well as what he had just read, she was about to find that she didn't really have a choice in the matter. Because Owen Milligan didn't give up easily on the things that mattered to him and Clare Edwards was what mattered most.

To Be Continued….