Free The Color of a Promise (The Color of Heaven Series Book 11) by Julianne MacLean

the things he had said, and begged me to talk to him. He promised it would never happen again. He promised he would never hurt me or say anything so stupid or mean.
    But I remembered his false promises on the night he came to my dorm room. It was obvious that he wasn’t someone I could ever trust or depend on, and his volatile behavior was not something I wanted in my life.
    I wanted to follow Wayne’s advice and not respond, but after about twenty messages, I felt it would be best to put Kyle out of his misery and accept his apology, but be firm about my decision. All I wanted was for him to move on. I wanted to be free of him.
    I accept your apology, Kyle. Thank you. I appreciate that. But I’m sorry… I don’t want to get back together. We’re not right for each other. You know it as well as I do. Take the summer to forget about us and move on. Please don’t text me anymore. It’s over.
    To my surprise, he didn’t reply. Not even a simple OK to acknowledge my message.
    I decided to leave it at that, feeling thankful—and hopeful—that I wouldn’t have to deal with any more drama, and that I wouldn’t receive another abusive text the next time he went out with the boys and got hammered.
    o0o
    The next four weeks passed uneventfully, with no more texts or calls from Kyle, and it was pure heaven to know that he was on the other side of the country. I didn’t care what he was doing or who he was seeing. In fact, I hoped he’d found a new girlfriend and was madly in love with her, and was now wondering what he’d ever seen in me. That would be just fine, because I had met someone myself—a young man who was the exact opposite of Kyle…fair hair, tall lanky build, and obsessed with school, just like me.
    His name was Malcolm. I met him at my summer job as a waitress in a high-end downtown restaurant. Malcolm was a physics grad who had just been accepted into medical school in San Diego. He’d been hired as a waiter for the summer, working the dinner hour.
    Malcolm was brilliant, academically speaking, and he never flew off the handle or wanted to tip over a mailbox. He was a grown-up, and very driven and ambitious. That was one of the things I loved most about him, because I was happy being the same way.
    We started dating after about three weeks of working together, and by August, things had gotten pretty serious. My family thought he was a healthy change after Kyle, and their approval mattered to me a great deal.
    The only problem was that Malcolm was about to start medical school on the West Coast, while I was heading back east to finish the final year of my engineering degree at Princeton, and possibly do a master’s. I was disappointed that we wouldn’t be able to spend more time together because I believed he might actually be “the one.” I didn’t want to break up, but I knew that if we were going to see each other during the school year, I would have to get over my fear of flying.
    Was that even possible? I was uneasy as the end of August approached—because I’d never been able to talk myself out of that fear in the past.
    “You should let me take you flying and give you some lessons,” Wayne said one afternoon when he was home for four days after a few flights back and forth to Europe. We had just gotten into his truck to drive to the supermarket and pick up some steaks for the barbeque. “We could go to the flying club and you can sit in the cockpit with me, and I’ll let you steer the plane and hold the yoke.”
    He backed out of the driveway and started off down the street.
    “Are you joking?” I replied. “You’re talking about a small, private plane? I’d rather stick needles in my eyes.”
    “No, you wouldn’t,” Wayne replied. “I promise, you’ll love it, and I’ll be right there, beside you the whole time. And I know you, Meg. When you want to accomplish something, you attack it, hard. So attack this. You just need to face your fear and feel like you’re in control.”