“It has everything to do with your talent, Sarah,” I argued, holding my hands out like she was a cornered, wild animal and I was the tamer. “And your drive. And your passion.”
“Yeah?” she asked, gaze hardening. “Then why didn’t you make the call before you had your hand inside me?”
I shook my head, mouth gaping like a fish as my head spun. This was the exact opposite reaction of what I’d expected, and I was so caught off guard, I couldn’t keep my head above water to figure out what to say, how to explain what I thought was so obvious.
“You weren’t ready then,” I tried to explain.
“And I’m suddenly ready now?”
“Yes,” I said, but then I shook my head, pinching my eyes shut. “No. No, that’s not what I mean. It has nothing to do with us, Sarah. With what happened.”
She scoffed, throwing her hands up before storming across the house to the foyer just as the water boiled over behind me. I cursed, running to cut the burner off and remove the pot before I chased after her, and when I caught up, she was already ordering an Uber ride on her phone.
“Wait,” I said, beating her to the door and standing against it to block her from leaving. “Just, wait a fucking second. Please. Listen to me.”
Her gaze was seething, and she crossed her arms over her chest like I was wasting my breath. Maybe I was. But I couldn’t let her leave — not like that, not with those God-awful thoughts in her mind about me and what she meant to me.
“I didn’t see it then, okay?” I tried to explain. “You were shut off, locked up. The technique was there, but you wouldn’t break yourself down enough to show me what you could really do. You didn’t show me your vulnerability until recently, and it was then that I saw it — all of it. You, your talent, your drive, your passion, your endurance, your strength.”
“You saw me naked,” she argued, spitting the words like venom. “That’s why you made the call, Reese. You got what you wanted, you got your student in your bed, your nice little distraction from the woman who broke your heart. And now, you’re done with me, aren’t you?”
My face crumpled, heart squeezing up so tight it stopped beating for a pulse. “You don’t honestly believe that,” I whispered. “Sarah, please. Tell me you don’t think any of that is true.”
She didn’t answer, just dropped her gaze to her feet on a shrug. “I had my eyes opened to a lot of things tonight,” she said. “And I didn’t want to believe it, but now… I can’t see it any other way.”
“What does that mean?” I tried, reaching for her. “Talk to me. Please.”
Sarah pulled away, swapping places with me in a sort of dance until it was her back against the door. “Do you not still love her?” she asked. “Can you look me in the eyes right now and tell me that you feel nothing for her now?”
Everything was spiraling out of control, and the more she stared at me like the absolute last person in the world she could ever trust, the more my knees gave way. I felt it coming, the imminent crash to the floor if I didn’t find a way to reach her.
But she reached for the door, instead.
“Sarah,” I croaked, throat burning.
Her hand paused on the door handle, and she glanced back at me with tears in her eyes.
“This has nothing to do with Charlie. I care about you. I care about your dreams. I did this for you because I believe in you, not because I want anything from you, or because you gave yourself to me the way you did. I told you Saturday night and I’ll tell you a million times over — I cherished that night with you. Every moment with you.” Memories of Blake, of Charlie, of every relationship I’d ever fucked up flooded me like an icy cold bucket of water. “You saved me, Sarah. Please. Don’t leave me now.”
She sighed, bottom lip trembling as her head fell forward, eyes squeezing shut. She was trying to block me out. She didn’t want to believe a word I was saying, and I guessed she didn’t really owe it to me.
I hadn’t proved to anyone that my word was worth a damn.
“God, I’m doing it again!” I screamed, beating my chest hard with one fist. “It’s exactly what I told you. I always hurt the people who mean the most to me. See? Even you. And I don’t mean to, I don’t…” I ran my hands back through my hair, desperation stealing my next breath. “It’s like my fucking curse. I burn everything I touch.”
Sarah looked at me again, and for the briefest moment, I thought she saw me. The real me. But as fast as it had come, it was gone, and her face turned to stone once more.
“Well, you’ll never touch me again,” she said, a flash of headlights through the front window casting the house in a sickening glow. Her ride was here, and she had nothing more to say to me.
The door opened.
The door closed.
She was gone.
I was alone.
And with my chest on fire, with tears in my eyes and a fiery scream scorching my throat, my knees gave way to the final blow. I crashed to the floor, hitting rock bottom in the most literal sense.
It was right where I deserved to be.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
* * *
Reese
Sarah didn’t show up for our lesson Thursday night.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. I shouldn’t have stared at my phone, counting the endless texts and calls I’d sent her way that had gone completely unanswered. I shouldn’t have ever imagined a world where she and I would make it, where we would be together, where I was anything more than the absolute fuck up I’d always been.
But I was. And I did.
“Something a little cheerier, Reese?” the manager of The Kinky Starfish suggested, a tight smile on his face as he greeted a customer walking past us. He lowered his head again once she was gone. “It’s Friday night, for God’s sake. The people want to dance.”
I nodded in response, cracking my neck before I launched into one of my favorites from Bach. Even though the music was joyful, I played the piece as if from a distant world. Everything was hollow. Everything was void.
And Sarah was avoiding me, working in the kitchen instead of out on the floor.
I knew she was there. I could feel her presence, a familiar buzz that warned my body she was near. It used to warn me to stay away, to keep my distance, to remember what I could and could not have.
I should have listened to it, then.
Now, it only served to punish me, to remind me what I’d lost, what was so close yet so out of reach.
It was the worst brand of torture.
The night passed in a sort of gray fog, my fingers flying over the keys, a forced smile on my lips, a voice that seemed to be someone else’s greeting the patrons and talking between pieces. To everyone else in that room, I imagined I seemed the same. But inside, I was burning.
It wasn’t until my first break that I felt a tiny flash of relief, and I told the patrons I was taking a half hour, even though that was twice what I usually took. I needed a moment. I needed space.
I needed Sarah.
And I was on my way to the kitchen to find her when I ran into Charlie, instead.
“Reese,” she said, hand wrapping around my bicep and pulling me to a stop just before I hit the swinging door to the kitchen.
I let her turn me, heart squeezing at her proximity, at the voice that I knew so well, at the warm chocolate eyes that I could close my eyes and see perfectly. But it was different this time. I didn’t want to reach for her, to hold her, to inhale her scent and imagine the days when she was mine.
I just wanted her to leave me alone so I could go find Sarah.
I hadn’t seen her since she showed up at my house unannounced on the anniversary of my family’s death. I’d dodged her calls, her mother’s calls inviting me to dinner, her father’s calls inviting me to have a drink and play a round of golf, her brother’s calls saying he wanted to catch up. I loved them, and I knew in my heart they would always be a sort of family to me.
But I’d needed space. I’d wanted to he
al. And Sarah was helping me do just that.
Until I ruined everything.
“Charlie,” I greeted, scratching the back of my neck. “I was just about to head outside to smoke. Could we talk after my set?”
“No. We can’t. This is important.”
Her reaction surprised me, and it wasn’t until then that I saw the bend in her brows, the concern etched on her little face. She pulled her hand from where it held my arm, crossing her own over her chest.
“Graham has been trying to reach out to you. So have I.” She swallowed. “We all have, and you haven’t answered any of our calls.”
“I’ve been busy,” I explained.
Charlie paused, like she was waiting for more — busy doing what, she seemed to ask me with her doe eyes. But I didn’t feel the need to explain further, not when the only thought on my mind was getting inside that kitchen and talking to Sarah.
“Jennifer Stinson called my mother earlier today.”
I didn’t understand the correlation, but the heavier Charlie’s gaze became, the more I was on alert. Why would Jennifer call her mom, and why would Charlie need to talk to me about it?
“Okay…”
“She wanted to talk to my mom because she’s on the board at Winchester, and apparently, Jennifer wanted to voice some concerns about a particular teacher. She didn’t want to go straight to Mr. Henderson, especially because, in her own words, this teacher is a close family friend.”
I gritted my teeth. “So, me?”
She nodded.
“What the hell did she say?”
Charlie looked around us, like the conversation wasn’t safe to have in public. Then, she tugged me off to the side, to a back corner behind a booth that was vacant, looking around once more before she spoke in a hushed tone.
“She said you had taken high interest in a particular student, and she worried that it might not be a professional one.” Charlie paused, eyeing me like she was looking for some sort of tell, some sort of reaction from me. “She said she ran into you and Sarah Henderson in the park one day… that you were both acting strange… and that she spoke with someone here, at the restaurant, and they confirmed her suspicions.”
I scoffed, shaking my head. “That’s bullshit. No one here knows a fucking thing.”
Charlie’s shoulders fell, brows folding inward as she covered her mouth with one hand. “Oh, Reese…”
And I realized then that I’d confirmed the story without even realizing it.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” Charlie’s eyes widened as she shook her head. “I thought… I was so sure there had to be a mistake. I was so sure you could never do something like this.”
“What do you mean like this?”
Charlie looked around again, lowering her voice even more. “She’s a girl, Reese. She’s twenty-one. You’re her teacher, for Christ’s sake. And she’s the niece of the man who signs your paycheck. Do you not understand how grotesquely wrong this all is?”
Indignation rolled through me like a tidal wave, swallowing all rational thought as I stared at the woman I once loved. And I knew it then, in that moment, that it truly was past tense.
I loved her, but I didn’t love her, anymore.
“How dare you, Charlie.” The words came out in a whisper, like my voice wasn’t caught up to my brain yet, like it didn’t want to betray my heart that once beat for only that woman in front of me. “It’s not wrong. It’s not grotesque,” I said, spitting her word back at her. “You don’t know anything about Sarah, who is not a girl, by the way. She’s more of a woman than anyone I’ve ever met.” I stood taller, each word giving me more strength. “And you don’t know anything about me anymore. Or what I have with Sarah.”
The look of pity Charlie gave me in that moment made me want to smash my fist into the nearest wall.
“Reese…”
“No,” I said, holding up one hand to stop her from saying anything else. “I know what you must think, what all of you must think, but you don’t know anything about us. And honestly, it’s none of your goddamn business.”
“This isn’t you,” she said, reaching for me. “I know you’re hurting, I know—”
“JUST STOP.”
I tore away from her before she could touch me, and a few patrons glanced our way as Charlie offered a smile and a soft apology. She watched them until they turned around, pulling her gaze to mine again, then.
“You don’t get to do this to me, Charlie,” I said, keeping my voice as low as I could. “You don’t get to say that you see me hurting, or look at me with pity, or feel like you have any fucking say in what I do or who I spend my time with. I’m healing. I am finally moving on.”
“But—”
“You already broke my heart,” I said, cutting her off as I took a step toward her. My nose stung, but I sniffed back the emotion, shaking my head. “Isn’t that enough, Charlie? Haven’t you had enough?”
The kitchen door swung open, and I turned just as Charlie’s eyes shot over my shoulder at the person who was behind us now.
Sarah.
She glanced at me first, then Charlie, and when she looked at me again, her eyes were cold as ice. She didn’t so much as nod as an acknowledgement of our existence before she balanced the bin in her hands on one hip, making her way toward the bar.
Shit.
“I have to go,” I said to Charlie, already on my way after Sarah.
“Wait, Reese. Please.” She tugged at my sleeve, holding me in place as she pleaded. “I never meant to hurt you. You know that. I never meant to… everything just got so…”
Tears flooded her eyes, and just like always, the sight of her hurting broke me.
But she wasn’t mine to comfort, anymore.
And she wasn’t the one I wanted, either.
“I know,” I assured her, scrubbing a hand back through my hair on a sigh. “I know. Okay? I do. But whether you mean to or not, you do hurt me, Charlie. Every time you look at me like that, or ask me to come to dinner, or pretend like we can still be friends when you know good and well that it’s impossible.”
Her shoulders fell. “I didn’t…”
“It’s okay,” I said, not letting her finish.
It was my turn to talk, to say what I’d needed to for two long years.
“It is. Truly. We loved each other, no matter how fucked up the circumstances were, and that will never change. But you have got to let me go, Charlie. Just like I have to let you go. And I can’t do that with you inserting yourself in every aspect of my life.” I shook my head. “So, please. Please, Charlie. Leave me alone, and let me finally stop loving you.”
Her bottom lip trembled, her delicate fingers reaching for it as she nodded against the tears flooding her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Reese.”
“Me, too,” I whispered. “Me, too.”
I reached forward, pulling her into me and kissing her forehead before I let her go — physically, mentally, literally, and figuratively. In every sense of the word, I let Charlie Pierce go in that moment.
And I ran to the woman I loved.
The realization flooded me as my feet carried me across the restaurant, chest swelling with the surprise of it while I shook my head, knowing I should have realized it long ago. How something could feel like such a revelation and also like something I’d known my entire life was beyond me, but there it was, pumping blood into every vein in my body.
I loved her.
I loved her.
And I couldn’t lose her now.
Sarah glanced at me from where she was clearing dishes when I rounded the corner into the bar area, but her eyes fell quickly, back to her hands as they worked. I slid up beside her behind the bar without her acknowledgement, without a greeting, without a prayer in hell that she’d talk to me.
But I had to try, anyway.
“Sarah, please,” I said, eyeing the patrons at the bar to make sure they couldn’t hear us before I spoke again. “Can we go outside and talk?”
; “I’m working,” she said firmly, holding up the dish rag she was wiping the bar down with as proof.
“Take a break.”
She sighed, shaking her head as she slapped the damp rag back on the bar and began scrubbing vigorously. “There’s nothing more to say, Reese. I called your guy. I’m leaving for New York in two weeks.”
Her words knocked the air from my chest, a tornado of mixed emotions set loose in a snap. I was so happy for her. This was what she wanted. This was what I wanted for her.
But I didn’t want her to leave like this.
“Why do I feel like no matter what I say to that, there’s no right way to respond?”
Sarah rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you go talk it out with Charlie? I’m sure she can help you sort through your thoughts.”
“She’s not the one I want to talk to.”
Sarah ignored me, slapping the wet rag into the bin before balancing it on her hip again and shoving past me toward the kitchen. “You know, I shouldn’t have been shocked to see you with her when I came out here for the first time tonight,” she said, stopping long enough to pin me with her gaze. “It was just too predictable, I didn’t want to believe it. But it looks like nothing has changed.”
“You don’t mean that,” I said quickly, before she could turn away. “You don’t believe what your anxiety is trying to convince you is real.”
“You don’t know anything about my anxiety,” she spat. “Or me.”
“I know everything about you,” I argued, stepping into her space.
Her breath stilled, eyes falling to my lips before she ripped them away, meeting my gaze once more.
“I know nothing makes you happier than a good peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a shady day in the park. I know you thought your love of reading had died, but it was only reading happy endings that you’d lost passion for. You finished Fight Club in three days, and you’ve had a new book in your bag every week since, because escaping into someone else’s reality is easier than facing your own.”
Best Kept Secrets: The Complete Series Page 76