Seaside Secrets

by Melissa Foster

  Amy heard the slider open to the front deck. Her heart leapt. Tony.

  “Hurry up.”

  Jenna. Amy heard feet scurrying across the floor and turned to find Leanna, Bella, and Jenna lined up in the doorframe with stupid grins on their faces and steaming mugs in their hands—two in Leanna’s.

  “I saw Tony leave for his run,” Jenna explained as they piled onto her bed.

  “And Sky said she tatted him up last night.” Bella leaned in close and whispered, “Kitten.”

  “Oh my God.” She covered her eyes. “Isn’t there some rule of confidentiality with tattoo artists and their clients?”

  “They’re tattoos,” Bella explained. “Think of skin like a billboard. Even beneath the waist.”

  Amy groaned. Bella was the only one not wearing pajamas. Unless Amy counted herself, because she was quite nude beneath the blankets.

  “Oh, come on, kitten. We think it’s cute.” Jenna curled her fingers into claws and pretended to paw at Amy while holding her mug in the other hand. “Meow.”

  They all laughed.

  “It’s not a sexual thing.” Well, it kind of is.

  “Uh-huh.” Bella patted Amy’s shoulder. “You keep up that lie. We’ll back you up.”

  Leanna handed Amy a cup of coffee. “Sit up and drink up. We want the scoop.”

  Amy held the sheet over her chest. “Hand me a T-shirt?”

  Jenna snagged a shirt from Amy’s drawer and tossed it to her. After putting it on, she sheepishly added, “And underwear,” to which Jenna laughed and obliged.

  “Please tell me you’re not all sticky and stinky,” Bella said.

  “Jesus, Bella.” Amy felt her cheeks flush. “I’m not. We showered last night.”

  “Oh, this is better than I was hoping for. You showered together?” Jenna fixed her cami, which was slipping off her shoulder. She scooted closer on the bed.

  The girls formed a semicircle around Amy. She felt a little like it was sharing time at school, but no student would be grinning from ear to ear with delectably sinful memories.

  Amy sipped her coffee and gave in to her friends’ expectant gazes. “Yes, we showered together. It wasn’t like a real first date. I mean, it’s Tony.” The man I made love to at least once a day the summer when I was eighteen. The only man I’ve ever made love to. Only they didn’t know that. She bundled the guilt into a ball and mentally tucked it away.

  “Well, that’s true,” Leanna said. “You guys have known each other forever. I’m happy for you, Amy.”

  “Okay, enough mushy stuff. Was it wonderful?” Jenna leaned in close, eyes wide. “Or were your expectations too high? Sometimes that happens. You know, when you’ve thought about being with some guy for so long and then it’s like…Oh, really? That kinda sucked.”

  “Been there, done that,” Bella added.

  “Usually it’s the guy thinking that in my case.” Leanna frowned.

  “Not true.” Amy had learned to cover her abstinence by embellishing what she did do with guys. She’d had to learn to embellish in college in order to save face with the other girls in her dorm who hadn’t lost a baby and given up the man they loved in the course of a few hours. That bundle of guilt rolled out again, and she kicked it away.

  Leanna nodded. “Totally true, but I don’t care. Kurt loves how I am in bed, and he’s the only man I want or need. Gosh, remember how scared I was to sleep with him? I was so awkward in bed, and my rhythm was always off.”

  “Kurt seems to have fixed that,” Jenna said. “Night after night after night, according to the sound track of your love life…thanks to open windows.”

  “Remember that one guy I slept with a few years ago who said he’d expected more after we’d done it for nearly an hour?” Bella laughed. “What did he expect, a gold-plated coochie?”

  They all laughed, while Amy wallowed in guilt. Her friends had shared their secrets over the years, but she’d kept hers close to her chest. So close it nearly smothered her.

  “Right, Ames?” Bella tapped her arm.

  “What?” Crap. She hadn’t realized they were talking to her.

  “Wow. Last night must have been really something. You zoned out there.” Bella pushed Amy’s mug toward her mouth. “Drink a little more before Tony comes back and wants to ravish you again.”

  Amy’s mind sifted through potential outcomes of telling her friends what she’d gone through and how she’d lied to them. They’d never trust her again. How could they when she had kept such a big secret?

  “Amy?” Leanna patted her leg. “Are you okay? Did things not end well last night?”

  “No. It was perfect, actually.” More perfect than she could have imagined.

  “Does this mean you’ll stay and turn down the job with Duke?” Bella asked.

  “Oh God. Duke. What am I going to do?” Duke was a friend, and he was offering her an opportunity of a lifetime. Although she had accepted the job only a few days ago, she couldn’t just blow him off. Maybe he’d understand. But maybe she was rushing things. What if she and Tony didn’t work out? It had been a long time, and—

  “Jesus, did he slip you a brain-numbing pill last night or something?” Bella asked.

  “That would be called a triple orgasm,” Jenna quipped.

  For once in her life she could actually agree with Jenna’s assessment and it would be true, but sharing those details of her and Tony’s intimacy seemed like a betrayal to him. Amy’s pulse sped up. There were so many things to think about, and she felt ill equipped to handle any of them.

  “Okay, something is very wrong here.” Bella took Amy’s mug from her and set it on the bedside table. She brushed Amy’s hair from her shoulders, and her voice turned serious. “Honey, what is it? We’re here for you. If it’s good, bad, or complicated, we can help.”

  “Maybe Tony couldn’t…you know,” Jenna whispered.

  Amy shook her head. “It’s nothing like that. Tony is…He’s exactly who he’s always been. He’s a thoughtful and caring lover.”

  “Than what is it?” Bella asked.

  I need to do this. She swallowed hard, trying to push away the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  “What I’m going to tell you might change our friendships, and I just want you guys to know how much I love you and that I do trust you.” Amy drew in a deep breath as the others exchanged worried glances.

  “You’re scaring me a little.” Leanna set her coffee down and fidgeted with the edge of her pajama shorts.

  “Well, it scares me a lot.” She needed to come clean to her friends, no matter how much it hurt to do it. She had a momentary thought about telling Tony she was going to share their past with them, but one look at her friends and she knew she didn’t need his permission. This was her burden from the start. Her secret. It had to be her decision to reveal it.

  She pulled her shoulders back and sat up straighter, needing to be brave. “Do you guys remember the summer before we went away to college?”

  “How could we forget?” Jenna asked. “It was amazing. Parties, learning to surf, picking up those hitchhiking surfers in your convertible on the way to the beach.”

  “Remember Leanna’s brothers trying to hit on the female lifeguards?” Bella patted the sheets while she laughed. “That was the funniest. The guards were like, A nerd, a musclehead, and a guy who likes fireworks a little too much. No thanks. Little did they know how hot they’d grow up to be.”

  Leanna’s solemn eyes were locked on Amy’s, as if she saw the turmoil brewing inside her.

  “What about that summer, Amy?” Leanna asked.

  Amy dropped her eyes to the bed and contemplated playing off her silence as a joke, but she knew they’d never buy it. She’d had nine months to get her game face in place before returning to the Cape the summer after she’d had the miscarriage. Nine months…Long enough to have a baby, or forget you were ever going to. She’d had fourteen years to prepare for this moment, but not only had she not prepared; she’d bloc
ked out the event entirely. There was no more hiding. If she wanted Tony, she had to accept what happened, and accepting meant honesty all around.

  “Sweetie, what are we missing? Whatever it is, it’s not going to change a thing. I promise.” Jenna’s voice was so sincere that it deepened Amy’s guilt.

  “I’m not so sure about that.” Amy swallowed hard and stared at her hands. It was easier than looking at the women she knew she was about to hurt.

  “That summer, Tony and I were together,” Amy began.

  “Of course. We all were,” Jenna said.

  “No. Together, together.” She lifted her eyes.

  “Wait.” Bella drew her brows together, and a soft laugh escaped before she clamped her jaw closed and shook it off. “You don’t mean…”

  Amy nodded.

  “What?” Jenna practically yelled. “No way. You couldn’t have kept that a secret.”

  Amy cocked her head. “You do know my father, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, but…” Jenna’s eyes widened as understanding dawned on her. “You thought we’d tell him?”

  “No. No, that’s not why.” Was it? Bella’s arms were crossed, putting an effective barrier between them that scared Amy. Please don’t turn me away. Leanna’s brows were drawn together, her forehead streaked with worry.

  “Okay, maybe that was partially why. I don’t know. I was afraid of disappointing my father, and Tony’s father wasn’t exactly the nicest guy on earth that summer.” The words fell fast, and as she shifted her eyes to each of her friends, the impact of them were evident. Bella’s eyes were filled with something between worry and anger. Leanna and Jenna had empathy written all over their faces, but when they dropped their eyes to the bed, she knew she’d hurt them.

  “And I was finally with Tony,” Amy continued. “And he loved me. He loved me. And—”

  “So all these years, your pining over him was what? A lie? You’ve been seeing him?” Bella’s voice was anything but understanding.

  “No. I was pining for him.”

  “Yeah,” Bella snapped. “For a guy you’d already had, and here we were feeling bad for you that you loved him and he thought of you as a friend.” She looked away.

  “It wasn’t like that. I mean, it was, but…” She wanted to slip to the floor and hide under the bed until her life rewound to ten minutes earlier, so she could not tell the truth. Her heart was beating so fast and hard she felt like the room was spinning. Her friends were waiting for an explanation that she wasn’t sure she could give without falling apart, yet not explaining would be worse than spilling her guts.

  “It was…” Tears slid down her cheeks. “I got preg—pregnant. Okay? It was—”

  Silence.

  Jenna stared at the blanket. Bella held Amy’s gaze, and Leanna’s brows knitted together as she looked from Amy to the others, then back again.

  Amy’s lower lip trembled. Her guilt felt magnified in their silence. Her throat was so thick no more words could pass through. And then Leanna’s arms were around her. Her tears fell on Leanna’s shoulder as she wept.

  “Amy…” Bella’s voice was thin, rattled. “Oh God, Amy. I’m so sorry.”

  “But what happened?” Jenna reached for Amy’s hand.

  Amy sucked in one breath after another, as Leanna released her, giving her room to breathe. That ball of guilt she’d tucked away bowled her over. She felt raw, completely exposed.

  “I…I didn’t know I was pregnant until I started school in the fall, and then Tony and I snuck up to Seaside for a weekend alone. I was going to tell him, but we went surfing and…I…I lost the baby. I never told anyone. No one. And I never talked to Tony about it again.” Sobs stole her voice, and in the next breath she managed, “I sent Tony away to save him from…from…ruining his surfing career. To save him from me.”

  Bella folded Amy into her arms. She held her in the quiet of the room for who knew how long. Long enough that Amy cried all the tears she had held in over the years. Long enough for the others to get in on the cathartic hug and weigh Amy down with a new type of heaviness. She couldn’t breathe, but this time it wasn’t caused by fear. She was smothered in their love, felt their tears on her skin.

  “You didn’t need to go through that alone.” Bella’s voice was just above a whisper.

  “I was afraid,” Amy admitted. “I nearly tanked my grades, and I could barely think, let alone talk about it.” She took a deep breath, preparing herself to unveil the rest of her lies.

  “All that talk about sleeping with guys…” Amy shook her head, she couldn’t admit any more than she had. She felt emotionally drained and exhausted, but she’d opened the floodgates and she had to let it all out.

  Jenna looked from Amy to Bella. “I don’t understand.”

  “I do,” Leanna said. “You never slept with any of them.”

  Amy shook her head and wiped the tears from her eyes.

  “Amy,” Jenna whispered. “Why would you lie about that? We don’t care if you have or haven’t slept with guys.”

  “I know. I mean, in my heart I know that, but I had been hiding my past for so long, and when we graduated from college, I just wanted to leave everything behind and be normal. And being normal meant doing all the things I didn’t want to do. So I pretended.” She shrugged and looked away, embarrassed.

  “Amy. You are normal. You’re probably the most normal of all of us,” Bella said.

  “You never talked to Tony about this for all these years? So you both went through it alone?” Leanna paused, and before Amy could do more than nod, she continued. “It’s amazing that he doesn’t hate you for turning him away, or that you don’t hate him. I can’t imagine the hurt you both must have gone through. How far along were you?”

  “Just a few weeks.”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter if you knew you were pregnant for a day, an hour, or a month. Once you know, you know.” Leanna hugged Amy again. “But the other side of this tragic loss is that you and Tony lost out on all these years together. I don’t even understand how you’ve had the close relationship you have with him without talking about what happened.”

  “I pushed him away. I buried the hurt so deep I pretended it had never happened, even when he tried to make things right. It was easier than facing it.” Amy’s chest tightened again with the memory of Tony standing in her dorm room, looking sorrowful and beaten down, while she feigned ignorance and somehow acted peppy and like he didn’t matter. Just to save her own damn self.

  “That explains why he made himself so scarce for those few years when we were in college,” Leanna said. “Wow, Amy. I always thought it was his surfing career that kept him away. Remember? He only came up for a week here or there, and he almost never hung out with us.”

  “And that all changed after we graduated from college, remember?” Jenna added.

  Amy nodded. “I remember, all right. I was so relieved that he came back and didn’t hate me. I was afraid to talk to him at first, afraid he would bring up the past and then disappear again. But he never did, and we fell back into our friendship, only he’d become even more protective of me. I never understood why, but he told me the other night that it was the only way he could be close to me.”

  “He wears his love for you on his sleeve,” Leanna said. “The way he’s always looking after you, holding your hand or putting an arm around you.”

  “Carrying you to bed,” Jenna added.

  “Holding your hair when you barf,” Bella said.

  “What?” Amy asked.

  “Yeah, when you drank too much last summer, he insisted on being the one to take you home,” Bella explained. “I argued with him, but he was very protective of you. And when Jenna and I came to check on you, you were fast asleep, lying against him. Your hair was tied back in a ponytail, and he said he’d get us your barf bowl, like it was something he’d done a million times before. Apparently, you got sick that night, and he’d held your hair back and then pinned it up.”

  “You
never told me this.” How else had she embarrassed herself? “He never said anything, either. I must have been the joke of Seaside.”

  “No, you were the most loved woman in Seaside. None of us would have embarrassed you, and Jenna and I kind of were saving ourselves.” Bella glanced at Jenna. “We thought you’d kill us if you knew that he saw you throw up because we let him take you home.”

  “Where do you guys stand now?” Leanna asked. “Have you talked about it?”

  Amy nodded. “Some.”

  “And?” Jenna pushed.

  “I think—no, I know—he loves me as much as I love him, and we’re trying.”

  “But?” Bella asked.

  “But it’s scary, and I accepted that job with Duke, and Tony worries that he’s not the right guy for me.”

  Bella rolled her eyes. “You didn’t sleep with anyone else for a hundred years. He sounds like he’s the only guy for you. Does he know that?”

  Amy smiled at the disbelief that had registered on his face last night when she’d told him. “Uh-huh. He was a little shocked.”

  “I bet he was a little proud, too,” Jenna said.

  Leanna swatted her leg.

  “What?” Jenna asked. “Come on. He’s a guy. Of course he’d be proud. Was he your first, Ames?”

  “First and only.” Amy drew in another jagged breath, glad her tears had stopped. “So you guys really don’t hate me for keeping it from you for all this time?” She cringed inside while waiting for their answer.

  “Of course not,” Leanna said.

  “We love you, but I do feel bad that we weren’t there for you,” Jenna added. “We would have been there to make sure you were okay. Maybe we could have eased the pain and you wouldn’t have had to carry the secret for so long.”

  “I have to admit it bothers me that you didn’t trust us enough to help you through such a terrible time, but I get it. Your dad was so overprotective, and we weren’t exactly careful of our dialogue back then. But we could never hate you for that, Ames. I hope you know that you don’t have to face things like this alone. We’re no longer teenagers with loud mouths. We’re adults with loud mouths.” Bella smiled, and Amy knew it was an effort to ease her discomfort.