by Meg Easton
Whitney hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, but Eli was talking plenty loud enough for her to hear. Was he really talking about leaving? Just two days from now? Whatever happened to two to four weeks from now? She was too shocked by his words to go out where he could see her, or to walk away. She just stood there, frozen.
“It’s the decorations for this event here called Fall Market. It’s kind of a big deal.”
Yeah, it kind of was a big deal. To the entire town. She had thought it was a big deal to her and Eli as well.
“She could definitely handle it on her own.”
A lump in her stomach started forming as she pictured doing the rest of the preparations without him. About doing the rest of everything in her life without him.
“Whitney,” he said, and paused before saying words that would burn themselves into her brain forever. “Don’t get so excited. I don’t think it’s going to work out.”
The punch to her gut felt so literal she sunk against the side of the building.
She heard him open his car door before adding the next punch. “She’s not even in the same ballpark. Thursday at seven twenty on Delta. Gotcha.” She heard his car door shut, the engine start, then sounds of Eli driving away.
She couldn’t believe he was going to leave in just two days. Why would he change his plans so drastically without even mentioning it to her first? Had their last two weeks together meant so much less to him than it had to her?
It took several long minutes before she could even process it all enough to push herself upright. Eventually, she made it back to the paper and sank down into her office chair, staring off at nothing.
“Whitney? Are you okay?”
Whitney shook herself more alert and focused on Kara. “I’m fine,” she lied, and then moved her mouse to bring her screen back to life. She moved it around a bit, making it look like she was working, but then gave up and just stared at the napkin swan. How many times was she going to have to relearn this same lesson? Letting people in was dangerous. Loving people was dangerous. She’d had plenty of alarms going off in her head since the moment she’d seen Eli in that Main Street Business Alliance meeting, and had chosen to ignore them over and over. Even though she knew in her core that she shouldn’t have. She had walls in place for this very purpose.
Thirty minutes later, a text came in. She glanced down at her phone. It was Eli.
Want to go for an evening stroll around the lake? Say, 8:00?
He didn’t mention why, but she already knew— he wanted to meet so he could tell her that he was leaving her once again, with barely any more notice than he had given her the last time.
Chapter Eighteen
On his way to his parents’ house, Eli had called Grace and Max to make sure they were able to work until closing on Thursday, since he would need to be gone by just before five. When he got to his parents’ house, he was surprised at how well they reacted to him asking if they could run the store on Friday. They weren’t sure if his dad would be able to be in the store more than an hour, but his mom sounded more than confident enough to run it without him for just a day.
Now he just needed to get Whitney on board. That wasn’t going to be so easy— he knew that she’d be able to get the help she needed, since everyone seemed to be willing to drop what they were doing to help her, but he also knew that the event meant a lot to her. Truth be told, he was sad he was going to have to miss out on the preparations on Friday.
As he drove to the lake, he ran through dialogue in his head about how to best bring the subject up to Whitney, trying out different things, hoping he could figure out the best way. As it usually was after dark, the parking lot at the lake was empty, so he pulled into one of the closest spots to the trail, right under a street lamp. He got out, and even though he was wearing his jacket, he shivered in the cold autumn air and zipped up his jacket.
He was pulling a couple of flashlights out of his trunk when Whitney pulled into the lot and parked. The moment she got out of the car, he knew everything wasn’t okay. The happy expression that usually lived on her face even when she wasn’t smiling was gone. Something was wrong.
He took two strides to close the distance between them. He’d started to raise his arms to wrap them around her, but she put her hands into her pockets and turned to the side, so he dropped his arms and asked, “Is everything okay? Are you still upset about last night?” He couldn’t believe that through the craziness of the day, he hadn’t texted her or checked in on her to make sure she was okay. She had been so upset last night, and didn’t seem to want him to follow her then, but today he should’ve gone to her.
“I’m fine. It’s just been a rough day. What about you?” She reached out a hand toward him, like she was going to put her hand on his arm, but pulled back before she did. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
“Same,” he said. “It’s just been a rough day.”
She nodded, and he handed her a flashlight. “I hear walks around the lake can undo rough days, though.”
“Please let it be so,” Whitney softly said as she turned and lead them down the trail to the lake.
As they neared the lake, Eli went through all the different ways he was going to start off the conversation, trying to settle on one. Before he opened his mouth to start off the conversation, Whitney turned to him and said, “Tell me what happened between our graduation ceremony and the all-nighter.”
Eli was caught completely off guard by the request. His mind had gone a million places today, and this definitely hadn’t been one of them.
“Please,” she said. “It’s important. I really want to understand.”
Whitney had always been someone who called him out on things. She didn’t just keep her mouth shut if she didn’t agree with something, or if he was making a stupid choice. As much as he’d been dreading the moment when she asked, he was actually surprised she hadn’t demanded he tell her sooner.
He gave a single nod, and turned onto the sandy beach that encircled the lake, shining the flashlight on the ground in front of them as they walked. “I haven’t actually told anyone the story.” He cleared his throat, trying to decide how to start. “I’m sure you remember how my dad responded to the separation between him and my mom with drinking and depression, and how he took it out on me. I was convinced there wasn’t a single small part of him that loved me. If it weren’t for my mom and for you, especially, I’m not sure I would’ve made it through my junior and senior year. I was counting down the days until we’d leave.”
He turned to Whitney, meeting her eyes in the moonlight. “I had planned to stay here for the summer after high school and go to Denver University with you, just like we’d planned. I swear to you that I had.”
She searched his eyes, like she was trying to see if she found truth there, her body slightly shivering in the cold air. She must’ve decided that she had, because then she turned and kept walking.
He took a deep breath and walked alongside her, his feet sinking into the sand with each step. “I had given up trying to make my dad proud of me long before, since it only seemed to make him even more critical. Why try when he was impossible to please? And my dad can only love someone he’s proud of, so that’s why I spent most of the time staying at my mom’s apartment. And all the time I could with you.”
He smiled at the memory. If he only thought of Whitney, he had the best high school experience anyone could ask for. If he thought of everything else, it was the worst. “Until things got bad even with her leading up to graduation, you two made me feel like maybe I was actually someone worth loving.” The admission came out as a whisper. He hadn’t even meant to admit that at all to anyone ever. That worry was still too much a part of who he was now, and it was too raw to say. He wished he could take it back. He almost turned around right then and walked back to his car, but Whitney reached out and put her hand on his arm.
He couldn’t have her looking at him while he talked, so he turned and started walking alongside the lake again
. “Then, after the graduation ceremony, when most graduates were off having celebratory meals with their families, my mom and I got into the biggest argument we’d ever had. I guess she was sick of me slacking off, and we both said some pretty harsh things. In my mind, she was no longer the safe parent who loved me no matter what— she had revealed that she felt the same way about me that my dad had, she had just been nicer about it. So I went into my room, slammed my door, and packed up all my stuff.
“While I was loading everything I owned into my car, I suddenly knew that Denver wasn’t far enough away. Being close enough to see them every weekend wouldn’t do it. I needed to go somewhere where I could just get lost among people who wouldn’t care whether I was my parents’ ideal son or not.” They’d made it to the west end of the small lake, where it was curving around to the side. He was glad that they were walking—talking about all this reminded him how strongly that need to run was.
He had tried talking her into going with him. He’d told her they could still keep their same plans—staying in dorms at college—but going to a different college. One in California. But she’d tried just as fiercely to talk him into still going to the University of Denver. After a debate that was much too short for as much as it would change their lives, he’d said he was going to California no matter what, and really wanted her to join him. She’d said no.
“I was fresh off the fight with my mom, feeling raw and hurt that she didn’t love me either, and obviously didn’t tell you that I needed to leave in the best way ever, because you were so mad. Do you remember how angry you were?”
“Of course I do,” she whispered, and he realized that she’d probably replayed it in her own head just as often as he had.
“Do you remember what you told me?” She didn’t respond, so he said, “You said, ‘Fine then, go. I don’t care if you leave.’” His throat tightened, and he paused a long moment, making sure that his voice wouldn’t crack when he spoke again. “Those were the exact same words my mom had said just a couple of hours earlier. Which made me feel like you felt the same way about me— that I wasn’t worth loving.”
One of the chaperones, someone who had given him almost as much grief as his dad did, had noticed the exchange and asked him to leave before either of them had said another word. So he left. No one in this town had wanted him there anyway.
Whitney opened her mouth to say something, but he held up a hand. “I know it wasn’t your fault that I left. I knew that I had hurt you, and that you didn’t actually feel that way about me. Well, I didn’t know it at the time. At the time, I one hundred percent believed you didn’t want me there. I stayed that night in Denver, slept in my car, and woke up the next morning and kept driving and eventually found myself in central California. It wasn’t until I was there that everything finally caught up to me. That’s when I realized that you actually did love me, and that I had just run away from the best thing in my life.”
They were silent as they walked, staring out at how the moon and stars bounced off the surface of the lake, making wavy, moving versions of themselves.
They had only taken half a dozen steps when Whitney stopped, hands on her hips, and said, “So why didn’t you ever call? You were my best friend, Eli. My best friend, and my boyfriend, and you just left without a backward glance. If you had figured out that I was the best thing in your life, why didn’t you call?”
Eli hung his head. He had gone back over things in his mind a million times since then, and he’d always come up with the same conclusion. “Because I was a stupid prick of a kid, who turned into a stupid prick of an adult.”
“Not a good enough answer.”
He knew it wasn’t. And he knew she’d call him out on it. “The first time I tried calling was when I found out that my parents had turned my cell service off, hoping that would make me come back home. But I just couldn’t. I had too many things to figure out about myself, and too many things to prove. I found a job there working at a burger joint and slept in my car every night until I saved up enough to get a real place.”
He blew out a big breath. This was hard stuff to admit— no wonder he hadn’t told a soul. Not even Ben knew the whole story. “Every time my fingers itched to pick up the phone just so I could hear your voice again, the stupid prideful part of me thought about how embarrassing my living conditions were, and how I should prove that I could make it on my own first. I told myself I could call when I was standing on my own two feet. And then the longer time went on, the more successful I thought I had to be to justify how long it had been since I called. Until before long, it had been so long that it felt impossible to ever be successful enough.” He scoffed. “Saying that out loud makes it sound even stupider.” It was painful looking back at this part of his life. He’d just kept making one bad choice after another.
He glanced over at Whitney, and saw silent tears running down her face. “Oh, Whitney,” he said, cupping her face in his hands, wiping her tears away with his thumbs. “I am so sorry I hurt you.” He had imagined a million times how badly he had hurt her by leaving when they were teens. Seeing it in person was so much worse. How could he have done this to her?
“And now you’re just leaving again.” She pushed his hands off her face, and started walking again. They were a good three-fourths of the way around the lake now.
“You know already?”
“Thursday night, seven twenty, on Delta. I came to talk to you in the parking lot and heard part of your conversation. At least you’re giving me two days’ notice before you leave this time, instead of the thirty minutes you gave me last time.”
He realized that whatever part of the conversation she had heard hadn’t included the part where he was only going to be gone until late Friday night. He opened his mouth to correct her, but then shut it again. If he came back after his meeting on Friday and stayed as long as his parents wanted him to stay, he would still be leaving permanently in just a few weeks. If he came back for those few weeks, he would want to be around Whitney the whole time. He’d wanted to be around her every moment for the past fourteen years, after all— the only thing that had kept him away was 1100 miles across four states and a whole lot of fear that he hadn’t faced until now. His being here was hurting her. And the longer he waited to leave, the more damage he was going to cause. So as far as Whitney was concerned, maybe Thursday was the best time for him to leave permanently.
Instead of correcting her, he said, “I’m sorry, Whitney. I’m sorry for all the pain I caused back then, and I’m sorry for the pain I’ve caused by being back. I wish I could erase it all.”
Whitney looked him in the eyes for a few long moments, and then she shook her head and walked a few steps away. “But see, Eli? You can’t erase it all! You can’t just wish things and make them true. You can’t just say sorry and erase pain. You have to make the choices it takes to get the outcome you want.”
“I have to go. There’s a big company who wants to be TeamUp’s client, and they’ll only meet with us if Ben and I show up together to their meeting on Friday. I don’t have a choice.”She threw her arms up in frustration. “You decide what you’re going to do, Eli! No one made you leave on graduation night. No one is making you leave now. You are making that choice, and wishing that it won’t cause any pain is pointless.”
The real reason he hadn’t called in all these years was that deep down, he was afraid that his actions as a bull-headed teenager had been too awful, too selfish, too hurtful, and that Whitney would never forgive him for it. He’d never realized how much hope he’d clung to that Whitney would forget the past and welcome him back with open arms until this moment when she was actually showing how upset his actions had made her.
Eli was good at making people laugh, at making them feel good about themselves, and all the things he could manage on the surface. The reason he didn’t date anyone longer than two weeks was that then they would get to know the real Eli beneath the surface. And if they got to know the real him— the very imperf
ect, flawed, damaged him— that they’d find out he wasn’t good enough. He’d made too many bad choices to ever be good enough. He thought about what Evia had said to him in Treanor’s. She was right. He wasn’t good enough for her. Evia knew it, he knew it, and practically the entire town knew it.
“Some people don’t get a choice about leaving loved ones behind. You’ve always had that choice. I’m sorry, Eli. I can’t be with someone who’s going to choose to leave.”
And he couldn’t stay when staying would cause her more pain. So he just stood there and watched as the woman he’d loved since they’d first become friends fourteen years ago walked up the trail to her car and drove away.
Chapter Nineteen
Whitney sat in the basement of the library, waiting for the Main Street Business Alliance meeting to start. It had been two days since the lake, and she still felt conflicted about the way things had gone with Eli. She’d had no problem calling him out for his crap over the years, but this felt different. She’d never done it before knowing that it would hurt him.
But breaking up with him had been the healthy thing. She knew that continuing to date Eli was only going to make his living four states away even more difficult, for both of them. She was taking care of herself; she was taking care of her heart.
If it was the healthy thing to do, though, why did it feel so awful? She had been living with a piece of her heart missing for so many years that she no longer even noticed that it was missing. Then Eli came along and filled that space so perfectly that she finally understood how her heart was supposed to feel. And now that he was gone, taking that part of her heart with him, the hole felt gaping and unbearable and wrong and excruciatingly painful. How had she ever been able to live with this feeling before?