“You sound so sure.”
“Because I am. When I’m with you, I know everything is going to be okay. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life than I am you, and us. I feel like my life really started the first time you kissed me and I’m excited about spending it and sharing it with you. I used to think about the future in terms of goals. What college I would get into. What job I would land. Would I be successful? Would I fail once I left here? And now, none of that matters anymore, because when I think about my future, all I see is moments I want to spend with you. Prom, graduation, living on our own for the first time, even though I know you’ve kind of already been doing that. I see adventures and big life steps and I want to take them all with you. Whatever life I’m going to have, I want to build it with you. I want to build my family with you.”
He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to mine, cupping my face in his hands. I gripped his forearms just below his wrists and closed my eyes too.
“I love you,” he breathed, the words fluttered from his lips over mine. My breath caught in my chest and I squeezed his arms.
“I love you too,” I finally managed to rasp.
Thirty
Shae
May 9
Present …
When the call went to voicemail, I ended it and slid my phone back into my pocket and unwrapped my sandwich. “Have either of you heard from Trin today?”
We were gathered around on the floor, using upside down boxes as tabletops. Liz and Ci both looked up from their food. Ci shook her head, her mouth filled with bacon and chicken from her sub.
“No, she hasn’t texted me or anything,” Liz confirmed what I already knew.
“I just tried calling her to see if she would swing by the house and grab the extra step ladder from the shed, but she’s not answering. I’m actually surprised she hasn’t showed up yet. She said she’d be here as soon as school let out.” A part of me was worried her not showing up or calling had to do with her brother, like maybe he’d said something to her, but that didn’t seem like him. He wouldn’t put her in the middle and Trin wouldn’t be put in the middle. Even if he did talk to her, I didn’t know what she’d have to be mad about. Kellen had left here determined and confident. It was me who was the wreck. Liz and Cici had come back from buying paint and found me slumped against the wet wall, crying into my paint splattered hands.
After dragging from me what happened, and giving Ci a bit more of the background, they offered their two cents and then did their best to distract me with business details.
“Maybe she just went home to change and got caught up,” Liz offered.
“Probably.” I dug into my sandwich, and we discussed our timeline and plans for the next few days over our late lunch while we waited for primer to dry.
There was still no word from Trin after we’d polished off the food and went about pouring paint into trays to start on the first wall.
“I’m sure it’s just teacher stuff,” Liz assured a while later, after a couple more texts to Trinity went unanswered.
“I know. It’s just not like her to not even text back.”
“You’ll hear from her.”
“But I think we’ve done all we can here tonight.” Ci set her roller down and did a three-sixty, admiring our work. We’d never be professional painters, but we’d done a pretty damn good job, I thought. “I think the only thing to do now, after a long, tiring Monday, is go for drinks.”
“I can get behind that,” Liz chimed her agreement.
“You two go ahead. I need to head home and get caught up on the manuscript I’m working on.” In other words, I needed to finish that damn thing. Pat’s emails were non-stop, and I was so close, I just had to work out the ending.
“You sure? You already worked a full day,” Ci pointed out.
“I know, but I can’t quit my day job. Besides, I’m still reeling a little from earlier.” It would be good to channel some of it onto the pages.
“Yeah, it’s not every day the love of your young life struts in and confesses he’s still in love with you.” Cici, not knowing everything that Liz did, could only see the romance in it.
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“All the more reason to come have a drink with us.”
“Not tonight. You two go ahead. I’ll finish cleaning up here and then I’ll see you back in the morning. The crew is coming at nine, so I’ll probably come in around eight.” I shooed them out the door, insisting repeatedly that I didn’t mind cleaning up the paint supplies.
It was only just after seven and the sun still lit the sky, keeping it from feeling like night was settling in, so I didn’t think about locking the door after they were gone. If I had, Trinity wouldn’t have caught me off guard in the back room where I was hauling paint trays and brushes and rollers to be rinsed. I jumped, sending brushes and water all over the place when I caught her form shadowing the doorway to the backroom.
Hand pressed over my chest, I tried to calm my heart and my breathing. “You scared the crap out of me Trin.” That’s when I noticed her expression. “Is everything alright?” I shut off the water and reached for a hand towel.
She tossed something and it landed with a loud smack against the work table that stood between us. “We need to talk.”
My eyes cut to it and then back to her in a panic. “Where did you get that?” I choked out a whisper.
“You gave it to me. Remember, on Saturday I asked if I could take a book that grabbed my attention.”
I hadn’t even thought twice to ask her what book. It had never crossed my mind that it could be that one. My book. Didi had copies of all of them at her house. I didn’t know she kept copies here, or that somehow they’d ended up mixed in with the rest of her used collection for sale.
Shit, I only had myself to blame. I remembered now that Ci mentioned finding a handful of books in the back, and I’d absentmindedly told her to add them in with the rest.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I wrung the towel in my hands.
“Shae,” that one word contained so much accusation and pain and pity. I didn’t know you could fit that much into one word. Or one look. “How could you just …” her words trailed off.
“Just what?” I asked weakly. “What exactly is it I did Trin?”
Her jaw hardened. “How could you just leave like that?”
“Because he told me to go.”
“Well maybe if you’d told the truth, he wouldn’t have!”
I snorted a bitter laugh. “So I should have used it against him then? Used it to make him feel guilty, like he had to stay with me?”
“It wouldn’t have been guilt. He loved you, Shae. He was just–”
“Spare me the he was just doing what he thought was best for me. I’ve heard that speech already, and you know what, it wasn’t selfless or noble. It’s bullshit.”
“He was only eighteen, Shae. You were both kids, and he was scared, and there was more going on back then than you knew. If you had both just told the truth, it could have saved you both so much pain.”
“You think this is what I wanted?” I croaked.
“No,” her eyes washed with sympathy. “I know you didn’t mean …” she let out a heavy breath. “But Shae, he deserved to know. You wouldn’t have had to go through it alone.”
“And if you read the book, then you know I wanted to tell him. I tried to twice.”
“You should have that night.”
“You mean the one where he told me he wasn’t in love with me, that we had no future together. That night?”
“Dammit, he was lying,” she cried.
“You think I don’t know that?” I shouted back hoarsely and she looked slightly taken aback. “That’s what made it so much worse. I knew he was just trying to hurt me to make me leave.” That part hadn’t made it into the book. When I wrote down the events of that night, I’d left out the part where I’d seen the truth in his eyes even as the lies spilled from
his mouth.
“It would have been easier if it were the truth, if he really didn’t love me. Then I could have told myself it wasn’t me. You can’t force someone to have feelings, but I knew he did, and it still wasn’t enough. Do you have any idea what that feels like? To be rejected and told you’re not enough by somebody who knows every part of you and loves you but is too fucking afraid to give it a chance, so they decide to just throw you away instead. He wouldn’t fight for us.” I laid my hands flat on the table and leaned over it. “I wasn’t enough to make him fight. And as scared as I was, as much as I didn’t want to go through it alone, it would have been hell lying in that hospital bed, puking my guts out, being a pin cushion, knowing the only reason he was there was because he felt like he had to be.”
“That’s not true.” She stepped up to the table. “You two broke up at the beginning of that summer and I knew what he was doing. I tried so many times to talk him out of it, to make him see what a mistake he was making, but he wouldn’t listen to me. I couldn’t get through to him. Neither could Derek. He was so sure he was doing what was right for you, and he was prepared to give you up, but that night, whatever you said to him before you left, you got through to him. He was going to fight, Shae.”
“What do you mean?” I frowned.
“That night he told Tucker and me that he was leaving. He was going with you. He was going to do whatever it took to make things right. I was so excited and relieved, because I knew I was a big part of the reason he wouldn’t go in the beginning. But Tucker was not happy for him. They fought. Tuck said some terrible stuff to him, accused him of abandoning his family just like Mom and Dad. They screamed at each other and even took swings, but in the end, Kellen chose you.”
If this was true, then what the hell happened? Without having to ask, Trin continued her story. “Tucker stormed out and Kellen started packing, but before he could go after you, a cop showed up at our door and told us Tuck had OD’ed. On top of that, if he made it he was going to be facing some serious jail time for selling. It was about his tenth strike. Despite everything Tucker accused Kellen of doing, he couldn’t really turn his back on family. I tried to convince him to let Tuck clean up his own mess, but he was blaming himself for their fight and started agreeing with all that shit about him abandoning us. Instead of going after you, he went to the hospital. He made sure Tuck was taken care of and that he was going to get into treatment. I tried to convince him to still go after you, but you left that next day.”
And my nightmare began shortly after.
“Why didn’t he just call me and tell me all that?” Why hadn’t he mentioned any of that during his little confessional?
“I don’t know, I asked him that too, but I think he was afraid you wouldn’t answer his call. He thought giving you a little bit of time might make it better. He said he didn’t want to put anymore on you when you were getting settled at college, but I know he was waiting for you to come back. He started doing things that made me think he was planning on leaving. Tuck went away and Kell had him put the house in his name. He started fixing things up to make it rentable. I talked to Angie’s parents about moving in with them, which I did. He just worked. All the time, and everything he wasn’t putting into the house he was saving. When Thanksgiving came, he was different. Hopeful and excited. But you didn’t come home for Thanksgiving.” Because I couldn’t. By that time I could hardly get up and go to the bathroom.
“Derek told me once that Kellen sent him into your grandma’s shop to ask about you, see how you were doing at college. She wouldn’t give him much. After that, he threw himself back into work until Christmas time came, and then I noticed the change in his mood again. Nervous but excited. When you didn’t come home for Christmas break either, he went into your grandma’s shop himself. According to Derek, she told him he was better off forgetting about you.”
Didi never told me any of this, not that I was surprised. I’d been going through the worst of it then. Kellen was the last thing she would have brought up with me on one of her weekly bedside visits. She hated that he and mom were the reasons I wouldn’t just let her bring me home to a hospital here.
“He couldn’t though. He realized you weren’t coming back, so he went to New York looking for you one weekend.”
The clamp that had been tightening down on my chest, squeezed painfully.
“But I guess now it makes sense why he couldn’t find you at Columbia.”
Because I wasn’t there.
“When he came back …” she swallowed. “Well, I think you know the rest. He fell apart and it was a long time before he was able to put himself back together.”
I slumped against the table letting my head drop and hang there. “What did we do to each other?” I squeezed my eyes and breathed deep through the ache in my chest.
“You have to tell him the truth, Shae. You’ve both lived with so many lies and half truths for so long, it’s time that the whole truth came out.”
“Did you know he was in here earlier? He came to tell me that he doesn’t think it’s over between us. He’s finally fighting. It’s just seven years too late, because when I tell him, it’s going to crush him.”
“You still have to tell him. Or I will.” She grabbed the book and walked out.
Thirty-One
Kellen
May 7
Senior year …
God she looked beautiful tonight. The kind of beautiful that made my chest hurt and breathing difficult. She wore a blue dress. The color of my eyes, she said. That made my chest squeeze tighter. She’d also called it a mermaid gown. All I knew was that it looked like it’d been made for her body. All that pale blonde hair fell down her back in waves. She’d skipped all the pins and gunk this time, but once again a sparkling tiara sat atop her head.
She’d been shocked as hell when they announced she was voted prom queen. I wasn’t. For months so many of our classmates had tried to drag her down. They’d talked about her, spread rumors, judged her, but they finally came around and figured it out. She was miles above us all in class and grace. Not once did she sink to their level.
I also wasn’t surprised that my name was not called for prom king. But neither was Jeremy’s, so I was pleased as punch and didn’t care that she had to share one dance with Matt Collins. I got her the rest of the night, and Jeremy was definitely still feeling the loss of her. Any fool that lost her or gave her up would.
That thing in my chest throbbed.
Then she smiled at me and it wiped away every other thought from my brain except that I loved this girl so fucking much. “Did you have a good time tonight?” I pulled her to me there in the middle of my bedroom. We’d come back here after the dance because I told her I had a surprise for her.
Her arms went up around my neck in the same position we’d danced all night. Her eyes were still dancing and a beautiful smile played with her lips. “It was perfect.”
“Good.” I bent my head and kissed the tip of her nose. “But it’s not over yet. You need to get changed for your surprise.” I went to rummage through my drawers for something that would be more suitable than her six hundred dollar gown. My hands came away with a pair of drawstring, cotton pajama bottoms and a band tee just as I heard the distinct sound of fabric hitting the floor.
I stilled, drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out. “Sweet Jesus, please tell me that was not your dress.”
She was silent and I couldn’t help myself. I turned and dared a look. My heart stopped, my breath left me and my throat dried up all in one instant.
“Surprise,” she squeaked, standing in the pool of her gown, arms uncomfortably at her side, leaving her completely bare except for a tiny scrap of pink lace underwear.
My eyes didn’t know where to go, because where they wanted to go was not where I was trying to tell them to stay. Oh fuck, they went there anyway and now my heart was hammering away, pumping all the blood in my body south when I really needed it to be redirected to my brain. “Fu
ck,” I spun around, holding the shirt and pajama bottoms out behind me.
“What’s the matter?”
“Please for the love of God, put these on.”
After a very long second, where I had to force myself not to turn back around, she grabbed them from my hand and I heard the rustling of fabric as she slipped into them. In the next second, before I realized it was safe to turn around, she tried to escape out the door. I leapt into action, slamming my hand against it before she could yank it open. “Woah, woah, woah. Where are you going?”
She kept her back to me and hung her head, something dejected in the slump of her shoulders. “Home,” she whispered the one word to the door.
When I tried to turn her to face me, she stubbornly resisted. I wrapped my arms around her middle and dropped my chin to the crook of her neck. “Why are you trying to go home?”
She drew in a shaky breath that sounded alarmingly like a sniffle. I straightened immediately and spun her around by her shoulders. She refused to lift her chin, a curtain of hair hung around her face, but I could see the wet drops caught in her lashes.
Fuck, what did I do?
I lightly pressed my forefinger to the underside of her chin and she didn’t fight me. Her hair fell back, revealing bright red cheeks, with streaks down them. She kept her eyes downcast.
“Why are you crying pretty girl?” I swiped my thumbs over her cheeks.
Her eyes lifted to mine for only a second, before she looked away. “You don’t want me.” Those four softly pained words punched me right in the gut.
“You think that was me not wanting you?” I almost couldn’t believe it, except that I could. She’d taken my reaction to her stripping down in the middle of my room as a rejection, when it was anything but. Still, it was my fault. I waited for her to give me her eyes again. “That was not me not wanting you. That was me doing everything I could not to throw you on the bed and bury myself in you in one move.”
“Oh,” her lips formed the quiet word. “But, if–if you want me, then why don’t you want to …” her cheeks and the tip of her cute nose flamed.
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