Page 49 of All the Beautiful Things
I took her to the dance floor, to the middle where we’d get lost among the couples. Most swayed slowly, keeping eyes on Brandon and Jenna, but mostly I couldn’t help but notice Jenna’s grandparents and her parents dancing, lovingly holding each other.
That was what I wanted.
A lifetime commitment to someone where we could be eighty or eighty-five and we wouldn’t ever miss a moment to dance and hold hands.
I took Lilly’s hand in mine, settled my hand on the soft velvet of her dress. As she melted into my touch, my fingers went higher. I brushed my fingertips along her bare skin, reveling in the way goose bumps pebbled beneath my fingers.
Her body shivered, and her grip on my own hand tightened.
And then Adele came through the speakers, almost making me lose my footing. I hadn’t planned the song, and I couldn’t even tell you the title but the deep, throaty voice of the singer was undeniable and the song was pretty damn perfect. Instead of spilling my heart out to Lilly on the dance floor, apologizing for the hundredth time and begging her to forgive me, I held her tighter. I pressed her close to me so she couldn’t do much else but rest her cheek at my chest, no doubt able to feel the thundering of my heart racing as Adele sang of making dreams come true, holding her when the world was against her, that there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for her. Even if she hadn’t made up her mind, I silently promised with my firm hold on her, the way we swayed, and the shelter I wanted her to offer Lilly that there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for her.
When the song began to reach its end, I pulled back enough to brush my lips against her ear and I whispered, “What do I have to say? What do I need to do for you to know how sorry I am for hiding everything from you? How much it killed me to do so, knowing that when you found out, we’d be right here, you not sure if you can trust me?”
She pulled back and let me see the tears streaming down her cheeks, from the song or my question I didn’t know. Lilly stepped out of my embrace, slipping through my fingers like raindrops, and wiped her tears.
“I don’t know.”
On a muffled sob, she covered her mouth and left the dance floor, putting her back to me. Reminding me that while she might have been less pissed today than yesterday and the day before—that she wasn’t over it.
And that trust I so desperately wanted to earn back?
She might never give me.
16
Lilly
What was wrong with me?
I asked myself the question a dozen times after Hudson’s speech at dinner, and then more times once I was in the restroom, cleaning my face after bursting into tears. Again.
It was only a couple hours ago and there I was, all over again, staring at my tear-stained cheeks and ruined eye makeup—or what was left of it from the first go-around—in the mirror, berating myself for being so damn stubborn.
He’d been honest. It rolled off him as he spoke. It seeped into my pores as he held me.
He wanted me.
Hudson felt like complete crap from keeping the truth from me for so long.
Yet there I was, swiping what was left of smeared mascara from beneath my eyes and patting my now blotchy cheeks, instead of answering his simple question.
What do I have to do? What do I have to say?
Ultimately, he didn’t have to do anything. I was the broken one. I was the one whose trust had been broken so many times I didn’t know how to hand it over after having my hand already smacked.
I was the one who grew up in such dysfunction I didn’t know what healthy relationships looked like.
I was the one who’d spent so many years guarded, my movements constantly searching for threats, I didn’t know how to settle into a safe environment.
I was the messed up one.
Yeah, Hudson had screwed up. All of them had. Yeah, I was still pissed they didn’t tell me about Melissa from the beginning.
But the more time went on, the more I understood why they didn’t. Why David wanted to wait, even if his trickery still made me upset.
He played Hudson and I, and I still wasn’t sure if Hudson knew exactly why, at least—not when it came to Melissa’s desires.
I had to know you’d be there for him.
