Every tear that cascades down her cheeks is a single shred of my heart being ripped away—death by a thousand cuts. God help me, I’m crying, too, and I don’t even try to stop it.
“When you walked into that rehearsal dinner, I knew it would always be you and nobody else.
“I wanted to take you on that date. I wanted to drive you back to school to help you move in. I wanted to hop on a plane to New York every other weekend to see you. And I thought—” My voice cracks. “I thought if we both were sure of each other then we would talk to Drew together.”
At last, she meets my eyes, cheeks streaked with tears to match my own. “I would have said yes. To all of it,” she breathes.
I know. That’s why it was so hard to walk away.
“Tell me what happened. And don’t sugar coat it to make Drew look good. Tell me the truth.”
While there’s a small part of me that struggles to say anything bad about her brother, I can’t deny the woman standing in front of me.
“Drew didn’t want Mav or any of our old college crew making passes at you, so he pulled me aside after dinner and asked me to keep them away.” Every muscle in her body goes taut. “And I told him that I thought he was going overboard, but?—”
“Let me get this straight,” she interrupts, indignation brewing. “It was just assumed that I couldn’t handle myself with a bunch of twenty-five-year-old man-children?”
“He didn’t mean it like?—”
“Stop defending him!”
“I’m not defending him,” I shout back. “I’m telling you how it was. He knew what kind of guys they were. Hell, I was one of them, Gretchen!” I move a step closer now. “The guy who looks for the one-night-stand instead of long term commitment. The guy who wakes up the next morning and can’t remember the name of the woman lying next to him.”
Shaking her head, she cries, “I never cared about your past, Connor! That’s not who you are!”
“With you! WithyouI wasn’t that person! For that year, I only sawyou.I only talked toyou.I only thought aboutyou.But Drew didn’t know that.”
“Why does Drew’s opinion matter more than mine?”
I stop, chest swelling with a heavy breath.
All I’ve ever tried to do is be a good friend. To not betray Drew’s trust. To not come between him and his sister. But has all of that been at the expense of Gretchen’s agency in the matter?
“What he says goes because I’m just the little sister, right? Whocares whatIwant or if I get crushed in the process as long as Drew’s the hero saving me from the big bad frat boy.” She huffs out a disgusted breath. “You know what, you don’t need to tell me the rest, I know enough.”
I move in closer. “Stop, no,” I say. Her hand comes up and I skitter to a halt.
“No! You stop, Connor. Whether or not we were together was a decision for you and I to make. Not Drew. You let him decide and you didn’t even consult me! Then you went and invitedherand apparently that’s all Drew’s fault, too.”
“I let Drew get in my head and I shouldn’t have,” I say hoarsely. “I fucked up. I thought that—” I shake my head to try and rid myself of the shame. “I thought if I could distance myself from you that would hurt you less in the end.God, it sounds so shitty when I hear myself say it out loud.”
“And Drew’s why you left me on that balcony?”
“Walking away from you was the worst decision of my life, Gretch.” I take a chance and step closer. This time she doesn’t stop me. “I can’t even count the number of mistakes I made that weekend and since, but kissing you was not one of them.”
Her eyes soften—she wants so badly to believe me. But the tense arms crossed over her front like a shield tell a different story—she’s terrified I’ll hurt her again.
“If that’s true, why didn’t you call? Why did you start seeing someone else?”
Instinct takes over as I reach for her, but she leans away. “Please, don’t. Just answer the question.”
I work my jaw a few times. “I must have picked up the phone to call a thousand times. I know it’s not an excuse, but I was so ashamed. You were in every thought of every minute of every day. I couldn’t even escape you when I slept because you were in my dreams, too.” I pause, calling forth the memories of the darkest time of my life. “I think I was depressed. The more I tried to drown my sorrows in alcohol, the worse it got until I didn’t even recognize myself. I honestly thought that even if I got a second chance, there was no way I could ever be good enough for you.” I swat a tearaway. “When Drew told me you decided not to come home for Thanksgiving, I knew. You told him it was because it was too expensive to travel, but I knew it was because of me. I turned into the worst version of myself after that. I never told Drew why I was such a mess, but he saw the mess, Gretch.”
The tears fall relentlessly. Hers. Mine. Ours.
“I don’t regret you. I could never. Everything I felt for you then didn’t just disappear. Distance, alcohol, ignorance, other women…it doesn’t matter what I tried. None of them wereyou. And I’m a selfish bastard who walked into a restaurant two months ago, convinced that I could handle seeing you again. That three years was enough time to move on. But it wasn’t. Not even close.
“Because I’ll never move on. It will always be you.”
