But her heavy memories are mine too, and apparently, my regret can no longer hold its tongue. "Just because I left doesn't mean I wanted to. I never lied to you. Every minute, every second…" I turn to her, our eyes colliding as they used to when she would peer into my soul. "You have to know…" I shake my head and return my eyes to the road, halfway through an admission I shouldn't be giving. It may have only been fleeting seconds, but I know she saw it. My absence may have hurt her, but I've been dying a slow, torturous death living without her. I want to say so much more. I want to sayI want you back, I want you to be my forever, but instead, I say, "Our past meant something to me…" and I'd live there if I could, but I can't say that. I won't be cruel. Clearing my throat, I try to save my half-assed admission and attempt to turn it into an apology. "You were a big part of my past, and old habits die hard. We're different people now."
"Are we?" I remain frozen, feeling her gaze burning into the side of my head as the silence stretches between us, its weight heavier than the years we have spent apart. When I still don'tspeak, she draws a ragged breath. "Why didn't you ever call me? At first…fine…you were scared. But six years, London. Six years. You've been out here, living your life, hiding behind a different name but hardly hiding at all. If what you're saying now is true, if what we had meant something to you..." her voice cracks. "If it wasn't just empty promises between two kids playing at love...don't you think I deserved your truth? I loved you, London Hale. I would have kept your secret."
Her fractured composure destroys me. Each word is a blade between my ribs, carving deeper than I thought possible, dissolving the walls I'd built to justify my silence all these years. The truth in my silence is soul-crushing. There was never a single day I didn't think of calling her. Not one morning did I not wake with her name caught in my throat. I told myself I was protecting her, but hearing the raw devastation in her voice, I question if my absence wasn't protection but instead the cruelest wound I could have inflicted.
"I didn't call because I chose this. I chose to hide. I wasn't going to force you to endure a life of my choosing. You were eighteen, attending Stanley in the fall. You had your whole life in front of you. I didn't want to take that away?—"
"But that's exactly what you did by taking away my choice to choose what I wanted my future to look like. Whether I wanted you in it or not, you stole that from me. How was that any better?"
The gravel driveway leading to Fairfield comes into view sooner than I'd like. I messed up. I messed up big, and I don't know if I can fix any of it—or worse, if I should.
I risk a glance in her direction. "Are you saying you would've chosen this…chosen me?"
"Without question," she answers without hesitation, a wholehearted response from a heart that used to be mine. Knowing does not make any of this easier. It just makes it messy.
"And what about now?"
I turn my gaze back to her as the truck rides hard, crushingthe gravel beneath its wheels, the crunching filling the silence as I wait with bated breath, hoping for a response I don't deserve.
"I'm not a fan of masochism, and sacrificing my heart for one that wouldn't choose me back is the very definition. It's like you said… We're different people now."
I can't tell if she's using my words to mock me or if she echoes their sentiment. All I know is I hate that I ever said them. All truths transcend self-righteousness, and she is becoming the most undeniable truth in my life. I don't know the way forward, and I don't know if there's an us after I lay everything at her feet, but not trying only ends with one inevitable destiny—one without her.
"Laney, I?—"
"Crap." She sits up straight and pulls her feet out of my lap. "If I asked you not to get out of the truck, would you listen?"
"Depends on why you're asking," I state sharply, gripping the wheel tighter when I trace her line of sight to the black Audi parked in the circle drive outside the main house.
"You don't want to be found, remember." She leans forward in the seat, pressing her hands to the dashboard as if doing so will stop the car. Her breathing quickens, shallow, and irregular. "It's why you shut us all out," she adds anxiously.
Pulling my eyes away from her, I notice a figure exiting the car. He doesn't need to turn around for me to know exactly who he is. Noah Donovan, the man who has always wanted what was mine, the arms I willingly pushed her into, the man who lied in the name of saving the girl. You'd think that last part would garner a little more respect out of me, but it doesn't. He wouldn't save the girl at the risk of losing himself. He saved her for his own personal gain, and I let him. However, while I knew there was a chance he'd keep her the way he professed he would times before, I didn't think she'd keep him.
"Why is Noah Donovan here? Are you together?"
"Does it matter?" Her head snaps back to mine, her wide eyes filled with unspoken accusations.
"Yeah, it matters. I thought you were talking to my brother," I toss back. I don't like that either, but he's the lesser of two evils.
"We're talking. He isn't proposing marriage."
"I'm sure Trigg wouldn't see it that way. If I were talking to someone, I wouldn't want them talking to their ex," I defend. I'm not sure if Noah is her ex, and I'm also unsure if they ever dated after I left, which is precisely why I mentioned it. I need to know.
"You're one to talk. I'm sure Madison would be thrilled with today's conversation."
I don't correct her. She may not be completely wrong, but she's also not right. I'll let her believe what she wants for now. She's seeing what she wants to see, and now that Noah's here, I might need to let that play out.
"So he's your ex, then?"
She rolls her eyes and sets her jaw. She doesn't want to talk about it, and I fucking hate that I'm even asking. I hate that if they were anything, it was because I chose to be her nothing. I deserve the pain that's slicing me open right now. I conjured the storm. I don't get to complain about the damage.
"You left; he stayed." It's not a yes, but it's also not a no. "Look… I'm here for the summer. I don't want to fight with you." I slowly pull up behind Noah's car in the roundabout, and she adds, "Can we just be friends?"
"Friends," I repeat, shifting the truck into park.
The thought of watching her eventually find someone else makes my chest tighten painfully. All this time, I imagined her moving on with her life as I had intended her to, but seeing her now changes things. She might want to move on, but she hasn't, and fuck if I don't want her to. The foreign word hangs between us, and I risk glancing at her. Her earthy brown eyes trigger a rapid succession of memories—her head on my shoulder watching movies, the way her hand felt in mine, perfect afternoons fishing on the lake that started it all…the lake where I realized I was falling in love with her. I drop her gaze to stop the torment, but I don't agree to her terms. Friends is the last thing I want to be. I can't agree to a title I don't want, so I don't.
"Let me talk to him before you get out."
