“What was that? I didn’t hear you.” But he stopped shimmying. “I gotta go before they’re all out of food. Sure you don’t want to come?”
“Yeah, I really do have a meeting this afternoon. And I have to leave early because it’s one of the last practices before homecoming. You’re coming this weekend, right?”
“To the homecoming game? We wouldn’t miss it. Pretty sure you’re stuck with all of us coming now.”
I didn’t mind that. I felt like I’d faced all my demons head on. The past was in the past. And I was finally okay with that.
Homecoming - Chapter 20
Wednesday
Brooklyn
James didn’t say a word as I filled him in on the past 16 years.
And he wasn’t showing anything in his expression.
Penny had told us she’d leave us alone to catch up. But now as I stood here, staring at James, waiting for him to say something, I really wished she was here. I could use one of her hugs right now.
“Your father is a liar,” James finally said and stood up. “You already knew that. And you should have known better.”
“I should have known better? You married Isabella. After everything she did to me, how could you…”
“I was a fucking mess, Brooklyn! You knew me back then. You knew I didn’t have control over my life or my choices. And then I…then I lost you.”
I swallowed hard.
He shook his head. “Losing you made everything a thousand times worse.”
“But…I saw the pictures. The four of you were so happy…”
“Matt was not happy. He was fucking broken. He was barely holding on. He was worse than me. And trust me, I can’t evenimagine what that was like. Because I was drowning every day. And you can’t sit there and judge me for making shit decisions when you made one too.”
“I made the right choice. I loved Miller. I’ll always love him.”
His eyes softened.
“He gave me 15 years of happiness.” I shook my head. “More than that, really. I fell in love with him at the beach house. Even though I’d tried to stop it. I loved him for 16 years. And yes, maybe I should feel a little guilty. But I literally saw Matt’s dick in someone else, so I’d call it even.”
“That’s not fair, Brooklyn. He thought you were dead.”
“You don’t think I know that? You don’t think I tried to convince myself he still cared? But I was already so broken…” I stood up.
“We were too!” He ran his fingers through is hair and sighed. “We were broken too,” he said more calmly.
“I never meant to hurt anyone.”
“But you did. You made choices acting like you meant nothing to all of us. And I don’t know how you could possibly think that’s true. It’s like you didn’t think of any of us at all. And we never stopped thinking about you.”
I tried to blink away the tears in my eyes. I couldn’t stand here and tell him I never stopped thinking about him either. Because I had stopped. I’d forced myself to stop.
He shook his head. Like he was disappointed in me. But that wasn’t fair. Because I was disappointed in his choices too.
I was done with this conversation. I’d told James everything. All of it. I hadn’t left a word out. He’d listened, just like Penny had asked him to. But he didn’t understand. And I didn’t think I could make him understand. He hadn’t been there. He didn’t know how isolated I was at that beach house. How the only thing keeping me going was knowing Matt was missing me too. How badly I was relying on that one fact. And it wasn’t true. I’d seen it with my own eyes.
“You need to go see Matt,” James said.
Just the thought made me feel like I couldn’t breathe. I picked up my cup of tea that Penny had brought in and walked over to one of the pictures on the living room wall. It was from James’ wedding. James and Penny were wrapped up in each other. And the rest of the Untouchables were smiling in the picture. Rob. Mason. Matt. I stared at the smile on his face. How could James say he wasn’t happy? He looked plenty happy to me.
