Coach let out a sigh, his shoulders slumping in a way I had never seen before.
“I was about to tell him before you walked in.”
“Too little, too late. You’re not our teacher anymore so I don’t owe you shit. You had five years to man up, so forgive me if I don’t believe you now.”
Turning her back on the man I’d looked up to for half of my life, Evie pinned me with a glare I had never seen directed at me before.
“You don’t deserve her.”
“I know—”
“Shut up. I’m speaking now. I have stood by and watched for years. Fucking years, Kane. Because Darcy is my friend and she didn’t want me to get involved. She tried to talk to you about the baby. A couple of times, actually, but you were so self-absorbed you couldn’t give her the space to share that shit with you. She wrote you a letter that he was supposed to give you. No idea what happened there.” The look she threw over her shoulder made my balls shrink, even as my stomach plummeted. Coach had intentionally kept it from me? No. I couldn’t believe he would have done something like that, would he? Not when he knew how much I cared about Darcy.
Something else scratched at the back of my mind, though. Something I’d never looked too closely at, and I hated to admit, it was because it meant admitting I was wrong about something.
“My swim meet. You were supposed to organize her ride.”
Coach dropped his head, his hands hanging loose between his knees.
“She was a distraction you didn’t need. You were slacking off in training, and it was more important to get you out of that damn house than it was to let your puppy love fuck everything else up.”
“So you let her deal with an unplanned pregnancy alone. You intentionally sabotaged what we had.” I could hear my voice rising, but couldn’t bring myself to care. Curious heads poked around lockers before disappearing again, everyone clearly unwilling to be caught in the crossfire.
“I couldn’t take you out of your father’s house physically, so I made sure you could get out under your own steam. You’re a talented kid. I thought you would get past the distraction and move on. No way was I going to let you ruin your life like that. So yeah, I ditched the note. You are what matters to me, not some girl after a story.”
“I loved her.” My chest was so tight I couldn’t get a breath in properly. I wanted to scream and rage as the man who had been so familiar to me became a stranger, right before my eyes.
His face fell, his eyes pleading in a way I’d never seen before.
“I know that now.” His words were soft. Aching.
“I watched you self-destruct for half a decade, searching for her in all the wrong places. I saw it as my punishment. Managing you and your flings was the price I paid to get you out. But you know what? I couldn’t keep it up any more than you could. Did you think it was a coincidence she was the one the Times sent to write your story?”
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Had I thought it was a coincidence?
I guessed I hadn’t really thought of it at all. And wasn’t that turning into the theme of my life. I looked to Evie, but she gave me nothing, standing back quietly, arms crossed over her front, watching us fall not-so-quietly to pieces.
“I have a plan,” I promised her, needing something from her. I didn’t know what, but all of a sudden, I had the sense I was completely alone. Floundering.
No one spoke, and the silence was suddenly an unbearable weight.
“I’m going to therapy. I’m… I’m going to get help. Make myself worthy of her. I just… I need time to get my shit together.” My words tumbled out in a frenzy, tripping over themselves, as though they knew there was only a small window in which they could be heard and understood.
Evie’s face softened. Moving stiffly, as though she were exhausted by more than just what we were facing, she moved up beside me and sank onto the bench.
“You’re assuming you have time. You don’t.”
“What—?”
“I’ve been helping her pack up her house. She’s moving back to Fankirth.”
Before I even registered moving, I was halfway to the door. “I have to see her.”
Evie was in front of me just as quickly. “Kane. You need to understand something here. Once again, this is your fault. She quit her job at the Times because of that article. She won’t say it to me, but she literally can’t afford to stay in Swenton. Did you know she still sends half her paycheck home to help her mother with her father’s medical bills? She still feels guilty about adding to that debt with the abortion. She refused to let me pay for it. Trust me, I tried. If you go after her now, I really fucking hope you know what you’re doing because I won’t stand by quietly while you screw up her life again.”
Jesus. How many times was I going to hurt her without even knowing it?
My mind worked overtime as I stood, staring at my best friend’s ex-girlfriend, my long-term friend. Someone who had been born with a silver spoon in her mouth, but had spent her existence looking after others. It was about time I started doing the same.
