I turn to face him and scrunch my face. “Liar.”
He sighs heavily and brushes the hair from my face. “I never stopped loving you, Leslie. I need you to know that.”
“Okay. I don’t feel like I ever stopped loving you either.” My heart is racing as I wonder where this is going.
“I’m just…I’ve been wondering if you saw other people while we weren’t together. And it shouldn’t matter, because we were broken up, which is my doing, and I saw other people, but I’m curious.” The tone of his voice makes me realize how serious he is and how much this has been plaguing his mind.
This is a conversation we need to be on the same level for. Or at least as close as we can be with our height difference. So I sit up and pull my feet underneath me and take his hand in mine, placing them in my lap.
“Yes. I dated somebody after we broke up.”
“How long?”
“About a year.”
“Who?”
“David Tinkerton.”
His eyes flash up to mine and narrow. “That weirdo? You seriously dated him? He was like…obsessed with you. What did he Stockholm you into dating him or something?”
“No. He approached me one day and asked me on a date. I figured I had nothing to lose since we weren’t together anymore. This was a few months after you broke up with me, by the way. In case you’re wondering the time frame. And…I don’t know, the date went well. He made me laugh, Trent. He was nice to me. And very opposite of you in very many ways which helped at the time because I was still hurting over the loss of you.” I give his hand a squeeze as his chin drops to his chest.
“So, you dated for a year. I’m assuming you slept with him?”
My cheeks burn. Then the fire rages inside me. What right does he have to ask. “Yes. I did. Not that it’s any of your business.”
His hand grips the back of my head. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s been driving me crazy, Leslie. I was such a damn fool to break up with you, to even let another person come close to you while it should have been me the whole time. I just, I needed to know.”
“Well, now you do.”
“I appreciate you telling me.”
“Did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Have any girlfriends? Or did you just sleep around?”
He flinches at my question, and I know I hit a nail on the head. “A little of both. Not as much as you might think. And I didn’t date anybody longer than a few months.”
“How soon?” I waited an entire year before I even thought about dating another person. Hopefully he did too.
“I started dating somebody the winter of my freshman year.” He sounds small. Defeated.
And I’m hurt. This conversation had no business happening.
“But I need you to know that I was trying to ease the ache in my heart. And I broke up with her. With all of them. Because they weren’t you, Leslie. You were always in the back of my mind.”
“What if I didn’t come here? What if I didn’t come to Stanford and went to NYU instead?” It was a possibility. The acceptance letters were many and spread across the country. I had my pick of Ivy Leagues.
“Your dream had always been Stanford. It’d been our dream together. I was hoping you were going to follow through.”
“What if I didn’t?”
“I don’t know, Leslie. I didn’t plan it out, I just held out hope. And I’m happy I did because you’re here.”
“It just as easily could have gone another way.”
