Twelve Years Ago
“I’msorry,Leslie.Ilove you, you know I love you. But I just don’t see how this is going to work while I’m at Stanford.” Trent’s words take me by surprise. He told me he wanted to talk about something important, but this is the farthest thing from what I expected.
“What are you talking about? You’ll only be a few hours away! How can we not make that work?”
He heaves a sigh and my heart plummets. I’m not going to like what’s coming next. “Maybe it’s better to say that I’m not sure I want to make it work. While I love you, I want to experience other things. I want to live the real college experience and not worry about my girlfriend back home and what she’s doing. I don’t want to miss out on parties and things because I had to come home to see you.”
“So, what you’re saying is that you want to be able to sleep around.” That’s really what this boils down to. He wants to feel free to be with whomever he wants and not worry about his high school girlfriend.
“Maybe I do! What’s so wrong with that?”
“You’re breaking up with me to sleep around?” It hurts in a way I never could have expected.
“I don’t know, Leslie. I want the experience. Thefullexperience. I don’t feel like I can do that with you here because I’ll always be thinking about you. Your plan is still to come to Stanford right? With your grades you’ll get in easy. Hell, you helpedmeget in. We can try again then.”
His plan is ludicrous. He wants to break up with me, so he can be free to do whatever, and then get back together when I get there?
“What if I don’t want to? You’re breaking up with me to be with other people. That means I probably will too, Trent.”
His jaw twitches, and his eyes darken as his grip around my biceps tightens in a proprietary way. Something he has no business thinking or feeling anymore.
I loosen his fingers and take a step back. “It’s fine, Trent. Do what you want. You want us to be done? Okay. We’re done.”
Turning on my heels, I start to leave but he steps in front of me, wrapping his arms around me and tugging me into his chest. “I’m sorry, Leslie. I do love you. I’m so confused. I don’t know what’s right and what to do or not do here. Maybe I’m letting the guys get in my head too much about what I’ll be missing out on. It doesn’t even matter that much because all I want is you.”
I try to push away from him, but he just holds me tighter. “Then why, Trent?”
“I don’t know. It just feels like it’s what needs to happen. I’m sorry. Please don’t hate me.”
I loop my arms around his waist and squeeze him back. “I could never hate you. You were my first…everything. I’ll always love you. But I won’t wait for you. If we run into each other at Stanford and everything is in the right place, maybe we can try again. But I won’t stop my life for you.”
“I’d never ask you to do that. But I do hope that we’ll find each other again someday.” With one finger he tips my chin up and brushes his lips against mine. “Goodbye, Leslie.”
One curt nod is all I give him as I leave his embrace and his house.
I head straight for Veronica’s. She answers on the third knock and her face falls the second she takes me in, bouncing on my feet, biting my lip and having my arms crossed tightly against my chest.
“What happened? What did he do?” Reaching out, she pulls me inside and into her arms.
It’s there that I let the perfection break for a moment and I burst into tears, collapsing into my best friend as she supports me and lets me sob against her.
Chapter 6
Present Day
Myeyesstaygluedout the window into the backyard where the girls are playing. The water sloshes in the sink creating a white noise effect as I scrub a dish. Charlie’s passed out in his crib for his afternoon nap.
One thing I’ve never told Becca is how the breakup years ago, caused resentment in me. I resent Trent for that time apart.
I don’t bring it up with him either, because I know he feels bad and wishes he hadn’t done it. I don’t need to make him feel worse. But the resentment bubbles beneath the surface all the same.
I’m worried going to the reunion. Being back in that school with those people, when I spent the end of it without him. It will bring that resentment boiling to the surface. And I can’t have that.
It’s not fair to him. And while I know that, even years later, I can’t let the feeling go. It’s not like things would be different. It’s not like we’d have had kids any earlier or later or done anything differently. We just wouldn’t have had experiences outside one another.
There wouldn’t have been one night stands, and waking up regretting your drunken decisions from the night before, because we would have been with each other. And I would have been okay if Trent was my one and only. Instead, he’s my first and last.
A kiss presses against my temple while an arm wraps around my middle. “Hey, Baby.” The plate I was still scrubbing goes crashing into the sink, chipping in the process.
