Alice still bites her lip the way she always used to when she was nervous. I hate that I remember that about her. I hate that I remember anything.
“I know you don’t owe me anything after what I did, but I owe you. Please. Hear me out and then you’ll never have to see me again.”
That’s not really true because her mom and dad still live next door to my parents. But pointing that out doesn’t feel very helpful right now.
Nothing she says can make this any better, and now the only woman I want to speak to is gone. But since August has disappeared to free his car, it’s either be a complete asshole or hear her out.
“Fine.”
Her shoulders rise and fall with the soft breath that pushes through her rosy lips. “I’m sorry. I know I said that before, but I am sorrier than you’ll ever know. I shouldn’t have run away. I should’ve stuck it out. You deserved better than that.”
All those things are true, but I’m not sure what she thinks saying them now is going to do.
Her lips lift into a soft smile as she spins the wedding ring I gave her around her ring finger.
What the fuck is she doing still wearing it?
“I had this idea in my head that I was missing out on so much,” she goes on, still spinning, spinning,spinning. “Every time I went online, I saw all my friends going out to clubs, dating a different guy every other weekend, living life to its fullest.” Her hands fall, and her eyes lift, glittering. “What I didn’t realize wasthat they were all searching for something I’d already found with you.”
I told her that, didn’t I? So did everyone else.
She didn’t listen.
“So, what? All it took was a dickhead or two treating you like shit for you to realize I wasn’t such a mistake after all?”
A single, solitary tear trails down her perfectly sculpted cheek. “I never said you were a mistake.”
No, she didn’t. She just made mefeellike one. That feeling of inadequacy lived in my bones until the day Loren Piper moved into my apartment and into my heart.
“What do you want from me, Alice?”
Her soft, hopeful smile makes me want to turn and run in the opposite direction. “I came here hoping for a second chance.”
How long did I wait by the phone, hoping and praying to hear those words?
Too damn long.
Now that she’s said them, I feel nothing but sadness. Because as much as I loved this woman, she has become a stranger to me.
“But when I arrived, I saw you with someone else. You looked so happy.” Her words tremble, and more tears fall.
I am happy. Or, at least, Iwasuntil all of this went to shit.
Alice smiles, revealing the dimple in her right cheek. “Your girlfriend is a very lucky woman.”
I don’t know about that, but hearing her say it, seeing the sincerity in her tear-filled eyes makes me feel like it might just be true. If only I hadn’t fucked it up by lying. “I’m the lucky one.” Loren brought me back to life.
August beeps from the driveway, waving a hand at me.
“I’m sorry, Alice. I have to go.” If she says anything else, I don’t hear her. I’m already running toward my future.
But then my cousin Kelly steps out of the house with a neon sun hat and a whistle and shouts, “Your turn to guard the fort, Elliott!”
Shit.
I completely forgot about signing up to play lifeguard. August leaps out of his Jeep and jogs down the hill to snag the whistle. “I’ll take his shift.”
“You sure?”
