Then I remembered with sick and abrupt clarity why it had been over thirty-five years since I’d spoken with her, and all the words I’d been holding inside for decades came spewing out.
“You left. You didn’t even call me, or leave a message, or tell me why or where you were going—you just left. I thought—after that day on the beach, I thought you were—that we were going to—” I couldn’t bring myself to complete a sentence.
Peyton’s face crumpled, and she lowered her gaze. “I know.”
“Are you here withhim? Are you guys still together? Did he come to the reunion?”
She slowly wagged her head. “No,” she whispered, and although I waited for something more, it didn’t come.
“I loved you,” I said, my voice low. “I loved you with all of my eighteen-year-old soul, and you broke my heart. If you didn’t want to be with me, you only had to say so that day. But you made me think we had a chance, and then you disappeared. With him.”
She covered her face with both hands, drawing in her shoulders. I thought she was crying, but then she dropped her hands.
“You don’t know,” she murmured. “You don’t know anything. I broke my own heart, too. You have no idea.”
She grabbed for the small purse that she’d set down on the table, and turning around, she ran from the room, leaving me alone.
Again.
Chapter Five
Peyton
Sunrise at the Cove was something that I’d forgotten.
I wasn’t entirely certain how I could’ve neglected to recall how much I loved rising early and watching the first rays of sunlight race over the churning gray water, turning the waves blue as they stretched and brightened. I used to come down here all the time growing up; some of my earliest memories placed me right here on the sand, holding my father’s hand as we waited to watch the sun come up.
“Hold your breath, Peyton,” he would whisper to me. “Now blow?—”
And as I’d release that breath, the sun would suddenly appear over the horizon. For some time, I’d believed that I was the one actually making it happen. My dad would carry me to the beach from our house on weekend mornings because I was an early riser, and he wanted to let my mother sleep in.
I’d forgotten that, too.
In the haze of pain that had surrounded my abrupt departure from the Cove all those years ago, I’d forced myself to push aside those sweet memories of my parents. I had chosen to only think of the last hurtful words, of the threats and ultimatums thrown at me in the wake of me telling them that I was pregnant.
But once upon a time, my father had held my hand on this beach and let me believe that I controlled the movement of the sun. And once upon a time, my mother would welcome us home with our sandy feet and salt-kissed skin, ushering us to a table laden with pancakes and bacon and orange juice. I could see it now as clearly as if I sat there still in the special chair my dad had made for me, a bib carefully tucked around my neck, watching my dad steal a kiss from my mother as she giggled and pretended to dart away.
I had grown up surrounded by love, raised by parents who adored me. It had only been later, in my teen years, that my father had grown more silent. I wondered now if he had been mystified about how to interact with a daughter who was turning into a young woman; maybe I had been easier as a child. My mother, on the other hand, saw in me a second chance to enjoy high school, and she had loved that I was Ryan Harvey’s girlfriend.
In my junior year of high school, when I’d told her in halting, unsure words that I didn’t know if I wanted to continue dating Ryan, she had been shocked. She’d rolled her eyes at my concerns, telling me that breaking up with Ryan would ruin my reputation at school and threaten my status. I could have done it anyway; my mother wouldn’t have liked it, but I could have done it.
But making my mom happy was important to me, and to be honest, as I only could be now, three and a half decades later, I didn’t want to lose my identity as the girlfriend of Ryan Harvey. Deep down, I already realized that I didn’t like him. I cringed when he bullied others, or when Ryan and his friends picked on classmates or acted like morons. We couldn’t have an intelligent conversation, not like the long and satisfying talks I had with Nash Sampson.
Nash.
Thinking about him now, the sun beginning to bathe my face, I closed my eyes and let the shame and guilt roll over my body. Last night, when he’d looked at me with so much hurt in his eyes, I’d wanted to die.
“You left. You didn’t even call me, or leave a message, or tell me why or where you were going—you just left.”
“I loved you with all of my eighteen-year-old soul, and you broke my heart.”
Nash hadn’t said anything that I hadn’t already known. Even as I rode out of town on the morning of graduation, curled up in the backseat of the Harveys’ BMW, I had been fully aware that Nash would be devastated by my departure. It had hurt me as well, but on that day, in that moment, I’d had my hands full worrying about myself and the fragile life I carried within me. I couldn’t bear to take on responsibility for Nash’s feelings, too.
The truth was that I had loved him, too. What was between us in those days hadn’t been anything like the hot burn of attraction I’d experienced when I’d met Ryan, nor had it offered me the added benefit of popularity, being one half of the most enviable couple at Crystal Cove High.
No, with Nash, everything had happened slowly. I became aware of him when he’d answered questions in classes we shared during freshman year. He’d made me laugh and made me think. By the time we sat next to each other in tenth grade Honors English, I knew how intelligent and sweet Nash could be. We’d worked together on projects, and to my surprise, he didn’t agree to do all the work, the way other boys might have. No, Nash expected me to pull my weight and then some.
Thinking about it now, maybe that was what had attracted me to him. Nash recognized and honored my mind. I’d caught him gazing at me with admiration often enough to realize that he also found me physically appealing, but there wasn’t any doubt that he was also drawn to my ability to counter his arguments and disagree with his conclusions. I remembered coming home exhilarated after a study session with Nash, on fire in a way that I never was with Ryan.
