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And I was right.
Because after I graduated, I joined the Galaxy’s youth summer program all the way in California.
Honestly, I did that more to be close to him than for soccer.
But whatever.
It was a happy time because I could see him and talk to him without all the million freaking rules and restrictions.
Well, overall happy. Because that was also when I broke the news to my sister.
I hadn’t been looking forward to it but it had to be done.
I had to tell her. And I had to do it in person.
So I’d asked Arrow – and also Leah – to keep our relationship a secret until I could get a chance to see Sarah. Arrow wasn’t happy about it but he did it for me. He also wanted to be there when I told her, but I refused.
I had to do it alone and I did.
We met for coffee – she wouldn’t agree to lunch – and I told her.
And she told me that I was a whore. That I broke her trust and betrayed her in the worst possible way.
I mean, it wasn’t unexpected.
I had always known that she’d say those things. I always knew she would never forgive me for loving Arrow.
But still, it hurt. It made me cry for a few days when I got back from our little coffee date.
Now my sister and I, we don’t talk.
We haven’t talked in ages. She doesn’t return any of my phone calls or emails. She even quit her job with the team and moved to New York a few weeks after I’d broken the news to her.
As much as it still hurts, I get it.
I get her anger.
It’s the same anger that I have for her, for doing what she did to Arrow. For betraying the guy I love.
But Arrow doesn’t get that. He is mad. At Sarah, I mean.
Not because of what she did to him. I think he lost all his anger the night he realized the truth about their relationship. I don’t think he even considers what he had with Sarah a relationship.
He’s mad on my behalf.
He’s mad because Sarah has never treated me like a sister and he doesn’t like that.
I try to put him at ease though.
I try to tell him that it’s okay. That I have him and he’s the only one I need to be happy.
But he’s adamant in his hatred and fury.
Honestly, I get that as well.
I know how he feels. Because that’s exactly what I feel for Leah.
What I’ve been feeling for Leah for the past two years, ever since I found out the whole truth of what she did when Arrow was a child.
After Arrow decided that he was going to stay in St. Mary’s awhile, he also started seeing Dr. Lola Bernstein regularly. It took him some time to open up, but slowly, he told her things from his childhood.
He told me things too.
Things that I had no idea about.
Horrifying things. Things that made me cry for the little boy he was, scared and trying to be perfect for a mother who was never happy with anything.
Things that I now call abuse, and rightfully so.
It was abuse.
The way Leah would make him work harder than any other kid. The way she always dangled his father’s death as the reason to be the best.
I always knew she could be very strict and exacting. Always expecting the best from Arrow. I also knew – after he came back into my life – that he could be very self-critical and intense about perfection.
But gosh, it’s worse than I thought.
Much worse.
I only moved in with them when he was fifteen. By then, Leah had successfully trained him into a perfect freaking son.
So I hadn’t really known about it – the depths of damage that Leah had caused – until he opened up to me last year about the things he’d gone through when he was just a kid.
His mom was cruel to him. Beyond cruel.
And I don’t think I can ever forgive her. I can be civil to her for Arrow’s sake but my loyalties lie with my deeply damaged and dark sun.
So that’s the second thing that has been hard for us: Leah and how her actions have affected Arrow.
But we said that we’d figure it out and that’s what we have done.
And that’s what we’re doing.
I come back to the moment when he reaches me, tall and handsome, his large fingers curled around the delicate ice cream cones.
“Hi, boyfriend,” I say, before taking one of the cones from his hand. “Thank you.”
I lick the chocolate ice cream with sprinkles while peeking at him through my eyelashes and he grumbles, “You can’t follow a rule to save your life, can you?”
I pout. “Sorry.”
“Are you?”
Biting my lip, I shake my head before leaning up to kiss his cheek with ice cream lips. “No.”
