AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Presley, don’t be dramatic—”
“Please, don’t do that. Don’t put me off like how I feel isn’t real. Sebastian’s dream, the dream to change the world, it’s a beautiful one. It’s meaningful, fulfilling. But if we were ever going to work, our dream has to be each other. The fact that neither of us is throwing it all away for us is its own sign. All we think about is what we’re giving up, and neither of us is willing to sacrifice it all for a maybe. I’ve given myself to everyone else for too long, Mom,” I said, unable to contain my tears. “I’ve done it gladly. For you, for Cilla. But now, it’s my turn. I don’t want to give up what I want for anyone else, and I won’t ask Sebastian to do it either. I can’t live with that. I just can’t.”
I swiped at my cheeks and stood as she watched, her eyes shining with tears of her own.
“It’s okay. Everything’s going to be fine. It’s just gonna hurt for a minute until we get where we’re going.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but I headed her off, calling to Priscilla, “Did you find your towel?”
Priscilla ran out of her room with a scuba mask on and her bathing suit on backward. “I can’t find it, Mama.”
A laugh puffed out of me. At least there was this small joy in my life. “Come on, bug. Let me help you. Maybe starting with getting your suit on right.”
She looked down at herself and tugged at the neckline, which was closer to her bellybutton than it should have been. I listened to her talk as I stripped her and got her set right, reminding myself of what was important.
Even if I was missing that one, most important thing.
Him.
24
Don't Be Cruel
SEBASTIAN
I’d been up all night trying to decide what to do.
It was already hot at nine in the morning as I sipped my coffee on the front porch, waiting on Presley and Priscilla with a bittersweet ache in my chest.
Because I wanted to stay, but they were leaving. And I didn’t know if I could be here without them. Not anymore.
The way I saw it, I had two options: I could stay and work through custody with Presley, or I could leave for the other side of the world where they were nothing but a memory.
The latter held the bigger appeal.
Maybe I could forget them. Maybe I could fill the hole in my chest with what would be in front of me. The job would be consuming enough that it just might work. I’d be too tired to think at the end of every day, too busy in the daylight to wonder what they were doing without me.
Running away would be easy. Staying would be brutal.
Yesterday, the opposite was true.
Somehow, I’d lost the future I wanted in the span of one conversation. I shouldn’t have left the tickets out. I should have told her about Brandon’s visit. I should have told her I’d already told them no and that I was going to say no again as soon as I thought about it like I’d promised. Which I hadn’t done when Presley had asked me, despite her insistence.
But maybe she was right. Maybe I had wanted to go all along. I’d decided to stay, but I hadn’t informed the Peace Corps. Maybe I knew it would end this way. Maybe I wanted to leave the door open, just in case.
Either way, the decision had been made for me. Presley had made up her mind without asking me, without talking to me. She’d taken the gossip from her cousins and the stack of papers she’d found and ran away with it. And then there was whatever Marnie had said—which hadn’t been a thing I’d ever have factored into Presley’s decision making.
I shouldn’t need to explain the nature of what she’d found. I shouldn’t have had to explain that I’d pretended like I was leaving to the townspeople who asked—which they did, and often. I couldn’t exactly tell them I was staying, not before I’d told Presley.
Should have known that would bite me in the ass.
But I thought she’d understand. I thought she’d give me the benefit of the doubt. I’d never given her a reason to believe otherwise. I’d never imagined she’d do anything but believe me. And now I was too hurt, too heartbroken to fathom how it was possible that I found myself where I was. Maybe she was right—maybe I didn’t know her like I thought I did. Maybe we were nothing but a string of daydreams, threaded together with memories and fairy tale wishes.
It was easier to swallow than loving her, knowing we were lost to each other.
She’d rejected me. She’d accused me. She’d made presumptions that left me wondering if I knew her at all. Or if she knew me. If she did, she’d never have done this.
