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“I heard about your uncle and I wanted to…”
“To what?” Audra snapped. “Pay your respects?”
“Something like that,” I shrugged. I could feel my face flush and I looked away for a split second. There was nothing that could turn me into a shell of my former self faster than being face to face with Piper’s fiercely protective older sister.
“Thank you,” Jack said. His jaw was tight. “We appreciate you coming.”
I nodded and asked, “Where’s Piper?”
Audra laughed derisively and shook her head like she couldn’t believe I would dare speak Piper’s name in her presence.
“She ran out when she saw you,” Jack explained.
“Oh.”
“Are you surprised?” Audra demanded.
“A little,” I answered honestly. “I don’t know what I expected to happen when we saw each other again, but I didn’t think she would run away from me.”
“And why not?” Audra asked.
“Well, things didn’t end that badly,” I said quietly, speaking more to myself than to Audra.
“Maybe not for you,” Audra hissed. “But for Piper, it was…”
“Aud,” Jack said warningly. Audra turned to face her husband who simply shook his head.
“What?” I asked. “For Piper, it was what?”
“Nothing,” Jack said with a tone of finality in his voice. “For Piper, it was nothing. She just doesn’t want to see you. Can you respect that?”
“Of course, I can,” I nodded. “Will you just…”
I paused, not knowing exactly what I wanted to say. A hundred different ideas ran through my mind as I stared blankly at Jack. He waited patiently, his eyes never leaving mine. I could tell he wanted nothing more than for me to turn around and leave, but he was too polite to say so.
With a sigh I started again, “Will you just tell Piper I’m sorry? For her loss I mean.”
“We will,” Jack promised. He glanced toward the door, his intention perfectly clear.
“Thanks,” I said lamely. I turned to walk away, but Audra’s voice stopped me.
“Logan,” she said. “I know it may have not seemed like anything to you, but what you and Piper had meant everything to her. You broke her heart.”
I felt weak as I let Audra’s words wash over me. What did she mean by that? Didn’t she know that it meant just as much to me? Didn’t Piper know that?
Without a word, I left the pub and hurried across the parking lot to my car. I climbed inside and took a few deep, steadying breaths. Dammit. That was not how I pictured my reunion with Piper.
If I was being honest, I imagined we would pick things up exactly where we left them five years ago. When we broke up, it wasn’t because I wanted to leave her, but I had to. I couldn’t pass up my chance to be a SEAL. Piper of all people understood that. The night I told her, was a hard one, but I thought she knew what she meant to me.
Audra’s words made everything suddenly seem less clear. In my mind, Piper and I parted equally broken-hearted. We were both wrecked. We were both miserable. But, we were both setting out to fulfill our dreams. I always thought, once those dreams came true, that w
e would…
I shook my head and my eyes flew open. There was no use fantasizing about a future that was never going to happen. If what Audra said was true, then I couldn’t blame Piper for running out of the pub.
As I sat in my car everything began to click into place. All the letters I wrote to Piper and she never once wrote back. In the beginning, when I still tried to call, she never picked up the phone. Back then, I thought she was just taking some time. I thought she just needed a little space to heal and figure everything out herself. I wanted to give her that, so after a while, I stopped calling.
I kept writing. For years, I wrote her letters and sent them to the only address I had for her: her parents’ house.
