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“I did.”
“No, you didn’t. You left me the second you got the chance. Why did you even bother to take me with you in the first place?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Pop’s right; it’s time to just tell the whole story.”
My head snaps to him. “What are you talking about?”
He sighs and nervously runs his fingers through his hair.
“Tell me,” I insist.
I stand there, tapping my foot, waiting.
He takes both my hands. I fight the instinct to jerk away from him. But I need to hear this.
He guides us back to the sofa, and we sit, facing each other.
“That night when I left the motel to pick up food, your father was waiting for me at the gas station beside the motel. We locked eyes as I passed his truck, and I watched in the rearview mirror as he pulled out behind me. I drove to the bowling alley parking lot, and that was where we had our confrontation.”
“Daddy was there? In Nashville?”
He nods. “Yeah, he was furious. I was honestly afraid he was going to break my neck. Instead, he broke my heart,” he says.
“What happened?”
“I got out of my truck, and he rolled down his window and told me to get in. He was angry. Rightfully so. He explained how devastated your mother was when she woke to find you gone. How disappointed he and my parents were in us both. Then, he pointed out that I was turning eighteen in four days and that I had run off with his seventeen-year-old daughter. In the state of Tennessee, that’s a crime. He said he didn’t want to, but he could and would have me arrested for kidnapping and statutory rape if I didn’t send you home.”
“Kidnapping? Rape? You were my boyfriend. I went with you willingly,” I say.
“I know, but none of that would’ve mattered once my birthday came,” he explains.
“Why didn’t you tell me? I would have talked them out of that. I would have gone home for a year. We could have figured it out together!” I cry.
“That was part of the deal,” he says.
“What deal?”
He pauses, as if trying to decide if he wants to tell me.
“I need the truth, Garrett.”
“He wanted me to break up with you. To tell you I had changed my mind and didn’t want the responsibility of a relationship while pursuing my dreams. He said you needed to hate me and not them because it was the only hope you would have to come home and find happiness. He didn’t want you to feel like you were in prison in your own home. He didn’t want you angry and bitter or attempting to run away and back to me again.”
“You didn’t tell me anything,” I remind him.
He hangs his head. “I know. I couldn’t go back and face you. If I were to look at you and try to say all that crap, you wouldn’t have bought it. I couldn’t lie to you. I never could. So, I just had to disappear. I figured that would have the same effect he was hoping for. And I was right.”
“That wasn’t his decision to make. You should have told me.”
“If I had and you stayed, I would have gone to jail. It would have ruined both our futures. In my mind, it wasn’t going to be permanent. I just needed time to make a better life for us and to prove to your father that I was good enough for you.”
“A better life for us? You mean, for you,” I accuse.
“No, us. I intended to come back for you.”
“Really? When? Because it’s been over a decade,” I quip.
“It takes time to build a career, and then I was pulled in every direction by the people in my life. When the label signed me so early on, it was the chance of a lifetime. I was young, and I didn’t handle it well. I got caught up in all the trappings.”
“I thought I was your chance of a lifetime, but you forgot about me,” I whisper.
He leans in and takes my face in his hands. “No. I never forgot you. I forgot me.”
“You know the only thing I needed to have a better life was to have you in it,” I tell him.
I lean my forehead against his as tears flood my vision.
“I’m so sorry, Foxy.”
“What do we do now?” I ask.
He kisses my nose, followed by the corner of my mouth. Then, he answers against my lips, “Forgive and heal.”
Then, he tucks his hands under me and stands with me in his arms, and he carries me downstairs.
