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24
Nora
August still loved me.
Ice snapped under my feet, dragging me beneath a freezing pond. I felt chilled to the bone at those words.
All that work I’d done to get over him. All that time I’d wanted nothing more than to not feel like this anymore. Everything I’d been through because of him. And now—now—he claimed to still love me?
“And…how do you feel about that?” West asked carefully.
So carefully. Too carefully.
I wanted to reassure him. I wanted to tell him that I felt nothing about it. But it would be a lie. I’d thought I’d moved on completely, but first love stuck with you. I knew what August and I had was never ever going to be the same. How could I forgive him for what he’d done? Saying he was in love with me didn’t flip a switch.
I shook my head and looked away. “I don’t know.”
“Nora…”
He reached for me, and I let him drag me against him. Tears came to my eyes, unbidden. I hated it. I hated them. I’d told myself I was done crying over August. I was so far past done.
“It’s okay,” West said. “It must be confusing.”
“I wanted him to love me, to choose me for so long, West.”
His body tensed at those words. How hard it must be for him to comfort me when I was upset about another man. But still, he said, “It’s okay. Your feelings are real.”
“No,” I said, pulling back and swiping at my tears. “That’s not what I mean. I don’t still love him. I just…I loved him for so long. But he didn’t choose me. He didn’t love me when I needed him to.”
“No, he didn’t,” West agreed.
I straightened and hardened, as if I were shoring up all the cracks in my foundation. “He doesn’t get to choose to miraculously love me again. That’s not how it works. He cheated on me. He proposed to someone else.”
“And then he saw us together at the soccer game.”
My face lit up with recognition. “You don’t think…”
“That he was jealous? Yeah, I do,” West said confidently.
“He wouldn’t break off his engagement because he saw us kissing.”
“Looks like he just did.”
My head swam. That was absurd. All this time, he’d wanted to have his cake and eat it too. He wanted me to pine after him. The way I always returned his feverish texts and met him in the park and played his little game. But when I stopped playing, he decided he wanted me back? It was too coincidental not to be true, and somehow, I found it unfathomable.
He could have had me whenever he wanted me for almost an entire year after I caught him cheating. Now, when he couldn’t have me, he wanted me?
“That’s terrible. I almost feel bad for Tamara.”
West snorted. “Don’t. She went into all of this willingly.”
“I guess she did.”
In fact, I’d always suspected that Tamara had been the aggressor. She’d had little remorse through so much of it. She shoved it in my face that they were engaged. She’d won. But still, it couldn’t have felt good to hear that. August had hurt us both.
“I just…fuck, I don’t know.” I ran a hand back through my hair. “I feel like I want to run away.”
“Then, let’s run away.”
I looked up at him warily. “What do you mean?”
“I mean exactly what I said. You need to get out of Lubbock. I’m going crazy, pacing and waiting for Campbell to get back. Let’s go do something. What’s something you’ve always wanted to do?”
I shrugged. “Paris.”
He laughed. “Okay, maybe something a little closer?”
“Well, I’ve always wanted to go to White Sands.”
“What’s that?”
“A national park with white sand dunes. You can sled and hike there. A friend went in college and came back, raving that it was like touching the stars when you were out all alone on the dunes. I’ve always wanted that. But it’s, like, five hours away, and I have to work tomorrow.”
“Call out.”
My eyebrows hit my forehead. “You’re serious?”
“Yeah. Let’s go.”
I opened my mouth, ready with a quick retort. I couldn’t possibly run away in the middle of the week. I had weddings this weekend to deal with. I always had weddings to deal with. But maybe this was what I needed.
“Okay.”
