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It dawns on me. I remember seeing Lexie’s things near the dumpster down the street when I left that morning. He’s telling the truth. He threw awayall of her stuff after we had sex, which means the video with Remy couldn’t have been filmed recently. Lexie’s toys are long gone and wouldn’t be in the background.
Oh my God.
It’s true.
Everything he said is true.
I’m barely aware of how fast I start crying. My palm flies to my mouth as I relive my summer with Lexie. I can’t help wondering if this is our baby girl looking out for us from beyond the grave.
Realization crushes me a second later.
Wait.
Lexie’s toy might confirm his story, but it doesn’t change the fact that he told Remy “Everything but you.”
“Do you believe me now?” Finn wipes a tear off my cheek.
“I do.”
I’ve never seen him smile so wide.
“But… you still told her ‘everything but you.’”
His smile slips away.
“Dia, all the shit I said to her in that video… every single word… that was me trying to convince myself that I didn’t care about you. You were consuming my whole fucking life. And it was getting impossible to lie to myself with you living in my house. You were all I could think about when I woke up, when I went to sleep, and you…” He stops himself, as though he fears my reaction. “You were all I could think about when I was inside her.”
The thought makes me wince.
I shouldn’t be surprised. He did tell me he was thinking about me when he was inside that cheerleader Louise. I’m guessing she was another attempt to convince himself he didn’t want me?
“You found me at the library window twenty-four hours before I slept with her. I’d been replaying our conversation on a loop in my head. The moment you told me I hated everything, to be exact.”
Of course.
“It was the only thing I could think of when I was with her, and ‘everything but you’ just… came out.”
He wasn’t talking to her.
He was answering me.
In his mind, we were back in the library, bickering at 3:00 a.m.
“She was so confused that she asked me what it meant after, but I said I didn’t remember. I could hardly see myself telling her that the whole time I was with her, I was actually with you.”
It feels like my heart was just brutally ripped out of my chest, torn to pieces, put back together, and then shoved back inside my rib cage.
“So, you stopped talking to her after our first kiss?” I stress my bottom lip.
“I stopped talking to all of them. Well, until I pulled Remy aside at the party and convinced her to help me. She sent me the video, so that I could make shit right with us.”
I keep quiet for a few seconds, my mind racing. She didn’t have to help him. She could’ve told him to get lost, but she didn’t. I know sending him the video was the least she could do considering she’s responsible for this mess, but still. I’m surprised she agreed to help.
Finn doesn’t wait for me to reply before trapping me into a suffocating hug and nuzzling his nose into the crook of my neck. I welcome his embrace, letting him hug the breath out of me for a moment. I get the sense that he’s telling me, I don’t know where we go from here, but if this is goodbye, I need to hug you one last time.
“Come back to me, Gem,” he whispers against my skin, his voice so unusually fragile that it throws me off.
Is he… crying?
