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“It’s okay. I think I needed to process it for a while before I talked about it. I’m sorry I kept it from you guys.”
“We get it. Heartbreak sucks. That offer to bury him if you need it still stands. I don’t care how famous he is,” Gwen says, causing us all to burst into a fit of laughter.
“There it is,” Gwen says with a wide smile.
“What?” I ask her.
“Your smile. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen it.” I feel the pull of my cheeks and realize she’s right. I’m smiling, and my cheeks feel stretched like they haven’t smiled this wide in a long time.
“Thank you,” I tell her softly.
We wrap up brunch, and Gwen and Beth head their separate ways. Lainey walks with me to my car since hers is parked near mine. She didn’t speak much at brunch, and I’m wondering what her thoughts are on all of this.
“So, you got any advice for me, oh, wise older sister?”
She stares at the street in front of us. “Did I ever tell you what happened between me and Owen?”
“Owen Bishop? No, you didn’t.”
“Mmhmm,” she smiles faintly, though it doesn’t reach her eyes, before her gaze drops to the sidewalk. “He was the first boy I ever loved, and probably the best thing I’ve ever had. I used to laugh at the mean girls at school because I knew they were going to peak in high school while I had my whole life in front of me. I was going to get out of Texas and do something important. Then I fell for a boy whose family is so embedded in our small town that it’s named after them. A boy whose entire future was rooted in that small town.”
She faces me, and her eyes are a little manic. “I knew what my future held if I stayed, so I chose to leave because I wanted to do more. I went to UT and expected him to stay in Bishop Ridge and work for his dad, but he followed me. We stayed together all through college, and when we graduated, he proposed.”
“Wait, what?! How did I not know this?”
Her eyes get teary, and her voice gets hoarse as she explains, “Because I turned him down. I told everyone we broke up because we wanted different things, but that was only partially true. He wanted to marry me and start a family, and while I loved him and wanted those things too, I didn’t want them in Bishop Ridge, and his dad was pressuring him to come home and take over the family business. I knew if I asked him to come with me instead of moving back home, he would, but at what cost? And all I could think was that someday he’d come to resent me, or worse, leave me. So I let him go.”
Tears stream quietly down her face one at a time, and she grips both my upper arms forcing me to look at her. “I let my own insecurities ruin the best thing I’ve ever had and the truest love I’ve ever known. I don’t want that for you, Becks. Talk to Trent. Clear the air before it really, truly is too late. I don’t want you to live with the same kind of regrets that I do.”
My heart breaks for all the pain my sister has quietly endured, and my own tears fall down my face as we hug each other on the middle of a sidewalk in Santa Monica.
For two women who don’t cry that much, we’re doing an awful lot of crying, but her words keep ricocheting in my head, and I know she’s right. I need to do something.
The problem is I’m scared, and every time I’ve attempted to respond to one of his texts, I freeze. It’s like my entire body shuts down, unable to do anything until I put the phone down.
It’s later that night when I’m lying in bed, begging my brain to stop thinking about Trent so I can finally go to sleep, when I remember something Lainey said to me. She let Owen go before he could leave her.
My past filters through my mind like a movie, each boyfriend or romantic encounter being seen for the first time with a new lens. How many times have I dumped a guy before he could dump me? And regardless of who dumped who, I always acted like they were dead to me the moment we were done. Even with Brad. I ignored him for weeks, only interacting with him at work if I was forced to, but he might as well have been a nameless temp for all I cared at that point.
Am I doing the same thing—to a different degree—with Trent?
The realization settles deep in my bones as I realize I might need professional help to get over this one.
21
THREE MONTHS LATER
It’s been six months since that night with Trent, and I wish I could say that I’m over him. That he didn’t leave a giant void inside me, but the truth is I miss him more every day. Therapy hasn’t helped me in the way I thought it would. Don’t get me wrong, it’s working, but it’s a painstakingly slow process. Each session we get closer to battling the demons that still have me freezing up whenever I try to text Trent, but the progress has been slower than I expected, and I find myself asking more questions than getting answers.
What hasn’t changed at all is that I still feel like a giant piece of my heart is missing. I didn’t just lose the man I’d fallen for, I lost my friend. It was always so easy with Trent. We could talk for hours about nothing and everything. We enjoyed watching the same movies and listening to all different types of music. Spending time with him took me back to all those times we’d hang out as kids and preteens. The long hot Texas days, chasing fireflies, making mud pies.
It was a simpler time.
Part of me understands why he was so eager to get back to being friends. I know what that meant to him. I can’t imagine the life he’s lived as a rock star, but it does seem pretty superficial.
But another part of me can’t let go of the fact that he thought our night together was a mistake.
I thought it was perfect.
