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“He followed Uncle Kevin.” She wipes under her eyes. “I think I’m going to head out. I… would advise you guys to do the same for now?”
I nod in agreement knowing I do not want to be here whenever my parents emerge from their bedroom. “Thank you for coming and… I’m sorry about what my dad said.” I wince.
“He was angry and… we have talked each other into doing a lot of crazy shit over the years. He doesn’t know all the trouble I’ve gotten you into too.” She smiles but I know what he said stings because Chloe has proven time and time again that she’d follow me over a cliff every time.
“You drive here?” Jacob asks and I can sense his worry that maybe she shouldn’t be driving.
“Your brother is outside. He didn’t want to be too far away in case things went south.” Her lips form a straight line.Like they did.
I pull out of Jacob’s arms despite the grip he has on me and wrap my arms around her, crying into her neck and I feel her hands at my back. “I love you, Chlo.”
“I love you more, Whit. Just give them some time to let it sink in. It’s a bomb. You have to let the dust settle now.”She pulls away and gives me a small smile through her watery eyes. “Kevin and Michelle Monroe aren’t capable of grudges or hatred… let alone for two of their favorite people in the world. Let them sit with their anger for a minute, alright?”
I nod, knowing she’s right but unsure how I can live in a world where the two people that brought me into it potentially aren’t talking to me for even the shortest amount of time.
“Chloe, thank you for… everything.”Jacob says from behind me and she nods at him.
“Take care of her,” she says and then she’s gone.
I shoot a text to Mason as we head toward the door that we are about to leave when I hear the faint sounds of a door closing and then he’s moving down the stairs.
“How bad is it?” I ask as he meets us at the door. Mason, who was the only person who hadn’t shed any tears initially now has red eyes and I wonder if he cried while he was upstairs.
“Bad. Mom won’t stop crying and Dad is pacing the room talking about what charge he’d get for murdering you.” He rubs his eyes and clears the emotion from his throat. “I told him probably second degree because you know crimes of passion? But the longer he thinks on it, the more it’s looking like first-degree murder.”
“Mase…” I chastise him for his joke.
“Too soon? Well look, Dad hates me as much as he hates you right now,” he says, pointing at me. “Definitely not as much as he hates you,” he says, gesturing to Jacob. “But yeah, the whole me not telling him what was going on? Pissed. Apparently, he’s subscribing to the bros before hoes thing.”
“Okay, Dad is not your bro and I am not a ho,” I say, giving him my middle finger.
“You know what the fuck I’m saying, Whitney. He’s pissed I didn’t tell him what was going on. That I knew and kept it to myself. That I didn’t kick your ass myself,” he says, pointing at Jacob. “Dad is really angry, Whitney and you know Dad rarely gets angry. I’ve never seen him like that. This isn’t just anger. This is pain and hurt and betrayal and that’s why it’s so intense. Who Mom and Dad are has become so heavily intertwined with Jacob over the years. Their friendship is one of the foundations of this family. So yeah, he’s right in that regard, that this changes our entire family. You changed Mom and Dad… forever.”
The ride back to my house is quiet, save for the sounds of Whitney’s sniffles and the windshield wipers. Part of me wants to take a detour and pay a little visit to her ex-fiancé and beat the shit out of that motherfucker.How could anyone be so cruel?Maybe he hated Whitney or me or probably us both but to destroy her parents like that so callously and with no regard to their feelings or how this would affect them.What the hell did she ever see in him?“Are you hungry?” I finally break the silence and Whitney pulls her gaze from the window toward me.
“No,” she responds quietly, her voice barely above a whisper and I grab her hand pulling it to my lips.
“You’re going to need to eat something.”
“Can we just order something when we get back to the house? I’m fucking exhausted and I have a headache and I think I need a drink. Several of them.”
“I can make that happen.” She takes a deep breath through her nose and lets it out through her mouth slowly and I can feel the tension flowing off of her in waves. I don’t know what’s going on in her head and it’s driving me crazy. “Can you tell me what you’re thinking about?”
“I can’t believe that’s how it happened.” Her eyes flutter closed, and she continues to speak with them shut. “We waited years to tell them only for it to blow up in our faces likethat.” Her eyebrows pull together and she bites her bottom lip and not in that sexy way I love although I still can’t help but feel the need to pull that lip between my teeth. “I feel like they’ll never forgive you. That I’m their daughter, so they’ll forgive me at some point. But they won’t forgive you.” Her eyes finally open and sweep to find my gaze which I catch. A tear slides down her face and I’m glad that we are back at my house so that I can comfort her properly. “And I worry you’ll grow to resent me for losing them. That they may not even want to come to our wedding…” She lets out a shaky breath. “If there’s even a potential for you and me anymore.”
I frown because after everything we’d been through today, I assumed that us being together in the long run was the one thing she could be sure about.
“You have doubts about me, now?” My voice sounds hurt and I know she can hear it because when her eyes meet mine, I can see the regret in her choice of words.
“I wasn’t sure. That was intense. I mean my dad and my mom,” she winces. “Have they even been angry at you?”
“No,” I answer honestly. “If anything, I mediated their arguments when we were in college. I was put in the middle of so many of their arguments fueled by tequila or jealousy or just stupidity. Not that it ever came anywhere near something like that.”
“And now you may have lost your best friends because of me.”
“Kevin and Michelle will come around eventually. I know them.”
“You know the versions of them whose daughter you weren’t sleeping with. What if they never get over this?”
