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“We’d have had a better chance if you hadn’t started to believe you were anything like him. You never were.”
“He wasn’t so sure,” I blurt without thinking.
The stunned look on her face tells me I’ve said too much.
“What did you say?”
“It’s not important.” I shake my head.
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying.” I swore to Colt I’d never tell Sawyer about our conversation, knowing it might put irreparable distance between them. I regretted it almost instantly, and tried to take it back before she ran away. But the damage was done. Colt’s been trying to help me undo it ever since, in a way that doesn’t ruin his relationship with her. Now, my slip may have just taken a wrecking ball through their father-daughter bond.
“Tell me what you said,” she demands.
“I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?” She crosses her arms.
I’d like nothing more than to tell her I was a naïve kid following the advice of his idol all those years ago, believing that maybe he had a point about us being too young to be so serious. In my heart, I knew that wasn’t true, but in addition to being my idol Colt is her dad. How was I supposed to ignore what he told me? So I didn’t. Coming clean about that now might give me a shot at forgiveness, but it might cost them the relationship they finally have. I can’t do it.
“It isn’t up to me,” I sigh.
“How convenient.” Her eyes narrow to little slits.
“Not really.” I lean my head against the wall, and look up at the ceiling, wondering how to move forward. The truth isn’t an option, although that doesn’t mean I can’t be truthful. “Look, bottom line is, I made a decision I regretted as soon as I went through with it. I’d do anything to take it back. Since I can’t, I’m hoping one day, you’ll give me one of those chances you seem to reserve only for your dad.”
It’s kind of a low blow, but right now I resent the fact that I’m the only one suffering for a situation he helped create.
“Cake’s ready if you want any.” I turn for the stairs knowing she’d rather come up alone than with me, and wishing for the first time that there was a limit to the resolve I always admired in her.
Sawyer
Itossandturnall night, unable to erase Wes’s words.He wasn’t so sure. Obviously he’s talking about my dad, but what wasn’t Dad sure about. Wes’s character?
It might make me a bit of a hypocrite, but until the night he broke my heart I would have said there was nothing to question about Wes’s character. He was the most responsible, considerate, honest guy I’d ever met, and I know Dad thought the same thing. So why does Wes think my dad was unsure about him, and what does that have to do with our breakup?
It’s true all those years ago Wes started the day as the guy I had fallen in love with and ended it as someone I barely recognized. Since I couldn’t pinpoint anything I went with the only possible answer, he didn’t change, he was just really good at showing me what he wanted me to see.
I don’t know why he took it as far as he did, talking about staying together when he went off to school. Maybe he just wanted the option of using me whenever he was home. Or maybe he got off on the taboo connection between us, flimsy as it is. Who knows? But even though I never understood his motives, I always thought they werehis. That the breakup was his idea alone. And while Wes is right about being the one to finalize that decision, it now seems like the idea wasn’t his alone. Like maybe it came from someone he idolized...
No, that’s stupid. I’m being paranoid. No one even knew about us, least of all my dad, who wasn’t around enough to suspect anything. Up until Wes all but told him about us right before leaving for Africa anyway. And even if Dad noticed something before that, what reason would he have for planting the breakup seed in Wes’s head? He loved Wes, even back then. I can’t see him objecting to the two of us liking each other, even in light of the whole stepsibling thing, which we all know is a misleading label. Besides, Dad has never really taken the role of parental figure with me, so why would he suddenly step in?
He wouldn’t. It’s stupid of me to even consider he might. The more logical explanation is Wes took his idol worship too far, thinking it would upset Dad to learn we were together. That makes far more sense than Dad being a dad.
Still, Wes’s cryptic comment keeps bouncing around in my head. I’ve spent nearly a decade wondering who I fell in love with, a player or a coward, and even though it’s finally starting to make sense, the broken part of me still needs to know for sure. It won’t change anything, but it might finally give me closure, and maybe when I have that I’ll be able to move on. Closure means I’ll have to talk to Wes, and that thought makes it impossible for sleep to come.
Around six a.m. I give up and head downstairs, hoping coffee might give me the strength I need to get through the day.
“You’re up early,” Dad says when I get to the kitchen. “We don’t have to leave for the stadium until noon.”
“I’m not going. I picked up a shift at the hospital, remember?”
Dad hands me a mug as I take a seat at the island then leans back against the counter across from me, head cocked.
“What?”
“You still seem to be going awfully far out of your way to avoid Wes. I thought you told me back when this all started you weren’t going to hide from him forever. Just til it stops hurting.”
