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Lettie’s motherand Avery went after her, but I had the pleasure of staying in Mr. Carlton and Theo’s company a little longer.
“Who do you think you are? Showing up here at my daughter’s debutante ball? I should call the police for trespassing. You certainly do not have a membership to this club.” Her father’s face was turning red, and when I looked at Theo, I saw a smirk spread across his face.
“It was a misunderstanding,” I replied, keeping my calm and staying level-headed.
“You’re damn right it was,” he hissed. “You do not belong anywhere near my daughter. Just look at you. What makes you think you deserve someone like Violet when you can’t even dress properly? Despicable.” He headed toward the door but spun around once more, his finger in the air. “You are never to be near Violet again. Do I make myself clear?”
“I think Lettie can make her own decisions.” I narrowed my eyes.
Mr. Carlton moved so close to me that with his next words, I was surprised I couldn’t feel his spit hit my face. “You would deprive her of all that we can give her? An Ivy League education, a trust fund? And for what? An ill-fitting wardrobe and a handsome smile?” He paused, stepping back. “Evenyoucan see how that wouldn’t benefit her at all.”
Then he walked away, and I swallowed hard, trying to keep the lump in my throat from rising. Theo stepped up next, and I felt a fire ignite within me.
“You know he’s right,” Theo said. “Violet is too good for you. You could never give her the life she deserves, and you know what? Deep down, I think you know that. I think you know you are never going to be able to give her anything more than that run-down shack you live in.”
“You don’t know me at all,” I replied, my face stoic as he paraded around me like a vulture.
“Oh, I know you. I saw exactly where you came from, and even Lettie knows it. She just doesn’t want to admit it to herself. Soon, she will realize that it’s the two ofusthat are meant to be together. Not some poor trash she felt sorry for.”
My hands were balled into fists so tightly that I had to release my grip and stretch out my fingers. I ran my tongue over my teeth, knowing my next words would cut deep within him.
“Can’t you see how pitiful you are? You were nothing more than an alibi while she spent time withme. Iwas the one who got to hold her and kiss her. And you, what? Stalked her to find out where she was going? You’re disgusting and pathetic.” I batted my hand at him, indicating he wasn’t worth my time or my breath.
Theo pushed his shoulders back and raised both of his eyebrows. “Do her a favor and just go away. Don’t be the person who makes her lose everything. She’ll resent you for the rest of your life and wonder what she is doing in a disgusting shack with you when she could have been living in a mansion with me.” His face grew cocky, and he straightened out his jacket. “Besides, I can satisfy her more in other ways too, if you know what I mean.” He winked and wet his lips.
I did know what he meant.
So, I drew back and punched him right in the face.
FIFTY-TWO
TUCK
Despite all thevile and untrue things that had been said, there had been one truth to it all. I would never be able to give Lettie the life she deserved. I knew she wanted me right now, but what about in five years? Ten years? How could I sit back and watch her resent me or, worse, lessen herself just to be with me? And was it fair to ask her to wait for me? I was leaving. I was going to be gone for months and probably even years. There was more than a possibility that I would be deployed after basic training. Why should she put her life on hold?
That night, I went home and then I drove to Hidden Hollow and sat in my truck. I scrolled through the memories of the summer in my mind like a movie. The copious amounts of donuts we’d consumed and the way she’d smelled like every kind of animal after a shift at the clinic. I remembered the way her eyes had lit up when she’d talked about the newest patient Teddy had let her examine and the way the sun would shine on her auburn hair and make it glow. I thought about the way she would talk and talk and never take a breath until she had spoken all the words she had to say and the way she’d fit in with Darcy and Beau as though she had always been here.
I remembered the way we belonged together. The two of us were a perfect match, and even if it had only been for the summer, she was the Anne to my Gilbert, and I knew, without a doubt, she always would be. There was now a piece of my heart that lived on the outside of me. A piece of my heart that would forever be hers, and as I sat in my truck and the tears flowed from my eyes, I thought how impossible it was to think you could live without a piece of yourself. But you could. And I needed to. I needed to free Lettie from me, from choices she would have to make between struggling and being comfortable. Choices that would tear her from everything she had ever known and bring stress to her life. I needed to make sure that she lived her life fully and didn’t sit around and wait for a ghost who didn’t know when he would be back. She didn’t deserve to be alone. I’d have to figure out how to patch up the hole where she would forever remain, and I’d have to pretend like it would eventually heal.
But I knew it wouldn’t.
This was a wound that would never close. There would be no scar tissue, no new piece of muscle to close the gap. It would be open and bleeding forever.
I knew Lettie and I belonged together. I knew it in the depths of my bones, but I also knew that sometimes people fell in love with the wrong people, or sometimes with the right people at the wrong times.
And while Lettie was everything right for me, I was completely wrong for her.
I took out a pen and ripped off a piece of the paper bag from our last batch of donuts, and I began to write.
“Tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it… yet.”
?L.M. MONTGOMERY, ANNE OF GREEN GABLES
FIFTY-THREE
NOVEMBER 2017
LETTIE
