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I filled him in on my plan to interview the students, withholding the information about Whitney’s ridiculous plan to con her way into the coach’s house. Although, I hated to admit that I was warming up to the idea. But I needed to walk through it with her.
Easier said than done.
Whitney avoided me all last night and this morning and was still holed up in her room when I left for work.
Yesterday’s revelations had me reeling. I couldn’t believe that she admitted everything to me last night.
Why she left.
What she thought she saw.
Her feelings for me.
To say I was stunned would be a gross understatement.
It blew me away knowing that this happened. That she had this screwed up view about how things went down on grad night.
I never wanted to feel that hopeless again.
Her leaving Haver’s Creek the way she did seriously impacted me. For days and weeks following grad night, I called and emailed and tried every possible method of tracking her down. One night I even stopped by Barb’s when I knew Savannah would be working to try to shake some information out of her. Instant shame hit me when I saw tears pooling in Savannah’s eyes. I had put her in the middle of whatever was going on with Whitney and me and I shouldn’t have done that.
That summer after she left was the hardest thing I’d ever gone through. Harder than leaving home for college. Harder than my career-ending injury.
When Whitney Rose left Haver’s Creek she had taken a part of my heart with her. My head was barely in the game and only once I realized she was gone for good, did I convince myself to put my relationship with Whitney into a proverbial box and set it on a shelf. Compartmentalizing everything was my way of getting through it. It was the only way I could move forward without completely derailing my future.
Her admitting that she loved me and had feelings for me thrilled and terrified me in equal measure.
She had needed to know that I wanted her too back then.
Thattruth I needed to share.
I had lost my best friend once and didn’t want it to happen again.
But something gnawed at me. Whitney’s worry that something transpired between Katie and me.
It made me sick to think of how she must have felt that night.
It made me even sicker to think about her finding out about my relationship with Katie after that night.
I had to tell her. Small towns were not known for keeping secrets. People would talk. I knew that firsthand, and it was only a matter of time before someone told her about Katie and me.
It would be painful to hear it from me.
It would be worse for it to come from an outsider.
Whitney already experienced enough embarrassment from her mother. I didn’t need to pile on.
I reached for the phone, picking it up before setting it back on the receiver.
“Come on, Montgomery.” I psyched myself up. Before I could change my mind, I lifted the phone from its cradle and dialed Whitney’s number, which I’d memorized as soon as Savannah gave it to me.
“Whitney Rose speaking.”
I smiled at her silky voice. She must not know it’s me, otherwise she would have answered differently.
“Hey, it’s Jack. I need you to stop by the station today so we can go over the plan for tomorrow.”
Whitney paused. “Oh, hi. Tomorrow?” she asked.
