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My feet felt like lead as I trailed after him, as though I was following in the same exact footsteps that led me to heartbreak before. “Please wait, please! Just hear me out, there’s a reason I—”
He spun on me; in the waning light of day I could barely make out the tears welling in his eyes.
“Tell me that while I told you my deepest, darkest secret, you couldn’t bother to tell me yours? That you once followed me around, had—what? A freakish obsession with me?”
Hurt flayed me open, but I powered through.
“That’s why I couldn’t do it, because you hated me so much that you actually had Carl hand deliver a note so that I would find you fucking someone else. You knew I was in love with you! You know how much I wanted to be with you.”
Shaking his head, he stepped back. “That wasn’t me. I never once gave that fucker a note, and I sure as fuck wouldn’t have given it to him to meet you. You were nothing to me back then, Rae. You were a fucking kid; you actually think I liked you?”
“No…of course not, I just—”
“So you actually showed up and thought I’d fuck you in the library instead? Freshly graduated from high school, barely eighteen…that I’d choose you over women my own age?”
“Stop…” I pleaded.
This was too much, all my embarrassing fears were being tossed out on the lawn at my feet, and it was too much. I had thought he’d handle this with care. I thought because he loved me…
“So, was this your ultimate long game then, huh? Move back, get me to fall in love with you, pull the rug out from under me months later, once I ask you to move in? ‘Surprise, I’m the freak that used to stalk you!’”
“I didn’t stalk you! And no, of course not, I didn’t even—”
“Stop lying!” he roared.
“You know the pathetic thing about all of this? If you’d just been honest with me, if you’d just told me the truth, I wouldn’t have cared!” He roared angrily, veins protruding from his neck and forehead.
I flinched, never hearing him yell so loud, and my heart spasmed uncontrollably.
“You chose for me—you lied. You…” he trailed off, shaking his head. “Maybe you really are as pathetic as you always seemed back then.” His scoff was the final nail in my proverbial emotional coffin.
He spun, and this time I didn’t try and follow.
I sunk to the ground, tears streamed down my face as I watched as the only man I had ever loved speeding away, taking my dignity and pride with him.
34
RAE
Wrappingmy fingers through the handle of the warm mug did little to help ease the crack in my chest or the anger roaring in my head. He didn’t even give me a chance to explain, and for someone who said they loved me and wanted me to move in with them…well, that was just shitty.
If you’d just been honest with me, if you’d just told me the truth, I wouldn’t have cared…
“So, you first saw him when you were in high school?” my dad gently asked.
Both he and my mother were sitting across from me at the table. They’d eaten their dinner, but I didn’t have an appetite, so I drank more tea. At first, I didn’t want to talk about what had just happened, but they had heard everything, and after this, they deserved to know.
Giving him a small nod, I explained when I first saw Davis in the diner, and how my crush had developed.
“Carl knew?” Mom asked, her face dipped in a somber slump.
I gave her a small nod as well. After I explained everything, they seemed shocked, and now they were just clarifying tiny details.
“He tried to talk me out of liking Davis; he was worried about me.”
Dad grunted and shook his head. “He should have told us.”
“He never tried to dissuade you from being friends with Davis?” That was something that had me curious. It was no secret that Carl didn’t like Davis, and after our little showdown, about that day where he’d made it seem like Davis was asking about a different girl and not me—we hadn’t really talked again. But if Carl had such a problem with Davis, then why…
