44. Traitor
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
traitor
ABI
REYNOLDS VINEYARD
PRESENT DAY
It didn’t take long before we found Kat and Marcus sitting at one of the picnic tables near the kid’s play area, with Dylan sat down in a little tent alongside a bunch of other toddlers happily playing with blocks.
“Watch. He’ll try to get up, and— well, you’ll see,” Kat chuckles.
Like clockwork, Dylan tries to place another block on his tower, but can’t quite reach. So, he rolls over and struggles to his feet before clumsily lumbering toward his masterpiece. Just as he places the block on the top, he loses his balance and lands right on his butt. I brace myself for tears, but he just lets out an unamused harumph and grabs another block. His chubby little face is twisted up with determination.
“Marcus has to clear out my phone once a month because I don’t have enough storage to take pictures for the real estate company.”
I chuckle, sipping my wine as I watch Kat obsessively follow him with her phone camera, taking video as she smiles from ear to ear. We’re waiting for Logan and Marcus to return from their mission of loading up on free grub. I can see them off on the other end of the grounds, laughing about something as they playfully elbow each other. It’s amazing how well Logan vibes with everyone around him.
“They seem to be getting along well,” Kat remarks. “Marcus is a big fan.”
“Well, Logan gets along with pretty much everyone.”
“He’s a real sweetheart,” Kat replies. “And you guys have a great vibe. I know I’ve never seen you this happy with someone before.”
“He makes it easy,” I laugh.
And it’s true, everything is always easy with Logan. It was easy to fall for him, and even easier to fake this entire mirror-life together, pretending any and all of it was real. I want to tell Kat the truth so badly, but instead I’m munching on a cracker, taking in the beauty of this stupid fucking vinyard.
I hate that this place is so gorgeous, and I hate having to admit that Carly did pretty well pulling off the event. Old classmates have been mingling and chatting with each other like they’ve been hanging out for years. Maybe the real problem is the part of me that’s been longing for a place I haven’t been able to return to since I left for Emerald Bay. It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth knowing that there are people who got to stay here, to live here without any of the baggage that got forced on me. Maybe it means I’m grieving what could have been had things been different.
I think about what Logan said the other night at the falls, about carting around his resentment. Being on this trip has brought back so many feelings of inadequacy. I should have my shit together.
Show me how good it gets.
“Hey, you okay?” Kat asks.
“Yeah.” I turn to her, forcing a smile as I swirl my wine. “Totally fine, just a little overwhelmed is all.”
“You sure? You seem pretty on edge. I saw you talking to Carly, did she do something?”
“She was fine,” I mutter. “Pretty nice, I guess.”
“What did she say to you?”
“Nothing.” I wave my hand. “Just pleasantries. It was…”
“Abi. Come on.”
I thought this lie Logan and I had crafted would make me feel better about being here. It was supposed to be my armor against highschool pettiness, a tool to make everyone think I had everything together. Now that I’m here, though, I just feel like the biggest loser on the planet. The weight of missing the interview, our uncertainty about the future, and my never-endingly complex feelings about Logan are just making things worse.
“Do you ever feel like you’re not enough?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
What I mean is it feels like everyone can see through this cardboard-cutout version of myself we put together for tonight, and when everyone finds out how deep the lies go, I’ll never be able to come home again. But of course, I can't tell her that.
“You know, like, you and Marcus have the Black Bear, and your real estate company, but do you ever feel like you’re not where you should be in life when you look at everyone else?”
“All the time!” Kat laughs.
I’m a little shocked, I have to admit.
“Really?”
“Yes! Dude, believe me when I tell you this, it doesn’t matter what you have or where you are in life, the grass always looks greener.”
It’s juvenile, but I always thought that once I reached a certain stage in life, I’d stop feeling the way I do right now. Instead of fueling my passion, academia put me in a kind of prolonged fugue state. I’m always off balance, reaching for something more, trying to get somewhere that’s crowded with so many people all grasping for the same few opportunities. I guess some people like to chase that feeling, but me? I’d like to have some job security for once.
“Is that what you’re feeling?” Kat asks. “Disappointed in how your life turned out?”
“I guess a little, yeah. I just… I thought I’d have, I don’t know, something I could be proud of.”
“Abi, the only person you need to impress here is you.” She clears her throat and takes a breath, twisting her hair between her fingers as she chooses her next words very carefully. “Look, you know my mom and I don’t have the best relationship, right?”
I nod. Kat’s mom is highly strung and quite demanding. She ruled over their house with an iron fist, and constantly clashed with Kat’s more laid back nature.
“When Marcus and I started the real estate company, we had a big celebratory dinner for our one year anniversary. We were so proud, so happy that we’d made it through our first year. Most businesses don’t even survive even that long, so we knew it was a big deal. Anyway, we decorated the pub, even had some new tables brought in, but when mom showed up, all she could do was criticize the changes we’d made.” Kat scoffs, shaking her head. “Everything was wrong, she said the additions were ridiculous and would ruin the pub; the crazy thing was she didn’t even have anything negative to say about the real-estate stuff, the whole point of the evening. She just latched on to the first thing she could criticize and went all-in on it.”
“I had no idea,” I whisper.
Over the years, I’ve been the person Kat’s leaned on the most for support, and she’s never been shy about her opinions on her mom, but I never knew it was this bad.
“I was so ashamed. My whole life, all I’ve ever wanted to do is make my mom proud of me, and all she ever does is criticize every move I make.” She sighs. “So, after that? I cut her off. She made me feel so fucking small, and I’d had enough.”
“When was this?”
“Couple of years ago now. I still talk to dad, but not very often.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? I feel so terrible I never knew!”
Kat keeps her eyes fixed on the picnic table.
“You just seemed really busy in Washington, and happy too. I didn’t want to dump all my baggage onto you— but honestly, at first? It wasn’t really a big deal. I was pissed at her, sure, but I don’t know when that twisted into me feeling like absolute shit…” She reaches over and grasps my hand, squeezing my fingers gently. “But that doesn’t matter now, I just want you to know I’ve been there before. I think most of us have.”
I can feel the weight building on my chest, pushing down and making it harder to breathe as I fight back my tears.
“Then why do I feel so alone?”
She shrugs, giving me a halfhearted smile.
“Because we don’t want to admit that we can be vulnerable, that we might be weak sometimes. Even the people who look like they have it all together feel like they’re missing something, they just never say it.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I spot Brendan handing Carly a glass of wine while she bounces their baby on her hip. They’re surrounded by people, everyone all smiles.
“Do you think they’re happy?”
“Who, Brendan and Carly? Fuck if I know. Facebook and Instagram sure seem to say they are, but… well, if you buy into whatever people are selling there, I’ve got a great deal on some swamp land for you.”
I watch Brendan for a little longer; he’s laughing with a couple of his old football buddies. In the briefest second, with the sun shining down and hitting him just right, I can see the boy I first fell in love with. But I’m not really sure what he saw in me anymore. Stability, maybe? He was flunking two classes when we got together, and I got his GPA up to the point where he could actually apply for graduation. Was that all it was?
But then, he missed out on a football scholarship because of his grades, and I think he might have quietly resented me for not doing a better job of tutoring him. The problem is, it’s hard to dig someone out of a hole that deep. They really have to want it, and he just… didn’t. Not that much.
Maybe that’s where the resentment started. He wanted me to stay home, cook and clean like his mom did, pumping out babies and congratulating him on a day’s work well done when all he did was make it home every night. Meanwhile, I had dreams, goals that I wasn’t willing to give up.
Not for him, even if I loved him.
If I even really loved him.
Kat taps me on the hand, dragging me back to the present.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Wh– Yeah. Sure.”
“When I texted you about the reunion, I was convinced that you weren’t going to show up.”
“Really?”
Kat smiles.
“Don’t ‘really’ me, Abi. No one thought you’d be back, you haven’t been for years. So why did you?”
“Closure.”
I glance over at Brendan, jealousy starting to gnaw away at my insides again. The researcher in me wants to sit back and observe, as if I could glean something I don’t already know, finally solving the mystery of the asshole fiancé, but I’m not even sure if this is even about him anymore.
“How?”
“What?”
“How are you going to get your closure?” She asks.
The problem is, even this far into the trip, and after all our planning, I didn’t really think that part through. There’s always been a juvenile part of me that was… I don’t know, hoping the moment he saw me he’d feel guilty?
“I haven’t thought it out.”
Was I crazy coming here? What was I actually trying to prove?
“Excuse me!” Carly’s voice rings through the vineyard. “Hi, everyone! Hi! Over here!”
She sticks her hand in the air, flitting it around to get everyone’s attention.
“I’m going to be starting tours of both the cellar and the winery-proper, which as you all know is the crown jewel of the location, so if people want to come along to the tasting room…”
She turns on her heel, heading toward the main building with a few of our classmates in tow. It looks like Brendan’s staying behind for this one, and his eyes lock with mine for a brief second before he quickly casts his gaze downward, pulling out his phone and trying to look busy.
The bastard can’t even look at me.
Maybe it’s the booze, but a new determination washes over me. A sense of righteousness.
“I deserve it.”
“What?” Kat asks. “Abi, what are you doing?”
“Closure!” I shout back, making a b-line toward Brendan.
I want to hear the reason why he left, and I want to hear it straight from his mouth. I want Brendan Howard to look me in the fucking eye and tell me why he left me. I’ve carried that pain and that grief for too long, and I deserve better. Better than those sleepless nights where all I did was lay in bed, staring at the ceiling wondering what was so broken, so terrible, so monstrous about me that he didn’t want me anymore.
I hear Kat call for Logan, but my spite has already taken control, and there’s no way anyone could talk me out of it. Still, just before I reach the halfway point to Brendan, a familiar hand grabs me by the wrist and drags me backward.
I slam into him, his cheeks pink and his eyes wild with panic.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to have a talk with Brendan, that’s all.”
Logan flashes me a worried look, and I can feel my heart rate pick up.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?”
He sighs, pulling me off to the side, and away from the crowd. I can already tell that he’s walking on eggshells around me, and for some reason that makes me even more determined, not to mention a little bit mad.
“Okay, look. I know the whole point of this trip was to show off and prove a point, and maybe get some closure about this thing with your ex, but… I don’t know, Abi. I just think you’re in a bad headspace right now, with the interview and the job, and…” He looks down at the glass of wine in my hand. “You’ve been drinking on an empty stomach. Kind of a lot.”
Since when is he keeping track of how many drinks I’ve had? I’m not a child.
“I’m not judging you,” he says quickly, obviously sensing my growing irritation. “I just know that when I make impulsive decisions that deep in, they’re pretty much always bad ones.”
The little needles of annoyance that had been prodding me grow into a full-fledged dagger in my chest. This is my past. I deserve to confront it. Who is he to tell me otherwise?
“You think I’m going to cause a scene, don’t you? Worried I’ll embarrass you?”
A few people glance over at us, but I don’t care. My cheeks are flushed and my blood is already boiling. No turning back.
“Well, if I didn’t before…” he mutters.
I glance back over my shoulder at Brendan, still absently scrolling through his phone.
“People never leave for no reason, Logan. I have to know why.”
“No, Abi. Trust me. Sometimes there really isn’t some big revelatory reason for stuff like this. Sometimes people are just assholes.”
“I don’t believe that,” I grind out through clenched teeth. “It had to have been something about me, or something we could have done differently.”
His eyes flash with a sudden streak of anger, and I can see that protectiveness he has warping into something a little different through his frustration.
“Why are you so stuck in the past?” He asks. “What even is there that would be worth it, to lie about your job, about me…”
“First of all, I’m not stuck in the past.”
Logan’s sudden laughter is filled to the brim with an incredulous venom.
“Yes, Abi, you are! You’ve spent so much time on this trip calling yourself a loser that you can’t see everything you’ve won!”
“Like what? A failed interview? No scholarship? Unemployment? Because from where I’m standing it seems like everything I touch turns to shit!”
“I’m not talking about any of that.” I swear I feel the earth stand still under the heat of his gaze. “I’m talking about me, and us . I’ve been in front of you for three goddamn years! We’ve had so many missed connections, so many moments where this could?—”
My heart pounds. Is he going to say what I think he is?
Here?
“You’re my compass, Abi. Whenever anything goes wrong, you’re the first person I go to; when I wake up in the morning, you’re the first person I think about. I’d do anything for you, and I think— no, I know you feel the same way.”
He’s right. Of course he is. But I want us to be able to start fresh, and for that I need this wound to be sewn up for good. I want to be able to run my fingers over the scar and know I survived it, not to wonder if it might ever open up again and take even more from me.
I take Logan's hands, grasping them tightly.
“Please don’t leave. I promise I’ll be right back but just, please.” My voice trembles as I struggle to keep my composure. “I don’t think I could survive it.”
Logan’s demeanor softens, the crease between his brow smoothing out as he makes those gorgeous puppy dog eyes at me.
“I’m always here.” He rubs his nose against mine. “Not going anywhere.”
“You get it, right? Why I have to do this?”
Logan chuckles, already accepting defeat.
“I was pretty sure there was no convincing you otherwise, but Kat did ask me to, after all. I think I made a pretty valiant effort.”
I love Logan, that much is clearer to me than anything else in my life. I just want to put the final nail in this coffin before I move on.
“I’m going to come right back, and when I do… I’d like to have a talk, okay?”
He kisses me again, and I grin.
“I’ll be here.”
And of course, he’s right.
He always has been.