CHAPTER TEN #3
“I thought… I thought you didn’t want a girlfriend…” God. Why was I being so honest? I needed to cover up the pain I was feeling, but I couldn’t seem to do it. Not yet. It seemed that it hadn’t been that he didn’t want a girlfriend. He just hadn’t wanted me.
“I didn’t. I had… genuine feelings for you. Feelings I didn’t know what to do with since you were in Charleston and I was here. You were so far away, and Sara was in my classes at school, and…” he shrugged, “before I really knew it was happening, we were together.”
“Sara. At school.” I felt numb. Maybe I was in shock.
He nodded.
I thought back to when he’d told me that he was too busy for a girlfriend. It had been at his dad’s funeral in August. Had he been lying to me? Had he already been with someone else a week after we’d made love for the first time? Had he really been a virgin?
“How long have you been dating her?” I asked casually. At least I hoped it seemed casual.
“Um,” he looked around, and I knew he was uncomfortable. “Since sometime in November, I guess.”
“November.” I swallowed hard, nodding. I was relieved. At least he hadn’t been with this girl before he’d dumped me. I worked at pulling the label from my bottle of beer so that I wouldn’t have to look at him. “And you’re still with her?”
He cleared his throat, and I glanced up at him. His face was a mask, hiding his emotions. “Yes. I mean, it’s been an off and on kind of thing… but yes.”
Anguish washed over me. The text I’d sent him checking one more time to see if he was ready to date again had been in November.
He’d told me he just wanted to be friends, but that had been a lie.
He’d never texted me again after that. Now I was totally sure he’d lied about always loving me and hoping we’d get another chance someday.
Had he and his new girlfriend laughed at me together?
“That’s interesting.” I tried to keep my voice level. “You’re telling me that a couple of months after you were ready to leave your family and move to Charleston with me—you were already with someone else? After you told me you didn’t want a girlfriend?”
“No, it wasn’t like that…” he started, but I was too upset to listen.
“I was crying for what you were going through and how I couldn’t help you.
Crying because I missed you and wanted to be with you.
And you were with another girl.” I shook my head.
“I’m a fool. I should have realized…” my voice trailed off as I understood just how wrong I’d been in my assessment of the situation.
Had he just wanted to sleep with me and once he’d done that, he’d been ready to move on? I would never have thought him capable of something like that. But then he’d done a lot of things after his dad died I hadn’t thought he was capable of doing.
Like treating me as if he barely knew me at his dad’s funeral. And ghosting me—letting me text him repeatedly without ever sending me a response.
He looked down. “I was the fool, Cara. Not you. Never you,” he said softly.
I ignored him. “So, you were dating her when you answered my text, huh? The one where you told me you only wanted to be friends. Why didn’t you just tell me…” my voice broke briefly, “that you were dating someone else?”
“I was with her,” he admitted. “But I wasn’t dating her.
I told you the truth about not being ready for a girlfriend.
I wasn’t. I just… hooked up with her. That was all.
And that’s why I didn’t tell you. I didn’t think you’d really want to know about that.
” He looked up at me, and the pain in his eyes was evident.
“I’m sorry. I screwed up. Dad died, and I felt like it was my fault.
You know I went to him and told him I loved you.
That I couldn’t go to Vanderbilt. I was absolutely going to move to Charleston and enroll at your school as soon as I could.
I laid it all out for him. I didn’t care that he told me I was stupid, that he wouldn’t pay for school, that he threatened to take the company away from me.
I just…” he looked up from the table and I saw anguish in his eyes.
“I just saw you. I only focused on you, Cara.”
I winced at his words. The raw emotion coming from him was palpable. It overtook the words I wanted to say. The angry words, the hurtful words. They dried up as I saw the tears in his eyes.
“Then we slept together, and it was… incredible. It was even better than anything I could have imagined.” He grinned through his pain. “And believe me, I’d imagined it about a million different ways.”
I looked away. I wasn’t about to tell him how much that night had meant to me. Not now that I knew he’d been with another girl so soon after that. And I hadn’t even been able to kiss a guy without feeling as if I was betraying him… even after he’d told me to move on.
“But then I got the call from Mom, and, well, everything fell apart. There was a part of me that wanted to pack a bag and follow you to Charleston anyway. To run from my responsibility. But I couldn’t.
” He reached across the table, grabbed my hand, and gave it a little squeeze.
“You have to see that. There was no way I could leave. There was no one to run Ashton Orchards but me. Dad didn’t have a back-up plan, and I inherited a mess.
I had to learn, and I had to learn fast. If I didn’t, people who had worked for the orchards their entire adult lives would be out of a job. ”
He stopped and took a minute to drain the beer he’d been nursing. “It was… horrible. And intense.”
His hands shook a little as he uncapped another beer.
“If it hadn’t been for your dad and Hawthorne, I don’t know what I would have done. They didn’t fully understand the orchard industry, of course, but they’re experts on running successful farms. They helped me so much.”
“I’m glad,” I said softly. I felt like I could barely relate to him. Edward wasn’t like me anymore; he’d grown up in a lot of ways over the past year.
“In my personal life, I was a zombie. I got through every day the best that I could. And I fell into bed every night, exhausted. Then I’d start everything up again the next day. I was barely functioning. On top of that, my mom leaned on me for emotional support. I didn’t have time for anything.
“Those texts and emails you sent the weeks after Dad died? I read them and listened to them over and over, just to hear your voice. But when I’d start to text back or call you, I always stopped. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to explain just how bad things were.”
“I would’ve loved to have been there for you. I would’ve done my best to understand…”
He shook his head, cutting me off. “I didn’t want that for you.
I wanted to think of you, my perfect ballerina, twirling through life and enjoying yourself.
That’s the way it should always be for you.
You shouldn’t ever have to be bogged down with issues like what I was going through.
I enjoyed thinking of you the way you were during all those long, carefree summers.
I wanted to keep those memories of us, you know? ”
I didn’t, really. What I heard was that he didn’t trust me to be there for him. He didn’t think I could understand or help him through what he was living with.
But apparently this other girl could. And did.
“I should never have treated you the way I did at the funeral. I should have handled it differently,” he said. He reached across the table to grab my hand, and his blue eyes were earnest, pleading. “I was distant to you on purpose. It took everything in me, but I felt like that’s what I had to do.”
“Why? Did you really think I’d try to get you to abandon Ashton Orchards and come to Charleston with me?”
He shook his head. “No. It was because I was afraid you’d stay in Wixby for me.
I thought you might give up your scholarship, your placement at the ballet company, all of your dreams. And I couldn’t let you do that.
I thought if you were mad at me, maybe if you hated me, you’d leave.
And carry on without me. You were always meant to be a star, Cara.
And I would never be the one to take that away from you. ”
I hated that what he said made sense. It would have been so much easier if this issue was cut and dried, simple.
Instead, it was so damn complicated. And he’d just added another layer.
I almost hated him for it. Because instead of getting to think he was a completely horrible person, now I had to walk around knowing that he treated me like that because he thought he was saving me.
That he was forcing me not to let my dreams go because of him.
“I guess I understand why you did it. It just would have been better if you’d let me be part of the conversation instead of just…
being an ass to me. Maybe you couldn’t think of a way for us to be together on your own—but what if the two of us together had been able to come up with a plan?
I’m not just some pretty fairy that flutters around on a stage. I have a brain you know.”
He winced and took another pull from his drink. It was quiet between us for a moment. The tree frogs and cicadas, a background noise for much of our conversation, suddenly seemed loud.
“I know. And you’re right. Instead of deciding I knew the best way to handle things, I should have just come to you. I just didn’t want you to change your plans for me.”
I nodded. A splash in the direction of the floating dock drew my attention. I couldn’t help but laugh when I realized Livy had knocked Declan into the water. He was bellowing and splashing around like a hippopotamus.