CHAPTER TEN #4
My laughter faded, and I turned back to Edward.
I was about ready to wrap this conversation up so I could get out of here.
But I had the hope that we could get back to being friends, and I could tell we weren’t there yet.
We needed to talk things out a bit more.
“So, how’d you meet your girl?” I tried to sound chipper, like it didn’t break me to think of him with someone else.
“Lufton took me out to a party a couple of months after the funeral. That’s where I first ran into Sara.
” He shrugged, the look on his face miserable.
“Anyway, she was all over me that night, I was drunk, and we… hooked up. Later, I signed up part-time at Wixby College. Then I saw her at school and realized we had a couple of classes together. We sat together and she told me she was fine with a no-strings thing. We started hooking up on a regular basis, and that eventually turned into dating a few months down the line.”
I looked away, my eyes focused on the lights flickering in the branches above us. I didn’t really want to hear the details of his sex life, but I felt like he was leading up to something I needed to hear.
“I want you to know something—nothing happened between us that summer when she came over with Declan’s girl at the time. Or at my dad’s funeral. I didn’t lie to you about that.”
My lips parted. So it was that Sara. I could feel my face go pale, and a wave of nausea rushed over me. “Her? Of all people, you were with her? And you’re still with her?”
He looked nervous. “Yes. I guess you remember her…”
“Oh, I remember her. She’s the girl you told me not to worry about.
The one you said you weren’t interested in.
More than once.” She’d been very clear in her interest in him that summer and again at the funeral.
I’d been jealous of her, even though he’d told me I had nothing to worry about.
The familiar lyrics to Olivia Rodrigo’s song, “Traitor” ran through my mind.
I didn’t think I’d ever hear that song in quite the same way again after this conversation.
“You… you told me you’d never cheat on me, but that you’d definitely not cheat on me with someone like her.”
“I didn’t cheat,” he protested. “When I first got with her, you and I weren’t together.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, wishing I could shrink down to nothing, because that’s how this was making me feel.
A thought crossed my mind. Had he been with her before then?
Had he been lying to me that summer and hooking up with her behind my back?
“You told me you weren’t into her. I guess that was all a lie.
Were you with her while you were with me? ”
He looked so uncomfortable, but I didn’t care at all.
“No, it wasn’t like that. I didn’t have any feelings for her that summer she came over here.
Or at the funeral. None. In fact, I’m ashamed to admit it, but I didn’t care about her when we first got together.
She was just there, and she made it crystal clear what she wanted from me, and I…
lost myself in her.” He looked up, his face miserable.
“Like I said, the first time I hooked up with her was a spur-of-the-moment thing. I’d been drinking, and I wasn’t in a good place.
Then it became a regular thing after I kept seeing her at school. ”
I squeezed my eyelids shut, hoping tears wouldn’t escape.
I didn’t want him to see me crying over him.
“So, let me get this straight. You swore to me she was no one I should worry about. Then you hooked up with her a couple of months after you were with me. And now you’re in a relationship with her even though you told me you were too busy for a girlfriend.
” I stared at him, shocked at his audacity.
“You told me you loved me, took my virginity, ghosted me, and dumped me at your dad’s funeral.
All while the girl ‘you didn’t care about’ helped served food at the reception.
So, you took her call and accepted her help—but not mine. ”
“God. That sounds horrible when you say it out loud,” he said. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I thought if I ended things with you at the funeral it would save you some heartache…”
“You obliterated my heart! Do you not know that? Olivia told me you were hooking up with girls. But I didn’t know it was that girl…
” I choked on the last word. I had raised my voice, something I hardly ever did.
I looked around to see if anyone heard me, but everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves.
They were oblivious to the fact that my heart was shattering into a thousand pieces… again… over Edward Ashton.
“I should have told you about Sara. But at the time I had no idea she’d end up being my girlfriend, and I didn’t want to hurt you unnecessarily.”
Girlfriend. She was his girlfriend. It struck me then that he’d said he didn’t have any feelings for her ‘then’. So, he did now. I tried to swallow down the horrible feelings of jealousy and hurt eating me up.
His eyes were distant, like he was re-living those days.
He looked at me suddenly and regained focus.
“I’m not trying to give you excuses, just an explanation.
I know I messed up, and I’m sorrier than you’ll probably ever know.
” He swallowed hard. “Did I fuck up everything there ever was between us?”
How did I answer that? Was I mad at him? Hell, yes. Furious.
But he’d also poured out his heart to me tonight.
He’d been honest, and that took guts. He could’ve just stayed away from the party and let me hear from someone else that he was with Sara MacAllister.
Instead, he’d admitted what he’d done and apologized for it.
And my lord. The things he’d gone through with his dad and the orchards were beyond what anyone our age should have to.
He mistook my silence. He closed his eyes, squeezing them tight, before opening them and standing up.
“I get it. I do. You don’t want anything to do with me, and I don’t blame you a bit.
I don’t deserve someone like you anyway.
I probably never did.” He grabbed his beer, shoved his other hand in his pocket and started off towards the lake.
“Wait,” I said.
He turned around, hope in his eyes.
“That’s not what I was going to say. I’m sad and I’m hurt, but I…
understand as best as I can why you did the things you did.
I just wish what we had meant as much to you as it did to me.
To know you were with her so soon after me…
” I trailed off. “I don’t even have the words to describe how that makes me feel.
It hurts so much to think that I was still crying over you while you were sleeping with another girl.
” Tears sprang to my eyes. “That girl in particular.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said quietly, staring at me as he stood under the trees in the grove. “I hate myself for that. I really do. I kind of lost who I was there for a while. It’s an excuse, but it’s true.”
I stood and walked over to him. “And now? You have feelings for Sara?”
He clenched his jaw. “I… do.” His eyes met mine. “They’re never going to be like what I felt for you, though.”
“Felt?” God, it was like a punch to the gut.
His feelings for me were over. Gone. Maybe they’d never been real in the first place.
That’s what it seemed like. Where was the boy who’d been too shy to kiss me for an entire summer?
Where was the hero who’d saved me from the goose?
Was he ever real, or did I just make him up in my head?
He hung his head. “I still have a lot of feelings for you. I always will. But it’s not fair to Sara for me to talk to you about this.”
My mouth dropped open, and I raised my eyebrows. Was he kidding? “Not fair to Sara?”
He grimaced. “Yes. I know how that sounds after the way I treated you. Would it make you feel better to know I learned from that mistake, and I’m trying to do better? To be a better person?”
“No. Hell, no. Why would it make me feel better to know that you’re treating her with way more consideration than you ever showed to me?”
“That’s fair.” He rubbed the back of his neck. He was having trouble looking me in the eye.
There wasn’t anything left to say, really, and I just wanted to get out of there. “Well, that about sums it all up. I’m really sorry for what you went through after your dad died. But it seems like you found a way to deal with it. Take care of yourself, Edward.”
I turned and started walking back towards my house. I needed a safe space to let out the emotions I was holding back. I would not cry in front of him. I wanted to salvage a little of my pride.
What had I even been to him? A teenage crush?
Each other’s firsts? That was all. To him I’d just always be that girl that he’d thought he was in love with for about five minutes when he was eighteen.
The girl he almost threw everything away for.
God. I bet he was glad he’d dodged that bullet.
It was clear he and I wouldn’t have lasted longer than a heartbeat if he’d gone with me to Charleston like he’d planned.
But to me? He’d always be my first broken heart.
I’d thought he’d broken it with how distant he’d been with me at his father’s funeral.
Then I thought he’d broken it after he sent me that goodbye text.
But now? I just kept wondering how long he’d been into Sara and just hadn’t acted on it.
I felt like a fool. Now, I truly knew what a broken heart felt like.
It literally felt like I would die from this.
“Wait. Where are you going?” I heard his footsteps behind me, but I didn’t turn around.
“Home. I’m tired. You go have fun with the others.”
“Listen, if it’s too hard for you to see me around this summer, I get it. I’ll make myself scarce…”
I waved him off. “That’s unnecessary. We can be…
friends.” I almost choked on the word. I didn’t want to be friends with him.
I wanted him to pull me into his arms, declare his undying love for me, and tell me he’d break up with Sara immediately now that I was home for the summer.
That he’d been horribly wrong and wanted to spend the rest of his life making it up to me.
But that wasn’t going to happen. It didn’t matter anyway. His life was here, and it always would be. There was no ballet company here. My future lay elsewhere.
And could I forgive him for the way he’d treated me? Could I get over him being with Sara after swearing he wasn’t interested in her? I wasn’t sure I could. Not easily anyway.
And that’s when I knew Edward and I had only been temporary. Just first love. Nothing more.
We were never meant to be together long term.
He smiled, and for the first time that night, it reached his eyes.
I felt a little bad about lying. I didn’t want to be friends with him.
I just wanted to get away from him so I could cry without him seeing me.
I was saying whatever I thought he needed to hear so I could get out of there without him coming after me.
“I’m so glad you feel that way. I couldn’t stand it if we weren’t friends. You really mean a lot to me.”
I walked over to him, held onto his thick, strong shoulders, stood on my toes, and kissed him lightly on his cheek. I knew it would be the last time I ever kissed him. “You meant a lot to me, too.”
I pulled away, forced a smile, and walked off, leaving him staring after me.
“Goodbye, Edward,” I said quietly, where he couldn’t hear me. As far as I was concerned, it would be a long time before I’d ever want to see him again, much less be friends with him.
The painful truth was that he had never loved me. At least not like I’d loved him.
***
“Miss?”
The driver’s voice broke into my thoughts, and I wondered how long he’d been talking to me.
I looked out the window and saw the Hart estate, lit up and glowing in the night, people in their finest evening wear going up the stairs to enter the party.
“Sorry,” I said, wiping a tear from my cheek and hoping it hadn’t smeared my carefully applied makeup.
And as I wiped the tears away, I knew I had to protect myself from Edward.
My first reaction—seeing him in the audience and only thinking about good memories and my attraction to him—had been wrong.
I couldn’t let him hurt me any more than he already had.
I would be polite, smile, make a little small talk, and move on to the next person.
It wouldn’t be hard. There would be people milling everywhere, clamoring to talk to the dancers.
That’s how these parties always went. I wouldn’t let him see that the hurt he’d caused was still there, still inside me.
Worse yet, I couldn’t let him realize that it wasn’t even buried way down deep.
No, seeing him again showed me just how close to the surface it was.
Now I knew how little I’d gotten over him in the past six years.
“It’s fine.” He looked at me with curiosity but said nothing as I said goodbye and got out.
I smoothed my dress down and walked up the grand staircase.
I sighed and forced a smile as I saw Monty in the foyer as one of the staff opened the huge double doors for me.
Party time.