Chapter Thirteen
L ily looked over at her mother and Buck. The suspicion that her mom had feelings for him had been getting more and more certain every week. Her mom said no, but she blushed when his name came up. She looked giddy whenever he called.
Lily recognized it, because it was how she felt when she thought about Colton. But...the more she thought about it, the more she was sure her mom wasn’t going to do anything with Buck if Colton and Lily were dating. Because her mom had always sacrificed for her.
Lily was leaving for college anyway. She was seventeen. You didn’t marry the first guy you ever made out with. The first guy you ever let get to second base. You didn’t marry that high school boyfriend, because you had to go do things.
Her mom hadn’t gotten to go do things. And she was counting on Lily to go away and make something of herself. She had sacrificed so much in order for Lily to do that. And now her mom was getting ready to sacrifice wanting the first guy that she had even shown any interest in for Lily’s whole life because Lily happened to be dating his son. A dead-end relationship that she knew wasn’t even half of what Buck and her mom could have.
She put her hand to her chest and wished it didn’t feel like her heart was breaking and moved away from Colton, stepping outside the gym, trying to catch her breath.
She was grateful she had made plans with her friends. Grateful she had decided she wasn’t going to do something crazy like sleep with Colton tonight.
Her eyes filled with tears, and she shook her head, didn’t let them fall.
Colton followed her out the door. “What’s wrong?”
“You see them?”
“Who?”
“Buck and my mom.”
“Oh yeah. They were dancing. So?”
“She likes him. I mean... They like each other.”
“You think so?”
“Yes. And... I think there’s something going on between them. I have thought that for a while.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because I thought I was being crazy. And... I didn’t want to mess this up. Us. But the truth is... We can’t be together.”
He looked like she had hit him, and she felt horrible. She felt like the villain.
Breaking her own heart.
Breaking his.
“My mom has sacrificed everything for me. Absolutely everything. And I think your dad would make her happy. But she keeps telling me that nothing is going on between them, and she so clearly... I think she’s in love with him. And she doesn’t want to disrupt my life or my relationship with you, because if they get married, then I’m going to be your stepsister.”
“Why are you saying this?”
“Because it’s true. It’s real. It’s happening.” She took a deep breath. “We’re going to college anyway. We are not going to end up together, Colton. This was... It was great. And you were great. There’s nothing wrong with you. But it’s not the right timing. And I think... I think because of them it’s never going to be.”
“You’re really breaking up with me at a dance?”
“We don’t have to be broken up until after the dance ends,” she said. “We could have one more dance.”
Colton’s face looked stony. “No. We can’t.”
“Please don’t be mad at me. Please. I like you. I care about you. And if our parents end up together then...”
He swallowed hard. And it was like he suddenly saw all the potential problems with all of this. They could never get to where they hated each other. Not if they were going to be stuck together as part of the same family, forever.
“Okay.”
“Let’s go back to the dance.”
“Sure.”
But there was something terribly blank in his eyes. And when he touched her hand, it didn’t feel the same.
But that was a good thing. It wasn’t supposed to.
She had made the right choice.
Because her mom wouldn’t tell her what was going on, she’d had to try to figure it out and handle it herself. Try to fix it.
So she had done the best she could.