CHAPTER SEVENTEEN | Penn #2
“I...” She seems caught off guard, like she didn’t expect me to react this way.
Rolling down her window, she tosses the remainder of her cone into the grass before shifting back toward me.
I have to resist the urge to scold her for being so wasteful.
“Don’t look at me like that.” She says like she can read exactly what I was thinking.
“It’s not littering; it’s feeding wildlife. ”
“Pretty sure no form of wildlife should be consuming that much sugar,” I needlessly point out.
“Would you like me to pick it up?” She huffs.
“I’d like for you to say whatever it is you clearly want to say.” I urge her to get on with it.
“I just don’t want to keep doing this,” she says after a brief moment, like she herself isn’t quite sure where to start.
“Doing what?”
“Whatever this is.” She gestures between us. “I want things to be okay with us, but I don’t feel like that’s truly possible until we have an honest discussion about what happened seven years ago.”
“I know what happened. I was there.”
“Were you? Because the way you treated me when I came back... It’s like we had two entirely different recollections on how things ended.”
“You broke up with me. Not sure how anyone could misunderstand what happened.”
“But I didn’t.” She shakes her head. “I told you I was moving to New York, and you just accepted it.”
“You expected me to stand in the way of what you spent your whole life working toward? If you thought I was capable of that, then clearly you didn’t realize just how much I loved you.”
“You weren’t standing in the way of anything. I wanted to pursue dance. I wanted to know if I had what it took. But that didn’t mean I didn’t want you to be a part of it.”
“Then why didn’t you say that?”
“Because I didn’t want you to feel obligated to come with me. To leave your family and your friends and uproot your entire life.”
“You were my entire life!” I say way too loudly given our close quarters. “I would have walked through fire if it meant I wouldn’t lose you.”
“Then why didn’t you?” she fires back. “Why didn’t you fight for me?”
“Because you choosing dance confirmed what I always had known—I was never end game for you.”
“Bullshit.” Her anger flares. “You want to know what I think? I think you were a coward. I think you knew that if you had offered to come with me, I would have said yes in a heartbeat. I think you wanted me to go because you had convinced yourself that you weren’t good enough for me.”
“I wasn’t good enough for you.”
“I disagree. You’ve always been more than good enough. I loved you with the intensity of a thousand suns and leaving you, it was and still is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And considering I just watched my lifelong dream go up in flames, that’s saying something.”
“If that were true, if you really loved me like that, you would have come back sooner. You would have visited. You would have come to my father’s funeral.” My voice breaks on the last part.
“I wanted to. But I knew if I did, if I came back to Wren Cove, I wouldn’t have the strength to leave a second time.” Tears well behind her eyes, making the blue shine like crystal. “And I would have come to your father’s service had I known that he died.”
“You didn’t...”
“My mom told me the day I came home. She knew I was having a really hard time and worried that learning of your father’s death might have sent me over the edge.
This isn’t something I like to talk about, but there was a point, a very dark point, where I really thought maybe I didn’t want to be here anymore.
I think my mom suspected that, so she was very careful not to say anything to me that might be that final straw. ”
“What do you mean you didn’t want to be here anymore?” My brow furrows.
“I was in such pain, emotionally and physically, and I was just so exhausted... I didn’t do it, obviously. But I thought about it. And that’s when I knew that if I didn’t come home, if I didn’t come back to Wren Cove, it would likely cost me my life.”
“London... I...” I grapple for words, not knowing what to say to that.
London has always been the happiest, most positive person I’ve ever known. To know that she was that low—that ending her life felt easier than the alternative—it breaks something open in me that I didn’t even know existed until this very moment.
“Please don’t.” She stops me before I can say more. “I don’t want your pity. I just need you to understand that I would have been here for your father, for you, if I could have been. I loved him too, you know.”
“I know you did,” I say after a long beat, still trying to process everything she’s just said.
“And you’re right. I was afraid. Afraid that I didn’t fit into the life you envisioned for yourself.
Afraid that I would be something that weighed you down instead of that lifted you up.
I thought, if I could let you go, it would be the ultimate way to show you just how much I loved you.
But then you actually left and I was so angry.
Angry that you were gone. Angry that it seemed so easy for you to leave.
I was just so, so angry. An anger, I’m ashamed to admit, I held onto for seven long years. ”
“You don’t say?” She attempts to lighten the mood with a smile.
“I was awful to you when you came home.”
“I think I understand why a little better now.”
“There’s no excuse for my actions.”
“Some would argue otherwise. I hurt you.”
“I’m starting to realize maybe I hurt you, too.”
The tears she’s been fighting finally break free, two streaking down her cheeks, one after the other. She quickly wipes them away.
“I am sorry, Penn. For all of it. I wish I could say it was just because I was a stupid kid who didn’t understand the consequences of my actions, but if that were true, it wouldn’t have taken me seven years to say those words. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too.”
“Ask me your question again.” I don’t have to clarify; she knows what question I’m referring to.
“Do you still love me?” she asks a second time.
“LV, I will love you until the day I die. And probably even after.”
A strangled noise works its way up her throat.
“But do you still love me?” Another tear falls, and this time, I’m the one to wipe it away.
“With everything that I am,” I say, letting my fingers linger on her face. “If the way I’ve been acting hasn’t already given that much away.” I give her a soft smile.
“Can you forgive me?”
“Can you forgive me?” I repeat her question back to her.
“I have a confession to make.” She gives me a watery smile. “Travis was never going to take me to lunch. He only did it to see how you’d react. He did it for me. Just like the kiss that day. He kissed me to prove a point.”
“And what point was that?”
“That you still had feelings for me.”
“So you two were never...”
She shakes her head. “Just friends.”
“Why would you—”
“Because I still love you too,” she blurts before I can finish the question forming on my lips, sending my heart kicking against my ribs so violently I’d be surprised if it doesn’t break one.
“I tried convincing myself I didn’t. That I didn’t care how you felt about me.
That I didn’t care if you hated me. But the truth still remains that I do.
That I love you. That I regret ever leaving.
That all I want is to go back and do it all differently. ”
I don’t know what to say to that, so I do the only thing I can do. The one thing I’ve been wanting to do since the day she came home.
I take her face in my hands...
And I kiss her...