Chapter 26 May 20 #3
“Yeah, well, maybe I don’t want to be a homecoming queen or the girl in the pink truck all my life,” I said.
“Maybe I want to be somewhere that no one knows that I broke up with their beloved son and then he died. That I had two best friends and they both died. Maybe I just want to start over where no one knows anything about me, and I can be anything I want.”
“You’ll know.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I know my baggage goes with me, Preston. Wherever you go, there you are, and all that. But I want to start over, away from all this darkness and tragedy. Don’t you ever want that?”
“Every fucking day,” he said quietly.
I swallowed, fighting the sting behind my eyes. “I just want to see what I can do outside this town. What I can be.”
“You can be anything you want here,” he said. “Maybe not famous, but that’s surface. That’s not what you really want.”
“And you know what I want better than I do?” I asked, planting a hand on my hip, thinking about what he’d taken from me with no regard for what I wanted, giving me no choice in the matter.
He didn’t even give me the truth. For three years, he let me be his friend, let me believe he wanted what was best for me, let me walk around never knowing that he was the one who’d brutally defiled me, not his cousin.
He let me think Devlin hurt me without apologizing when all along, Preston was the one who owed me the apology.
And he never even gave it, not even when he finally had the decency to give me the truth.
“You want big love,” he said without missing a beat, oblivious to my seething devastation. “The kind you gave Devlin. You want to matter. You want to be enough, to be everything to someone. You want to finally get what you deserve. And you can have it, Doll. Just stay.”
“I can’t,” I said, swallowing hard and looking at the bus, where the driver was loading the suitcases into the luggage compartment.
“You can,” he said. “One year. For me. Then I’ll graduate, and I’ll come with you.”
“Don’t do this,” I said, my voice cracking with pain and anger. “Please, Preston. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to go if you don’t believe in me.”
“I believe in you,” he said, taking both my hands in his. “Dolly, I fucking believe in you more than anyone else on this earth. Here, I got you something. And I wanted to tell you something…” He pulled a little white jewelry box from his pocket and handed it to me.
“What’s this?” I asked, my heart skipping even though it wasn’t a ring box.
“It’s for you,” he said. “To replace the old one.”
I swallowed, a weird little knot of dread forming in my belly at the thought of the ballerina charm Devlin gave me. But when I opened the box, a sparkling daisy on a platinum chain glittered up at me. “Preston…”
His name caught in my throat, and I couldn’t speak. Why did he have to go and do something like this right when I hated him most, when I’d decided I could never forgive him for the utter violation he’d admitted to? Why did he have to remember everything, like he said in the hospital?
I knew why he’d chosen a daisy. It was like the daisies he’d picked for me that day, when the innocent crush of a four-year-old drove him to pull up the weeds and present them to me like I was a queen.
In some poetic way, it seemed fitting that it was now the last gift he’d give me, that it was all grown up and studded with diamonds and nestled in a clean box instead of petal-soft and bearing the bruises of his careless fingers yanking them up, the roots studded with dirt clumps.
“Just because I’m here to say goodbye, it doesn’t mean I want you to go,” he said. “You can have the whole world right here in Faulkner.”
“Thank you,” I said, tears wetting my lashes.
“I’ve already lost Devlin,” he said quietly, taking the necklace from the box. He held it up, reaching behind my neck to fasten the clasp, his fingers so gentle they threatened to break me more than any roughness could have. “I can’t lose you, too.”
“You’re not losing me,” I said, even though I knew it was a lie. “I’m just moving away.”
“Then I’ll wait for you,” he said. “I’ll wait for you to come back.”
“No,” I said, stepping back. “Don’t wait for me, Preston. I don’t want that. I’m going to live my life. You should live yours, too.”
“How am I supposed to do that?” he asked, raking a hand through his short hair. “How can I do anything without you?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, a tear spilling down my check. “I’m sorry I have to go, and I’m sorry you have to stay. I’m sorry your family’s going through this, and I’m sorry they did that to you. But I couldn’t stop any of it then, and I can’t stop any of it now.”
“I can live with it,” he said, stepping closer and sliding a hand over my cheek. Gently, he wiped away my tear with his thumb. “I can’t live without you, Doll.”
I swallowed, my throat aching. “Please don’t do this.”
“Then don’t leave.”
“I have to,” I said, pulling away and taking a shaky breath to collect myself.
“Why?” he asked again.
“You know why,” I said. “I can’t be here anymore, Preston. I can’t breathe in this town.”
His eyes were so dark, so desperate, and his words came out ragged, the smooth leather of his voice torn by grief. “I can’t breathe without you.”
“You have to,” I said, crying freely now. “You have to let me go.”
“I can’t.”
“And I can’t stay,” I said. “If you care about someone, you let them go. Let me go, Preston.”
“And if they care…”
“They come back,” I whispered.
I’d used that same reasoning when I broke up with Devlin, and I knew how devastatingly true it was. He hadn’t come back because he’d never loved me back.
Maybe Preston was right, and there was love for me in this town.
But maybe there was love for me somewhere else too, somewhere full of sunshine and happiness instead of darkness and heartache.
I couldn’t let myself believe that love only happened once; that at nineteen, all the love I’d ever give was already gone.
That the best of life was behind me, and I’d live like a lonely widow for the rest of my days just because I’d opened myself up to love and given so much of it when I was young.
The bus driver called for boarding, and Preston pulled me into his arms, holding me so hard I couldn’t breathe. “Please,” he whispered into my hair. “I’m fucking begging here, Doll.”
“Don’t forget me,” I whispered back.
And then I pulled away, and I climbed onto the bus, and I sat down in a seat away from the window.
Maybe I’d been brave to love Devlin, and maybe I was brave to follow this crazy dream.
I wasn’t brave enough to watch Preston drive away, though, to see if he left before I did.
So I lay my head back on the seat and closed my eyes, and I didn’t open them until the bus pulled onto the interstate and left Faulkner and everyone in it behind.