26. Boob Tape #4
“All to protect me,” Junie says with no intonation. “From hateful words of a mother who never loved me, from fraud I didn’t commit, and from losing a house so haunted it can never be a home?”
That’s not—
“Yes.” I’m raw and exposed. “You have to understand. If I didn’t get your house out of foreclosure, if I didn’t take over the loans, the legal repercussions would have impacted both you and Nolan regardless if it was true or not.
Boston is a small city, Junie. You have that kind of thing following your name, and you never would’ve been able to live out your dream.
Nolan would’ve dropped out of med school. Hudson was only in law school. I—”
“You fixed it. While blowing up your life and actively breaking my heart. And tonight, you stood out there and protected her by explaining your own memorial like you were a consultant and not the creator.” Junie’s fingers wrap around the diamond on her left hand.
It slides up to the middle of her knuckle, then back down. It happens once, twice, three times.
It’s as though her body is releasing me along with her heart, and all the structures I’ve used to lift us up crack under the weight of what I was trying to do.
I close my eyes. “Yes.”
When I open them, I don’t find the locked-down fury I’d braced myself for. Her expression is something smaller. Something that looks like a door quietly closing on the other side of the world.
“I need you to not follow me.”
“Junie—”
“Cole.” Quiet. Final.
“Listen to her, Cole.”
I chance a look in Hudson’s direction. His fury still burns, but it’s lined with a sadness I rarely see from him.
“You said to tell you when I wanted to run. I’m respecting your wishes.
I’m telling you I’m running. Now I need you to respect mine and stand here until I’m in a car,” Junie says, and the fissures in my heart crack open wider.
“I need you to stay here and collect the money for The Haven. I need you to finish this evening for Nana Mae because you’ve both already lost too much.
I need you to not touch me, and I need you to not come after me. Do you understand me?”
“Juniper, please.” My whole heart gives up. It just ceases to work.
“Do. You. Understand. Me. Cole?”
I nod.
I can feel Natalie’s hatred at my back, but she has no idea what she’s just detonated—she never did learn to account for the blast radius.
Her career was over before we ever stepped into this hotel—she just hadn’t realized it.
Junie doesn’t spare Natalie a single glance. She doesn’t acknowledge Hudson either.
She simply stares at me as if she’s seeing me for the first time and doesn’t like what she sees.
Then she walks away.
She doesn’t run.
It’s the measured walk of a woman still preserving her dignity because the man who loves her wasn’t able to.
She doesn’t pass the ballroom, instead turning toward the lobby.
“I’ll take her home,” Hudson hisses. “Call a car for you and Nana Mae.”
I stand where I am.
I keep this one promise.
And it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
“Cole.” Natalie sounds as though she’s underwater. “I—that’s not how I wanted this to—”
“Get. Away. From. Me.” Of all the shit she threw into the universe, one thing haunts me above all else.
Natalie was Junie’s childhood bully. The one she told me about late at night. She was begging me to see the truth, and I was too blind and stupid to see it.
“You’re the one who tormented her when she was younger? A fucking child, Natalie? A kid who lost her mom slowly over years? That’s who you chose to bully?”
“She always had more of your attention than was right.”
“Get the fuck out of my life, you wretched, conniving bitch. Stay away from my family. Stay the fuck away from Junie. Don’t contact me again.
Don’t call. Don’t write. Prepare yourself for the wreckage you’ve just unleashed because I won’t be your safety net anymore.
I’ll stand in the fire just to watch you fucking burn. ”
I step close enough that the chemical scent of her perfume permeates my nose like the toxic piece of shit she is. “And I will watch you fucking burn, Natalie. You have no idea who you’ve turned me into these past six years, but you’re about to find out. You’ll burn in the fire you started.”
Her hand covers her mouth. I think she’s crying, but I don’t spend another second on her because it’s taking every ounce of my willpower to keep this promise to Junie.
I stand where I am.
Inside, the MC speaks. At some point, The Haven is recognized.
I don’t move.
And that’s where Nana Mae finds me sometime later.
“She’s gone,” I say.
Nana Mae drops the award she had in her hand to the floor. “Hudson just called.”
“She told me not to follow.”
She purses her lips, then wraps her arms around my waist with surprising strength. “Let’s go home.”
I nod because home has no meaning anymore. For the first time in six years, I’m operating without a plan, and the only thing I can do is keep the one promise that’s already killing me slowly.
The only thing I can do now…is wait and pray that she’ll give me a chance to explain.
And even that may not be enough.