34. Chapter 34
Chapter thirty-four
I position the last of the balloon arch over the canvas I had made. I readjust the cake on its tray.
I check the time. EJ was supposed to have Cade here ten minutes ago. He’s nowhere to be found, and I’m starting to get nervous.
I wouldn’t be as nervous if I wasn’t intending for tonight to be The Night. But this is it. So, Cade is late for the most important day of my life and his.
Wonderful.
I consider texting again, and as I’m about to retrieve my phone and send a strongly worded message, Cade and EJ are coming over the dunes.
“Gigiiii!” Cade says. “You. Are. In. Trouble.”
Oh, no.
“Cade,” EJ says, a warning edge to his tone. “Let me—”
“I’m gonna talk to her, alright? Leave me alone,” he slurs, walking toward me on unsteady legs.
“EJ,” I start, looking at him, “what’s going on?”
“I told you no birthday shit,” Cade grumbles as he reaches me on the blanket. “We aren’t dating, Gigi. This looks like we’re dating! We’re not! Listen to me.”
“Cade—”
“No, you listen to me,” he says. I purse my lips, waiting. “You aren’t my girlfriend. I don’t want you to be. And this—” He motions to the setup I spent hours painstakingly creating. I fight bursting into sobs as he jabs angry fingers at every aspect, scowling. The picnic lunch of charcuterie and champagne, the canvas print of the four of us on the beach on July fourth. The ice cream and pizza from the Pizza Ice Cream Parlor.
Every aspect of our perfect summer that I’ve curated. He hates it all.
“What the hell is all this?” he asks. He’s pleading with me. “Hook-ups don’t do this, Gigi.” He looks at everything once more, shaking his head. He clenches his eyes shut tight, like he can’t bear to look. When he opens them again, he says, “I know you don’t understand how this works, but know this. That—whatever this is that you’ve done? You shouldn’t do this for a guy who only wants you for sex, alright? It’ll scare them away.”
My heart drops into my stomach.
“Hey, man.” EJ walks toward Cade, standing with me on the blanket. “You don’t have to be a dick about it.”
“I do,” Cade says, not looking at EJ. “You don’t understand, EJ. She won’t get it otherwise.”
“Cade.” My voice barely comes out. “I didn’t—”
“And you wanna know something?” Cade laughs to himself. “I got a girl’s number last night. And then went home with her! I’m allowed to do that. You know why? Because I’m not your boyfriend!”
It takes everything I have not to start sobbing. I can’t—and will not—give Cade Deans the satisfaction of watching me cry over him.
I will not grovel. I’m worth more than groveling.
“Gigi,” EJ says, “he had a lot to drink before we came here. He was mad about the tattoo shop and Eddy and—”
“It’s not the shop!” Cade says loudly, whirling around to face EJ. “It’s that I feel suffocated by a girl who thinks she matters to me when she doesn’t.”
That makes me fall to my knees. My heart falls out of me completely and lands at my side. I can see it there, still beating, begging to be put back in place so I may be made whole.
But it’s too late, because Cade steps on it. I watch the pieces shatter irreparably when he does. Absolutely helpless.
“Whatever this is,” Cade slurs, “it’s over.” Then he starts up the dunes again.
“You are making the biggest ass of yourself right now,” EJ mutters to him as he passes. “You’re saying things you can’t take back right now, dude. Respectfully, shut up.”
“I think you need to leave,” I tell EJ. “Can you get him out of here?”
“Gigi,” EJ begins, “he’s not—”
“I don’t care. Please get him away from me.”
“Gigi—”
“EJ,” I plead, hoarse. “Please, just go.”
He looks at me apologetically and then looks after Cade with that same sorrowful expression. “I’m sorry, Gigi. He’ll feel like an asshole tomorrow.”
“I know he will,” I say. “He should.”
EJ nods, waiting to see if I’ll say more. I don’t, and wordlessly, EJ follows Cade up the dunes, back to the parking lot.
I pop all the balloons with force; I rip down streamers, and I destroy the cake with both hands like a ravenous child. I curse at the sky and swear off men and look up prices for an impromptu flight to Europe.
And then I call my mom.
“Gigi? What’s going on?”
“Can I—” I fight to get a deep breath with the tightness in my throat. “I want to come home.”
There’s only one place I care to go before leaving Geddington Beach behind me forever. When I open the door to Beach Brew, the morning after Cade’s failed birthday celebration, I don’t expect to see EJ. I knew it was a possibility, sure, but l am really after some caffeine before my flight, not a heartfelt goodbye.
My heart can’t take anything else.
After I talked to my mom, I called Rory. She offered to let me stay at her place for the night and said she’d gather my things from EJ’s and have them ready before she came to get me from the beach. I expected her to leave me with her roommate, escape back to EJ’s. But she stayed with me and even stayed alongside me as I shamelessly cried myself to sleep.
I feel weak in the knees as Rory and I walk into Beach Brew the next morning, my hands shaking with nerves.
“Your usual?” EJ asks. “On your way to work?”
I shake my head, handing over my bills.
EJ hands them back and shakes his head in return.
This time, I don’t slip the bills into the tip jar. “I’m leaving. Rory’s taking me to the airport.”
“You didn’t tell me,” EJ accuses, looking at Rory. “What gives?”
“I was sworn to secrecy,” Rory tells him. “I didn’t know until late last night.”
EJ narrows his eyes at me. “If this is because of my brother—”
“It is,” I say. “It is. But that’s okay.”
“Gigi. If you’d call him—”
“I don’t want to talk to Cade,” I say, holding up a hand to stop EJ. “I’m here for coffee.”
EJ looks to Rory. “Don’t look at me,” she says. “There’s nothing I can do.”
“She’s right,” I tell EJ, walking to the pickup counter. “But for what it’s worth, I’m happy to see you before I go.”
Once I get my coffee and we’re situated in Rory’s Jeep, she turns to me. “You sure you don’t want to say bye to Belinda?”
I wince. “I’m positive. I can’t bear to look at Cade right now, let alone her.”
Rory considers this. “Fine. If that’s what you want.”
“I have nothing to say to either of them.”
“You showed up here, excited to become somebody else and be Belinda’s doting daughter. Both ventures fell short.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I tell Rory. “I don’t need to prove anything to anyone. And I deserve more than a mother who doesn’t love me or a guy who strung me along. I don’t need love from them to feel loved. And they certainly don’t deserve to hear me say goodbye to them.”
“That’s my girl,” Rory says through a smile.
I know she’s trying to be encouraging, but her phrasing makes me think of Cade. “You know,” I admit, “I did change, being here. I did become someone else.”
Rory glances at me.
“With Cade. I wouldn’t—I couldn’t have walked away from Cade at the beginning of the summer. Even if he would have slept with that girl at the bar back then, when this all started. He could have told me that, and I would have stayed, waited until he was ready to commit to me, even if that day never came. I would’ve continued to follow him around, want him close. I would have fought to make sure he wanted me more than he wanted her. Fought damn hard.” I let out a wet laugh. “The person I was at the beginning of the summer would’ve camped out in front of the apartment until he talked to me.”
“I know,” Rory says, rubbing my arm. “But you didn’t.”
I take a shaky breath. “But I didn’t. I walked away, didn’t beg, didn’t try to convince him otherwise.”
“You’ve come a long way since the girl I met who let Belinda order her a Diet Coke,” Rory says, bumping my arm with hers. “I’m proud of you.”
I smile, a warmth spreading. “Thank you. Me, too.”
“And don’t give Cade any credit for that,” Rory says, looking at me sternly. “You made those changes—a man didn’t do it for you.”
“I know,” I say softly.
But the only person I want to talk about my brave accomplishment with is the person who made me walk away in the first place.