Chapter 29
“What?” I couldn’t have heard him right.
There was a short pause. “She kissed me.”
I stared at him. “I don’t understand.”
He just looked at me, his brow furrowed.
“What…what happened?” My brain felt like it was on the brink of shorting out. “Actually, can we go outside? I need some air.”
He opened the door for me, and I sucked in the cold, fall air. Autumn was in full swing, though it was too dark to see the explosion of colors all around us.
I sat down on the small bench outside the door, then looked up at him. “Can you start at the beginning?”
He took a seat next to me, leaning forward so his elbows rested on his knees. It was a few seconds before he started talking. “I had a crush on Lily for a long time—since middle school, really.”
“Yeah, I know.”
He glanced over at me and grimaced.
“So did Ryan, as you probably know. He was always better than I was at the whole flirting and confidence and dating stuff. Anyway, you remember when they started dating, and you know how it went.”
I nodded. Lily was the only person I could remember Ryan being with, but they’d been so off and on, breaking up only to get back together not long after.
“The last time they broke up, they had a really big fight.”
I smiled wryly.
“Bigger than usual,” he said in response.
“There was a girl at college, Jessie, who was in one of Ryan’s classes.
She was super into him. Lily felt like he was giving Jessie the wrong idea, and Ryan was mad she didn’t trust him.
It got intense—years of stuff they’d broken up over all coming out again.
Ryan was really upset afterward. I told him it’d blow over, but he felt like Lily was really done this time.
” James rubbed his hands. “He had a study group the next night and…”
I held my breath.
“He and Jessie kissed. I’m pretty sure he regretted it almost immediately.
But he wasn’t going to tell Lily. He felt like he’d learned his lesson and it would only hurt her and make her think he was into Jessie, which he wasn’t.
He said it’d just been a dumb mistake because he’d been hurting.
I thought he should tell Lily anyway. That he owed it to her. ”
I nodded. I agreed.
“He wouldn’t. But somehow, word got to Lily.
I’m not sure exactly what she heard, but she came to me about it.
She was crying. Miserable. She asked me if there was something between Ryan and Jessie.
” He wiped a hand over the bottom half of his face.
“I should’ve told her to ask him. But I confirmed something had happened between them and that Ryan regretted it.
” His jaw flexed. “It crushed her. Just like Ryan worried it would. She just…sobbed. Uncontrollably. I thought she might be having a panic attack. I took her by the shoulders and tried to get her to breathe. It helped a little. But then she just collapsed onto my chest.” He clenched his eyes shut like he was trying to wipe an unwelcome image.
“And I held her—something I’d wanted to do for years. And then…”
“She kissed you.”
His throat bobbed, and he nodded. “It took me off guard at first. But then, just for a second, I let myself kiss her back.” His jaw flexed again.
“I pulled back, feeling sick. I think she felt it too because we both left right away. Anyway, the next night, I went to talk to Ryan. But he’d already talked to Lily, and he came at me swinging. ”
I sucked in a breath of surprise.
“I deserved it.”
Before I could protest, he continued. “But it became clear from our conversation that he thought I’d initiated things.”
I stared at him, the memory of Ryan vomiting in the bathroom flashing across my mind. Had that been a result of his choice with Jessie? Or from hearing about James and Lily?
“But you corrected him,” I said.
James was quiet.
“James.”
“He didn’t wait around for me to correct him.”
“But you could’ve gone after him.”
“He and Lily were already mending things by then. If I’d come and told him what had actually happened, do you think he’d have believed me?”
I swallowed. I didn’t know the answer to that.
“Even if he had, it would’ve killed him. I’d already hurt him enough—and either way, I knew he’d want nothing to do with me. Word was already spreading around the town by then.”
“But James—you left Autumn Ridge in disgrace. Over a lie?”
I couldn’t fathom it. He’d left for eight years. Eight years.
He shook his head. “I needed to get out. Everywhere I turned was another memory of Dad. It felt like I was drowning in them. The situation with your brother just made it that much easier to leave.” His throat bobbed, belying his words.
The thought of a younger James leaving Autumn Ridge under the weight of the grief of losing his dad and his best friend and the girl he was in love with…
I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t have said it even if I did, because I had a giant lump in my throat.
This was what I’d sensed between James and Lily. The tension of the two of them—and only them—knowing the truth. Of Lily coming face to face with the man she’d let take the fall for her choice.
How could she have done that to him?
I turned toward James and wrapped my arms around him.
He was stiff at first, but he relaxed quickly, like he was sighing into my arms.
“I’m so, so sorry,” I finally managed.
His shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I was a bad friend.”
I didn’t respond because I wasn’t sure how to.
Had James made a couple of questionable decisions? Sure.
Was he the villain my brother and my parents and the town thought him, deserving of eight years of exile?
Absolutely not.
I pulled back and stood up. “We have to tell Ryan.”
His head was shaking before I’d finished.
“It’s not fair to you, James.” I was fired up on his behalf.
Ryan got the girl James had always wanted.
Ryan hurt that girl by kissing the very person she was insecure about.
Ryan was too scared to tell her.
Lily asked James.
James told her the truth.
Lily kissed James.
James kissed her back.
Lily let James take the fall because she was too scared to tell Ryan the truth.
There were plenty of bad decisions to go around, but if I had to choose a victim here, it was James.
“Why won’t you tell them?” I asked.
He searched my face. “Do you really want that? Think about it, Sadie.”
I did.
I thought about the truth of the man I loved being out there. Of people apologizing and treating him kindly.
But then I thought about who would tell Ryan.
James?
Ryan would never believe him.
Me?
He’d think I’d been fooled by James into believing a lie.
Even if he did believe it, then what? We’d light off a grenade in Ryan’s marriage and hope that learning that his wife kissed his best friend somehow led him to being happy I’d chosen his ex-best friend as my boyfriend?
“No,” I agreed softly. I didn’t want that.
I hated that I agreed with him—that the little hope I’d had of resolving this impossible situation was gone. Again.
We both sighed.
“Back to square one,” James said.
That was definitely what it felt like in some ways. “No. This does change things, even if it doesn’t solve them.”
He looked a question at me.
“For years, I tried to make sense of the James I knew and the one who’d betrayed my brother.
Eventually, I just accepted that I’d been wrong about you—wrong to admire you so much.
But then you came back, and again, I had to confront this piece that didn’t fit into the puzzle no matter which way I turned it.
” I pushed my way forward so I was standing between his knees, then put my hands on his face and looked down at him. “Now, it all makes sense.”
He swallowed. “I’m not perfect, Sadie. I really regret how I handled things.”
“I don’t need perfect. I don’t even want it. I just want you.”
His eyes softened, and his hands gripped my wrists. “You’ve got me.”
I leaned down until our lips met, our agreement to pull back dissolving.
I had no idea how we would handle things with Ryan; I just knew we had to figure out something, because not being with James simply wasn’t an option.