CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT #2
“When you left, I was a mess. You were my best friend and I loved you.” My chest tightens with those words because the last time I told him I loved him, he left me.
I want to cry for the heartbroken girl I was then and for the heartbreak we’re both enduring right now.
“We’d had sex and I was vulnerable, and all I heard when you walked away was that you didn’t want me. ”
Jamie shifts, lips twitching like he might say something, but I keep going, needing to get this all out.
“When I found out I was pregnant, that was the only thing I could think of—that you didn’t want me, and I had no reason to believe my being pregnant would change that.
And what were you going to do? Move back just because I was pregnant…
? No, I wasn’t going to force you into being with me.
So, I made the choice. I decided to keep the baby and not tell you.
” I let out a deep sigh. “My parents weren’t particularly thrilled with the decision. ”
Jamie goes rigid, his expression hardening into something livid.
“Not about Lennox,” I say, knowing he misunderstood my words. My parents were never anything but supportive about Lennox, unlike my grandparents. “About you. They wanted me to tell you. But they respected my decision once it was made.”
“But your grandparents?” he asks, confusion crinkling his brow. “They had to have known. Why didn’t they tell—”
“They disowned me, Jamie,” I say quietly, interrupting him.
“They disowned Mum and Dad too, actually. They were so ashamed of me.” My face falls and I watch my hands in my lap where I twine and release my fingers just for something to do with them.
“They didn’t want anyone here to know, and when Mum and Dad stood by me, by my decisions, they told them never to come back to Skye to see them either.
And we didn’t. I didn’t set foot on this island until they died last year and I came up to settle their estate.
Last weekend was the first time my parents have been here since they picked me up when I was seventeen. ”
“But… your grandparents were the ones who told me you’d moved on, that it was your choice not to come back to Skye.”
My head snaps up. “When?” I ask, and squeeze my eyes shut because—what?
“When I came back,” he says evenly, like this news isn’t enough to rock me to my core.
When did he come back?
“When, Jamie?” I ask again, more firmly.
“That last summer. Before uni. You weren’t here.”
He came back?
I choke on a sob, covering my mouth with my hands, eyes squeezing shut. He came back and I— “I didn’t know you came back that summer,” I say, lowering my hands and lifting my head so I can face him.
He scoffs—a mean sound from deep in his throat. “You would if you hadn’t blocked me. Why the fuck would you do that?”
I deserve his ire, but it stings to be on the receiving end of it.
“I… It was a mistake. I knew I couldn’t just be your friend anymore, and I knew it would break me if you ever emailed me and tried to pick things up where we’d left off, and then with the baby… I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep from telling you—”
“You should have told me, Avonlea. You should’ve at least respected me enough to let me be part of the decision.”
Ouch. He’s right. I know he’s right, but…
“What would it have changed?” I say with a plea in my voice.
“Everything.” The sincerity in his voice breaks me. “It would have changed everything.”
“Exactly, and you would’ve resented me for it!
” I yell, because I know this. That’s part of why I didn’t tell him.
“Look at the life you have, Jamie. You wouldn’t have any of it.
You didn’t want to come back to Scotland.
You didn’t want me. You would have resented me…
resented him.” I jab a finger in the direction of the inn. “I couldn’t have that.”
He shakes his head like he doesn’t believe the words coming out of my mouth, but I know they’re true.
“I loved you too much to do that to you, and I loved myself too much to do it to me, or to Lennox.” Tears spill over because that is the crux of it all.
“In the beginning, I didn’t tell you because I was hurt and afraid you wouldn’t come.
Then later, I didn’t tell you because I feared you would and you’d end up hating me for it. ”
His posture sags as he rests his elbows on his knees, head bowed. “But I loved you too, Avi.”
He hasn’t called me Avi since he found out and I’m almost too focused on that to pick up on his other words. But then they click, along with the shattered look on his face when he lifts it to look at me.
“You—you what?” I stutter out the question.
“I loved you too, and I knew I’d screwed up.
I knew it as soon as I got on that plane home, but by the time I worked up the courage to reach out to you, to apologize, you didn’t respond.
I sent you so many emails that year. Then I came back for you, and you weren’t here.
” He inhales, his eyes closing tight behind his glasses, like he’s bracing for what he wants to say next. “So I went to Glasgow.”
“You came to Glasgow?” Confusion rages beneath my skin, questions ricocheting through my brain: how, when, why? I’m basically a walking English lesson now.
“Yeah.” He nods, eyes downcast. “And I saw you.”
“What do you mean you saw me? I never saw you, why didn’t you say something?”
“Because you had a baby, Avi. You were holding Lennox—not that I knew him as such at the time—and there was this guy with you.” His voice hardens with his next words. “I watched him kiss you both. What the hell was I supposed to think?”
I shake my head, mind reeling. A guy? What guy? Kissing us? It’s not possible, because there was never another guy, no matter what my grandparents might’ve said to him. There was no moving on—no other guys. There never has been.
“There was no other guy, Jamie.” I need him to look at me, but when he does, there’s only suspicion behind his green eyes as they narrow behind his glasses.
“I didn’t imagine him, Avonlea. He was there, and I swear you looked at him like you used to look at me.” His voice breaks slightly and he clears his throat, trying to regain his composure.
This conversation feels like a roller coaster. With every new revelation, my stomach lurches, my emotions get tangled and confused, and my nervous system can’t keep up with all the changes.
“Where was this?” I can’t think of who he could be talking about.
“The pub. Green Gables. I figured, if I was going to find you, that was the best place to start. You were sitting at a table with this guy, you had Lennox in your arms, and then he got up, kissed Lennox’s head and then yours, and you smiled at him.
” That seems like a trivial thing, but watching his face change when he says it…
I can almost picture eighteen-year-old Jamie and the devastation he felt in that moment.
All this time, he knew I had a baby and believed it was with someone else. God, what a mess.
Ten years is a long time and a lot of memories to sift through, but I can only think of one time when Lennox was a baby that I was at the pub with a guy.
“Bloody hell.” I furrow my brow, pulling my phone out of my back pocket. I scroll in search of a social media profile for someone I haven’t talked to in years. “Is this him?” I flip the phone to face Jamie.
He slides closer on the couch to look at it and his eyes are steely behind his lenses.
“Yeah, I think that’s him.” He’s curt and short in his answer, jaw clenching.
I want to scream and rage because he had to have been so close that day. He was right there, and this is what kept us from reuniting?
“Jamie, this is Colin,” I say with as much calm as I can muster.
“His dad was my mum’s sous chef. He was only visiting for the weekend because his boyfriend was the guy playing music that day in the pub.
They were both in college in Edinburgh. I practically grew up in the kitchen with Colin.
If he kissed me, it was purely platonic.
I don’t even remember him doing that. I haven’t spoken to him in years.
His dad launched his own restaurant just before I came back from Paris, which opened up the sous chef role for me to fill. ”
Jamie shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter who he is, Avi. None of that matters. Not really. What matters is that you kept this from me all these years. A son, Avi… You kept my son from me for ten years of his life.”
I wish he could understand, but I know he never will. “You left, Jamie. You—”
“I came back!” he yells, pushing the phone back into my hand.
“But I didn’t know that!” I shout back, unable to stop everything wound tight inside me from flowing out in a way that will make things worse.
“You would have if you hadn’t blocked me. You would have known everything. You would have known how much I regretted it all. But you didn’t because—”
I interrupt him. “I was stupid, okay? Jesus, don’t you see that I know that? I made the wrong choice. I’ve known that for years, but then it was too late!”
He stands and begins pacing like a caged lion in front of the couch.
“Too late? You could’ve come for me, called me, something. Anything. But you never tried to fix it, did you? I wouldn’t have been hard to find if you’d wanted to. But you didn’t. Why?”
“I did it for you, Jamie.” He narrows his eyes on me, mid-prowl, and I adjust my wording. “I thought I was doing it for you. Every time over the years when I’ve thought about finding you, telling you…” I shake my head. He doesn’t need my excuses.
He needs the truth. All of it.
“I almost flew to the States once, to tell you,” I admit, and that stops him in his tracks.
“When?” he demands, eyes blazing.
“Right after you graduated from college. I was about to board the plane, but then I just”—I huff a breath out—“didn’t.”
“Why?” His gaze searches mine but I look away, my own heartbreak from that moment rising again as if I’m still sitting in the airport.
“Because I knew I was about to ruin your entire life and I-I couldn’t do that to you.” The words are a whisper between us, but I know he hears me because he drops to his knees in front of me, wrecked by them.
“What are you talking about, Avi?” His words are just as quiet as mine. A whisper. A prayer. A plea for me to explain. I feel the pressure of his hands on either side of me on the couch, caging me in… almost offering support but without actually touching me.
“The day I almost got on that plane?” I look up into his beautiful eyes and wish I didn’t have to say these words. “It was the day you announced your book deal.”