Chapter 13 #2
“When I got home that night, my dad was still awake,” I started, ignoring the pain that shot through me as I remembered how I’d felt when I’d heard his booming voice calling my name.
It had rung out in the relative darkness of his mansion, a sharp command I hadn’t been able to ignore. To this day, dread cooled my veins when I recalled that memory.
I sighed and tried to keep focused on Abi’s blue eyes, filled to the brim with trepidation.
“I never told you about this, but he and I had been arguing for weeks. I’d known something like what happened that night was coming, but I didn’t think it would be so soon after graduation.
He cornered me the minute I walked in the door. ”
Abi’s light brown eyebrows tugged together, her posture tensing as she stared back at me. “Cornered you?”
I nodded. “He called me into his study and told me to sit down. He didn’t make it optional.”
I might’ve imagined it, but I swore I saw the tiniest flicker of worry in her eyes as her frown deepened. “Did he…”
I shook my head, not even needing her to finish the question to know what she was trying to ask. “No. He didn’t hurt me. Not physically, anyway. He just settled for cutting my heart out with a blunt knife and trying to feed it to me.”
“What did he do?”
I drew in a breath and exhaled it slowly. “We had a long talk about my future. Well, he talked. I listened. He told me that I was going to go to Harvard, get my degree, and not look back. He didn’t make that optional either.”
“What happened to talking to him about coming to NYU with me?” she asked, and I didn’t blame her. For a few weeks back then, I’d really had hope that I’d be able to convince him, but I winced when she brought it up now because I’d failed. Spectacularly.
“I tried, Abi. That was what we’d been arguing about, but it was a non-starter for him. Losing Brooks…” I closed my eyes and inhaled a deep breath, counting to ten in my head before I released it again.
I looked at her as my eyes reopened. There were definite tears shimmering in hers. I hated pity more than anything else, but Abi had been there. She’d known him.
This was different. It wasn’t pity. It was empathy. “Losing him sent my dad over the edge. That whole year, he’d been pressuring me about Harvard. I’m sure you remember that was where Brooks was meant to go, but once he was gone, it was all on me.”
“So what happened?” she whispered, though I wasn’t sure she’d meant to say it at all.
Knowing her, she’d probably been thinking it and it’d come out only because of who she was talking to right now. She never had been able to hold herself back in conversation with me. It was a door that swung both ways.
“What happened? I caved, that’s what. After being pressured for a whole damn year, I finally folded.” There was nobody else I would ever admit that to. “I couldn’t take it anymore. I just had to go. I had to get out there.”
Abi’s gaze softened, but I wasn’t done yet and I needed to get the rest of it out.
“I was an idiot and I know that, but I was eighteen. I realized almost immediately that I’d gone about it the complete wrong way, but it was too late.
It was done and I didn’t know how to go back.
My brother was dead. My father was threatening to cut me off and kick me out the house if I refused, and the tension was killing whatever was left of my mother. ”
My breath left me in a rush, bitterness rising up from deep within my soul, but I swallowed it down.
I was so close now. “All I wanted back then was you, Abi. If you don’t believe anything else I say tonight, believe that.
I didn’t want to leave you, but you were locked into NYU and my dad made it pretty clear that I would ruin your life if I tried convincing you to come to Harvard with me. ”
I shook my head at the stupidity of having believed that, but I genuinely had, so I pushed on.
“I considered going to your dad and asking for a job, but that wouldn’t have saved my family.
At the time, I was the only person left who could do that and I really thought that going would save my dad.
Save my parents. Their marriage. Hell, in way, I thought it might even make them feel like they had my brother back. ”
A stabbing pain started up in the center of my chest, but I pushed through that, too, I had to.
No matter how hard it was. I had one, single hour and time was ticking by.
“I’m sorry, Abi. It took me a long time to realize Dad had used our loss to get me to do what he’d wanted all along, but I didn’t feel like I had a choice that night.
He told me that my relationship with you would end eventually and that it would hurt just as much as losing my brother.
He told me that I had to choose the future he wanted for me, or go pack my shit and get out.
I felt trapped and desperate, so fucking lost without Brooks, and I caved. I’m sorry.”
As I stared at her from across the table, I could see that she believed me. It meant so much more than it should’ve after so long, but Abigail had finally heard my side of the story, and despite her obvious hatred for me, she still believed me.
“I am so, so sorry,” I said quietly, my gaze hooked firmly on her now stormy, glimmering blues.
“I never meant to hurt you, Abs. I’m not asking for our future back.
I threw that away and I’ve regretted it every day since, but I needed you to know what happened.
I needed you to know that if I’d had any choice at all, I would never have walked away. ”