Chapter 33
The second her hands grasp my arms, she shoves me back hard.
I stumble, my heel catching on the edge of the step, my heart pounding as I brace myself on the unsteady railing.
But she doesn’t even care.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” She shouts, angrier than I’ve ever seen her toward me.
“I-I’m sorry,” I say, the words tumbling out as my hands lift with nowhere to go. “I thought—”
“No.” She steps forward, all righteous fury, like I’ve done something terribly wrong when all I wanted was to love her. “No. Clearly, you didn’t!”
“I wasn’t trying to—”
She points at me, and her hand is shaking. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to kiss me after everything and then look at me like I’m the one who did something wrong.”
My mouth opens. Closes.
What do I even say?
What is happening right now?
“God, how could you do this to me again? I thought you wanted to be friends, but no. That’s never enough for you, is it? You have to have all of me.”
“That’s not—” I stutter out, horrified at what she’s implying.
“You always do this,” she continues, talking over me. “You decide what we are, you do whatever you want to me with no consideration for how it makes me feel and-”
“That’s not true, I love you.”
She laughs, sharp and mean, but her eyes are filled with tears, and I don’t understand.
I take a step toward her. “Lily, please—”
Her hands curl into fists as she takes a step back into the door. “You think you love me now? Really? Am I supposed to be grateful? Am I supposed to invite you inside and let you touch me now?”
I stare at her openly, wide-eyed, my mouth hanging open in shock. “That’s not what I—”
“You come back into my life after all these years,” she yells, so angry at me that she can’t control her volume. “And you let me believe that you want to be friends again, that you care about me,” her voice cracks, along with my heart.
“And then you pull the same shit.”
“I didn’t mean to, Lily, whatever I did, I never meant to hurt you—” I don’t register the tears running down my face. I don’t care.
Lily hates me.
“This is what you do.” The fight drains from her voice until she sounds exhausted. “You want me close, convenient for you, but you don’t care about me.”
“I love you,” I whisper again.
Her expression changes. So hurt that I can’t even begin to comprehend it. “I couldn’t say no to you. I never could. You knew that. You used it against me back then. And you kissed me anyway.”
“I didn’t mean to—” My voice breaks. “I would never intentionally hurt you, Lily.”
“But you did. You don’t get to experiment with me because you’re lonely or nostalgic, or bored. I’m a person, Diana, even if you don’t want to believe that.”
“That’s not what this is,” I say desperately. “I love you, I want to be with you.”
The second the words leave my mouth, I know they were a mistake. Her eyes, once fiery with anger, turn to stone.
“No,” she says flatly. “You don’t get to say that.”
“I do,” I insist, tears burning my eyes. “I’ve always loved—”
“Stop. Stop talking.”
“Lily…”
“I’m not doing this with you again. I don’t want to see you anymore.”
I don’t say anything else.
There’s nothing else to say.
Lily hates me.
All of the time we spent together this summer, reconnecting, getting close again, it meant nothing to her. We weren’t building toward anything.
I should have listened to her before, when she didn’t want to talk. I should have left her alone. But that’s not what I do, I take advantage of her feelings, I use her, I don’t ever listen when she says no.
I walk back to my car on unsteady legs, every inch of me aching with the need to fix this, to beg for her forgiveness, to rewind time and not need so much.
But I can’t.
As I pull away from the house, the porch light disappears in my rearview mirror, a cruel reflection of the state of our relationship.
Walking through the house, I try to muffle my sobs behind my hand, so I don’t draw attention to myself, but just my luck, Clara is still awake.
She’s curled up on the couch with a book balanced in her lap and a glass of red wine in her hand, the reading light behind her, casting shadows into the walls.
She looks up when the door opens.
“Di?” she says, already setting the book aside.
The sound that comes out of me isn’t even a word. And I’m crossing the room, collapsing into her open arms. She catches me easily, one arm around my shoulders, the other cradling the back of my head.
“Oh, sweetie,” she murmurs gently, “What is it? What happened?”
“She hates me,” I choke. “She hates me, Clara.”
“Who hates you?”
“Lily,” I cry out, her name making it worse. “I don’t know what I did. I thought—” I suck in a breath, but get choked on it. “I thought she loved me too, that we could finally be together.”
The words spill out of me, reckless and unchecked.
I don’t care anymore.
I don’t care that I’ve never said this out loud to her.
I don’t care about anything except the way my heart feels like it’s never going to heal again, and Lily hates me.
Clara is quiet, but she doesn’t stop holding me. Her hand doesn’t stop rubbing circles on my back. “Di, I’m so sorry.”
I pull back to look at her. “I don’t understand,” I whisper. “I would never hurt her. I love her. I always have.”
Clara’s mouth trembles as she lifts a hand and cups my cheek, brushing away my tears with her thumb. “I know.”
Something about her tone, the way her eyes are filling with tears, makes anxiety churn in my gut. “You… know?”
She hesitates, looking away for a moment before she takes a steadying breath. “I think,” she says carefully, “I might know why Lily reacted the way she did.”
“Then tell me,” I plead. If Lily told Clara what I did to hurt her, maybe I can fix it.
“I don’t think this is something I can explain,” she says. “I think you need to see it.”
She untangles herself from me, and I watch in a daze as she walks down the hall toward her bedroom. “What?” I call weakly. “Clara, what are you talking about?”
She doesn’t answer.
I sit there on the couch, my arms wrapped around myself, sniffling as I stare down the hallway, wishing she would come back already. I don’t want to be alone right now.
After a minute that feels like a lifetime, she finally returns, holding something in her hands.
An envelope.
It has to be old. It’s yellowed with age, the edges soft and worn like it hasn’t been handled with care.
My name is written on the front in familiar handwriting.
“What is that?”
Clara’s eyes are wide now, tears slipping free as she clutches it to her chest. “I’m so sorry,” she says again, and this time, I’m not sure she means it the way I thought.
“Sorry for what?”
She crosses the room and sits beside me, and with shaking hands, she holds the envelope out to me. I stare at it, at my name, and my fingers feel numb as I reach out and take it from her.
“What is this?”
Some part of me already knows the answer, but desperately hopes it isn’t true.
“A letter,” she says, her voice cracking. “From Lily.”
My Dearest Diana,
I don’t know how to start this without sounding totally stupid, so I’m just gonna say it.
I love you.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved you.
And I know you’re supposed to be getting married tomorrow. I know how selfish this probably sounds. But if I don’t say it now, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.
You don’t have to marry him.
I don’t think anyone has ever actually told you that you have a choice in this, but you do. You don’t have to marry Scott because you’re pregnant, or because your mother wants you to.
You can say no.
You can be with me.
I know that sounds crazy, impossible even, but I’ve thought about it. We could leave Rosehill, go somewhere no one knows us, get a place. It wouldn’t be fancy, but it would be ours.
I would help you raise your baby and love them like my own. I already do, because they’re a part of you.
You’ve always said that I would be a good wife and mother, and I hope that I can prove you right, because I would do everything in my power to make you happy.
I know what I’m asking of you is so much, but I don’t need perfection.
All I want is you.
I want mornings and evenings, and for you to hold me every single night for the rest of my life. That’s all I’ve ever wanted, and after this summer, I can’t help but think that you feel the same way.
I know you’re scared. I know you feel like everything is already decided, but if there’s even a small part of you that feels wrong about tomorrow, then come find me, and we’ll figure the rest out together.
Please, just this once, I’m asking you to choose me, the way I’ve always chosen you.
Yours forever,
Lily