Casanova(66)

She took a visibly deep breath before her throat bobbed as she swallowed. “Okay,” she said softly, looking down. “Okay.”

“Okay?” I stilled. “Just like that, you’re gonna tell me?”

She swung her gaze back to me. “Only if you tell me what your dad means.”

“Okay.” I shrugged. “Let’s go chat on the beach.”

Lani looked at my dad for a moment before she pushed herself to stand up. “Better get this over with,” she whispered. I think it was meant to be to herself, but she never was very good at being quiet.

I led her out of the office and through the kitchen to the back door. It was still early so the humidity wasn’t terrible, but it was the only place we’d be able to get privacy to have this conversation. And what a fucking conversation it would be.

Oh, yeah, hey, I never told you, but the reason I lost it when you left was because I was fucking in love with you.

Jesus. This was fucked up.

I turned and took Lani’s hand to help her down the last few uneven steps to the beach.

“Thank you,” she said softly, peering up at me through her lashes.

I don’t know if it’s because of what happened between us yesterday, but it’s so fucking awkward. Not to mention that every time she pursed her full lips, I just wanted to kiss her.

“So. Where do we start?” she asked, sitting down on the sand and removing her shoes.

“At the beginning. With why you left.” I dropped down next to her and rubbed my nose.

“Imagine that.” She ran her hands through her hair and, with her hands clasped behind her neck, looked out to the water. “I kinda hoped we wouldn’t ever have to have this conversation.”

“Even after yesterday?”

Bright red flushed up her cheeks, even if she did turn her head in an attempt to hide it. “Yes.”

“You wanted to leave again without having it.”

“Well...yeah. That was my plan.”

I shrugged one shoulder. “Now you can’t. Tell me why you left.”

Lani let her hands fall away from her neck and she turned her face toward me. “Remember a few days ago when I said I’d had my heart broken?”

My mouth was dry. “Yeah?”

“You were the one who broke it,” she whispered.

Something I couldn’t discern slammed into me, hitting me hard in the gut. Guilt? Shock? A mixture of both?

I broke her heart? How could I have possibly done that?

“I don’t understand,” I replied slowly.

She looked away and rested her cheek in her hand. “Right after graduation, you were talking with Stevie Lewis. It was so loud I don’t think you knew anyone could hear you, much less me.”

Recognition whirred inside me as the whisper of a memory pulled itself out of the mess of emotion that was that week.

“You were talking about the graduation party your parents were throwing and the one blind eye they were turning to the fact alcohol would be present for the first time in your life. That invite-only one that never stayed that way. Stevie asked you if I would be there, and you laughed at him.” She paused, her face tilting down to look at the sand, her cheek in pressed against her palm. “You asked him why I would be there. The only reason you ever pretended to like me was because of Camille, because she and I were best friends. That you only protected me from what would have been a hellish four years for the geek girl because you knew she wouldn’t be able to. You told him that now that we’d graduated, the pretense was up. I was nobody to you except your sister’s best friend and the girl who helped you keep your GPA high enough to graduate and get into college. I was nothing.”

Shit.

I’d said that, hadn’t I?

Fuck, I had. I remembered now. I remembered that exact fucking conversation. I only said it because I knew she wouldn’t be there—because she and Camille had plans with some of their friends.

I rubbed my hands across my face and into my hair. Oh, motherfucker.

It hurt.

Me.

I was the reason she left.

I broke her heart.

I made her go.

For eight years, I’d blamed her for the reason why I’d lost control, yet here was the truth being laid out in front of me. It was all my fault, for one stupid fucking throwaway comment I never meant.

“Lani...” I trailed off. What the fuck was I meant to say? How the hell was I supposed to apologize sufficiently for that? I could send her a hundred white roses with a hundred scribbled notes to match each one and it still wouldn’t be enough.

Shit, nothing would be enough.

Ever.

I broke my best friend’s heart.

No wonder she fucking hated me.

I would hate me too.

Hell, I did. I hated myself for doing that to her.

Lani pushed up off the sand. She stumbled on the soft grains as she got to her feet. I reached out to help her, but she flung her arm backwards with a clear message.

Don’t touch me.

She walked a couple of feet down the beach, closer to the water’s edge, and swept her fingers through her hair. Her soft, dark hair fell over her shoulders in waves until she dropped her arms and wrapped them around her middle.

Me.

It was me.

I’d asked myself almost every day why she’d left, and I’d looked at the answer in the mirror at the same time as I asked the fucking question.