Out of Breath (Breathing, #3)(121)

‘No, I didn’t love him.’ Her eyes glistened as they flickered in the dark.

‘But he loved you,’ I said in a whisper.

‘He thought he did.’ She looked away. ‘And I do care about him.’

‘Still?’ I asked. She didn’t answer. My fists clenched against my knees, the text flashing through my head.

‘Why does he get to forgive you, when you didn’t want that from me?’ I asked, the edge in my voice rising to the surface. Emma turned towards me, her eyes flashing with shock. I wanted her to tell me. I needed her to. ‘Are you going to tell me what happened?’

Emma’s eyes pooled with tears. She shook her head slightly and looked back out at the water.

I closed my eyes to collect myself and asked another question that had been plaguing me. ‘What did that letter say, Emma?’

Anger still lingered in Evan’s voice.

‘You know about the letter?’ My stomach hollowed. Evan knew way more than he was supposed to … about everything.

‘I found the envelope, and I tore my mother’s office apart looking for the rest of it. We never talked about it, and she never told me. Not until last week, when she admitted that it existed. That letter changed my life. I think I deserve to know what it said.’

I pressed my forehead against my bent knees. ‘It doesn’t matter any more.’

‘I don’t want to be angry, Em. I want to forgive you. But first we need to be honest … about everything. I still don’t understand how you thought that leaving wouldn’t destroy me. Because it did. You couldn’t have hurt me any worse.’

I stifled a sob and clutched my knees harder.

‘I know this is hard. But I need you to keep listening, okay?’

‘I’m listening,’ I murmured, barely audible.

‘After you left, the school made up some lie that you chose to leave for Stanford early, and wouldn’t be at graduation. But everyone knew. They were all at the party where we never showed. They saw my face when I came back from Cornell a few days later. My cuts were barely healed by graduation. No one knew the details, but they figured that whatever happened to me had something to do with why you left. And then … I had to give that f*cking speech, the valedictorian speech you were supposed to make.’

‘What about Ben? He was the salutatorian,’ I questioned, feeling increasingly ill the more he spoke.

‘He refused.’ Evan shrugged. ‘I don’t know the exact details, but I ended up having to give a speech that was supposed to encourage everyone to go after their dreams. How was I supposed to convince them to look forward to their futures when I couldn’t see two steps in front of me? It was a disaster.

‘And then I went to Yale. I wanted nothing to do with you, so I didn’t fight it at first. It wasn’t in me to care any more. I’d go to classes during the week, and spend the weekends at home … with Analise.’

‘Analise?’ My voice broke.

I lifted my eyes towards the shifting sky and gathered myself. Knowing how much I was hurting her was killing me, which was the reason I didn’t want to share this with her to begin with. But I was convinced it was the only way we’d finally be able to heal.

‘She was always a friend. She cared about me. And so we’d hang out, and she’d try to take my mind off you. And I let her. By Christmas the worst of my anger had disappeared. But then I wanted answers. I needed to see you, so I could ask you why. I tried to come out here over break, but my parents wouldn’t let me touch my savings, and my father eventually took my car away when they realized how determined I was.

‘I couldn’t reach you. The McKinleys were as evasive as everyone else, and Sara didn’t even pick up my calls. I was so cruel to her after you left, basically taking it out on her, forcing her to avoid me completely – even while she and Jared were still dating. I wasn’t myself, and I was dragging everyone down with me in my misery.’

I paused to look over at her. Emma was clutching her knees tightly to her chest as her body trembled.

‘Are you okay?’ I asked, wanting to comfort her. But I couldn’t bring myself to touch her … not yet.

‘Keep going,’ she murmured, her voice strained.

This was torturing her. Guilt was her poison, and I was pouring it down her throat. I continued with the honesty, hoping in the end she could let it all go.

‘Analise tried to rationalize with me, about how it was your choice and that I needed to respect it and leave you alone. But she didn’t know you – not like I did. It was hard for her to see me go through it. I think it was right around the beginning of the next year that we started dating. She was finishing her senior year, and I was … I wasn’t doing much of anything. If she wasn’t there to make me, there were days I wouldn’t get out of bed.

‘I can’t even imagine what that was like for her. I have no idea why she wanted anything to do with me.’

The thought of her comforting him, convincing him to let me go, made my chest want to cave in on itself. I squeezed my legs tighter to keep from falling apart.

‘She tried,’ he continued, as much as I wished he’d stop. ‘But she wasn’t you. And as long as you were out there somewhere … I couldn’t let you go until I got the answers I needed. At least that’s what I convinced myself. When she saw the transfer application to Stanford that broke her. She thought I was going after you. And on some level, I guess I was. She had every right to hate me. But then, inexplicably, she forgave me.