This Is Not How It Ends(86)

I shook my head, refusing what she pointed out.

“You weren’t wrong,” she argued. “It was inevitable. There was too much space, Ben’s energy merged with yours. I’ve seen your auras at play. You can’t fight that type of pull.”

My body rocked in a steady rhythm as I warded off what she was saying. Sunny gave up and lay at my feet. “There’s nothing between Ben and me.”

Doubt passed through her eyes. “Why are you punishing yourself?”

“Punishing myself? Burying my fiancé—my husband—I didn’t do that. It was done to me.”

“Tell me,” she said, her copper hair framing her face, “what are you so afraid of? Is it finding love or the prospect of losing it again?”

Energy drained from my body, and Liberty’s words recounted a past I’d tucked away in a drawer. A lengthy spate of losses had shaped me into an untrusting person who surrounded herself with people who left, people who kept a safe distance. But lately the narrative had changed. I couldn’t blame Philip for our undoing. It was me who was responsible. Who knew that fate would intervene and land Philip in the hospital that next day? Who knew that the promise I made to Ben would have to be taken back? I cheated. There was no way to sugarcoat it. Regardless of my childhood and the mistaken beliefs, the cheating was on me.

I broke apart from Liberty and ran my fingers through my hair before twirling it in a messy bun behind my head. She said, “You’re still a beautiful woman, Charlotte. Despite the way you’re feeling.”

She would never understand the deep disparity that set my inside apart from the outside. Accepting her compliment was disingenuous, because Liberty was seeing a fraction of me—the rest I’d hidden from view. And before I knew it, the mask came off, and I was drawing her—the other part of me—out. Breathy words disguised my regret. “Ben and I. We were together. During the storm.” I was chewing on a broken fingernail, but I felt her freeze. The next part had me choking back tears. “I thought Philip understood me. I thought we wanted the same things, but we didn’t.” She let me go on. “Being around Ben and Jimmy . . . Philip didn’t want kids . . . I saw a life I wanted. A different life. The love was there. It was always there, but it wasn’t enough. I found it with someone else . . . I found it with Ben.”

She reached for my hand, and I finally looked up.

“Philip made it so easy, Lib. He . . . he . . . was never home . . . and then when he was home, he always wanted to be around Ben. He pushed me to Ben. Ben, walk Charley home . . . Ben, teach Charley to cook . . . He loved so big, but held back so much . . . What was I supposed to do?”

Her hair fanned across the cushions, and I noticed the wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. But what I saw more than anything was an understanding that I hadn’t felt in months.

“And then we got the call that morning. Do you have any idea what that call did to me? It was my fault. I did this.”

“You didn’t do this. You didn’t make Philip sick.”

“I’ve lost a lot of people I loved, Liberty.”

She eyed me firmly, no sympathy in sight. “I don’t do pity parties, honey.”

I fell back on the couch, collecting my courage.

“Life challenges us, Charlotte. Every single one of us. Do you think you’re any different?” She let me ponder this. “You didn’t know that phone call was coming. You had no way of knowing. You were prepared to do the admirable thing.”

“I’m a cheat. And Philip died believing I’m someone I’m not. I hate that I wronged him. I hate how we deceived him. They were the closest of friends. It doesn’t get any worse than that.”

Her face neared mine. “Do you know how easy it might have been for someone to have walked away? Philip begged you to walk away. You insisted on staying, insisted on taking care of him by yourself. What you did for him in his last moments was devotion. Unconditional love. Do you know what that says about you?”

“Yes!” I shouted. “It says I’m selfish. It says I let guilt control me.”

“You’re human, Charlotte. You made a mistake.” She knotted her fingers into mine. “And now you’re going to let Ben go, too?”

Damn right I was. I deserved to be alone.

“You don’t believe he really loves that Claudia?”

“I’ll never presume to know what Ben feels.” My voice dipped when I added, “But what kind of people are we to do what we did? It’s best he leaves.”

Liberty released a hearty laugh. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

The trouble was, I did. Ben was forbidden to me. In keeping Philip’s memory alive, in honoring him in death as I failed him in life, I had to stay away. I had to let Ben go.

“The self-righteous martyr thing is unbecoming. You’re no victim, Charley, so get off your back and stop playing one. Life throws shit at all of us, and it’s how we deal with it that defines who we are.”

“It’s over. He’s leaving for New York with Claudia.”

“And what’s your plan?” she asked. “You’re hardly working . . . You going to stay here and memorialize Philip for the rest of your life? Would he want that for you?”

“He wouldn’t have wanted me to sleep with his best friend, Lib. That much I know.”