Make Me Hate You(67)

They were filled to the rim with tears, but he didn’t let them fall, and he didn’t say a word, either. He just watched me for a long, anguished moment.

And then he sniffed, looking straight ahead again, his hands still in his pockets and his jaw set.

That was it.

That was my cue to leave, to let it go, to let him go. This was his chance to take what I’d confessed and run with it, to pull me into him, to say he wanted me, too.

But he didn’t.

The breath I took when I stepped back was like black smoke to my lungs. The first steps I took away from him felt like walking on shards of glass and rusty nails. And when I turned to look at him once more over my shoulder, it was a view I knew would be burned into my memory for the rest of my life.

Still, I left him there.

And he let me go.





The day my mother left, there was an elemental shift in me.

I didn’t realize it then, because I was young and, for the most part, untouched by the cruelties of the world. I lived in the sheltered little bubble of Bridgechester, in the warm hideaway of my best friend’s house and family, in the comfort of my aunt’s arms. I believed everyone when they told me something — Morgan when she said we’d be best friends forever, Tyler when he told me I was spectacular, my mother when she told me she’d be back for me.

But on that day, something shifted.

It was the first time I was hardened by life, the first time I saw through the curtain I’d been hiding behind and viewed the world for what it really was.

I hadn’t felt that way growing up without a father, for some reason. Maybe it was because I never had one at all, so I didn’t know what I was missing. Robert was the closest thing I’d had to a father figure and he served me just fine. But, when my mom made a promise to come back for me and then broke that promise, I never recovered.

And when Tyler told me what we’d done was a mistake and that it shouldn’t happen again, it drove the nail further into the coffin of what my life had been before that day.

I looked back now and saw that moment for what it truly was — an awakening. It was the separation between who I had been as a girl and who I would become as a young woman. It was a clear, delineating line of before and after.

And when I woke the morning after Morgan’s wedding, I felt that same, bone-quivering, soul-deep shift.

I packed my bags in silence, listening to the gentle waves outside and the steady beating of my heart. My mind didn’t race, the way it had for the past few days — hell, for the past two weeks since I’d flown back to New Hampshire. Instead, I felt eerily calm and decisive.

When I was packed and ready to go, I stood in the doorway and let my eyes wash over the entire room. And I knew in the pit of my stomach that when I left it, I’d be leaving the young woman I was yesterday inside it, too.

I wasn’t the same one walking out as I was walking in.

There was commotion in the kitchen and dining area when the little house elevator opened on the bottom floor. Oliver and Morgan were at the center of the dining room table, with Oliver’s family and the Wagners gathered around them. Aunt Laura was there, too, with what looked like a tequila sunrise in her hand. A few of Morgan’s friends were in the kitchen pouring mimosas and making breakfast for everyone, and one glance was enough for me to see that Tyler was there, too, making a cup of tea.

Azra was sitting right next to Morgan, and she was mid-laugh when her eyes flashed to where I was pushing my rolling suitcase through the elevator door. At the sight, she frowned, and Morgan followed her gaze with the same expression.

“Why are you all packed?” she asked, and I cringed at how the entire party stopped at my entrance, at how everyone at the table and in the kitchen turned to find what had the new bride in a tiff.

I managed a smile somehow, clearing my throat as I leaned against my suitcase. “I’m heading out,” I said. “Time for this Cali girl to get back to the beach.”

“But you’ve got a beach right here,” Morgan pouted, standing. “And you weren’t supposed to leave until tomorrow.”

“I know. I’m sorry, I…” I didn’t want to lie, but I couldn’t bear to tell the truth. “I had some last-minute work stuff come up.”

I noted the way Robert and Amanda exchanged glances at that, at how everyone tried to appear casual as they went back to sipping their mimosa or coffee or whatever they were doing before I interrupted. It was a lame attempt at covering up the fact that they knew I was lying.

Just like my lie was a lame attempt to cover up the fact that I needed out of that house as badly as I needed oxygen in my lungs to live.

Morgan’s bottom lip was stuck so far out by the time she rounded the table and reached me that I thought she might trip on it. But she gathered me in a warm hug, a long sigh leaving her chest. “I wish you didn’t have to go.” When she pulled back, she looked around to make sure everyone had gone back to their business before she whispered. “Is it Jacob? Are you going to see him and work things out?”

Emotion surged in my gut, but I smiled against it, a sad laugh making its way through me. “No, I don’t think Jacob will ever want to see me again, if I’m being honest.”

Morgan frowned, petting my hair. “What happened?”

“Not today,” I said, shaking my head. “We can go over it another time, okay? But today, I want you to enjoy that fine ass new husband of yours, and have fun with your family and friends who are in town to celebrate you. Okay?”