Aflame (Fall Away #4)(45)

I eyed him. What was he talking about?

He bent down, wetting his paintbrush some more. “I came back at Christmas that same year. You were . . .” He hesitated, rolling the paint onto the wall. “You had moved on.”

I averted my eyes, because I knew right away what he was talking about.

“What did you see?” I asked, fiddling with the brush. I shouldn’t feel bad. I had every right to move on, after all.

He shrugged. “Only as much as I could handle. Which wasn’t a lot.” He glanced at me, holding my eyes.

I could tell he was trying to keep his temper in check.

“I showed up one night,” he started. “I’d just gotten started on the circuit, racing and making connections. I was feeling good and”—he nodded—“really confident, actually. So I came home.”

Six months. Only six months.

“I knew you were mad at me. You wouldn’t talk when I called or text back, but I was finally a little proud of myself, but I was never going to be truly happy without you, too.” He dropped his voice to nearly a whisper. “I showed up, and you were with someone.”

He blinked a few times, and I felt my stomach roll because I’d hurt him. I wanted to throw up.

Is that what Pasha had been talking about? The time she saw him almost cry?

But I shouldn’t feel bad about this. Jared had had sex with numerous women before we were together, and I’m sure plenty since we’d been apart.

“It was six months, Jared.” I grabbed some paper towels and turned to him, cleaning up the paint on his hands. “I’m sure you had been with someone else by that point.”

He stepped closer, reaching up to play with a lock of my hair. “No,” he whispered. “I hadn’t been with anyone.”

My eyes shot up. “But . . .” I winced, my gut clenching. “I saw you. I saw girls everywhere around you. At the tracks, hanging on you in pictures . . .”

I hadn’t moved on because I thought he had, but I never thought he was holding back, either. I assumed . . .

He let out a hard sigh, turning back to his painting. “The girls come with the crowd, Tate. Sometimes they want pictures with the drivers. Other times they just hang around like groupies. I never wanted anyone but you. That’s not why I left.”

A flutter swarmed through my chest, and I knew that my heart still wanted him, too. No one else had even held a candle to him.

“It was so hard living without you, Tate.” His voice sounded weary. “I wanted to see you and talk to you, and I’d lived so long with you as the center of everything, I just . . .” He hesitated, his voice turning thick. “I didn’t know who I was or what I was going to offer you. I relied on you too much.”

I looked down, realizing that he’d been wiser than me. Jared left because he knew he needed me too much. I hadn’t realized how much I needed him until he was already gone.

“I relied on you, too.” I choked over my words. “I said it in my monologue senior year, Jared. You were something I looked forward to every day. After you left, I constantly felt as if the wind had been knocked out of me.”

In our final year of high school, when I’d finally had enough of my childhood friend bullying me, I stood up in front of the whole class and shared our story. The loss, the heartbreak, the pain . . . They didn’t know what they were hearing, but it didn’t matter. I was only speaking to Jared anyway.

His timid eyes urged me as he said, “And now?”

I sighed as I absentmindedly dipped the brush in paint. “And now,” I led in, “I know I can stand on my own. No matter what happens, I’ll be okay.”

He looked back to the wall, responding almost sadly. “Of course you will.” And then he asked, “So are you happy?” He repeated my own question to him back to me, and I wondered why he asked that. I’d just said I’d be okay.

But I guess he knew that didn’t exactly mean I was happy, either.

No.

No, I wasn’t happy. He had been a piece of the puzzle, and nothing had filled the space in his absence.

I ignored the question and kept painting.

“Do you have anyone out there now?” I ventured. “Anyone you’re seeing?”

I brushed the wall in short, quick strokes, like I was petting Madman, as I watched him warily.

He dipped the brush into the paint. “After I saw that you’d moved on, I tried to as well,” he told me. “I’ve seen a couple of women since then, but . . .” He stopped and gave me a teasing sideways glance. “No one’s waiting for me.”

I cocked an eyebrow, digging the brush into the wall. A couple of women.

Now I was jealous.

“I’m proud of you for getting into Stanford.” He changed the subject, throwing me off. “Are you excited?” he asked.

I nodded, giving him a tight smile. “Yeah, I am. It’ll be a lot of work, but I thrive on it, so . . .” I trailed off, swallowing the lump in my throat.

I did want to go to California. And I definitely wanted to go to medical school. But I didn’t want to think about how things were changing forever back here. My dad’s marriage. The house going on the market. Having Jared close, but not having Jared.

He stopped painting and looked at me pointedly. “What’s the problem?”