Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 157273 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157273 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
She tugged the sleeves of her MBC hoodie over her hands. “You just let me live with the guilt of thinking I saved myself and left her there for a decade. Even if I could understand why you did all of that ten years ago, why didn’t you tell me when I came back this summer? Why would you let me fall for you when you knew this would . . .” She shook her head and looked away.
Fall for you. That did it. My heart twisted, then flat-out broke at what I’d lost by holding on to the secret for too long. “I fucked up. At first, I didn’t want Juniper caught in the crosshairs of you hating me, and then I didn’t know if you could take another blow, and then you told me we couldn’t last past the summer and not to tell you anything that wouldn’t affect these five weeks.” It sounded like bullshit, even to my ears. “But really, there’s no excuse other than my own selfishness. I had you back and I was terrified of losing you again.”
There it was. All of it.
“But you chose New York.” She tilted her head at me. “Were you ever going to tell me? Or did you think it would never come out?”
“I was going to tell you after the Classic, but then everything happened,” I promised her. “I was going to tell you and confront your mother so she knew she couldn’t run me off again. Honestly, I was surprised she didn’t tell you the second you informed her we were together.”
“You thought my mother would spill your secret?” Allie laughed, but it came out on a cry. “It would have killed her leverage on me. God, Hudson, do you know how many hours I’ve spent with therapists trying to remember what happened? Asking why I would have left Lina there when I swore she went back to the car? You’ve known all this time! If you’d told me at seventeen, maybe I would have struggled because you chose to save me over Lina, but I wouldn’t have despised you. Not like this.” She shook her head. “And I understand keeping things private. I’m a master of it. But knowing this truth would have changed my life. Maybe our lives. And now, I don’t know how to trust you. Or how to trust that this is the truth. And yet . . . you saved me.”
“Allie . . . it’s all true.” The word despise took what was left of my heart and smashed it into sand.
“Thank you, Hudson.” She looked off into the water as a wave broke against the shore.
I held my breath.
“I should have said that first. Thank you. If not for you, I would have died in that car with Lina. Though, if not for us, we wouldn’t have been in the car in the first place, I suppose.”
“Stop finding ways to blame yourself.”
Her weary gaze found mine. “I really do wish you nothing but the best.”
“No. Don’t break us up.” That’s exactly what was happening here, and every part of me screamed to hold on this time, even as my heart bled out on the pier. “We can get through this.”
“No, we can’t. You can’t build something when there’s no trust.” She looked my way. “The irony, truly, is that I’ve never learned to be completely open with anyone, but I got close with you. And maybe if I had just let you in, if you knew the things my family . . .” She shook her head. “Well, maybe you would have made different choices, and we wouldn’t be here. That part of the blame is on me.” Her back straightened and I watched, horrified, as she put up piece after piece of her armor and rebuilt her walls.
“What does that mean?” My brow furrowed.
“Nothing that matters anymore. And this isn’t a breakup. It was foolish to even entertain the thought that we could be anything more, not when we want such drastically different things for our lives. We’ve always had an expiration date, and we’ve simply reached it.” She plastered on that fake-ass smile. “But it was good for a summer, right?”
Whatever was left of my heart stopped beating.
“Goodbye, Hudson.”
This time when she walked away, I didn’t follow.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Allie
MelChelBarre: Anyone else refreshing the MBC website to see if the cast sheet changes?
I stormed into the house, replaying Hudson’s confession in my mind and completely overwhelmed with the enormity of what he’d revealed while somehow simultaneously wishing he’d never told me.
Maybe we would have had a shot at being happy.
He saved your life. And he’d carried the guilt of it ever since.
But he’d also lied . . . at least by omission.
Anger was the easiest emotion to deal with, so I clung to it like a security blanket as I walked through the house and into the kitchen. Sadie wagged her tail and went back to massacring her latest squeaky toy.