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)
I huffed. “That’s all Eva. I just lend her my name and do some of the videos to help her out.” Now we were talking about Seconds? This was officially the most surreal conversation of my life.
“I figured. You usually sought the praise of one person, not multiple millions.” He twisted the bottom of his T-shirt in his hands, wringing out more water.
He did not just say that. Pretty sure my therapist heard that all the way from New York City.
“It’s only one point one million,” I said. “And you don’t know me well enough anymore to say what type I am.” Pulling my towel tighter, I walked past him on the aging pier, grateful Dad had it built twelve feet wide so I had plenty of room. “You didn’t answer the question, Hudson. Why are you at my house?”
To say I’m sorry. To explain why I never called. That was the dream, wasn’t it?
He followed me down the pier and across the wide platform that had served as the foundation of the boathouse until a storm took it out. “I’m keeping a pinkie promise.”
“What?” My eyebrows shot up in disbelief as I glanced back at him.
“I was banking on my niece being wrong, and you not being here, and now I’m scrambling for a game plan, honestly.” He ruffled the water out of his hair.
“Well, I’d certainly hate for this to be hard on you.” The sarcasm I shot his direction was strong enough to withstand the waves breaking on the beach as I started up the wooden steps that led to the house, Hudson only a step or two behind me. About halfway up, the ache in my ankle became a throb, and I gave in to the urge to limp. Just a little, though.
“I wouldn’t have bothered you except . . .” He drifted off. “Are you all right? Juniper—that’s my niece—mentioned you were here recovering.” Was that worry in his tone?
No, thank you.
“I remember her name. Caroline and Sean adopted her that last summer I was here.” Not that Hudson’s sister had known we were friends, and even if she had, she never would have let me near her baby. I glanced back to see him staring down at my ankle, where two pink scars flanked the silvery one, then continued up the stairs. “I’m fine.”
“Your Achilles? Again?”
“Again?” I whipped my head around, my wet ponytail smacking me in the shoulder as I halted the climb to stare down at him. “So you knew?” A whole other kind of scar split open inside of me, leaching scalding, fresh pain from a wound that had never completely healed. “You knew it had been torn in the crash? You knew there was a crash?” Every worst fear and ugly thought resurfaced. He’d known. He’d freaking known, and still hadn’t reached out. “All this time, part of me wondered if you were mad at me for not showing up that night, and that’s why you left for basic without saying a word. But you knew what happened to me?” His mouth closed in a damning admission of guilt. I reached past the pain for any emotion besides anger, but only found a drowned, watery sense of betrayal that I didn’t have energy for. “I think I preferred not knowing for certain.”
“Allie . . .” He winced. “I mean, Alessandra—shit, that doesn’t sound right either.” How did he have the right to look genuinely devastated?
“Don’t give me that look.” I gestured at his stupidly beautiful face, nearly losing my towel. Of course he’d gotten better looking with age while my body had all but given out on me. I wasn’t even thirty yet and I was falling apart. “You don’t get the honor of looking . . . ruined. Not when you apparently straight-up abandoned me. Do you know how many times I texted you? Called you from my hospital bed?”
The blood drained from his face. “There aren’t enough words in the English language to convey how sorry I am, how sorry I have been, and I know that’s not enough.”
There were the words I’d craved for so long, and now they didn’t matter.
“You’re right. It’s not enough. I don’t want an apology.” My fingernails scraped against the grain of the banister. “I want an explanation as to why my best friend couldn’t be bothered to show up when I needed him most. You had days before you had to report to basic.”
He opened his mouth, then shut it and looked away.
“If we’d been dating, I would have chalked it up to a really bad breakup—which is shitty enough—but losing your best friend without so much as a word?” My voice broke. There was no comparable pain. I never let anyone all the way in, but he’d been the closest.
“I was a stupid eighteen-year-old kid.” He white-knuckled the railing, and his jaw ticked. “And I made what I thought was the only choice I had, and it was the wrong one. By the time I figured out just how wrong, I was at basic and knew you’d never forgive me.”