Boone’s head tipped back some. “How is that a relief?”
I waited a moment before answering. “Because now I can let go of the what ifs and the occasional moments I miss you. You didn’t run away because you were a typical eighteen-year-old boy, scared shitless of becoming a dad. You ran away because you took the word of an asshole and never had the consideration or the respect or the foresight to ask your girlfriend about it. I didn’t lose a scared boy that day, because you know what?” I swiped at my lower lashes before the next tear fell. “You can’t lose something you never had in the first place.”
When I reached the door, I only hesitated for a moment before opening the door and escaping. Tonight, I was the one walking away.
And I learned being the one who left was just as hard as being the one left behind.
I’d moved on from being unable to exhale to completely suffocating. The thick night air felt as though it were pressing down on me, ready to grind me into the ground. That future didn’t seem all that bleak in comparison to the possibilities.
When I’d finally come back after my night walk that wouldn’t end, it was morning and my room was empty. I might have been the one who left, but he was the one who was gone.
There hadn’t been a sign he’d ever been there either. No curled up socks abandoned in a corner, no blankets and pillows left on the floor, no second toothbrush balanced on the ledge of the sink. Boone had left my life as seemingly suddenly as he’d come back into it.
I should have been relieved. I should have been thrilled I wouldn’t have to deliver some awkward good-bye at the end of this whole plus-one charade after what the two of us had learned last night. He’d left me because of a lie, while I’d spent the past seven years believing he’d left me because he couldn’t handle being a teen dad.
Knowing the truth should have made things easier, but instead it made them harder. We hadn’t come between ourselves—someone else had come between us. We’d let someone else come between us. Who knew what would have happened if Ford had never told Boone what he had. Our breakup could have been inevitable, it could have been worse, but either way, it was tragic.
I’d dated Ford after Boone. For a couple of years even. How could he look me in the eyes when he’d done what he had? How had he been able to just forget the past, the lies he’d told, and try to make a future with me when he knew the scars Boone had left me with?
I hadn’t been able to look at Ford once all day. In fact, I knew better than to put myself in the same general area as him—unless I was looking to get myself arrested for aggravated assault.
That was why I was camped out on the back porch stoop, where the hired help passed through, instead of mingling with the rest of Charleston’s finest at the Abbotts’ version of a rehearsal dinner.
The Abbott version didn’t include renting out a room at the local buffet or barbecuing some ribs down at the public park or being served pot roast in the basement of a church, like the handful of other rehearsal dinners I’d attended. No, the Abbott interpretation of the rehearsal dinner included fine champagne ordered by the case, a surf and turf dinner where only the best cuts of beef and largest lobster tails would be offered, and about one server to every two guests.
Not to be forgotten, the Abbott family rehearsal dinner had a theme, and it wasn’t a half-assed one either. Tonight’s theme was the Roaring Twenties, but instead of feeling like actual history books had been consulted for inspiration, I felt more like I’d stepped into one of the more opulent scenes from the latest Gatsby movie.
Everything was excessive or over-the-top or some mix of the two. Everything was golden or sparkling in some jewel-toned color. A band played ‘20s music, and most of the guests were wearing some style of fashion that harkened back to that time period. A few of the guests had even rolled up in old cars from the ‘20s. It was a ridiculous show of money and abundance. Everyone loved it.
Except me.
That was why I’d holed up on the dark stoop—to avoid the party, the party-goers, and most importantly, the party-throwers. I hadn’t told my family about Boone leaving, not that they wouldn’t have thrown the celebration if I had, but because I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction. I didn’t want them to know I’d made the same mistake twice with the same man they’d warned me against twice.