Boone glanced at me, waiting for me to say it so he didn’t have to. I kept my lips sealed.
“The one having to do with that damn connection of ours,” he half-shouted, throwing his arms into the air. “The one I wish to hell I could wash away, but it’s immune to everything I try to destroy it with. The connection I thought could be killed with the things that happened back then, but here it is, still pressing down on me and making me crazy.” He rolled his head like he was trying to diffuse his feelings. “I want to scream at you as damn badly as I want to lay you down on this roof and kiss you until I’m goddamn done.” He took a deep breath, his body finally relaxing. When he glanced at me again, his expression had softened. “Which might take a while.”
When he flashed a sad smile, I swallowed and smiled back. It felt as sad as his looked. We were both sitting in front of each other’s what-could-have-been and realizing that what could have been could have been amazing had things not gotten fucked up along the way.
“I didn’t have an abortion.” The word took my breath away. “I had a miscarriage.”
Boone’s eyes closed as his forehead creased. “Your dad,” he said with a nod, “he told me.”
I found myself twisting around so I was almost facing him. His expression . . . he looked like he was experiencing the kind of pain few people ever experienced.
“I didn’t know until tonight what he’d told you,” I explained. “I mean, I knew he told you I’d lost the baby, but not that you’d showed up at our house looking for me, and not that he’d told you I’d lost it voluntarily.”
The muscle running up his jaw went rigid. “That man is a son of a—”
“I know.”
“Why would he do something like that? Why would he lie about—” Boone closed his mouth like nothing good could come from what he wanted to say next.
“I’d just miscarried the day before,” I said softly. I’d come up here sure that I was the one who’d been cheated, and a few minutes later I found myself realizing I hadn’t been alone. “I’d lost my boyfriend, the father, a few days before that. My dad was under the impression I might have been in a bit of a fragile state.”
“I get that. I do.” He kicked at one of the shingles. “But why not tell me the truth? If anything, that would have made the situation better instead of worse.”
I didn’t have an answer. At least not one I wanted to give any dignity to by verbalizing it, because I might not have agreed with what my dad did, but I knew why, in his mind, he’d done it.
“Never mind,” he said, realization dawning on his face. “I know why.”
“You do?” I hoped he didn’t. I hoped he’d arrived at another conclusion than the actual one.
“He wanted me gone, and that was his chance.” Boone’s arms went around his head, his fingers lacing at the base of his neck. “Same thing Ford did to me, but your dad’s tactic actually worked.”
My eyes closed. Of course he’d figured it out. My family had never made it much of a secret that they’d do anything to weed Boone out of my life. Stooping to lying about an abortion included. “He might have wanted you gone, but I didn’t.”
A moment of silence passed between us. The kind that reminded me of standing at a headstone and saying a silent farewell. I wasn’t ready to say another farewell, silent or otherwise. Not now that we’d finally sorted through the shit that had ripped us apart in the first place. Not now that we’d figured out we’d been lied to, manipulated, and deceived. I wasn’t ready to say good-bye.
“Why aren’t you pissed?” I asked, my voice louder than the small distance between us warranted. “Why aren’t you doing your usual beating your chest and grunting thing now?”
“Because I understand.” Instead of angry, his voice was calm.
“You understand why my dad lied to you about me having an abortion? You understand why Ford lied to you about us fucking behind your back?” If he wasn’t going to get angry, I was. What had happened was deserving of unrestrained anger.
“Ford’s a piece of shit I’m going to punch in the face when I see him next,” he cursed. “But your dad . . . I understand what he was doing.”
“Which was what exactly?”
Boone looked at me. There it was—that good-bye in his eyes. “Protecting his daughter.”
My head shook so violently my hair whipped into my eyes. “Protecting me from what? Heartache? Pain? Depression? Feeling like all that love I’d had for you had been for nothing?” I was glaring at him, but another tear slipped out. I swiped it away so fast it didn’t count. “He protected me from nothing.”
“He protected you from me.”