Recognition whirred inside me as the whisper of a memory pulled itself out of the mess of emotion that was that week.
“You were talking about the graduation party your parents were throwing and the one blind eye they were turning to the fact alcohol would be present for the first time in your life. That invite-only one that never stayed that way. Stevie asked you if I would be there, and you laughed at him.” She paused, her face tilting down to look at the sand, her cheek in pressed against her palm. “You asked him why I would be there. The only reason you ever pretended to like me was because of Camille, because she and I were best friends. That you only protected me from what would have been a hellish four years for the geek girl because you knew she wouldn’t be able to. You told him that now that we’d graduated, the pretense was up. I was nobody to you except your sister’s best friend and the girl who helped you keep your GPA high enough to graduate and get into college. I was nothing.”
Shit.
I’d said that, hadn’t I?
Fuck, I had. I remembered now. I remembered that exact fucking conversation. I only said it because I knew she wouldn’t be there—because she and Camille had plans with some of their friends.
I rubbed my hands across my face and into my hair. Oh, motherfucker.
It hurt.
Me.
I was the reason she left.
I broke her heart.
I made her go.
For eight years, I’d blamed her for the reason why I’d lost control, yet here was the truth being laid out in front of me. It was all my fault, for one stupid fucking throwaway comment I never meant.
“Lani...” I trailed off. What the fuck was I meant to say? How the hell was I supposed to apologize sufficiently for that? I could send her a hundred white roses with a hundred scribbled notes to match each one and it still wouldn’t be enough.
Shit, nothing would be enough.
Ever.
I broke my best friend’s heart.
No wonder she fucking hated me.
I would hate me too.
Hell, I did. I hated myself for doing that to her.
Lani pushed up off the sand. She stumbled on the soft grains as she got to her feet. I reached out to help her, but she flung her arm backwards with a clear message.
Don’t touch me.
She walked a couple of feet down the beach, closer to the water’s edge, and swept her fingers through her hair. Her soft, dark hair fell over her shoulders in waves until she dropped her arms and wrapped them around her middle.
Me.
It was me.
I’d asked myself almost every day why she’d left, and I’d looked at the answer in the mirror at the same time as I asked the fucking question.
Slowly, I dragged myself up. I wanted—no, I needed to apologize, but the word ‘sorry’ seemed so fucking inadequate. It was almost insulting. Five tiny letters couldn’t encompass the emotions that were battering me.
I’d never despised another person as much as I did myself as I watched her stare into the ocean. I never imagined I’d ever hate anybody so much.
“Don’t,” she said quietly as I approached her and reached for her. “Don’t.”
I took a deep breath and shoved my hands in my pockets. “Have you ever been in a situation where sorry doesn’t seem like the right word?”
She laughed, but there was nothing warm about it. It was bitter and chilling. “No. I’ve never been that terrible to anybody.”
“Point well taken.” I looked down at my feet. Sand spilled over the edges of my sneakers. “I never should have said those things about you. I’m sorry, for whatever it’s worth.”
“Nothing,” she said firmly. “It’s worth nothing, Brett. You’re not sorry you said it. You’re sorry I heard it.”
“No.” I turned and looked at her. She didn’t look back at me, so I grabbed her face and forced her to meet my gaze. “I’m sorry I ever spewed such bullshit about you.”
She slapped my arms from her and took two steps away from me. “No, you don’t. If you meant that, you never would have said it. I never did anything to do for you to hurt me like that. Not once. Not ever.”
“You were never supposed to hear it.”
“Oh, I’m sorry I overheard it! I’ll do better not to eavesdrop on little bitching sessions anymore!” Her nostrils flared. “You’re sorry I heard you say it. God, I’m such a fool.” Her knuckles turned white as she fisted her hair. “Crap!”
“I was tired!” I said, my voice a little too loud. “I was so fucking sick and tired of hearing the shit,” I continued in a quieter voice. “Why was I, the most damn perfect guy in the year, bothering with the girl so obsessed with books she was never seen without one? Why did I, the best varsity quarterback in the state, bother with the girl who could probably recite Shakespeare in her sleep? I knew you wouldn’t be there. I used it to make him shut up. I said all the shit I never meant, and I can’t believe you heard it. I was fucking young and fucking stupid and if I could do it all again, I’d never say it.”
“And that makes it okay, does it?” Her voice was so full of venom it pierced me right to my bones. “You were young and stupid and sick and tired. What about me, Brett? Aside from your sister, you were my best friend in the world and you broke my heart in the space of ten seconds.”
“It doesn’t make it okay.” I held her gaze. “I can’t ever take it back or change it. But...Lani, whatever you have that you need to do to get it out...do it. Shit, yell, scream, punch me. I deserve whatever you’ll throw at me.”
Something flashed in her eyes—something that looked all too much like real, pure hurt. The kind of hurt that you should never see in anyone’s eyes, let alone the eyes of somebody you care about as much as I cared about Lani.
She didn’t deserve to feel it, but I deserved to see it.
I deserved to see how much I’d destroyed the people I loved.
“You really,” she started, “really don’t want me to do that.”
“I do.” I rolled my shoulders back and lifted my chin, keeping eye contact. “Go ahead. Let it out. Everything you’ve kept inside...Let go, Lani. I deserve it.”
“No. I don’t trust myself to keep you alive, honestly.”
“All right. But answer me one thing.”
“What?”
“Why did what I said break your heart?”
Emotion fired across her face so quickly I couldn’t pin a single one down, and before I knew it, I’d pulled the trigger on her pent-up hatred.
“Because I loved you!” She clasped her hands to her stomach as soon as the word ‘you’ left her mouth before she staggered backward. She regained her footing and straightened up, dropping her hands as the words seemingly echoed in the sea breeze that swept between us. “I loved you,” she said again, this time much more calmly. “And I was going to tell you. Before the party. Before I had dinner with the girls. I was going to tell you how I felt before the summer started and I left for college. I didn’t care what would happen. You were my best friend and I loved you and I had to tell you.”