“Really?”
“What I know now that I didn’t know then was that my parents had an open marriage. My mother went on way too many business trips, if you know what I mean. At the time, though, I hadn’t figured it all out yet. I came home from school unexpectedly early one day and found your mother there with him. I walked in on them having sex.”
I shuddered. “Oh my God.”
Justin grabbed his beer and took a long swig. “My father sat me down later that night and explained to me that he believed my mother had been having an affair too, and that he and Patricia had just started seeing each other. Your mother made me swear not to tell you. She said you wouldn’t be able to handle it, that your relationship with her was already tarnished enough and that you were under a lot of stress that I didn’t know about. She somehow convinced me that telling you would ruin your life. She told me if I really cared about you, I wouldn’t tell you. I believed what she told me.”
“There was nothing I ever kept from you, Justin. There was nothing going on with me. She was manipulating you to keep her antics a secret from me.”
“I wanted to tell you, but the more time that passed, the harder it was to admit that I’d been keeping something from you for so long. So, I chose not to say anything. I was only trying to protect you.”
“Justin, I—”
“Let me finish,” he interrupted.
“Okay.”
“We both came from broken homes, but from the moment I met you, my world seemed a little less broken. I always felt like my job was to somehow protect you. And my keeping what they were doing from you was only an extension of that. It wasn’t meant to be deceptive.”
I get it now.
There was so much I was embarrassed to admit in regards to my feelings all those years ago, but I couldn’t hold anything back. He was giving me this one chance to explain myself. Taking a long gulp of my wine, I prepared to lay it all out on the line.
“I ran away because I couldn’t handle my emotions. It was more than just your keeping that secret from me. It was what it represented to me, that there would be other things in the future that you would keep from me, too.” I paused. Just say it. “I was developing really strong feelings for you that went beyond our friendship, and I found myself unable to handle them. I didn’t know how to tell you. I was afraid to scare you away. It just felt like I was somehow destined to get hurt, so I chose to move away before that happened. It was my own way of controlling it. It was rash and foolish.”
That was the first time I had ever admitted to having feelings beyond friendship for him.
He just looked at me for a bit then said, “Why didn’t you tell me how you felt, even before everything went down with our parents?”
“I didn’t think you felt the same way about me, and I didn’t want to freak you out. I didn’t want to lose you.”
“So, you ran away and lost me anyway. How did that make sense?”
“It somehow felt like if I left before the worst happened, it wouldn’t hurt as badly. The bottom line, though, is that I was a dumb, hormonal, fifteen-year-old girl. It was the wrong decision. Running away to live with my father was a bad way of handling it. You never gave me the time of day to tell you how sorry I was once I came to my senses that following year. So, I need to say it now. I am so sorry if my leaving like that hurt you in any way.”
“Hurt me?” He let out a slight angry laugh then shocked me with what he said next. “It changed me. I loved you, Amelia. I was in love with you.” Justin ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. “How the fuck did you not know that?”
His words felt like they’d sliced through my heart, leaving me unable to respond. I never in a million years expected him to say that. I knew he cared about me, but I never knew he had loved me like I loved him.
He had loved me?
He continued, “I would have died for you back then. When you left, it felt like my world ended. Besides your grandmother, you were the only one I could count on. You were always there…until you weren’t anymore. Losing you taught me not to count on anyone but myself. It shaped who am I today…and that’s not necessarily a good thing.”
It hurt so badly to hear him say that. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize again; you already did.”
“If you don’t forgive me, then I do need to keep repeating it.”
He let out a long, deep breath. “Like I’ve said to you before, I’ve moved on from it.”
I didn’t want him to move on. I wanted to go backwards, back in time and hug him. Never let him go.
Still reeling from his admission, I dug my nails into the back of the couch and said, “I don’t want us to be virtual strangers. You still mean so much to me. The fact that you’re angry at me won’t change that.”