He playfully pushed her fork away. "You like it cold, remember?"
"I like it hot, too," she said, making a quick move to spear a piece of beef. She put it into her mouth and savored the hot, spicy flavors. "Everything tastes so good when you're hungry."
"And you've just had really good sex," he said dryly.
"That, too," she agreed with a laugh. "Why didn't we ever do that before?"
A shutter came down over his eyes. "You know why. Do you want something to drink?" he asked, getting back up and moving toward the fridge.
She decided to follow his change of subject. "What do you have?"
"Beer, orange juice, water from the tap?"
"I'll take some orange juice."
He filled two glasses and brought them over.
"I'm sorry I brought the past up," she said, taking a sip of juice.
"We are our past. There's no escaping it. If anything has been proven the last few days, it's that."
"I know." They ate in silence for the next few minutes, and she didn't know how to get things back on track. By the time she had finished her noodles, she was starting to get annoyed. "You always did this," she said.
"Did what?" he asked warily.
"Get close to me, be all funny and sweet and then you'd shut it down. You'd back away, give me some scowling look, and disappear for a few weeks."
"I didn't do that."
"Oh, yes, you did—a lot. And you're doing it right now. You let me in and now you have to push me back out."
"It's not like you ever wanted to stay in," he said tersely.
"Why do you say that?"
"You were with Johnny."
"I'm not going to try to rewrite history. Yes, I was infatuated with Johnny for a time. We both know that. But he never had anything to do with you and me. It wasn't like he broke us up. You were shutting me out long before Johnny came along. I thought when I first saw you again in high school, when we reconnected, that I was so lucky because I had my friend back, this wonderful guy who I could count on, who I could be myself with. And you were back for a while. Then you disappeared again. It was actually while you were on one of your long breaks from me that I got involved with Johnny."
"So, now that's my fault?"
"I didn't mean it like that. I'm just telling you how it felt on my end."
He stared back at her, dark emotion in his eyes. He looked like he wanted to say something, but he couldn't get the words out. "Let's not talk about this now."
"Why not?"
"Because I want the again and again and again that you mentioned before to happen, and I don't think this conversation is leading in that direction."
"I actually think clearing up past misunderstandings would be a good thing. Let's be completely honest with each other."
He groaned. "Complete honesty, huh?"
"Yes. And we're not just going to discuss your hatred of Brussels sprouts, although I think I could convince you that they can be good if you eat them the way I cook them."
"I've tried every way."
"Fine. Getting back to more important issues. I know you disapproved of a lot of my choices back in the day. And I know that I deserved some of that disapproval. I acted impulsively. I jumped into relationships, so I wouldn't have to be alone. I was scared of the silence, the quiet. It gave me too much time to think, to stress, to be aware of how bad my life was."
"I know your childhood was hard, Bree."
"It was lonely," she said, feeling that deep, wrenching ache of memory. "I always felt as if I were on an island. There were people around me, but they weren't really with me. I wanted to be with them. I wanted to feel a part of someone else's life. But no one wanted me. Not my family, certainly, and the foster homes that took me in just wanted the cash."
His gaze narrowed. "I'm sorry it was so bad."
"You don't have to be sorry. It wasn't your fault. To be really truthful, it wasn't anyone's fault. I was just born to a mother who couldn't be a mom. And then I decided to make matters worse by following in her footsteps, picking the wrong men, making the same mistakes, getting pregnant when I had no ability to raise a child. I was stupid and reckless, and you could see I was heading for a cliff." She paused. "You were a mirror to my bad decisions. I'd take one look at your face and know I was on the wrong ride. But I couldn't seem to get myself off."
"Was I really that judgmental?" he asked quietly.
"You were—especially that last year before I left. That's why we stopped spending time together. I didn't want to look into your eyes and see everything I was doing wrong. And you probably didn't want to have to watch me screw up. You always walked a moral ground that was much higher than mine."
"That's not true," he said sharply. "You said that before, and it's just wrong."
She wondered why he was suddenly getting so heated. "How is it wrong? Isn't that the reason why you pulled away from me, why we stopped being friends? You didn't want to hang out with someone as messed up as me?"
"No. It's not the reason—not the whole reason anyway." He frowned and shook his head.
"Then why?" she asked, when he didn't seem inclined to continue. "What am I missing?"
He got up from his chair and walked over to the window, staring out at the night.
Suddenly she wondered just what she was digging up. An uneasy feeling was moving through her, but it was too late to backtrack. Whatever was in his head, whatever he was holding back, she needed to hear it.
She stood up and walked over to him. "Nathan, talk to me."
He turned to look at her, and there was a new torment in his eyes.
"What is wrong?" she asked in bewilderment. "What did I say?"
"You didn't say anything."
"Then why is there so much pain in your eyes?"
His jaw tightened. "I've never told anyone."
Her uneasiness deepened. "Told anyone what?"
"What happened."
"Then tell me," she urged. "Tell me now."
He hesitated for a long minute. "I didn't pull away from you because I didn't approve of your decisions. Not that I agreed with all of them, but I had a far more selfish reason. I didn't want to have to lie to you."
"Lie to me?" Now she was confused. "You're going to need to spell this out, Nathan. You're being too cryptic. Why would you have had to lie to me?"
He folded his arms across his chest, as if he were putting on some armor. "Because when we talked, we didn't hold back. We were honest with each other. Sometimes brutally so. No topic was ever off-limits."
"That was what was so great about us. What I missed the most. Why did you have to shut me down?"
"Because I had a secret."
"What kind of a secret?" she asked, surprised by his words.
"It had to do with my stepfather."
Her gut clenched. She knew his stepfather had been a horrible person, so whatever this secret was, it had to be bad. "Okay," she said tentatively. "Can you tell me now?"
"When my mother married my stepfather, I was ten and Josie was eight. My mom thought she was giving us a father after my real dad died. But she gave us a monster. She put us into a trap we could not get out of. My mother didn't have the strength or the will to get us away from him. She was convinced we couldn’t survive without him. That's why she kept going back to him."
Her heart turned over in her chest, seeing in his eyes now the painful young boy she'd first met, the one who'd been so consumed with trying to protect his mom and sister from the evil that lived with them. "I know he hurt you all a lot."
"Yes. He almost killed my mom twice. I watched her go from a vibrant, happy woman to a sad, despairing shell of herself. And Josie was…" His jaw tightened. "She had to endure even more pain than I did."
She waited for him to go on, sensing that there was a lot more coming, because she had known most of what he'd just said already.
"So, you know he died in a car accident," Nathan continued.
She nodded. "We were having pizza when you got the call from your mom."
"It wasn't exactly an accident."