Words that should have made her heart rejoice actually pierced her deeper than before. The fragments broke away, hoping to be found someday. It wasn’t satisfying at all for her.
“What I’m saying is that I stand by what I said about saying goodbye to you after Oliver’s wedding. I can’t give you marriage or any of that. That’s not my intention, and well, I’m not capable of it. I know that I sound harsh, but I don’t want to mislead you. The only thing I can offer you is now, for as long as I can,” he said.
And there it was—a now, not a forever. It was what she had asked of him and it pained her that it was all she’d really get.
“What does ‘now’ consist of?” she asked in a little voice.
Callum let go of her hands and stood up, wrapping his arms around her head and pressing her ear to his chest. She listened to his heartbeat. The uneven and erratic beats filled her with sadness and even more confusion.
“Enough to let me hold you like this,” he stated.
And then those broken walls turned into ashes. She was officially a goner. A tear ran down her cheek, which was followed by another one. No forevers. It was agreed upon the moment Peyton wrapped her arms around his waist and held him tighter, afraid of their impending goodbye.
“I should hate you,” she whispered as she closed her eyes tight, memorising the sequence of his heartbeat.
“You should and you will.”
“I’m tired of hating you. What good would it do when it won’t bring my parents back? I can’t tell them how right they were when it came to you. I don’t even think I hate you anymore, Callum. I’m just angry that I wasn’t enough to make you stay.”
He tensed underneath her. Then Peyton felt his warm hands rest on her cheeks before he pulled her back and bent his knees to face her. She was shocked to see the tears in his eyes.
“I hate that, for the last four years, I’ve made you feel like you weren’t enough for me, Peyton. It wasn’t that at all. You were more than enough. No answer I give you is worth you forgiving me. No damn answer.” His thumb brushed the tears away.
The door to be truthful was finally open.
She looked him straight in the eye. “Did you cheat on me, Callum?”
When he didn’t answer right away, her heart gave way. Falling, burning, and faltering. The breaths she inhaled added coldness to the heat, intensifying the pain rather than extinguishing it. She wasn’t sure how to react if he said that he had. A slap in the face wouldn’t be satisfying. She thought a knee in the crotch might be enough.
Callum closed his eyes and breathed out heavily. “Would it be easier when we say goodbye if you thought I did?”
Thought. Not that he had. But it didn’t matter. Goodbye was still looming. The reason back then didn’t matter anymore. It was here and right now that mattered.
“No,” she replied, her voice had strained. The concept that he could have been with another girl killed her inside.
He gave her a tight smile. “Then no. I didn’t cheat on you, Peyton. You were all I saw. I was lost in all that you were. There was no chance that I wanted someone else when I had you. I was faithful until the end.”
Until the end.
Peyton believed him.
She moved away from Callum and sat back in the middle of her bed, letting her legs dangle over the edge of the bed. He hesitated a moment before he unzipped the hoodie he was wearing and let it fall to the floor. Then he took off his shoes, leaving them by the bed, before he climbed on the bed and Peyton patted her lap. She knew he understood what she meant the moment he positioned his feet near her pillows and lay his head in her lap. He looked up at her as she ran her fingers through his hair.
“Sometimes,” she said as she continued to glide her fingers through his locks.
“Yes?” Callum stopped her left hand and held it in his.
She made a small smile. All so familiar.
“I wish you had cheated on me…that someone else had gotten in the way of us. That it wasn’t me who had changed your heart. That you had fallen in love with someone who wasn’t me. I’d rather know you fell in love with someone else than know that I didn’t make you happy. That I couldn’t make you love me.”
Truth.
She let her free hand fall to his jaw and softly trailed her fingers down. “Your leaving hurt me. Not because I lost the person I loved, but because I also lost my best friend. I had to figure out a life without you. And I missed you. A lot. Nobody got me the way you did. Not Jay and not even Graham.”
Then she paused and brushed the wetness that had escaped from the side of his eye. “I’ve missed you, Callum. You were the part of me I loved the most about myself.”
Callum let her hand go and sat up. Just as she was about to ask him what he was doing, he placed his hand on her shoulder and pushed her back on the pillows. He moved her so she was lying on her side before he settled next to her. Once he pulled her hair away from the side of her face, he moved in close, his mouth near her ear.