Numbly, Peyton nodded, her rapid breaths rocking her body, and I turned away.
I’d done that. I’d caused her pain. My weakness, my mistakes. My legacy.
I retraced the steps I’d taken here, walking all the way down the gravel path to the gate near the highway. Once there, I headed south and grabbed my phone, sending a text to Rosalyn to meet me at the strip mall a few miles away.
The long walk there in the unforgiving heat would be good. It’d keep my mind busy. Hopefully, it’d wear my body out. As it was, I doubted I’d see a wink of sleep that night.
Or, depending on the test results, ever again.
SATURDAY, MAY 31ST
1 Week until Graduation
?Senior Year
PEYTON
GALVESTON BEACH HOUSE 9:45 A.M.
Cade huffs as he shoves a pair of shorts in his open bag. “I’m not an idiot, Peyton, I know what I saw.” As I try to find a way to explain, the bedroom door swings open and Carlos steps inside, his ever-present goofball grin in place. I try to warn him to escape when Cade, his back to the door, continues with his rant. “You slept with him, dammit!”
Carlos’s eyes go buggy wide, almost like a cartoon character, and he backpedals out the door, shutting it quickly with a bam. Cade turns at the sound, then forgets it just as quick, looking at me with anguished eyes. “How could you do that to me?”
“I know it looks bad.” I push off from the wall and hold my hands palm up. “But nothing happened last night, I swear.”
After Justin and I talked, our electronic infant woke up again, twice, and sometime around five A.M. we must’ve crashed. When Cade found me this morning, my head was on Justin’s lap, his hands were in my hair, and Justin Jr. was cooing contentedly beside us. Understandably, he wasn’t happy…
“Don’t you trust me?” I ask him, hating myself. It’s a cowardly question, one I’m frankly afraid to hear the answer to. Cade sighs, sinking onto the mattress, and my fear spikes as I sense my concern is warranted.
“I love you,” he says instead, an amazing response… but not to the question I asked.
Cade’s face is open and honest; knowing he loves me should make me happy. But it’s his eyes that do me in. The bleak look in them tears at the healing hole inside my heart.
“I’ve loved you for years, CC, you know that. But trust?” He shakes his head. “I wish I could say yes, I really do. But when it comes to him… you just don’t think clearly.”
I take a step toward the bed. “Listen, you have to believe me. Last night—”
“Was nothing more than a repeat of the same old pattern,” he finishes, a humorless laugh lifting his shoulders. “What surprises me is that I’m even surprised. I’ve played second fiddle to Justin Carter for years. Now… now I see that’s all I’ll ever be. Even though I treat you better than he ever will. Even though I love you more than he ever could. He’s who you want.” Cade drops his head into his hands. “I’m so damn tired of pretending otherwise.”
His posture slumps in defeat and everything in me says to go to him, to hold him tight and deny, deny, deny what he’s saying. But I can’t. As much as I hate it, as much as I loathe what it says about me and my messed up priorities, he’s right. Justin is who I want. Who I’ve always wanted.
I’m seriously a glutton for punishment.
Tremors quake my hands and I fist them under my arms. This feels like an ending.
“Are we… are we breaking up?”
I whisper the words so low, I wonder if he even hears them. Cade stares at the floor for a long, heavy beat, and I assume he didn’t. It’s a relief because hearing would make it real. He’d have to answer. But then, slowly, he nods.
“Yeah.” Cade’s voice breaks, and my heart crumples right along with it. “I think we are.”
It’s not until he stands and grabs his bag that I lose it for real.
“Wait. Where are you going? You don’t have to…” I trail off as he gives me a look.
“Home,” he answers. “I’m going home, Peyton. I think I’ve overstayed my welcome.”
Heaving the bag onto his shoulder, he removes his glasses and scrubs a hand over his face, looking uncomfortable as hell. Like he can’t wait to get away from me. And that… that hurts more than the breakup.
“You can come with me if you want,” he offers, always so damn polite. I hesitate, swallowing past the painful lump lodged in my throat, and he laughs. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
Cade rocks back on his heels, and slaps his palms against his thighs. With a decisive nod, he turns toward the door. Numbly, not knowing what else to do, how else to stop this from happening, I fall in step behind him.