“It doesn’t?” She raised her eyebrows. “You sure about that?” I didn’t even bother answering. Instead I picked up the towel I’d used that morning and proceeded to throw it at her head.
“Okay, I’ll quit,” she giggled as she pulled the towel from her head. “It was shitty,” she agreed. “The dumping part. He was moving, though, and you were not. Maybe that was his reason.”
“Whose side are you on?”
“Yours. I’m just saying I don’t think he broke up with you because he didn’t care about you.”
“Well, he had a really bad way of showing it.” I pulled a coral sundress over my head and turned to face her as I zipped it up the side. “I’m leaving for Texas tomorrow, Nore,” I started to repeat verbatim what Reid had said to me on the last day we spoke, deepening my voice for added exaggeration. I’d replayed that day over and over for years. I knew it by heart. “I don’t think this thing between us is going to work out. I have to focus on racing.”
“He was eighteen.”
“Whatever.” I rolled my eyes as I pulled my hair to the side and braided it loosely. A quick slick of gloss across my lips and some mascara finished off my carefree look, even if I was anything but. “He just blindsided me with it. I had no say in the matter and we dated for three years. That’s the best he could do? He never called, texted, emailed. Nothing. Just good-bye.”
“Well he’s back now. Maybe he has something more to say.” Georgia was always the peacekeeper. She wanted everyone to get along and be nice. I, on the other hand, didn’t have a problem with confrontation. If someone pissed me off, I was going to let them know about it. It was exactly why I left Reid standing in a cloud of dust the day he dumped me. Asshole. Served him right.
“Oh yeah, he’s matured so much,” I scoffed. “Gave me some stupid line about having a little fun together. As if I’d let that happen. He had his chance and he screwed it up.”
“So much hostility for someone who’s moved on,” she teased.
“And, Lord knows what, or better yet, who he’s been doing since he’s been gone,” I continued as if she hadn’t spoken.
“Would that make you jealous?” she asked. “If he’d been with other women?”
“Are you ready to go?” I asked, trying to ignore her question. The pang of envy I felt inside when I thought about him with someone else was there, but I wasn’t going to fan the tiny flame burning inside of me. Of course, I was hostile. I shed a lot tears and screamed a lot of empty cries into the air when he left. He’d destroyed my seventeen-year-old heart and I couldn’t just completely let it go. I’d always have to carry a piece of that hurt with me in one way or another.
“Yep. Let’s get out of here!” she lilted as she raced me to the front door. “Nora,” she said, turning to face me as walked down the sidewalk to the car. “Can I make a suggestion?”
“I guess,” I smiled with a shrug, knowing that she was going to make a suggestion whether I approved it or not.
“If you happen to see Reid again while he’s in town, maybe don’t read him the riot act right off the bat. People do change. It’s been a long time. He deserves a chance to apologize.”
“It’s not like it matters,” I countered. Georgia was right about people changing. I was not the same girl that he knew back then. “I don’t need his apology to move on with my life. I’ve already moved on and I’m doing just fine.”
“Your call.” She gave a smile as we climbed into the car. “But it might do you some good to actually close that door, Nora. Sometimes we hang on to things even when we think we aren’t.”
“I have closed that door. I have a career and I have boyfriend. I’ve created a life for myself without him,” I argued.
“So you felt nothing when you saw him again?” she said pointedly.
“Yeah, I felt something. Anger. Bitter. Homicidal.”