Page 63 of The Long Way Home
Margo takes a sip of her coffee and waits for me to continue.
“He was mad that Rhett was even there. Then he got more mad that I didn’t warn him, like I was keeping it a secret or something from him,” I say, staring at my hands. “He was acting like Rhettwas my ex-boyfriend. His mere existence is some kind of threat to Ben.”
“What did he say?” she asks.
I hesitate. The memory sticks to the roof of my mouth. I drop the shredded sleeve into the trash can and wipe my palms on my leggings. I’m not sure I want to even tell Margo the whole story. I know once she hears the words Ben said to me, I won’t be able to change her opinion of him. And I don’t want Margo to look at me like I’m broken, too.
“He said he doesn’t trust Rhett around me. But I don’t think that’s what he meant. He doesn’t trustme. And then he said…”
My throat closes around the words. I press my hands flat to my thighs.
“He said he thinks part of me stillbelongsto Rhett. That was the word he used.Belongs.Like I’m an object to be owned.”
Margo’s brow pulls tight.
“And after all that, after accusing me and yelling, he told me to prove to him that I wanted him. Physically. As if kissing him would fix it.” My voice catches. “It felt gross.”
Margo’s voice is quiet. “And did you?”
“Ew, Margo. No, obviously not. I couldn’t. The whole thing felt off. It felt like a big trap.” I stare at the trail in front of us. “He was looking at me like I was his. Not like someone he loved, but like something he owned. Like I owed it to him.”
Margo exhales through her nose. “That’s not love, Rach.”
“I know.” The word comes out thin, flimsy, even to me.
I grip the edge of the bench with both hands, pressing hard into the wood. “I tried to explain it to him,” I say. “Told him the nickname didn’t mean anything. That Rhett doesn’t mean anything anymore—”
“Doesn’t he?” she cuts in.
I snap my gaze toward her. “Margo—”
“I’m not judging,” she says quickly, palms lifting in surrender. “I’m just asking, as your sister, who would never ever judge you.”
I drop my gaze again. “I don’t know,” I whisper. “I thought I was over him. I was over him. It’s been years, Margo. I should be over it. But then he looked at me like that and said Sunny and a lot of other things, and it just—”
“Felt like a gut punch,” she finishes for me.
I look up, meeting her eyes. “Yeah.”
We stand at the same time, and I force my legs to move. They feel heavy, but I need the motion.
“I’m not saying you’re still in love with Rhett,” Margo says after a moment. “But I am saying as an unbiased observer, I’ve seen the way Ben talks to you lately and the way Rhett looked at you last night.” She shakes her head. “One of those looked like love. The other looked like control.”
I bite the inside of my cheek hard, sharp pain blooming quickly. At least it’s something real for me to hold onto. We continue along the path.
“When you got with Josh, I naturally started spending more time with Rhett,” I say, watching my feet move. One step, then another. “He never gave me anything back. It was never like that for him. So, I moved on.”
“Are you sure he never caught feelings?” she asks. “How do you know for certain if you never asked him?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “Am I just supposed to go up to him and say, ‘hi, Rhett, after a decade of knowing me and never crossing that friendship line, do you think you have ever had feelings for me?” My voice cracks, and I swallow hard. “I would have to be insane to do that.”
Margo doesn’t rush me. She never has. That’s why I can tell her what I can’t say to anyone else.
“I can’t go there again with him. I can’t be that girl waiting for him to see me. I spent too many years like that.” I stare straightahead. “He’s never going to look at me like that.” The words scrape my throat raw.
Up ahead, a golden retriever lunges at a squirrel, nearly dragging its owner off the trail. I fix my eyes on that instead of the mess in my head. Desperate for a break from the Rhett-shaped hole gnawing at my thoughts, I try to pivot.
“Have you ever felt like you’ve lost who you were?” I ask. “I just feel like recently, somewhere along the way, I’ve changed so dramatically that the girl I was, the one I loved being, got lost.”
