Page 43 of The Girl He Loves
I smile. “Style hair?”
He grins, and my heart swells. “Exactly.”
“I’m sure your dad wasn’t too impressed with that.”
He laughs. “He was livid.”
Silence fills the air for a few long seconds, and his face falls once again.
“I’ve never been able to shake that feeling,” he goes on. “The feeling that it was my fault, that I’m a complete disappointment to my family.”
“You’re not,” I tell him. “You can’t let negative self-talk rule your life. Trust me, I know.”
He studies me for a long beat, pleading me to crack myself open for him. He just did — he trusted me with his deepest secret. The least I could do is return the favor. I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone this, save for Brian, but it feels so right, here with Joel.
“I have regrets too,” I confess. “There’s one day in my life I wish I could take back. I would do it differently. The consequences of that sunny afternoon are with me every single day… just like your brother is with you, I imagine.”
Joel is all mine. There’s nothing else in his life in this moment; Renee doesn’t exist, neither do his children or his hair salon. There’s just me. He’s given me all his attention, a listening ear and a shoulder to lean on.
I’m on the verge of tears, and I’m not even sure I can do this. I don’t share this story because it’s horrible. So horrible in fact, it required intense therapy. For years following, I wanted to kill myself. Every day. Until the day I met Brian.
“I was fourteen,” I start. “I used to babysit a lot to make extra cash. Back then, I was obsessed with books and those collectible horse figurines — they’re expensive. My parents were cool about the books, but they refused to buy me the figurines. They said it was a complete waste of money. So I had to make my own cash to buy them.”
Joel nods patiently, his beautiful eyes studying every detail of my face.
“There was this family I often babysat for,” I go on. “The Griffins were very well off, and they paid generously. They had three kids. Cassie was ten, Jonathan was eight, and Charlotte was only six.”
I wonder if he’ll hate me once I tell him this story. Will he see me differently? Will it change things between us? It’s a scary ugly side of me I don’t like to share with anyone. But something tells me, he’ll understand.
“They had a beautiful pool, and the kids often swam,” I explain. Bile rises in my throat at the mere mention of that pool. “I often watched them when they swam. I was a good swimmer, so I was not concerned with my abilities to save any one of them if needed.”
Joel nods quietly. He doesn’t interrupt me, doesn’t rush me.
I tear my gaze away, and stare off into the distance, at the menu on the wall. I can’t look at him for this part.
I peruse the list of smoothie flavors.
Strawberry.
“I was watching them intently…”
Blueberry.
“I always did. I never read a magazine or a book or anything like that. My attention was always fully devoted to them.”
Raspberry.
“But there was something amiss that day…”
Banana.
“There was this shelving next to the pool, a tall narrow bookcase. It held all the towels, neatly folded.”
Banana-Strawberry.
“They were usually perfectly folded because I did it myself. Laundry was another thing I did for the Griffins because Mrs. Griffin knew how much I loved to do it, and she was so busy… she worked a day job as a family law attorney.”
Mango.
