Page 75 of You Met Me There

“Where is everyone?” I ask.

She sets the clear cup of coffee on the counter. “They all went down to the lake to fish.”

“That’s fun. It’s nice outside for it.” I walk to the window where I can see Mom and Dad on the shore with Archie, while Cam and Levi sit in a boat not far from land.

Jules doesn’t say anything, resting a hand on her hip. She’s in a black sundress, a stark contrast to the yellow sweater vest and jean skort I wear. If Jules is a cloud, I am the sun trying to peek through its shadow.

I take a deep breath. “Jules, I’m just gonna come right out and say it. Why do you hate me so much?” I blurt out.

Her shoulder lifts, flinching. “I don’t … I don’t hate you.”

“Then why have you been blocking me out ever since I got here? It’s been weeks.”

“I haven’t been⁠—”

“Don’t deny it, Juliet. You hate that I’m here, don’t you? I’ve ruined your perfect life by showing up with all my problems. Is that it? I know you can tell something is wrong between me and Luke, and I just brought all my drama here. And me coming back with all my baggage really put a damper on your life, didn’t it?”

I don’t know if she could actually tell that something was off between me and Luke, but now she knows. The emotions have been bottled inside of me for far too long, and it spews out of me now in words I hadn’t rehearsed.

“No.” She shakes her head, her long hair swinging over her shoulders. “My life hasn’t been perfect. Far from it. You don’t know the half of what you put us through when you left,” she seethes.

“Then tell me!” I say, my voice rising.

She whirls on me, her eyes hard. “You want to know? Here is it. Mom and Dad stayed up every night for weeks combing the internet for any sign of you. They talked to every police department in a fifty-mile radius asking if there was anything they could do. They got told again and again that you were legally an adult and there was nothing they could do about it. The note you left helped your case.” She scoffs, her look one of disgust.

She takes a step closer to me. “Eventually, Tyler got a job in the city, so he had to leave. Then came time for Dad to retire. They didn’t have anything to stay here for, except for me, but I told them to go. Mom always wanted to travel when they retired, and I couldn’t make them stay here just for me. It would have been selfish. But staying here alone was awful.

“I hated everything about it. I struggled with you leaving, and everyone in town knew it. They’d look at me with pity and tiptoe around my feelings. The knitting ladies would stop talking as soon as I walked in. I know they did it to watch out for me, to save me from my hurt feelings. But everywhere I went I felt alone, because you left us. You changed everything.”

I shift on my feet. “But you’re happy now. You have a family.”

“That doesn’t change the time I spent alone. It doesn’t erase the memories of how hard that time was or change the fact that I mourned you, Natalie.” She spits my name. “I mourned you. And I finally came to the conclusion that I’d never see you again.”

My fingers tremble, pulse whooshing in my ears. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think it would be like that. I didn’t think anyone cared that much.”

Her eyebrows twist in anger. “You didn’t think we cared?” she screams. “What—you thought we’d just say, ‘Oh, Natalie left. Okay, cool. What’s for dinner? Let’s move on with our lives and forget about it.’”

“No, that’s not what I meant.” I shake my head, staring at the ground. “I know I didn’t leave the right way. I know I did it wrong … If I could go back and do it differently, I would. I don’t know what else to say.”

“You turned this place into an empty husk of a town by leaving me.” Her chin quivers. “I was hollowed out and left behind.”

“Why didn’t you just leave? Follow Mom and Dad?”

Juliet’s hands fly up in frustration. “Are you serious? Don’t you get it? I stayed here for you! I stayed in case you ever came back! No one else was going to be here for you, so I took that responsibility on myself. If you wanted to come back home, I would be here for you.” A lone mad tear falls from her eye. She dashes it away with the back of her hand.

No matter how hard I try to hold it back, warmth trickles down my cheeks in a constant stream of tears.

“And now you’re here,” she continues, quieter now. “And I was here for you, like I always planned. Like I promised myself I would be. But I can’t stop thinking of when you’re going to leave again.”

“Jules, I’m not⁠—”

“Yes, you are,” she interrupts. “You don’t live here. You’re just a tourist here for the summer, like everyone else. You’ll be leaving again. And soon, because the summer’s almost over.”

I shake my head, chewing on my lower lip. “I’ll come back. I’ll visit. It won’t be like before.”

“How can I trust that that’s true?” She lifts her chin, daring me to contradict her. “You forgot about us once.”

“I never forgot about you,” I state, wiping at the tear on my chin. “I thought about you guys all the time. I missed you so much.”