Page 57 of Mine to Hold
She followed me into my house after I unlocked the door, then ordered me to speak while she got us each a glass of lemonade once we were in the kitchen. I considered lying to her some more, but obviously, I hadn’t been able to hide how miserable I was, and frankly, she was right. It wasn’t just time for me to tell her what had been going on—it was way past time.
While I was still terrified of losing her friendship over this, I couldn’t keep lying to her. I couldn’t keep looking her right in the eye and insisting that nothing was wrong or pretending that Colt hadn’t been the cause of my heartbreak.
It was time to woman up, grab hold of my ovaries, and face whatever consequences came my way. It wouldn’t be fun, but it had to be done.
The confession rolled off my tongue much easier than I’d thought it would, and once I started, the words just kept tumbling out of me. “It’s Colt. I’m so sorry I’ve never been honest with you about my feelings for him, but I’m in love with your brother. Deeply, hopelessly in love with him and I have been for a long time. It’s terrible and you have every right to be angry at me, but please don’t shut me out because of this.”
Teddy’s dark eyes went wide, but she sipped her lemonade and let me get it all out without interrupting.
“It started back in high school. We haven’t been together all this time or anything like that. In fact, it was just that one summer before you guys left when he was working in the ice-cream truck. We snuck around back then, and when he came back for the wedding, single again after all these years, we sort of started it back up. After you and Scott left on your honeymoon, I even went to Paris with him for a few weeks, but it didn’t work out. I’m so, so sorry that I hid it from you. I didn’t want to. I’ve just always been so scared of losing you and I knew I should never have hooked up with him, but I just liked him so much, and when he finally noticed me, I couldn’t help myself.”
She was quiet for a few beats. Then she burst out laughing. “You think you hid it from me? Seriously? I’ve been waiting for years for you to tell me about this. Do you think I’m blind? I’m your best friend, Em. I knew all about it in high school and I had my suspicions during the buildup to the wedding, but I didn’t want to bring it up when you obviously didn’t want to talk to me about it.”
My jaw dropped. “You’ve known all along?”
“Of course.” She laughed some more, her head shaking before she lifted her gaze back to mine and smiled. “You two aren’t nearly as sneaky as you think you are. I think half the town knew you were together that summer. I mean, the movie theater? Do you have any idea how many people told me they saw Colt making out with some blonde girl in the back row? It took me all of about a week to realize it was you. You were never around, and when you did come over to our house, you kept looking at him like you wanted to rip his clothes off and he looked at you the same way. All his usual girls kept complaining to me that he wasn’t paying attention to them anymore whenever I saw them around town, and if I mentioned to either of you that I wanted to go see a movie, you’d both always already seen it. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to put two and two together.”
Her eyes came back into focus when she left memory lane, and she frowned after blinking the memories away. “At first, I thought it was so gross that you were kissing him and… stuff. I never want to know about those details, but eventually, I think I got used to the idea of you guys dating. To be honest, I thought you’d tell me at the end of the summer, but then, well, you know what happened. I still thought there would be a chance for you two after the dust settled. I even thought you might come to see us in New York once he started college, but you never did. Then he met Anna, and I came home, and you never mentioned it.”
“I didn’t think there was any point in telling you when you got back. He’d already moved on and was in a serious relationship. I hadn’t heard from him since you’d left, so I knew he wasn’t going to reach out or try to get me to go to school in New York so we could be together.”
“He knew you didn’t want that,” she mused. “We always talked about going to school here, so I don’t think it ever even crossed his mind to ask you to go there. Anyway, the past isn’t what has been making you so miserable now. What happened in Paris? Why didn’t it work out?”
I let out a soft breath through my nostrils and shrugged a shoulder. “I just wasn’t cut out for his lifestyle. The longer I was there, without any idea of when I’d be coming home and only knowing it would be another couple of months before I had to be back for the semester, the more I realized that I wasn’t built for living out of a suitcase overseas. He tried to get us an apartment, but by then, I was already too homesick and too sure that I could never adapt to that life to even move in with him. So instead, on the day we looked at a few places, I told him I was leaving. We said things that weren’t pretty, but that’s not the reason we broke up.”
“That’s why he looked so miserable when we saw him in France,” she said, understanding suddenly lighting her eyes as she said it. “It couldn’t have been more than a couple of weeks after you’d left and he looked terrible.”
Pain radiated through me, taking the pieces of my shattered heart and setting them on fire. “I think that’s what has been so difficult about it. We both know how good we are together and nothing happened to tear us apart. We just don’t want the same things.”
“What do you want?” she asked. “Other than Colt, of course.”
“I want to stay here in Rockdale. I want to raise a family in the house next to yours and to keep teaching at my school. I want our kids to grow up together and my business to keep thriving. I just want a simple, good life. I know it sounds crazy to say no to fancy hotels and French champagne, but—”
“You don’t have to explain it to me,” she said. “Trust me. All those things are fine for a vacation, but I needed to know that I was coming home and when. Colt tried to get us to stay. He even offered us jobs, but we both turned him down. We didn’t want that either.”
She got up, coming over to hug me when I slumped down in my chair. “Don’t give up hope on him. You never know what’s going to happen. I, for one, would love to be sisters as well as best friends and I still think it could happen.”
“Giving up hope is exactly what I need to do, though. I need to give up on him. I broke it off and there’s no chance of us getting back together. Our lives are too different and I’ll never be able to adapt to his.”
“Colt has blinders on when it comes to this town and the life he thinks he should have, but be patient. I know my brother pretty well, and while he may be slow in the head, he’s going to realize what he gave up and come crawling back. When he does, he’s also going to realize that he doesn’t need to adapt to your life because it’s already his. He went off on the epic adventure he always wanted, but home is where the heart is. Sooner or later, the epic adventure won’t be so epic anymore and that’s when he’ll realize that he can have the life he wants for this next phase of his life right here.”
“I don’t know,” I said softly as I held on to her and spoke into her hair. “I hope you’re right, but I don’t know if I can keep waiting for him to come around when I don’t know if he ever will.”
“Trust me, Em. Don’t give up on him just yet. He will come around, and by the looks of things, you won’t be over him yet when he does. If you’re both as miserable and heartbroken as you clearly are, you were meant to be together. As soon as he realizes that, he’ll come racing home. Count on it.”
37
COLT
Rockdale, Ohio was a place I’d left fourteen years ago and I’d never looked back. Until now. As I stood on the street in the very same town I’d fought so hard to get out of, I looked at the house I’d grown up in and realized just how stupid I’d been.
Nerves ran through me as I stood outside with my bags in my hand. If I was going to do this right, I needed to come clean to my sister right away. I knew what I had to do, but that didn’t make it any easier.
It was after eight at night and I hadn’t told Teddy, or anyone else, that I was coming. Hell, I wasn’t sure if I was going to go through with it until I’d driven back inside the city limits. All through my flights, car rental, and drive here, I’d wondered if I was doing the right thing.
Glancing over at Emma’s house, I noticed that the lights were off and the shades were closed, so she was either not home or already sleeping. It was the last day of the summer, though. It made sense that she’d have wanted to turn in early.
Since I needed to talk to Teddy before I went to see Emma anyway, I took a deep breath and walked up to the front door to knock.
