Shock propelled me to a sitting position. A twinge fired in my hip and shoulder, but I ignored the pain. “What? You told him you didn’t, right?”
Her conflicted gaze stayed on me.
“You told him you didn’t,” I said through clenched teeth.
A quiet sob left her. “I never lied to Eli.”
I rolled out of bed and stood so fast it was a miracle my leg didn’t give out. My chest was heaving. I’d driven myself out of my mind because I hadn’t been there for Eli, but to think that he’d hated me too? That he’d been jealous and resentful? And worse—that a small part of me was lighting up inside, ready to celebrate that perfect Summer Kerrigan had been into me. “What the fuck, Summer?What the fuck?You broke his heart over me?”
“Over the fact that I wasn’t in love with Eli like he was with me.” She’d stood up too. Her Copper Summit sweater taunted me. The girl and the alcohol that had driven Eli to the end. “Leaving for college made our differences obvious, and I couldn’t lie to myself anymore.”
“Why didn’t you say that then?”
“I did. He accused me of lying.” Anguish twisted her face. “Then he asked me about you. No matter what, I didn’t like him the way he liked me, but... I never lied to him. He’d know. So I told him it was a silly crush, that it meant nothing.”
I recoiled and my hip complained. A silly crush? “You dated Eli in high school. What the hell were you doing noticing me?”
“Eli and I were genuine friends. You were older. I was just a little girl to you, and I wanted to date someone who treated me well.” She pushed her handsthrough her hair. To think I’d wanted to know how the strands felt fisted in my hands while I pushed into her. “It was a mistake, and I thought I’d go back to college and forget about the hurt I’d caused him and... and forget about you. Then the accident happened.”
For fucking years, she’d let me believe... “And when you came to me in the hospital that day? Were you going to declare your undying love?”
“I’d thought you should know I’d been the reason he was drinking,” she whispered. “That I had broken up with him. But you were in so much pain, and you already hated me just for caring about you. I could tell it made you feel guilty. So I left. Then the more time that went by, the harder it got.”
“So you left. That’s what you do, isn’t it?”
She hugged her arms around herself. “What do you mean?”
“You left my hospital room. You fucking left Bourbon Canyon. You left your goddamn wedding. Or do you only leave when I get involved?”
“That isn’t fair.”
“It’s accurate.”
“Look, Jonah?—”
“How do you not let the guilt eat you alive? How do you go to the city and date shitty guys and work in your fancy distillery without getting chewed up by guilt like me?”
Her bottom lip quivered, and her eyes watered. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Tell the goddamn truth!”
She flinched.
I shoved a hand through my hair. My skin crawled,hot with emotion and prickly with rage and loss and... regret. “Get out.”
She shrank in on herself, her arms cradled around her like she was her only source of support.
She’d moved on without flinching.
I’d been so angry for so damn long. Nothing had made sense. Why my brother who never drank had overindulged. Why he hadn’t talked to me first. Why he’d been so tormented in the first place.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
The shine of her tears was more than I could take. I turned away. No matter how betrayed and furious I was, I couldn’t withstand a crying Summer. “For once, do what I fucking ask you to and get out.”
I heard her footsteps and her sniffles fade. I waited for the steps to creak as she went upstairs but there was nothing. Then I heard movement by the front door. I didn’t know what prompted me, but I hobbled out of the bedroom. The irony that I could keep my balance because of her massage wasn’t lost on me.
I rounded into the hallway. She had her coat and boots on and her hand was on the doorknob.
