‘You don’t know that,’ Bella murmured.
‘Absolutely,’ Paige concurred. ‘You can’t jump to that conclusion.’
‘Oh, really?’
‘I know he thinks about you,’ Astrid said quietly, her cheeks flushing with a hint of pink.
‘What?’ Sienna turned on Astrid at the same moment the others did. ‘What do you mean?’
‘At least, that’s what Blake says,’ she hurried to add. ‘I don’t have any details, but Blake reckons your name comes up, you know, from time to time.’
‘Well, that just means he has a memory.’ She waved her hand dismissively. ‘I was a pretty big part of his life for a few years, so at least he hasn’t forgotten that. But that doesn’t mean hefeelsanything for me.’
‘You don’t feel anything for him either, do you?’ Bella asked, a little breathlessly.
‘Of course I do!’ Sienna contradicted, reaching for her tea and taking a quick sip. ‘I feel hatred and rage and anger and disgust and disappointment and… and…’
‘Okay,’ Bella laughed softly, lifting her hands in the air. ‘I get it.’
‘You guys, you don’t know what it was like back then,’ she whispered, glancing at Astrid, who was the only one of the group she’d told the whole sordid truth to. But maybe that wasn’t fair. Because she hated him more than they could possibly understand, given what they knew of the situation, not to mention Aiden ‘Charm Your Panties Off’ Carter’s easy-going schtick.
‘You know we always planned for our future together. I know we were just teenagers, but it didn’t feel like that. It felt like two people who’d found their soulmates and were just stepping, side by side, into the future they knew they had to share. It all just felt so right.’
Three pairs of eyes were on her.
‘We came from kind of similar families. I mean, not completely. My dad was never violent, but… he drank, after Mom died. He was sort of pulled apart by her death. I was alone, and in a lot of ways, so was Aiden. He didn’t feel like anyone got him, even Blake. They weren’t always as close as they are now.’ Her eyes lifted to Astrid’s. She wasn’t going to go into Blake’s past, and the wrong path he’d taken as a teenager. ‘Aiden and I were like… it sounds so corny… but just… like bookends.’
She fidgeted her fingers. ‘I remember every detail of the night we… you know. For the first time. It was so… it felt, at the time, so incredible. We were young and in love.’ Her smile was self-deprecating. ‘And then, a few months later, he and Blake got an amazing scholarship offer from an interstate college, the kind that’s too good to turn down. He told me he was leaving.’
‘That must have killed you,’ Bella murmured.
‘No, I was excited for him. I knew how much he wanted that; how much he’d worked for it. I still had a year left of school, I couldn’t go with him, but I thought…’ She drew in a deep breath. ‘Except, he wanted a clean break. To focus on his career. He said he had to give it a good shot, you know? He made out that it was for me – that it wasn’t fair to make me commit to a long-distance relationship when he had no intention of coming back to Ashbury Falls, ever, and I had no plans – no ability – to leave. I mean, I used to talk about studying medicine, but the truth is, there was no way we could afford college, and my chances of getting a scholarship were pretty dismal.’ She swallowed to banish the threat of tears. How could he still affect her like this?
‘He left. I couldn’t believe it. I was… numb. It happened so fast, and he just seemed so sure. Like there wasn’t a single moment of doubt for him, of wondering if he should stay for me, or if we could somehow make long distance work. He just left…’ She shook her head. ‘And then, I got sick.’
‘Sick?’ Bella leaned forward, her experience with her sister Bea’s illness something that had left Bella with a particular anxiety around illness.
‘Morning sickness,’ she muttered, eyes lifting to Astrid’s – the only one who knew the truth of how awful that time in Sienna’s life had been. ‘I was pregnant.’
Paige gasped. ‘You weren’t.’
‘Oh, yeah.’ She pressed a hand to her flat stomach, remembering the moment she’d realised and felt an instant connection to their baby. The baby she and Aiden had made. She dug her nails into her palm – hard – to drive away the threat of tears.
‘What happened?’ Bella asked.
‘I tried to tell him, but Aiden wouldn’t take my calls. Eventually, he sent me a text reiterating that a clean break was for the best. Telling me not to call again.’ She cleared her throat.
‘Bastard,’ Paige muttered, tears rolling down her cheeks. ‘Oh, honey. I’m so sorry.’
Sienna shook her head, unable to take the platitude. ‘And then, I lost the baby,’ she said, shrugging and dropping her head forward. ‘So, he was off the hook anyhow.’
Now it was Bella who gasped. ‘And you had to deal with that, all alone?’
She swallowed, looking away. ‘Yep.’
‘Does he have any idea?’ Paige asked.
Sienna shook her head at the same time Astrid said, ‘No one does, right?’
