Pierce and I didn’t just live in different worlds. We were completely different weather patterns. Pierce the hurricane swept in from offshore and dismantled your entire life. He took away everything that mattered to a person until the only thing you could remember was the name of the storm. I resembled the volcano—stationary and destined to live in this town forever. When you took advantage of me or the people I loved, I exploded into a cascade of hellfire. Volcanos did not mix with hurricanes. It meant pure destruction.
“We can’t keep doing this to each other,” I pleaded again. One of us would end up with a ruined life, and I desperately didn’t want it to be me.
“Why?”
Didn’t he see how screwed up we were? “Your fiancée left you after she saw you kiss me! How can you be okay with hurting someone that way?”
The reason I didn’t believe any of the gossip surrounding Pierce was because I knew the truth. I’d been there myself. I saw the look in Mari’s eye when she caught us together in the hallway. She held her mouth open in shock and her eyes were wide as she watched Pierce and me caught up in one another as we lost awareness of the world around us.
We did that. I did it. I hated Pierce more than anyone in the entire world, but I never meant to destroy someone else. It was one thing when we only ruined each other, but now he brought someone new into the mix and our tragic relationship ruined her life as well. I’d never forgive myself.
It was so quiet in the closet I heard when he took a large breath. “Katy, it’s not like that.”
“It is, Pierce. It’s eating me up inside, and my heart can’t handle it.” I thought about the guilt at night. I couldn’t sleep. I spent each day with my stomach in knots. It’d only been two weeks, and she’d left in the middle of the night. But I’d never get over knowing it was completely my fault. I never meant to hurt anyone. She didn’t deserve it.
I’d only been in the mortgage office that afternoon to make one last attempt at talking Pierce out of buying the bed-and-breakfast. I planned to stop the sale from going through with pleading and bribes. If Pierce would just let the Women’s Auxiliary buy the historical building, I’d avoid him for the rest of my life. Pierce and Mari would have married and lived happily ever after together. And me? I’d have done my best to avoid them. And possibly in time Mari would talk him into following his family and moving to New York.
I never expected to kiss Pierce, let alone get caught kissing Pierce.
“Katy, there’s something you need to know.”
I knew everything about Pierce, and nothing he could say to me at this point would change my mind or make me feel better about how I’d ruined someone’s life. I was done talking. Talking to Pierce was what got me into this trouble originally.
Not just the mortgage office, but as far back as elementary school. I’d been catching frogs in the school playground, and he came to probably tell me how he hated frogs or something. Then he spent the rest of recess helping me rescue the amphibians. Together, we carried each of them from the playground where they were baking in the sun, to the safety of the forest. For one wonderful afternoon he was a hero.
Our relationship had gone downhill ever since.
I opened the janitor closet door and stepped out into the bright hallway. My eyes blinked twice as they adjusted to the light. Pierce, not concerned with starting another story in this town, followed out right behind me.
We passed the high school bathrooms before we ran into anyone, and I released the breath I’d been holding. We were steps away from the gymnasium when Jennifer Finanetto snuck back into the school from having a cigarette out on the front steps.
“Katy, hold up,” Pierce said, obviously not catching on to the fact I didn’t want to be anywhere near him.
I gave a quick wave to Jennifer who shook her head and smiled. “You two still fighting like in school?”
“Ha-ha,” I said, picking up my steps to lose her and Pierce. The smell of cigarettes clung to the air and wafted from the open door as I hurriedly searched the crowd looking for my date.
The high school reunion packed the space. More people than normal came out to relive their glory days. With the invention of social media, holding these required parties every five to ten years wasn’t as necessary. Everyone who lived close enough traveled back during the homecoming game weekend and had an impromptu reunion for the classes. We’d been gathering in the gym and cafeteria for years.
It was our own mini reunion every year, but without the nametags and cheesy DJ music. It did still have the judgment, especially for those of us who never made our way out of Pelican Bay.
I scanned the cafeteria looking for Paul but didn’t spot his face in the crowd. Possibly he meandered his way to the gymnasium where the middle-age men were participating in a basketball game. The rules were complicated, and nobody had the same body they did in high school, but everyone enjoyed playing, regardless.
My hands shook as I poured punch from the large bowl into my small white cup. Why didn’t Pierce understand that avoiding each other was the best option for both of us, our families, and the town? He’d always been stubborn, but he refused to believe we weren’t good together.
I stood by the punch bowl, my foot tapping to the song playing on the stereo they streamed through the cafeteria speakers. Paul was missing, but I wouldn’t say I missed him. I also couldn’t muster the strength to turn around and search for him properly. Instead, I enjoyed the peaceful moment by myself, trying to wrap my head around what I was going to do with Pierce.
How did he not feel horrible in the slightest that he’d ruined his fiancée’s dreams? Was he as wicked as I told everyone in town? Did I make him that way, or did Pierce always have an unsympathetic black heart?
It had to be him.
“Katy Kadish, just the woman I’ve been looking for tonight,” a squeaky voice said coming to stand beside me.
I only had to peek from the corner of my eyes to see the speaker. “Susan.” She’d recently been promoted to the town’s lead reporter. It wasn’t her fault, but once she hired in at the paper, Susan became one of those people you wanted to run away from the minute you spotted her. She quickly became persona non grata unless you wanted half your life splayed out in the pages of the Pelican Bay newspaper. They weren’t a gossip rag, but apparently the editor didn’t understand or care about that insignificant fact. The fact checkers were nonexistent.
Pelican Bay had many slow news days. It meant Susan spent most of her time looking for something to fill the short six-page paper on a daily basis. And she had an active imagination.
“I’ve heard preparations have started on Tabitha and Ridge’s wedding of the century.”
