I can’t even reply. I’m no stranger to sex—I lost my virginity in high school, and I had boyfriends before Thomas.
I’m a stranger to sex like this, however: the kind that leaves you decimated and shell-shocked, the kind that temporarily robs you of speech and leaves your limbs sinking into the mattress—or in this case, sand—like dead weight.
This is what I’ve been missing. Not simply with Thomas but with anyone. And it doesn’t do me a lot of good to have discovered it. Elijah’s no more an option than he ever was. Less of one, actually. I now have a career that can’t wind up anywhere near Oak Bluff, and he’s got a construction business based there that’s years in the making.
He’s also never once indicated that anything has actually changed since the last time this happened.
He rolls off me, but when he tries to tug me toward his chest, I resist. “You don’t need to do that,” I say. I have the oddest urgeto cry. As if I haven’t shed endless tears over him already. I sit up and start brushing the sand off my arms.
“I don’t need to dowhat?” he asks.
“You don’t need to pretend this was romantic or something.” I laugh, but there’s no joy in it. “Don’t worry—I won’t make you give me another speech about how this was all in my head.”
He sits with a heavy sigh. “That’s not what I did.”
I move faster, jumping to my feet, grabbing my shorts off the ground, because a sob is swelling in my throat.
It’s coming out whether I want it to or not, and I don’t even know why it’s there. “Yeah, you did, actually. But don’t worry—it’s fine this time because I no longer see you that way either.”
He presses his head to his knees. “Jesus Christ, Easton,” he mutters. He sounds hurt.
I wince, a momentary hit of guilt, and then rage against it. Why am I always the villain? He had his way with me in someone’s garage and said he wanted tomarryme, but the next day it wasmyfault, because I should have known who he was, because I should have been smart enough not to expect much.
AndnowI’m the villain for parroting his words back to him.
“I was just trying to let you know I wasn’t going to make anything of it, and you were okay with that expression whenyousaid it,” I reply, shimmying the shorts back on, “but apparently it’s entirely different when it’s coming fromme, isn’t it?”
“The difference,” he replies, “is that I didn’t say it trying to hurt you.”
“Don’t complain about my jagged edges when you’re the one who broke me in the first place,” I tell him, but my voice rasps.
It’s true, right? I might have been fucked up in a million small ways when I was younger, but it was the way he pulled the rug out that ruined me for good, that turned me into this shell of who I was. He’s spent this whole goddamn trip complainingabout who I’ve become without once acknowledging how much of it was his fucking fault.
I head for the house before he can see that I’m already crying—just like I was the last time I left him on a beach like this.
It doesn’t take him long to catch up to me. I’m fumbling with the lock when he walks up, his face harsh under the carport’s dim light.
I step inside, and he follows me up the stairs.
“You’re crying,” he says, reaching out to cup my face, swiping a tear away with his thumb.
“Don’t worry about it,” I whisper, pulling away. “It’s fine. I’m sorry about what I said. I’m taking a shower.”
He lets me go, which is for the best. Every bone in my body wants to lean against his chest, but that’s not his role now. It neverwashis role.
I stumble into my room and head to the shower, where I blindly scrub myself off. I climb into bed without drying my hair, too exhausted and sad to bother. Mrs. Cabot will have a field day about how rough I look tomorrow, but I don’t fucking care.
I turn and put my face down into the pillow so Elijah won’t hear that I’m still crying.
This was such a huge fuck-up on my part. I’m sure Thomas has done worse, and technically I’m blameless, but...I still shouldn’t have opened this door with Elijah, because I’m not sure how I’ll ever shut it again. I’ve spent half a decade recovering from him and even if I didn’t make a ton of progress, I made some.
Now I’m back at square one.
29
EASTON
My phone rings early the next morning.
