“A decade ago, yeah,” I balked. “Some. Not many.”
“Right. But he came when you called him, didn’t he?” she allowed. “He showed up at the pier thinking you wanted to talk. So maybe…”
“Wait,what?”
In a cataclysmic moment of bad timing, Rick showed up with my wine. I pushed it away.
“You just said I called him down to the pier…”
Amy’s eyes darted in every single direction, now. Every direction except mine.
“But I didn’t tell you that.”
“Y—Yes you did,” she countered awkwardly. “You said—”
“I said I just saw Cole — that I called him, and he came to meet me. But I didn’t say where.”
An icy feeling crawled its way slowly up my spine.
“No…” I murmured, tilting my head at her.
No longer able to keep it together, Amy began bawling her eyes out. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
“NO! AMY!”
It hit me all at once, like a bucket of cold water to the face. Suddenly it all made sense.
“You’ve beentalkingto him!?” I practically choked.
“No…”
“You’re in with COLE!”
“Hayden, please!” she cried hysterically. “Give me a chance to explain!”
“That’s how he found me…” I realized. “When he showed up at the clinic, that wasn’t random. That wasyou.”
I felt totally sick to my stomach. The revelations just kept coming, cascading over me in a never-ending series of lies and deceptions.
“That’s why you kept asking me where I was!” I shouted, my eyes going wide. “That’s how Cole showed up in Maine! It was you!”
Amy was beyond pleading now. She was a blubbering, tear-streaked wreck.
“You were mytherapist!” I shouted angrily. “You were my FRIEND!”
She flung herself into her husband’s arms. Rick held her tightly, as she sobbed against his chest.
“There’s a reason for all this,” Rick said calmly. “If you’d just let her—”
“Explain!?” I barked coldly. “Is this the part where I just shut the fuck up, so she can tell me why she ruined my life?”
The look Rick gave me could’ve been angry or hurtful, but it wasn’t. His eyes were filled only with concern for his wife, who by now was a total disaster.
“I’m sorry Hayden,” he said, without ceremony. “I really am. But maybe you should go.”
I stared back at him banefully, since his wife was too cowardly to face me. What I saw there was recognition. Admission. Even guilt.
“You’re damn fucking right I should.”
