“I thought you’d already decided,” he says quietly. “And I didn’t want to beg.”
“I didn’t want you to beg,” I say. “I wanted you to ask.”
He looks at me then, really looks, like the truth is assembling itself in pieces he didn’t know he still carried.
“I didn’t think I was allowed,” he says. “You always seemed… ahead of me. Smarter. More certain. I figured if you were leaving, it was because you’d finally seen what I couldn’t give you.”
My throat tightens.
“That’s not what happened.”
He stills. “Then what did?”
This is the moment.
I feel it in my bones. The way my heart starts pounding, the way my palms go damp, the way every instinct screams to keep the past buried where it can’t hurt us again.
But Daisy’s voice echoes in my head.Heroes show up.
So I do.
“I thought you cheated on me,” I say.
The words hit the table between us like something dropped and broken.
Brendon stares, unblinking. “What?”
“The summer you left for basic,” I continue, my voice trembling despite my best efforts. “Someone sent me photos. Said you were partying. That you weren’t taking it seriously. That you were… with other girls.”
His face drains of color.
“What photos?” he asks slowly.
“I deleted them,” I say quickly. “I didn’t want them in my life. I didn’t want them near my kid. I just… I believed them.”
His throat works. “Abby.”
“I was eighteen,” I whisper. “I didn’t know how to tell what was real and what wasn’t. I just knew it hurt, and I felt stupid for believing you loved me.”
Brendon pushes back from the table and stands, pacing a short distance before turning back to me, hands clenched at his sides.
“They weren’t real,” he says.
My stomach twists. “How do you know?”
“Because I didn’t do it,” he says, voice raw. “Because I went to basic training terrified out of my mind and counted the days until I could write you without feeling like I was bothering you. Because I never touched anyone else.”
Tears sting my eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, my voice breaking.
“You broke up with me,” he says quietly. “You didn’t give me a reason. I thought you were done. And I thought if I chased you, I’d just prove you were right to leave.”
I stand too, suddenly unable to sit with the weight of it all.
“I thought you didn’t fight because you didn’t care.”
He steps closer, not touching me, but close enough that I can feel the heat of him. “I didn’t fight because I cared too much.”
