We lay there just like that, me playing with his hair while he nuzzled into my neck.
Andrew started to move in me again, his pace slow now, his kisses soft and loving.
He pushed up on his forearms, his eyes locked onto mine."Say you love me, Cassidy, tell me you are mine."
He peppered my face with kisses, overwhelming my senses.
"I love you," I whispered.
"Say you are mine."He growled.
A tear fell as I said, "I am yours."
Andrew licked the tear off my cheek and continued to make love to me.
We stayed in bed until I remembered I had groceries on my counter, and we lazily cooked together.
We went away as he planned.
For a while, I forgot my fears, the reason I tried to walk away.
But as time passed and nothing changed, the flutter of my heart turned into a painful ache.
The love I had for him, which had once felt special and beautiful, felt like chains.
As summer bled into fall, my hope and dreams dimmed, and his love felt like a cage.
I just wish I could have seen it all with the clarity I have now.
I wish he had never stayed.
Chapter 13
We were all standing there staring at each other, and the tears were still rolling down my face.Brody and his parents, Judy and Dean, were just a few feet away, and if I could have crawled under a rock and disappeared, I would have.
No one was saying anything, and all I wanted to do was run away, so I croaked out, "You stay, I am going to go.I need to go."
I went to walk back towards the house, but Chase grabbed my arm and turned me to him, "Cassidy, what the hell is going on?Clara isn't right, is she?"
There was no way I was escaping this.Looking up at my big brother, I whispered, "I didn't know."
"You didn't know what, Cassidy?"My mother asked.
"I didn't know he was married when we met...when he...I didn't know.And today...when I saw his boy....I didn't know."A choked sound escaped me, and I could barely take in enough air.
Chase pulled me into him and started to rub soothing circles on my back.
"We are going to sit and you are going to tell us everything, but I think we need something stronger than wine."My dad said.
Brody spoke for the first time then, "I brought whiskey."
I pulled myself away from Chase, tucked myself up on an Adirondack chair, and closed my eyes, letting my head rest on the back of the chair, while my family and the Palmers exchanged awkward hellos.
I felt a hand brush against mine, and I opened my eyes to find Brody standing directly in front of me.My brother's best friend growing up, the boy whom I would follow anywhere at a time and the man who was six years older than me and probably never knew I had a giant crush on him growing up.I thought he hung the moon, and he and his brother Adam always joked that I was like the baby sister they never asked for but couldn't get rid of.
He looked good.It had been years since I had seen him, since he left for school and then moved to Victoria for his girlfriend's job.His hair was a mess of light brown waves that I knew looked almost blonde in the height of summer; his hazel eyes had a few new laugh lines around them now; he had a neatly trimmed beard and was wearing his signature lumberjack flannel.The Cassidy who wasn't having a breakdown probably would have been concerned with how she looked right now in front of her childhood crush.But I was having a bit of a breakdown, and Brody had just heard that I was a homewrecker...so here we were.
His eyes moved over my features like he was cataloguing the differences in me as well, then he gave me a soft smile and held out a rocks glass."I thought you could probably use a drink."
