“Babe,” I murmur, tightening my arms.“It’s not, it’s...it’s more...”
“Complicated?”she suggests, turning her head to look up at me.
“Yeah, something like that,” I breathe out, dropping a kiss to her temple.“I know I can never change this, but Daze, I am so sorry I left.I should’ve known what that would mean to you, what it would do to you.”
She turns back to the ocean, letting out a breath as she says, “It wasn’t just that.”
I rest my lips against the side of her head as I ask, “No?”
“No,” she repeats.“I know we had that weird fight before you left, but I didn’t think we’d actually broken up.”
“Neither did I,” I tell her.“I thought we were good.”
She shrugs but doesn’t say anything as she stares out at the ocean, the sun low in the sky and the water calm.
“We weren’t good?”I ask, wondering what I missed.
“I saw the pictures,” she eventually says, her words barely audible.
“Pictures?What pictures?”
She rests her head back on my shoulder again, her eyes closing as she says, “You, the other guys, a bunch of girls.”
“Babe, it was just for show,” I quickly say, not even knowing what photo she’s referring to.I know there were a lot.The parties were fucking endless.But it didn’t matter because I never so much as looked at another girl, let alone touched one.
Not when I had Daisy waiting at home for me.
“I know,” she breathes out.“I did at first.It’s just that...”She trails off, not finishing her thought as her eyes close again.
“Because of what happened with your dad?”I eventually prompt, knowing that when he left for the mainland, it was only ever supposed to be temporary.Somehow, though, it turned into something permanent, something that included a whole new family.
“Yeah, that,” she admits, before adding, “But also...”She trails off again, and it takes me a few seconds to connect the dots.
“That fucking asshole said something, didn’t he?”
She nods, opening her eyes as she looks up at me.They are filled with tears now, which fucking kill me.“Yeah, he did.”
I drop my forehead to hers, closing my eyes as I whisper, “Tell me what he said.”
She turns her face into my neck, mumbling something I don’t understand.Pulling back, I turn her around so she’s facing me, cupping her face in my hands as I drop a kiss to the tip of her nose.
“Tell me what he said, Daze.”
She sucks in a breath, blowing it out as she drops her gaze, looking at our feet.“He told me the pictures were true,” she eventually admits.“That you were hooking up with girls.You all were, and you didn’t even give me a second thought.”
My head falls back, my eyes closing as I grit my teeth together in frustration.How the fuck I was ever friends with this guy, I will never understand.And if he thinks he’s getting away with any of this, he’s got another thing coming.
“Babe,” I whisper, tilting her face up to mine.“It wasn’t true, you know that, right?”
Daisy shrugs, her bottom lip between her teeth as she mumbles, “I don’t know.”
“Why would you believe him?”I ask, confused.“Why the fuck would you believe him over me?You were it for me, Daisy.You are still it for me.You’re my everything.Myeverything!”
“I don’t know, okay,” she cries as she throws up her arms.“I don’t know why I believed him.But you were gone, and everything felt like it did with my dad, and I guess he caught me in a moment of weakness or something.”
“A moment of weakness?”I ask, incredulous.“Really, Daze?”
“I don’t know,” she groans, burying her face in her hands.
