“I let my feelings get the better of me, too, Trey. But it was wonderful.”
He was moved, and almost shouted, “You really think so! I feel so relieved.”
“How come you never said anything?”
He ran his hands through his hair. “The first and only time your brother ever busted me looking at you, you were seventeen. And he told me he’d kill me if he ever saw me doing it again.”
“What way?”
“What way do you think?” he asked mischievously.
“You’re lying. You didn’t even know I existed.”
“What, you want proof?” He turned toward me. “August. Discovery Islands. I went with you and your family to Sonora for a few days’ vacation. On the second night, really late, you went down to the pool in a robe. I was there. I saw you.”
“You were there?”
“Yeah. I couldn’t sleep, so I went out for a walk. I was going to go over and say hi, but you threw off the robe and jumped into the water before I had time to speak.” He chuckled. “I hadn’t realized until then how much you’d grown. Like…all over. You know what I mean. And I just stood there in the dark gawking at you like a dummy. Ever since that night, you were always on my mind.”
Flattered, I thought back. “That was the summer when I’d just turned…”
“Sixteen.”
“I had no idea.”
“I’ve always been good at hiding my feelings. That doesn’t mean I don’t have any.”
That was true, I saw now. The feeling was real, and the struggle to suppress it must have been titanic. But there he was now, revealing everything of himself to me.
“If you’d ever told me, I don’t know, maybe…”
“I couldn’t, Harper. You were just too good, too good for anyone. Especially me. You still are.” Sorrow hid his face, like a cloud pushed by the wind until it blocks the sun.
I tried to peer inside him, to see his soul. But I realized the man before me was a stranger. I’d never truly known him. Not if he could close himself up so tightly that I’d never even realized he was interested in me. Knowing this knocked me off-balance, and I wondered how many other things I would now have to question.
Ten years, and I hadn’t truly known him for even one of them.
Maybe that meant the love I’d felt for him had never been real, either.
Maybe I had fallen in love with a figment of my own imagination.
Maybe I’d woven an idea of him out of nothing.
“This is too weird for me,” I whispered.
“What?”
“Being here talking to you like it was just nothing.”
“Why’s it weird?”
“Because I hated you for so long, and I still have that bitter taste in my mouth.”
“Sure. I get that.”
“No, you don’t,” I exploded, standing up. “You made me love you, and I did. Then you made me hate you, and I did. And you never knew either thing was happening. Now I feel empty because I no longer have a reason to hate you. Or I do, but I can’t blame you, because you didn’t even know what you were doing.”
He stood, too, and tried to step toward me, but stopped when he saw my expression.
