“Actually,” Korbin said, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear what he had to say next. “I don’t have anywhere to be, and your mother did say that I could stay as long as I needed to.”
I snickered and shook my head, refilling my glass again. A satisfying buzz was beginning to wash over me, and I knew that it was necessary for me to get through this night.
“The last time you were in my bedroom, Korbin Butler, you called off our engagement and walked out on me,” I said. As the words spilled from my mouth, the painful memories tightened around my chest and lungs, making it hard to breath suddenly. I looked away from Korbin and at the wall as a tear pushed against the back of my eyelids, threatening to spill. I wasn’t going to cry, not now. Not ever again, in front of him at least.
“Peyton,” Korbin said softly, reaching his hand over the table to place it gently on top of mine. Briefly I left it there, allowing the little bit of comfort he had to offer to embrace me. “I’m sorry. I truly am.”
Shaking my head, I pulled my hand out from under his and took my plate to the sink to wash it. I was hyperaware of Korbin’s eyes on my back as I did this, just watching me. Observing.
“You broke my heart,” I told him, eyes cast out the kitchen window. “You destroyed me from the inside out, Korbin, and you expect me to just come back here and start fawning over you like I did once upon a time.” Setting the plate aside to dry, I turned to face Korbin, feeling all those years of pent up sadness and heartbreak rising to the surface of my mind.
“I know I hurt you,” he said, cupping the back of his neck and shaking his head. “I regret it every day.
“Just not enough to change anything,” I reminded him. Korbin sighed, Adam’s apple bobbing as he looked away from me and down at the table.
“I couldn’t do it to you,” he said. “I couldn’t hurt you like that. What if we got married and started a family, Peyton?”
“You say that like it would have been a bad thing.”
“It wouldn’t have been a bad thing,” said Korbin. “At least, not until I was hurt or killed at work, leaving you a widow and our children fatherless.”
“Weird,” I said. “Because even after all these years you still haven’t managed to kill yourself while on shift.”
“I’ve come close,” he said. “More than once.”
With a sigh I folded my arms across my chest and sat back down at the table, wishing there was a second bottle of wine we could open and drink. “Why did you ever ask me to marry you then?” I asked him, forcing myself to meet Korbin’s eyes. “Why did you string me along for so long? High school, and then college…you said you loved me and that you wanted to spend your life with me, but when it was time to start our lives together you became afraid. You bailed on me, Korbin, and I still haven’t been able to find it in myself to forgive you for it.”
Silence settled between us, and Korbin looked down at his hands, unable to keep looking at me.
“I know,” he said, and it took everything I had in me not to reach out and throttle him, to shake him, to scream at him.
“So, I guess what I need to know is, what are we playing at here?” I stood from the table again to put the wine away, knowing that if I had any more of it I might just lose my temper completely and hit him over the head with the bottle. “What is the point of this friendship?” I continued. “What happens, Korbin, when it’s time for me to go home?” I turned to look at him again, leaning against the counter for support. “What then?”
“I don’t know,” he said, and for a moment I almost refused that answer. I almost called him out on it. But I didn’t. And I don’t know why.
“Forget it,” I said instead, flinging my hands in the air in surrender. “Let’s not talk about it, because it’s only going to make me angry.”
“Do you want me to leave?” Korbin asked, and I almost said yes. But when I forced myself to look at him again, he looked so sad and pathetic that I couldn’t bring myself to kick him out.
“Dammit,” I muttered. “No, you don’t have to leave.”
“Good, because I don’t want to.”
I grinned in spite of myself and shook my head, remembering something that had happened earlier—with Amanda.
“Oh, hey,” I said. “Another thing about Amanda. I almost forgot after seeing her here tonight. She showed up at my work today.”
Korbin narrowed his eyes at me, brows furrowing in confusion. “Amanda? Why?”
“Beats me. She said she was in because her leg hurt, but she presented with zero pain.”
“Really.”
“Yeah, and then she got kind of weird,” I told him. “Zoned out a little bit. Do you know if she’s on anything?”
Korbin shrugged, but I could tell that this revelation bothered him. “I don’t know her very well,” he said. “I only met her the day I got my leg busted up in that fire. She visited me at the hospital. Like I said, I think she’s harmless. We all thought she might be a little bit forward, but otherwise I don’t think anyone found a reason to find her strange.”
“I don’t know,” I said with a small shrug. “It was definitely weird. She did ask how you were, but I honestly don’t know which parts of the conversation actually got through to her. Do you think she’s safe? To be here with my mother?”
