Chapter 14
Tessa
“What are you reading?” I ask Weston. He’s sitting on the deck of Zane’s boat, a good two yards from me, and has been silent since I woke up this morning and found him here instead of Zane.
The disappointment I’d felt when I realized he wasn’t here is something I’m trying really hard not to think about. I step out of the cabin and limp up onto the deck. The waters are calm today, the sky clear.
But I can still feel the icy depths surrounding me when I fell.
He doesn’t respond.
“You know, you didn’t like me when we first met, either. Then we became friends.”
He glares at me over the book. “I’m reading.”
“Are you, though? Seems like you’re talking to me.” I woke up with a bit more fire than I’ve had in—well—as long as I can remember. Could be that I slept better than I ever have and woke up feeling rested despite the pain in my leg and the ache in my heart.
Weston growls and shifts his attention back to the book.
“Look, I didn’t purposely set out to hurt him. I was trying to protect him.”
“Yet, you did hurt him.”
“Things were out of my control.”
“Did you leave of your own volition?”
“Has Zane not told you why I left?”
Weston slams his book closed. “Believe it or not, Princess, we don’t sit around gabbing about you all day.” He opens the book and turns the page, even though I’d bet every cent I have that he didn’t read a single printed word.
“No? That’s surprising. You’ve always been so chatty.”
The ghost of a smile tugs at the corners of his lips, but it dies quickly. “There were at least three other ways you could have handled what happened that night, yet you chose a coward’s way out. Any respect I had for you died when you left my friend heartbroken and standing at the end of an aisle you were never planning to walk down.”
So he did finally tell him.
His words bloom a familiar ache in my chest. “I didn’t want him to throw his life away.”
Weston glances up at me. “That was his decision to make. Not yours.”
“What would you have done? Would you have let him throw his future away? His dreams of becoming a doctor?” I’m not sure why it matters so much to me that Weston understands. Whether it’s because I miss the days when he didn’t hate me or because things are awkward right now, I need him to understand.
To know that I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.
“No, because I would have handled it before he could.”
The simple way those words are spoken does not match the underlying threat. Weston always stood beside Zane. Even though I know he’s also felt like he would never match up to Zane, given their different backgrounds. It’s something he and I always had in common.
But would he really have sacrificed his own future to keep his friend safe?
“I’m sorry, Weston. I really did think I was doing what was best.”
“Well, you were pretty far off.” He glances off into the distance, then closes his book. “Get in the cabin.”
“Why?”
“Someone I don’t recognize is headed this way.”
