“I’m sorry, Tyler. For the things I did. I know it’s probably too late for that, but I feel like I still owe it to you.” She places her hand on mine.
I flick my eyes to where our bodies meet. I almost smile. She’s sorry because it means she no longer has me. And she never will.
“I know you are.”
She’s watching Sunny now. “Was that push because of me? Is it because of me? The things I did?”
And I wish I yelledyes, of course it was. Bingo. Right on the fucking mark. But the truth comes out instead.
“No. It’s because of her.” I look at the love of my life. The one who changed it all for me.
My initial breaking up with Shelby was me showing her she couldn’t fuck around. I knew eventually my obligations would rise again and I’d do what I needed to do to fulfill them.
But then Sunny came, and she changed everything.Absolutely everything. My little fire set flame to a world I hated and burnt it to a crisp, freeing me of it in a way.
“I knew the night of the Hernandez campaign,” Shelby whispers. "I saw the way you looked at her. Because it was the way I always hoped you’d look at me. The way you tried to protect her from your parents. The way you touched her." She swallows hard. “You were never like that with me. Never so in love.”
"I knew, too. I knew way before then.” I look at Shelby.
She gives me a weak smile and nods. “It’ll always be her, won’t it? There will never be room for anyone else.”
I nod. “It will always be her.”
And in that moment, I feel the door finally close on us.
“I hope you get all the happiness you deserve, Tyler. You really do deserve it. I can see what you guys have and I hope one day I can experience that too.” She places a kiss on my cheek and then walks away back into the crowds.
SUNNY
“So, you’re a nurse?” The lady with a diamond necklace asks me as she takes a sip of her cocktail.
My eyes flick from her necklace that looks like a collar around her neck to her light blue eyes that match and nod. “That’s correct. I’m a travel nurse. I’m here on a six month assignment.”
I feel Mitchell come up next to me, his eyes bore into me. His salt and pepper hair is styled back in a way that reveals all the fine lines that frame his face. While I hate him, I have to attribute his role in Tyler's good looks.
“Wow! Do you know where your next assignment will be? Sounds so spontaneous.” Her eyes gleam.
Maybe she always wanted a life of travel but never got it. That’s another reason I made the promise to myself to do this. Inever want to go to my grave filled with regrets of the things I should’ve done.
I already wasted so much time letting Ryan do that to me.
“I actually do,” I say, eyeing Tyler who stands a few people down. I watch his head slowly turn towards me as the words dawn on him, indicating he is always listening, always aware of my surroundings even when I think he isn’t.
I haven’t told him yet. I haven’t told anyone.
As my contract here is nearing to an end, my recruiter called me a week ago with a twelve week assignment in Colorado. In the heat of desperation to flee from Ryan, I said yes.
How could I say no after that fucking phone call?
It always comes in waves now. One minute I’m content, happy, and almost forgetting why I came here in the first place. Then the next wave I’m in sheer panic, wanting to run the first chance I get. Unfortunately, the recruiter got me in one of those frenzied waves.
Tyler looks at me as I admit this secret I’ve clutched onto and his mask of authority crumples to confusion and hurt when he realizes what I’m saying.
The almighty powerful front he had all night gone within seconds by me. Because this hits the nail on the coffin of the potential for me to stay, burying any hope he had deep into the ground due to its inevitable death.
“And how does yourhusbandfeel about that? Ryan it is, right? Ryan Crawford? He must miss his wife very much with you being gone for so long.” Mitchell watches me intently now as he takes a sip of his drink, spilling the one thing I didn’t want anyone to know.
Especially Tyler.
