Not with Thomas.
Not with Janel.
It’s time I faced this on my own.
I swallow, feeling a buzz of anxiety flow through my veins and shoot tingling sensations up my neck that warm my skin.
I break the silence with, “I’m sorry.”
About what I said.
About what I made you do.
About everything.
I wait for his reply.
His next “I know.”
But it never comes.
No.
Thomas lets out a quiet breath, a sigh, before saying, “I’ll set up a meeting with Ashton and text you the details.”
It’s my fault that the distance is there. Where itshouldbe, but where I don’t want it to.
So, I try to bridge the gap I created by offering him another secret. “The day my parents died, I was awful to them. I was thirteen. Young and dumb and annoyed over the stupidest stuff. They told me they’d take away my phone if I didn’t clean up my room. I’d thrown a tantrum like a child and told them I hated them.”
I close my eyes and squeeze them shut to fight off the growing tears prickling behind the lids.
Only the faintest sound of Thomas’s breathing tells me he’s still listening.
“I locked myself in my room and stayed there even after I finished cleaning it,” I continue, swallowing down the lump in my throat. “I was mad and didn’t want to go down and apologize for saying that. I didn’t hate them.”
“Of course not,” he says softly.
“When my dad knocked on my door and said they were going to run errands, they wanted me to come with them.” I sniffle, closing my eyes and remembering that night all too well. I was sitting on my bed, stewing in my teenage angst. “I told them I didn’t want to. I’d begged them to let me stay home. That I’d behave. So, they agreed. My parents gave me back my phone and told me to call them if there was an emergency. I hugged them both and said I would.”
But still, I don’t know if I told them I loved them. I hugged them. I smiled. But did I say those three words?
“I don’t remember if I told them I loved them,” I whisper, pressing my lips together. “I told them I hated them, but I have no idea if I took it back.”
My heart aches so badly that I wonder if it will burst right here. Kourtney will find me on the floor, dead from a broken heart. It was bound to happen after all these years. How much damage can the organ sustain before it gives up?
“They knew you loved them,” Thomas says when the silence lasts between us. There’s no doubt in his mind. He’s sincere. But how can he know? “I don’t think you’re capable of hate, sweetheart.”
My throat thickens. “I hate Adam Burgess,” I state through the tears trying to push past the gates they’re stuck behind.
He simply says, “No, you don’t. You hate what he did. A heart full of hate weighs a person down. It slows you down. Eats at you. You’re mad. You’re angry. But you don’t hate him. Just like you don’t hate me.”
I sink to the floor and lean my back against the cupboard, bringing my knees to my chest. All I say is, “I’m not sure I know the difference.”
And all he says is, “Deep down you do.”
We sit in silence for minutes. Only our breathing is heard in the open air. I close my eyes and hug myself. I don’t know what he’s doing, or why he even picked up.
But I’m glad he did.
