A part of him didn’t want to ask. The bigger part of him couldn’t resist. “How so?”
“I said I got over it a long time ago. Up until three months ago I really believed I had.”
“Until you moved back?” Theo said, raising a brow.
“Just before that. I was at my parents’ house and found something that... that just made me believe the worst in you all over again.”
He swallowed, the burn lingering in his throat. What had she found? An old picture? A memento?
“I need to talk with you about it,” Skye continued. “I need to get this off my chest before I could even possibly take one step further.”
“Of course,” Theo said, pulling her tighter, not wanting to let her slip away. “Anything.”
Their feet hit the gravel driveway and he stopped, letting go of her arm to face her properly and look her in the eyes. “What do you need to ask?”
Skye’s eyes glimmered as she pressed her lips together and looked up at him. He saw the hope in her eyes and his tension eased. Whatever she was about to ask, he could see shewantedhim to reply with the right answer. Whatever it was.
“When I was with my parents—” Skye began.
The sound of a car rolling onto the gravel cut her off. Skye stopped as they turned, blinking into the beam of two small headlights.
He knew that car.
Skye’s voice was low. “Who is that?”
She withdrew her hands from his, already bracing for what she didn’t understand.
The car hit the brakes twenty feet away.
Theo felt his jaw flex. “It’s a woman I know. Ashleigh. It’s not what you think—”
Skye started moving backward, spotlit like an actress onstage. Her hands were balled at her sides. “Why is she here?”
“I—” Theo squeezed his eyes shut. If Skye had found some trinket that reminded her of how he had broken her heart, and she was struggling to get over that, he couldn’t imagine what relivingthishorrible moment in their history might do. He pressed his hand against his temple. “I’m not sure. If I’m honest, I’m not sure. I broke it off with her today—”
“You have a girlfriend?”
But already Skye was waving him off, her bracelets banging against each other with the movement. “You know what? I don’t want to know. I don’t want to be a part of this.”
The driver’s door opened. Ashleigh set one high heel onto the gravel and stepped out. “Theo?”
“Skye,wait,” Theo called, but it was no use. Skye, hiking up her pantlegs, was walking as fast as she could toward the woods.
He could hear Ashleigh’s door slam shut, but Theo didn’t turn his head. He called out to Skye. “What did you expect me to do? I only ran into you yesterday. I did everything I could to get things right here.”
“See, now there’s where you’re wrong, Theo. You didn’t do everything you could. Fourteen years ago, you didn’t do everything you could. If you had, we wouldn’t be doing this right now.” Skye turned. For the first time, he saw Skye’s eyes spark against the moonlight.
Theo’s forehead creased. “But I did. I ran after you. I evengot abroken noserunning after you. And I called and apologized to your voicemail more times than I could count, until you flew all the way across the country and changed your number—” He halted. Threw out a hand. “What else could I have done?”
“What youshould’vedone is flown out to Seattle and begged me to come back. You should’ve banged on my parents’ door until they gave you my address. You should’ve given up UVA and flown out to Seattle and found some crappy apartment as close to me as possible and apologized every day of your life until I took you back. I gave youeverything, Theo. I got into that Seattle schooltwo years before I wentand turned it down to stay near you. To be withyou.” Skye lifted her chin. “You should’ve put it all on the line for me too. Just like I put it all on the line for you.”
Theo swallowed as Ashleigh took a step toward him. “But you told me to leave you alone. You said in no uncertain terms—”
Skye threw her head back in exasperation. “I waslying, Theo. I was angry and hurt and I waslying. And I blindly assumed you cared about us enough not to give up based on a few words.”
“Yourwords,” Theo said quietly, taking a step toward her. “I thought it was what you wanted.”
For several moments they faced each other in silence, Skye’s face drained of color. Finally, she waved an arm at Ashleigh, who was sliding back into her car. “Clearly you have some things to sort out. I’ll leave you two to it.”
