“I miss the way we used to be close,” he continues. “And I’m sorry for the distance I put between us as adults. I think … once things finally calmed down, I didn’t really know how to be a brother without being your shield.”
His words land heavier than he probably intended.
And as much as he won’t admit it, I know this has something to do with Amy. She brings out this side of him, and I’m so happy about it.
“It’s okay,” I tell him, my voice softer now. “I know we both had our struggles with how we grew up, and it was a lot harder on you than it was on me—mostly because you made sure it was.”
He exhales slowly.
“You stepped in when you shouldn’t have had to,” I add. “You kept things normal when nothing else was.”
“I love you, Brit.”
“I love you, too, bro.” As the words leave my mouth, my eyes latch onto a familiar face, and all the warmth I was feeling from the conversation with Parker drains from my body.
Who is he with?
I swallow hard as Cal walks toward where I’m standing, his arm threaded around a tall, slender brunette’s shoulders. He’s casually leaning against her as they walk, laughing as he peers down at her, holding her gaze.
And then he kisses her.
My heart drops right to my stomach, and I force my eyes away.
I don’t know why it bothers me so much to see Cal with someone else. It’s not that I didn’t think it would happen, and it’s not like I want to get back with him.
It’s just …hard.
“Brittany?” Parker’s voice rings in my ear. “You there?”
“Brittany?” A deep, utterly familiar voice unknowingly echoes my brother.
“Who is that?” Parker sounds like he’s suddenly bristling. “Because I’m pretty sure I’d recognize that heavy Boston accent anywhere.”
“I’ll call you back,” I mutter into the phone just as Cal, and the woman he’s with, approaches me. I hang up and get a good look at the two of them. Up close, she’s striking, polished, effortless. Expensive in the way I never quite managed to be.
The kind of woman he always said he didn’t care about being with.
The kind I slowly tried to turn myself into anyway.
“How have you been?” His voice is painfully cheerful, and as much as I’d love to give him an earful about the heartbreak he handed me, I stay amicable.
“Great,” I say, automatically pasting a smile on my face.
Because that’s what I learned to do—be agreeable, easy. Whatever kept the peace. Whatever kept him from pulling away.
“How have you been?” My eyes bounce to his new—I assume—girlfriend, who just smiles at me like I wasn’t once engaged to the man on her arm.
“Good,” he tells me, and then, just like that, he guides his new lady away, not even bothering to introduce her. He doesn’t even look back.
As if I’m frozen on the sidewalk, I watch until they disappear into the crowd.
And the part that hurts isn’t that he’s with someone else.
It’s the way my chest still tightens when I see him. How, instinctively, I compare myself to whoever he chose next. And the fact that there’s still a small, stupid part of me that wonders if I was enough.
I drag in a breath, my throat thick.
I was engaged to Cal. I built a future around him, bent myself into shapes that fit his life, his expectations, his world.
