Clasping my hands together, I look down at them. It’s now or never.
“Mila? Are you alright?” He stands up.
“I lied to you!” I yell, not daring to look up at him. “I lied to you three years ago when I got into the car wreck with my mom and older brother.”
“Okay,” he slowly says. “Do you want to sit down?”
I shake my head. “I don’t deserve to, and I won’t say it if I take time to sit down.”
“Mila, everything is going to be okay. Why don’t you take a deep breath, then you tell me?” He takes a step near me.
“Don’t.” My voice breaks. “I lied and I’ve been feeling guilty ever since. Tobias told me to tell you, and I’ve been meaning to, but every time I see you, I just can’t bring myself to.”
“That’s why when you see me you’ve been walking the other way,” he says like it makes all the sense in the world.
“I wasn’t okay back then! I should have let you come down and be with me, but I was worried that you were going to get mad. Then I would lose my job,” I ramble. That’s another thing I need to come clean with… that I lost my job. “I only got a week off to deal with everything, then I went back to work. I’m pretty sure I still had a concussion, but they needed me and I said yes.”
“Mila,” he gently says.
Holding my hand up, I stop him from saying anything else. Ineedto get this out. “I lied to you and I know what I did was wrong. I shouldn’t have but I knew you would disapprove, and it helped me to work. I didn’t have to think about what happened. When I got home, I was too exhausted to think about anything else but sleep.”
Tears run down my face with every word I say.
“No one told me they were sorry for my loss but you. Everyone just pretended like I was okay and not like something tragic had just happened,” I whisper toward the end. “I let them. Everyone in town knew what happened, yet no one showed up to their funeral but me. I was the only one.”
He wraps his arms around me and I sob, clinging onto his shirt like my life depends on it.
“No one else came to their funeral. It’s like they didn’t care that they knew my mother for their whole lives. Mom was good friends with a lot of them. They didn’t come,” I wail. “I’m sorry for lying to you. I wanted to tell you the truth, but I didn’t want you to have to take time off because I know you don’t get a lot in a year.”
Aiden runs his hands up and down my back. “You’re forgiven.”
I shake my head. “You shouldn’t forgive me so easily.”
He pulls back slightly and cups my face. “Why not?”
“Because I don’t deserve it. I should be punished and have to live with this guilt for the rest of my life. I should be told that I deserve it,” I explain.
“No,” he sternly says. “We are not going down that road. What you did was bad, yes, but it’s not the end of the world. Do I wish you had told me back then so I could have been there for you? Absolutely. But it’s okay. You have been through so much already. You have lived with this guilt, and I have no doubt that you’ve been beating yourself up about it every single day since you told me the lie.”
He’s not wrong, but it still doesn’t feel right.
“I should be punished,” I whisper. “I need to be punished for it. It’s the only way that my guilt is going to go away.”
Aiden searches my face for several seconds before nodding. “Okay. We’ll do corner time where your nose has to touch a sticky note.”
I groan. “What about something else?”
“You don’t get to pick what you get,” he chuckles. “Let me hug you for a little longer and then we can get on with the punishment.”
He wraps his arms around me again and I continue to cry into his chest, letting everything out. I don’t know how long we stand there, but by the time my tears stopped rolling down my face, I am utterly exhausted.
“Okay, let’s do corner time and then I’m going to put you down for a nap,” Aiden says.
“I need to get back to Tobias,” I mumble as he leads me to the corner. “He’s going to worry about me if I don’t come back to him. I don’t even know how long I’ve been gone.”
“Don’t worry about that,” he says. “You’ll go back after your nap. Tobias has already walked by and saw that I was with you and I’ll text him when you are in time out.”
“Are you sure he won’t be mad at me for being away too long?” I ask as I step on my tippy toes to touch the sticky note with my nose.
