His hands iced as the blood fled the surface of his skin. Disgusted with the boy he once was. Because he did remember.
He didn’t answer. He couldn’t get the words out.
“You basically said...” She drew in a long breath. “...you said, ‘Avalon? Are you kidding me? Nah. She’s just a hick from the sticks. Not Harvard material.’”
Yep. Just as horrible as he remembered. He made a pained sound. “And then you left without saying a damn thing to me and I never saw you again.”
“What wouldyoudo, Mac?”
“Iwould have tracked you down and made you explain what you meant by that phone call, for fuck’s sake.”
“Bullshit! You never looked for me!”
“You were never anywhere I looked! You were never with your brothers and they would have given me merciless amounts of shit if I asked about you more than once. I... I just figured...”
“What did you figure?”
He recited it flatly, as if delivering it in a monotone could remove all the pain from it. “That maybe you saw something so irredeemable in me that you had to get the fuck away as fast as possible. Or maybe... maybe you’d just gotten bored. That all I was was a way to get through a summer.”
He saw the words penetrate; she softened. Her fundamental kindness was warring with a righteousness she was wholly entitled to. She didn’t speak.
“You weren’t afraid of a damn thing back then, Avalon. I’m surprised you didn’t just go right up to me and deck me.”
She whipped a stray hair out of her eyes. “Here’s why,” she said quietly. “I was shocked clean through. I thought you despised me. And I was ashamed that someone I cared about so much could think those things about me when I’d always thought the opposite was true. It entirely changed my view of myself and the world. It was the first time that I considered myself in that light... as somehow notgoodenough for someone. And hearing those words coming fromyou...”
He understood. And he really had no defense. Just pity and contempt for the boy he’d been. And an ache for the girl she’d been.
“I wish you hadn’t heard them,” he said wearily.
“Whydidyou say those things?”
He blew out a breath. “Because I probably meant them. That’s how fucked-up I was back then.”
Her expression... it was like he’d taken a shovel to her knees. “What?” Her voice was hoarse.
“Or thought Ishouldmean them. I was told repeatedly that that was what you were and that was how I should feel. By my dad.”
All the color had drained from her face. He could see her freckles starkly. Thirteen.
He took a step toward her, as if he could feel her pulling away. “I am bad at this, Avalon, so please... I’m going to try to explain. All my life, up until I was about eighteen, all I ever wanted to do was make my dad proud. I worshipped that man like he was a god. Everyone treated him like one, I thought—well, hemustbe a god, right? I thought everything he said was true and everything he told me was gospel. I wanted to be just like him and that’s what he wanted, too. Didn’t you feel the same way about your parents when you were a kid?”
It was clear she didn’t want to concede any point or yield any understanding to him right now. But it would have been completely counter to her nature to lie. “Sure. Yes. I guess.”
“And you can believe me or not, and you’re not going to like hearing this: I was repeating things I knew he wanted to hear, because he was standingright there. I repeated them to a girl he wanted me to impress, because her dad was rich. Andhedid think you were a hick from the sticks who just wanted to get knocked up and get your hands on my money. Andevery single timehe said something like that—and he said shit like that, horrible ugly things, so often and so blithely—I died a little inside. Because there was this...chasmbetween what I was told was true and what I knew was true about you. So I figured there must be something wrong withmefor feeling the way I felt about you.”
And now Mac was breathing as though he was waiting for someone to come along and help him pull a knife out of his gut. Ragged gulps of air.
Her eyes flared with a surge of compassion; he could see it move through her, in the drop of her shoulders; he could feel it as tangibly as a change in weather.
But she stood her ground. And he knew what the next question would be.
“Howdidyou feel, Mac?” Her voice was quiet and even.
“I thought you were... beautiful. And... magical. And... and the world only felt right when I was with you.”
She went still.
He’d hoped it was enough. But the corner of her mouth twisted; a faint cynicism darkened her gaze, as if he’d only just fulfilled her expectations.
