Page 93 of Avenged

Her using the nickname stalled me. I reached out a hand to push the curls from her face, and she pushed me away. “And?”

“And what?”

“What happened? What did he say? You didn’t agree, did you?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Thank God.”

I looked up at her. “Thank God?”

“Yes, thank God. I could just see you letting him talk you into showing up for him.”

I wanted to deny it. I wanted to say there was no way in hell I would do that, but the truth of the matter was, I had gone there hoping I would be able to do that. Hoping I’d see a man riddled with guilt and regret and wanting a second chance. But it also hurt all the way to my soul that she thought I would just give in to him. That she saw me this way. Looking through her eyes at myself made me want to look away.

“What made you say no?” she asked.

“He wasn’t sorry.”

She laughed, and it sounded so bitter and old that it continued to break me apart. “I can’t believe you thought he would be.”

I looked down, pulling at the cover on the pillow. “I think I hoped it rather than believed it.”

I could feel her watching me, and I looked up at her, and tears hit my cheeks before I could hold them back. She leaned forward and pulled me to her. She smoothed my hair and shushed me just like I used to hold her when she was little and woke with a nightmare—nightmares she’d had regularly after the accident.

“I wish you hadn’t gone alone. I wish you would have taken me.”

“I wasn’t alone,” I told her.

Her hands stilled. “What?”

And then we both said at the same time, “Truck.”

I pulled away and wiped at my eyes, giving her a weak smile.

“What happened with you two?” she asked.

I shrugged. “We broke the contract we’d written, and it fell apart like we knew it would.”

She looked like she didn’t believe me.

“I like him,” she said.

My throat clogged at her words. My feelings for him were so much more than like, but I just nodded and said, “I like him, too, but liking him and keeping him are really two very different things.”

“Why? Why does it have to be that way?”

That was when I realized my sister really was still sixteen. She still had rose-filled glasses on when it came to love. She didn’t see the brutality of it. She hadn’t heard our dad say he’d loved his wife but not his daughters. I’d never tell her that. She could accuse me of being overprotective all she wanted, but I’d never say those words and purposefully rock her to her core.

“Did you talk to him?” she asked about Truck.

“Yes,” I said, because I had. Maybe we hadn’t said everything we needed to say, but we’d said enough to know where we both stood.

“And he let you walk away?”

“Of course.”

“There’s no of course about it. If he loved you, he wouldn’t have let you walk away.”

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