Page 40 of Back Home For Christmas

“I am talking about how you ruined my life!” I shouted. He took a step back as if my words were a physical force.

“What?” He asked.

“You ruined my life,” I said more forcefully, shoving my pointer finger into his chest. I really wanted to wrap my fingers around his throat and squeeze. “You stole the only chance I ever had to follow my dreams. To do something that mattered to me. I hate it here! Somehow, I always get sucked right back into the bullshit of everyone else’s problems, everyone else’s expectations. I was trying to pick up the pieces that you left me with and be something more than the pathetic younger sister who would never be as special, or smart, or important as Darren. Only one thing ever truly made me happy. And you took it away.” I felt tears streaming down my face. I wiped them away angrily.

He swallowed hard. “What are you talking about?”

“Aubrey told me what happened to my photographs,” I said. I watched his face turn white. He knew exactly what I was talking about.

“Cat…I can explain,” he said.

“There is nothing to explain! I wish I had never come back here. I don’t need any of you. I don’t need my family’s approval that will never come. I need to finish school and move on,” I said.

“It sounds to me like you need your family’s approval a lot,” he said.

“See! See! You can’t help yourself. You can only pretend to care for a fraction of a second before the real you comes out,” I said.

“The real me? What makes you think you know the real me?” He asked.

“You think that you have everyone else figured out, that you are too brooding and mysterious for anyone else to understand? I know exactly who you are. You are an open goddamn book. I’ve always known that you were a vapid, selfish, jerk.”

“That didn’t seem to bother you last night,” he said. I could feel his walls rebuilding just as quickly as mine had. We spent twenty-four hours together being honest and vulnerable and the first sign of trouble we were back in our corners. It felt terrible, but not at all surprising.

“You are an asshole,” I said. “How can you stand here so callously knowing that you single-handedly took away everything I ever wanted?”

“You need to not let Aubrey get into your head. She is very good at that. That is why I am upset about her and Darren. Not because of some broken heart jealousy that you think. It’s because she is toxic.”

“This isn’t about Aubrey. This is about you! It’s about how you manipulated me into believing you gave a shit. It’s about my pictures, my wrecked future. It’s about whatever deal you made with Darren that no one felt the need to tell me about.”

“Cat,” he said with a long rush of breath. “All I want is to help. All I have ever wanted was to help.”

“Help? Help?” I was screaming an inch away from his face. “By ruining my photos?”

“It wasn’t like that,” he said. “I…”

“Get out,” I said. “And whatever deal you made with Darren, I will work on paying it back, so you are as far away from me and my family as possible.”

“I am only supporting my friend. He came to me and told me he was stuck, so I lent him money,” he said.

“What are the stipulations of this loan? What do you get out of it?”

“Nothing,” he said.

“Aubrey said that there’s always something in it for you,” I said, feeling tears burn my eyes. I didn’t want to cry in front of him, but that ship had long since sailed.

“Of course, Aubrey said that because she is a nosey bitch,” he said.

“So, this is a no strings attached loan?”

“It isn’t like that, Cat.”

“What is it like? Explain it to me,” I said, putting my hands on my hips and moving closer as if I could somehow intimidate him into giving me the answers I was looking for.

“Darren needed the money. We agreed that I would give him the money. No loan,” It sounded like there was a “but” coming at the end of that thought, so I waited, staring him down, trying not to think about how his lips felt in the darkness of our bed and breakfast room. “I would have partial ownership of the store, but only so I could better finance everything and your parents could retire.”

“Get out,” I said, pointing toward the door.

“Cat, please,” he said.

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