Page 17 of Falling for Autumn Again

“Um—” I swallow. He—no. The situation—yes.

“Autumn, you’ve named him after Voldemort. You’re telling me he’s evil?”

I toss my head back and look at the ceiling. “No.” I groan—I won’t ever call Ezra evil, even while wishing baldness on the man. “Ezra isn’t bad. At all.” I press my lips together. “That’s just how I like to refer to himin my head. Okay?”

“But why?”

Because it hurts to say his name.

I sigh loudly. Am I really going to open up a door that’s been closed for such a long time? I’m not sure I can.

“Autumn,” she says with my silence, reaching for one of my hands. “I could not have survived Kyle’s cheating and lies had it not been for you. I never would have been ready to find Kal had you not supported and loved me.”

I get what she’s saying. I do. But this is different. Ezra was never anything like super shmuck Kyle Wells.

“Now, let me be here for—”

“This isn’t the same,” I blurt. “We were kids. It’s no big deal.”Lie. It’s a very big deal. “I was just surprised to see him.” Ugh. Another lie, more liked shocked and devastated.

"It is the same," she tells me. "Maybe not the same problem, but the same as in—my best friend is hurting because"—she gives me the side eye—" she clearly is. And I can help. But that requires you to be honest with me and yourself."

She pulls back, crossing her arms over her chest when I reply with…crickets. Absolutely nothing.

“That,” she says, “and Summer has told me plenty. I know some things and I’m assuming a whole lot more.”

My teeth grind. “Summer was fifteen and made up half the things she thought she knew when it came to Ezra and me.”

“Okay then. I’m all ears. What’s the truth?”

I take a deep breath and release a decade's worth of anguish. Then, I tell her everything. Things I've never spoken out loud to another human.

And once I start, I can’t stop. Ineedto tell her.

I tell her again how I found out Dad was sick. I tell her how I kept my mouth shut and Mom and Dad didn’t actually tell Summer and me until two months after that. I tell her how I couldn’t go to New York knowing my family needed me at home, so the following morning I broke up with Ezra. I tell her how hismom had left when he was little and how his dad was almost always angry and drunk. He could not stay in Love.

And he would have.

If I'd told Ezra that I had to stay behind to help my family, to be with Dad and Mom during this trial, he would have stayed too. He never would have gone. So, I told him I had come to my senses. I told him we were too young and I didn't want him tying me down. I told him we were through and I would never ever go with him. I told him my father didn't approve of him—a low blow. Ezra always looked up to Dad.

I tell her how he called and called and texted and texted, how I never picked up or replied. And finally, how my heart couldn’t take it any longer and I eventually blocked him.

In every possible way, I blocked Ezra Bennett from my life. It killed the best parts of me. But I had no other choice.

I know he was hurt too. But keeping him here would have been so much worse. I loved him. As much as any eighteen-year-old girl can love a boy. I couldn’t be selfish. Not with Ezra. So, I let him go. Forhim, not for me.

I tell her everything. I give her all my pathetic little details.

Meg is eerily quiet when I finish.

I haven’t shed one tear during my tale. I didn’t the day he left either. I couldn’t. It would only make things worse. So I kept it all inside, blocked away all those feelings like a dam blocking off thundering falls, and I waited for it all to go numb. I haven’t cried since my father died.

I wait for her to say something. Anything.

She scoots her chair out from my small round table and stands. A heavy breath falls from her lips as if her adventurous little hubby just took her skydiving and she's feeling the aftereffects. And then—she is sobbing. Like a teenage girl seeing Harry in concert for the very first time kind of cry.

I stand, tipping over my chair in the process. “Are you okay? Sweetie?”

“Me?” she cries, a hand to her chest. “Me? Am I okay?”

---