Page 55 of Lost Petal

She bites her lower lip, clearing her throat again and shifting on her seat in apparent discomfort. Whatever she’s about to tell me does not come easy to her. And just a moment later, I realize why.

“I never graduated,” she finally admits, looking at me with wide eyes and guilt written all over her pretty face. “I stopped going to school more than a year ago.”

I frown at her. This, I didn’t expect.

“What happened?”

Her lips start trembling and she manages to push down the first emerging tears with another swig of gin. Her glass is empty now, but I refrain from offering her a refill just now. I need to hear more first.

“I... It’s complicated,” she stutters, looking at me through watery eyes. “Please, promise me you won’t get mad.”

Don’t give me a reason to get mad, is what I’d like to tell her, but I keep my thoughts to myself.

What the hell is going on here? Where is she heading with this? Why would I get mad at her? I may have been her biggest supporter back then, the driving force for her leaving town and going to school at the other end of the country, but it’s not like I paid for her studies or she’s in my debt in any way. So far, her revelation worries me more than it angers me.

But I understand her concern when she continues to tell me.

“I fell in love,” she says, biting her lip as she casts me a cautious look. When I give no indication of a response, she clears her throat again before she continues. “Or I thought I did. It was a little more than two years ago. One of the rare occasions when I was out with friends. We met at a bar. He was a navy guy. His name was Kade. It was all very whirlwind romantic, so fast, so intense, so... stupid.”

She chokes, continuing to fight back tears while I sit there, stiff and tense, my fingers clawing into the armrest of my chair. Of course she fell in love. She has every right to do so. It’s not her fault my chest feels as if someone has ripped it open, tearing my heart out and squeezing it in front of my eyes while spewing hateful insults at me.

“And?” I ask, unable to hide the disdain in my voice. “What happened? Did you stop school because of him?”

She nods, sending another jolt of anguish through my chest.

“Kind of...” she whispers, taking a deep breath before she’s able to finish her tale. “He lived on base, out of town. We couldn’t see each other as much as we wanted to, and I was very unhappy with school at the time. My classes, my professors, even the friends I made—nothing was making me happy. Except him. I was so entranced, so addicted. He was so good to me, too good…”

She casts me a shy look, her lashes fluttering nervously.

Too good, she said. No man is too good for a girl like her, but I know what she means by saying it.

“And?” I ask, sick of hearing her praise of another man.

She sighs. “I was so in love, so sure of everything. I thought I was going to marry him, even after just a few months. So I told my father about him…” She pauses, looking up at me as she raises her glass. “Could I have a refill?”

I shake my head. “Finish your story first.”

She lets out a little huff, smiling in a way that makes me weak in the knees. It’s a smile full of affection, warmth and familiarity. A smile that’s reserved for the people closest to you.

“You’re so strict,” she says. “I always liked that about you. Your principles.”

We exchange a quiet look, burdened with secrets and a history that’s so much longer and richer than she will ever know.

She’s the one to break eye contact, averting her gaze with a little cough, as if to chase the ghosts that surround us away.

“I told my father about everything. About quitting school, about Kade, and…,” she goes on, adding another pause before she manages to finish. “Kade was about to be deployed overseas, and we wanted to get married before that. I had to tell my father. It felt like the proper thing to do.”

Proper. Nothing about this is proper.

I didn’t know I could feel the way I do right now. While everything she has told me so far has unleashed a series of painful bites, this last stroke almost blinds me with its intensity.

But I can’t let her see it. I can’t let her see the anguish her story puts me through.

“I don’t see a ring on your finger,” I say, ignoring the rush of guilt that comes with my remark and the harsh tone with which it’s delivered. “So I’m guessing the wedding never happened?”

She lets out a scornful huff. “Of course not. As expected, my father totally flipped when I told him that I wanted to marry a guy I’d only known for a few months. ‘You’re too young,’ he said, ‘You’re throwing your life away,’ ‘He’s never going to be loyal to you,’ ‘It will never last,’ ‘You’re acting like a goddamn fool.’ I had to listen to a spate of all those things and more. He called me a childish idiot, and he threatened to fly over there and get me, to bring me back where I belonged.”

Her voice is trembling as tears start streaming down her cheeks. It’s the same kind of pain I’ve seen on her so many times before. The same dilemma, the same blend of unfulfilled wishes and a restraint put on her that shouldn’t be there.

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