Page 39 of Holly, Jolly, and Oh So Naughty

Despite her rather delicate way of floating through life, Bernice was always sharper than she let on. I smile softly and shake my head. “It’s not what you think.”

“Isn’t it?” Her lips pop slightly. “I know we didn’t love each other, but that hardly matters in our lives, does it? No one loves anyone except their kids. That’s just how it is. But you were different, James. I know you were trying to please your mother, and your father, and every other person who had designs on the great James Anderson, but I could see through it. You were always yearning for someone.”

“It’s not what you think.” I lift my head, lazily staring around my hotel room while looking at nothing. “I didn’t cheat on you.”

“Didn’t you?”

“I loved her before I even met you.” Saying those words out loud feels damming.

“And yet you chose me.”

“Not exactly.”

“Then what is it, James?” Bernice snaps, and the silky softness vanishes from her voice. “I think I deserve to know.”

“I was young. My parents convinced me that I was too stupid to understand life and that I had to work in the family business. You know what it’s like, Bernice. You have no breathing room. I wanted to contact her again, but she never reached out to me. I thought she was glad to be rid of me.”

“Then why run halfway across the country to see her after seven years?”

My lips part but I can’t speak. There’s no way I can explain the sudden, powerful urge to see Lily that overwhelmed me after my father died. I just knew, in my heart of hearts, that seeing her would make everything okay for a little while.

“You wouldn’t understand,” I say eventually.

“Wouldn’t I?” Bernice says. “Do you have any idea what it’s been like for me? The looks and the whispers and the sneers because my fiancé ran out on me? People keep asking what I did to scare you away as if I’m secretly some terrible person you simply could not stand. I nearly told people you were sick in the head just to save face.”

“Tell them that.” I sigh. “I’m never coming back, so tell them whatever you need to. Make yourself look good, Bernice.”

“I can’t,” Bernice says. “Because deep down, I know I was just an obligation to you, and you were to me, and had I had the guts, I would have done the same.”

“Do the same,” I tell her. “Do whatever you want to do, but don’t listen to my mother. I don’t love you. I never did. I don’t want to be with you, and I’m not yearning for you. And I know you feel the same.” It sounds harsh, but we both know the truth.

We’ve always known. I just got tired of pretending.

“Besides, I know you had feelings for the coffee guy around the corner.”

Bernice gasps softly. “I did not.”

“You can’t lie to me, Bernice. I knew you liked him and I didn’t care. He made you happy. So go and be happy. Ask him out.”

“My mother would enter the grave right in front of me.”

“Would she?” I scoff softly. “You’re the jilted fiancée of James Anderson. I’m pretty sure anything you do now will look good after the mess I’ve left.”

Bernice is silent for a few minutes. “So, you’ve really moved on?”

“Yes,” I say as my thoughts turn back to Lily. “I have.”

“Are you happy?”

“No. But I’m working on it.”

She pauses, then I hear a deep sigh. “Goodbye, James.”

“Goodbye, Bernice.”

My room is silent and cold once the call ends. My past continues to creep up, though it’s my own fault for leaving that mess so abruptly. Talking to Bernice was oddly freeing, though. I’d avoided talking to her properly because while I knew her feelings lay elsewhere, Bernice was fueled by a much deeper family loyalty than I ever was.

I half expected her to come here and drag me back.

---