Page 11 of Tough Love

I sigh as I look back to my phone. “I never understood why you left.”

“Would it make any difference if I told you?” He fidgets, clearly uncomfortable with the subject.Good.“What’s done is done.”

“Yeah. Question is, would you change it if you could?”

“Are you seriously asking me that?” he scoffs.

I glance up, frowning. “You never called, never wrote. You just … vanished. Your whole family, gone overnight. If it wasn’t for the vague comments people around town made about how your father should have ‘left her sooner,’ I would have wondered if you’d all been murdered or something.” I shake my head. “Where did you go?”

“The town was right: Mum and Dad separated. You knew they had issues. You saw the fights they’d have.”

“But how does that explain what happened to you?” I ask, throwing my hands in the air.

He swallows hard, staring across the room to avoid looking at me. “I got home after the last night I saw you and found Dad trying to patch himself up in the bathroom.” He glances to the floor and shrugs. “Mum was drunk again, and she’d smashed up a whole heap of plates; they’d started to argue while she was doing the dishes. Dad said something she didn’t like and she picked up a piece of ceramic and lashed out at him—cut a huge gash in his arm.”

Jesus.I’d seen his parents go hammer and tongs, lashing insults in turn as though they were whips to be cracked in competition with one another, but physical violence? “I’m sorry you had to witness that.”

He shrugs. “I never told you how bad it was because Dad was embarrassed. Mum used to beat him when she’d been drinking, a lot. He’d had enough. He had called his cousin up North a few days before and was planning on moving out, just not that quickly.”

“And when he did, you went too?” It kind of makes sense now, at least, why he left.

Evan nods, shame in his eyes.

“But why didn’t you tell me?”

“Dad gave me an ultimatum: go with him right there and then, or stay with her.”

“And you chose him.”

“Yeah.”

I sigh, palming my phone. “You could have called after, though. Written a damn letter.”

“It’s not all there was to it, Amelia.” He sighs, glancing at the wall behind me as though seeing the staircase on the other side. “Tonight isn’t the time for us to hash this out anyway, is it?” He jerks his chin to gesture to Briar upstairs.

Of course.But when is the right time? His admission that he knows what happened after he left and yet chose not get in touch, even after what should have been shocking news, makes me think he’d rather avoid the subject of “us” altogether.

“If we hadn’t crossed paths tonight,” I ask, “would you have looked me up? Tried to reconnect?”

Silence hangs heavy between us as his Adam’s apple bobs. “I don’t know. I guess … I guess I assumed you’d be happy, settled. That it didn’t matter anymore.”

Lips set in a firm line, I nod, preparing to leave the room while I wrap my head around it. All these years and I refused to believe it was as simple as the sheer fact he didn’t love me like I loved him. But the more he reveals, the more I find out, the more that seems the only viable answer. He says it was more complex, but really what else is there to it? He chose to leave, I understand why, but he also chose to stay away from me—thenandnow.

Was I that difficult to love?

“I better make this call,” I mutter, half-heartedly lifting my phone.

Evan pushes off the counter and closes the space between us in two urgent strides, taking me by surprise. I tip my head back to see his face as he speaks, the familiar angles causing my chest to tighten.

“It sucked.” He looks me dead in the eye before averting his gaze with a frown. “What they did to you, Mimi. It wasn’t fair.”

“Nobody’s ever said that to me,” I murmur.

I was the talk of the town for a solid six months, and yet not until seven years later in my sister’s kitchen do I hear for the first time that somebody actually felt bad for me. That somebody cared.

Ironically, the only person I everwantedto care.

“Well….” Evan sighs, swallowing hard. His exhale tickles my face, his mouth so close to mine. “I thought you needed to know.” He steps back, hands awkwardly placed on his thighs as though he’s struggling not to do something else with them.

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