Page 60 of Sweet Escape

“I appreciate that, but actually, I think I’m gonna go on a drive,” I tell him. “Sometimes driving and music help me clear my head.”

Memphis watches me for a long moment before he speaks again. And when he does, he surprises me.

“So then ... let’s go for a drive.”

Thirty minutes later, we’re sitting in the bed of Memphis’s truck, our backs against the cab with our legs stretched out in front of us, overlooking a beautiful valley.

We haven’t said much since we hit the road, the two of us simply enjoying the quiet and the breeze and cooling weather outside as we drove.

But now that we’re sitting here, I can feel Memphis’s attention on me. I don’t doubt he wants me to share what the deal is with Theo. I’ddefinitely want answers if I was in his shoes—if I was sleeping with someone who suddenly had some woman coming to town claiming to be his girlfriend.

But once I start sharing, I’ll have to face some facts about myself that I haven’t necessarily been ready to address.

Not everyone is ready to look themselves in the mirror and accept all the things they see. I’m not sure whether it’s that I’m finally ready, or whether it’s the ease I feel around Memphis ... regardless, now feels like the right time to finally come to terms with the reality of my relationship with Theo.

“We were dating for three years. And he cheated on me.”

I can see him in my peripheral, looking my way. He doesn’t say anything, but I know he’s paying attention.

“It might not seem like the most catastrophic thing in the world. People get cheated on every day.” I lean my head back against the cab and close my eyes, trying to enjoy the sun on my face as it breaks out from behind a cloud. “But it upset me so much because I wasn’t surprised. And knowing that ... knowing that I’d stayed with someone for that long when I knew in my bones what he was capable of ...” I trail off.

It’s embarrassing.

I see women in the media all the time, or people I’m friends with in real life, and I wonder why they would ever stay with a someone who treats them so poorly. Someone who treats them like they’re disposable.

But it’s not so cut-and-dried.

“When you start to build a life with someone, even if you’re just dating, there are so many things that become intertwined,” I tell him. “Routines and friends and housing. Not to mention the emotional investment, the years of being there and putting up with things and seeing little hints at progress. It’s like you can’t help but hope.”

Tugging my legs to my chest, I wrap my arms around them and then put my face in my knees.

“Of course you had hope,” he says, his voice warm and comforting.

I turn my head to the side, and his soft eyes meet mine.

“When things are hard, all you really have ishope.”

I sigh, tucking my face away again, and finally decide to say the real truth. “It’s just ... so embarrassing.”

Memphis reaches out and rests a hand on my back, rubbing in calming circles.

“You have nothing to be embarrassed about. It sounds like you gave your partner the benefit of the doubt until he confirmed who he was.”

We sit like that for a long moment, Memphis’s hand continuing those comforting circles on my back, me with my chin in my knees staring straight ahead, my mind a mess. Thinking over the little things that I’ve been avoiding since I’ve been in town.

All the ways he showed me exactly who he was, and how I rationalized each one.

How highly critical he was of everyone we knew, even the people he supposedly cared about, which should have been enough for me to know he was probably just as callous about me when I wasn’t around.

The sneaky, underhanded way he approached things.

His inability to deal when he didn’t get his way.

The concerns I had about how flirtatious he was with other women.

In the beginning, I didn’t say much because I felt like I was still getting to know him. And then the longer that time went on, the more I tried to excuse the things I didn’t like by highlighting the things I did. The parts of him that made him the guy I accepted a first date with.

But eventually, those things became negatives as well.

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