Page 48 of The Life We Left Behind

“It’s really beautiful here, Lanes,” she said dreamily. “Peaceful.”

“Yeah, it is.” I joined her on the swing, passing her one of the glasses as I tucked my feet up under me and got comfortable, buying myself as much time as I could.

“I saw Trace yesterday. His family is buying the farm and all the land.” I paused and sighed, trying to buy myself some time. “We went out to the pasture to start looking it over. It started raining and…well, I guess you can figure out what happened next.”

Why was this so embarrassing to admit?

I shuffled uneasily, hating that I’d made such a massive mistake.

“How very nineties romcom of you,” Blake said, turning to me with a grin. “Did he look all delicious in his wet shirt, and you were just powerless to resist?”

I opened my mouth to object, but then cringed. “Yes.”

My hands came to cover my face as I started to turn an attractive shade of red, but the overly large glass of wine in my hand got in the way.

Blake shoved me playfully. “Don’t be embarrassed. You can’t help being just like all of us other humans.”

I snorted then. She was always making fun of me for being too perfect, but personally, I think she was just blind to my faults. After all, between the two of us, I was the one pregnant and alone at sixteen, even if it had worked out in ways I never could have possibly dreamed of.

“So, what’s got you all twisted up and angsty?” she asked, taking a sip of wine.

I sighed. If I was going to regress into this melodramatic teenage version of myself, then I was fully embracing it.

I took a fortifying gulp of wine and then said the thing that was really bothering me. “I thought all these feelings for Tracewere gone. I was so broken when I left this place and then later so angry, but I’d come to terms with all that. I even understand why he did what he did. It was scary as fuck, and you’ve never had the misfortune of meeting Trace’s parents, but they’re not exactly the nicest people. I can see him freaking out and his mother twisting it into what happened. But I’d thought all the other feelings involving him had gone as well.”

“All the ‘I want to jump your bones and screw like naughty monkeys’ feelings?”

I gaped at her for a second and then shrugged because she wasn’t wrong. “I’m not supposed to feel like that, though. If anything, I feel like Ishouldbe angry. What does it say about me that the first chance I got, I fell into bed with him?”

The more I thought about last night, the more the regrets were pouring in. Especially after seeing Trace speeding away from the house when he saw Cade. I’d got a clear enough look at his face to see his expression, and I didn’t think I’d ever seen him look that angry before.

“I think it says that you loved him a whole lot when you were together and that maybe those types of feelings never really go away.” Blake took another sip of her wine while I started to chug mine down like it could drown the confusion. “Nothing that happens between you and Trace is wrong, or dirty, or whatever negative spin you want to put on it. You were together for a long time, you both loved each other a lot, and you never really got the chance to say goodbye. You didn’t really even have a chance to break up if you think about it. You were sent on your way by his mother, and I bet deep down there’s a part of you that still wonders if he really knew what happened.”

I looked at my friend. The flighty artist who saw the world exactly as it was and could turn it into the most beautiful paintings I’d ever seen. Blake had a way of seeing the things around her without all the filters that the rest of us put in place.She saw the truth, and even if it wasn’t the pretty lies we all preferred to believe, she still somehow saw the beauty in them.

I pushed her pink hair off her shoulder and replaced it with my head as she wrapped her arm around me.

“If you had a choice, if no one else in the world was watching and you got to do whatever you wanted, what would you want to happen out of this situation?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I muttered, snuggling against my best friend and feeling a wave of sadness sweep over me. Tears came to my eyes, and I felt that lump in my throat that meant there was nothing I could do to stop them from falling, eventually.

“Yes, you do,” she said quietly, hugging me against her. “It’s just you, me, and the stars, Dels. I’m not going to tell anyone, and the stars are great at keeping secrets.”

I took a moment. I wanted to pretend that I didn’t have a picture of the way I wanted my life to turn out. There was a part of me too embarrassed to admit it. It was all just so impossible, and there was a pain in admitting you wanted someone who didn’t want you back. When they knew you weren’t good enough for them, no matter what you did.

Part of me wanted to keep denying that there was a glimmer of a dream inside me. But this was Blake, and maybe it was time for me to admit to that insidious little thought that had burrowed its way inside of me and finally let it go.

“I want him to realize that he made a mistake,” I whispered. “To look at Cade and how amazing he is and realize that letting us go was the biggest mistake of his life that he ever made. And…I want us to be a family.”

Blake gripped me tightly as I confessed to the childish dream that I knew was never going to happen. Especially not now that I’d seen Trace’s face when he first saw his son. It wasn’t the face of a man who regretted his actions.

“Maybe,” Blake started slowly, “It might be time to start thinking about making a family, Dels. Maybe it’s time to?—”

“Don’t say it!” I warned her, trying to sit up only for Blake to tighten her grip on me.

This was a conversation we’d had before, and one I didn’t want to go over again for what felt like the millionth time.

“I’m just saying that maybe it’s time to start dating.” She let me go then as she raised her hands in surrender, almost as if she was expecting me to take a swing for her.

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