Page 42 of Even if It Hurts

Those chaotic eyes searched mine before falling to her plate again. “This morning, my boyfriend essentially told me I would quit this job if I cared about our relationship.”

At the wordboyfriendfalling so casually from her lips, the bite I’d just taken turned to ash. I struggled to chew what was in my mouth and forced it down probably sooner than I should’ve as she continued.

“Not that I’m going to quit, and not that I don’t care about our relationship...he just wants me to do something else.”

“Like what?” I managed to ask when I was trying to stop hearing her sayboyfriendon repeat. “Am I not paying you enough?”

“No, that isn’t it at all,” Lainey hurried to assure me before drawing in a shaky breath. Sitting back in her seat, she twisted to better face me and explained, “My parents own a farm, and I’m supposed to be managing it. I’m supposed toownit one day.”

I studied the dejection now filling her eyes and echoed, “Supposed to.”

“Yeah.” The word punched from her on a breath, and when she continued, her voice was soft and shamed. “I’ve grown up in those fields, and for as long as I can remember, my parents have told me what they expected of me with the business. Plans were always made around me—forme—and I had to follow through.”

“But you hated it.”

“I hated it,” she agreed as if confessing to a sin before hurrying to backtrack. “I love the farm because it’s part of my family, but I’ve always felt like I was being crushed under it and their expectations, and I never saw a way out until I went to college.”

She lifted a hand, indicating my apartment. “I wasn’t supposed to go at all—no one wanted me to. But it was my way of getting away, at least for a little while, and I was supposed to double-major in marketing and agricultural and resource economics. But then I accidentally went into the wrong lecture hall one day and stumbled upon early childhood education and fell in love with it. Next thing I knew, I was dropping marketing to a minor and adding on an entirely new major that in no way supported my parents’ plans for me.”

I sat back, waiting for her to continue because that clearly wasn’t the end. Not with the way she let the last words drift off. Not with the way her eyebrows had drawn close as if she was worried about my reaction to what she would say next.

“For the first time in so long, I was genuinely excited about each day and the future,” she began softly. “But I didn’t tell anyone, including my boyfriend. I let them all continue thinkingI was going to school with the purpose of one day taking over the family business.”

“For how long?”

“All the way through getting my master’s in early childhood education.” Worry filled her eyes as she waited for my reaction, but I just watched her, wondering how this girl could’ve gotten through however many years without anyone knowing what she was really doing.

“Told you I value honesty above everything else,” I finally said and watched as she deflated as if she’d been expecting something like this. “If I’m giving you access to my apartment and my life, if I’m trusting you with my niece, I need to know I can trust you.”

“You can,” she said firmly. “I would never—” She paused, seeming to fumble for words that would appease me. After a while, she shrugged and offered me a helpless smile. “Mr. Briggs, my family has always had unreasonably high expectations of me. Expectations I’ve never been able to fill and have never wanted to, even though I’ve tried for so long. Adding that major was the first time I’ve ever done something for myself, and even though I knew they’d find out eventually, I was terrified they’d try taking it away from me.”

She placed a hand on her chest as a defeated breath fled from her. “I know what I did, and I’m paying for it—trust me. But please don’t hold wanting to live my life against me. I already have enough people doing that.”

My head dipped as I absorbed all the pain and fear pouring from her, and assumed, “Including your boyfriend?”

“He’s on my parents’ side,” she admitted reluctantly. “Always has been. He—” She swallowed thickly and suddenly seemed to find the lines in the wooden table fascinating. When she continued, hesitation curled around her carefully thought-outwords. “He has plans for us that align with my parents’ plans for me, and he isn’t thrilled that I want something different.”

A grunt that was more out of irritation for his existence than understanding for her situation rolled up my throat, but if Lainey noticed, she didn’t show it. “How long have you been together?”

“Our entire lives,” she answered numbly.

I let the words hang between us; let them replay in my mind and forced myself to grasp their meaning. I told myself it was good that Lainey was in a serious, committed relationship because, apparently,employeewasn’t a concrete enough reason to stop me from wanting her.

Lifting the forgotten slice, I asked, “How do you think he’ll react when you tell him you didn’t quit?” before taking another bite.

“I think he already knew I wouldn’t,” she whispered before offering me a weak smile. “But we’ll figure it out.”

“Will you?” The question was out before I could begin to filter myself and surprised Lainey...for a second.

“I don’t know anymore,” she confessed. “I keep telling myself things are only strained between us because I didn’t tell him what I was really doing with school, but it’s been...my bad call,” she said suddenly—meaningfully.

Except I had no idea what she was talking about.

“Last year—which we aren’t talking about, I know—” she explained with a wave of her hand, “you asked if I’d had a bad call. I’d been talking to him.” One of her shoulders lifted. “And that was truly one of the better calls we’d had because I’djustleft to go back to school. Every year, they got increasingly worse the longer I was gone.”

I stared at her for so long, desperately trying to swallow the words gathered on my tongue before they poured free. “Why are you with him?”

A sharp, saddened laugh left her. But instead of answering, she just studied the table as minutes passed.

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