Page 82 of Beautiful Storm

“What came next?” I search my mind for any other interactions we had after that butfuck,I waseleven.I can barely remember details from a conversation that happened last week, let alone twenty years ago. “I was a kid.”

“I never faulted you for what happened at graduation.”

“Then what?”

Amelia sucks her lips into her mouth before laying her head back on the couch and staring at the ceiling. “After you walked away,” she begins, her eyes once again meeting mine. “After you left, I saw my mom and I couldn’t face her. I didn’t want her excuses for my dad’s absence. So I followed you instead, hoping you’d walk me home. I called out but you didn’t hear me.”

“I don’t remember that.” I always walked her home. If I’d known she needed me, I would have waited.Fuck. Did something happen? I rack my brain to remember the events of that night but I can’t… wait, she ran past me crying but her mom was calling out and…I didn’t go after her.Shit. “Amelia, I—”

“I caught up to you that night,” she cuts me off, her gaze now locked on her hands as though she can’t even look at me. “You’d just reached Vicki’s house and you were laughing about something with Trent.” At the mention of Vicki, my face pales, and I realize what I did.

“I was about to call out again when I overheard my name.” Amelia pauses but I don’t need her to continue. Not now that I have that moment at the forefront of my mind. My stomach knots as my heart pounds in my chest.How could I have forgotten thatconversation?It ate away at me for months after we stopped being friends, only I never knew that she’d heard me.

Fuck.

I run a hand through my hair as bile rises in my throat. There’s no point pretending.“Do you have any secrets I should know?”she’d asked me, and I had lied.

“I said something along the lines of… ‘I can’t believe Amelia's dad didn’t show. I wish she knew where he disappeared to at night.’” The words sting like a knife in my throat as I speak them again now, cutting me from the inside. “I said that he cared more about Vicki than he did about you,” I rasp, hating every second of this trip down memory lane. “I said that maybe if you knew the truth you wouldn’t put him on that fucking pedestal. And then I said…” I trail off because I don't want to repeat the rest.

“You said?” Amelia pushes me to say it, even though she knows.

“I said I couldn't believe how upset you were, and that it was pathetic.” Amelia briefly closes her eyes as my heart aches. “I didn't mean it, Amelia. At all. I was trying to be cool around Trent, and—”

“You knew,” she cuts me off and I want to scream.All this time it was me.

“God, Amelia, I—”

“Youknew,”she repeats a little louder, cutting me off again. “You all knew my dad was fucking Vicki’s mom… that he was playing happy families andyou never told me. And what’s worse is that Vicki ran out of our graduation because she didn’t have a dad to dance with and I felt sorry for her. Her dad was gone. At least mine was still around. But that wasn’t why she was upset, was it? No, she was upset because she wantedmydad to dance with her and that’s why he didn’t come.”

She knew?Amelia knew.And we all acted like we didn’t. Vicki told us all about it. She told everyone but Amelia. And I kept it from her. I lied to her face.

“I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought—”

“Did you know it was another year before anyone bothered to tell me the truth? I held onto that secret and pretended I didn’t know because I couldn’t bear to be the one breaking my mom’s heart. But I soon discovered she knew too. And she kept himaround. I didn’t know what to do. Or what would happen to me if they split up. So I kept silent, allowing my heart to shatter while never saying a word.” Amelia pauses again but this time I don’t speak. I can’t. Her broken expression has me in a choke hold.

She bites her bottom lip before shaking her head, as though trying to silence her pain, but it’s written all over her face. And when I think she must be finished speaking, she finally glances up, pinning me with her broken stare…devastating me.

“I was a kid, Luke. They were supposed to protect me. And so were you.You promised.”

Her voice cracks, hitting me deep in my chest.

She’s right. I promised to be there for her. To protect her. But that’s what I thought I was doing.

“I’m sorry, Amelia. I didn’t know you were there. I kept it from you for the same reason you kept it from your mom. I couldn’t be the one to break you.”

Amelia nods before whispering to herself, “And yet, you did it anyway. You just didn’t know it. You were a kid. I know. But even as a kid, your words can leave scars.”

I want to argue… or beg her to let me take it all back, but I can’t, it's too late.

“If I’d known you heard me, I would have come after you and explained. I could have been there for you. I could have helped.”

“I was crying when I ran past you. If you’d have followed me, I would have told you everything. But for the first time ever, you didn’t. And then school started back and you lied.”

Jesus.She’s right. Again. I didn’t follow her because I felt guilty for not sticking up for her, even though she’d accepted my apology. And I felt guilty for talking about her behind her back and for the lies I said. Then at school I was thinking about me,not her.

It was all me. I turned on her. Me.

What do I say to that?

---