Page 56 of The One for Me
“Because I want you to love me. Not as your best friend, but as something more. I don’t know what happened that night we kissed, but it changed me. It changed how I see you and what I want in life. It’s not lust. It’s not some fleeting thing that will pass. It’s you and me. I’ve got you, Devney, and I can’t ever let you go.”
“Oh, God,” I say as my head falls to his chest. “You say stuff like that to me, and I don’t know how to handle it. You’re my best friend. You’re the guy who has always been there, and if I lost you...”
“Then love me.”
My heart begins to pound so hard I know he must hear it. “What?”
“If you don’t want to lose me, then just love me.”
“I do love you.”
He pushes my hair back and smiles. “You won’t ever lose me, no matter what. Well, you won’t if you still want me after all this. I want to tell you everything and let you choose. I don’t want to wait a few days, weeks, or months for you to find any of this out and be disappointed.”
I look up, a bit of fear filling me because he looks so worried. “Why would you think that? I was disappointed when I found out that it was you who ate the last cupcake at my birthday party when I was nine.”
He smiles. “This is worse than stealing the last cupcake.”
“Are you sure? I really love cupcakes.”
Sean’s tension drains just a bit. “I’m sure.”
“Okay.”
He releases me and then sits down on the bed. “It goes back to the night Connor graduated.”
“I was in Colorado.”
Sean nods. “I know. You stayed there that year. It was our sophomore year of college.”
Yeah. That year I stayed away from everyone. “All I remember about that time was when you called me.”
“I was so fucked up.”
“I remember. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard you so angry.”
Sean called me the day after his brother’s graduation, and I thought he’d be happy and tell me about all the fun the four of them had, but the conversation was nothing like that. He was . . . so not like himself. I wasn’t sure what to make of it, I just knew that his father must’ve really taken the news of Connor leaving for the navy poorly.
He takes my hand in his, lacing our fingers together. “That night, it was the most out of control I’ve ever felt. My father got drunk, as usual. He was pissed at us, as usual. But this time, he got in a car, my car.”
“Your car?”
His breath is long and steady. “He killed two people that night. He drove them off the road as my brother and I followed behind him. He destroyed a family.”
“Sean . . .”
“No, see, he didn’t even destroy mine,” he continues. “It was the family of the people he killed who bore the pain of it all. The Arrowoods were far too fucked already. But this family, they didn’t deserve any of it. He took my car, killed them, and then threatened to blame it on the four of us if we didn’t keep our mouths shut. People in town knew my car...”
My other hand flies to my lips. Everyone knew Sean’s car. It was loud because boys and their stupid mufflers. He also thought it was super cool to drive like an idiot.
“So he said he would pin it on you? I don’t understand ...”
“After he killed them, he left the scene, and there wasn’t anything we could do. They were dead, and we needed to stop him from driving. The four of us left the scene to try to find him, and when we did, he was at the house, already passed out. The next morning, we told him he needed to turn himself in, he threatened us, and . . . I would’ve lost everything. We all would have. If he’d pinned it on us somehow, we would’ve never . . . I can’t make excuses. We were wrong, and we should’ve fought back, but when I tell you that the four of us were horrified, you can’t begin to understand it.”
“But that family,” I say, and instantly want to take the words back.
“They’ve forgiven us.”
My eyes meet his. “What?”
