Page 16 of The Last One You Loved
“I’m taking a few vacation days,” she announced. “I’m going home for a long-overdue visit with Dad. Wanna come?”
She was having to leave because of me. Because she was being harassed. Guilt wrapped around my rib cage, squeezing. “Sal…I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t you dare apologize for standing up for that boy. I just wish he was big enough to stand up for you, too.” Her tone was fierce, protective of me in a way only a handful of people had been in my lifetime.
“He’s fifteen, Sal. Give him a break. He’s scared—no, terrified of both staying and being pulled away.” The text I got made a shiver crawl over me again. If Dr. Gregory had reacted this way to me, I couldn’t imagine what Layton had been through once he’d gotten home. “I can’t blame him.” I swallowed hard, trying not to show my fear. Sally knew some of my history but not everything. Only one person had ever known it all.
“Come with me?” she repeated, skipping over my defense of Layton.
Sally had a ginormous extended family, but it had been just her and her dad living in the California coastal town of Avalyn Beach growing up. Their home was a tiny cottage where he created his art, giving up the luxury of space in order to have the beach right outside their door. When Sally had been little, he’d slept on a pullout couch in the cramped living room so she could have the only bedroom in the house. Sally didn’t let him do that these days when she visited, but if I was there as well, he’d insist the two of us stay in his room while the seventy-year-old man took the couch. I didn’t want that. And I couldn’t afford a hotel right now. Neither could Sally.
Plus, if I was with her and Dr. Gregory really did come after me, there was a chance she’d get hurt as well. No. I couldn’t go with Sally.
But…I did have the key. I had a place… My temples pounded, and my lungs seized just thinking about using it. I’d sworn I never would because going back would be too painful. Too many bad memories…and good. It was the good ones that I’d once thought would derail me from my goals. I’d doubted my ability to leave again if I found my feet back outside his door, so I hadn’t gone. Not once.
I looked at Sally’s tired face, and guilt squeezed tight again.
I could use the key. Should use it. Trap had told me I was welcome any time. That it was a place I could land if I ever needed somewhere safe. He’d said he didn’t use the house, even when he was in Willow Creek, because he stayed at the motorcycle club’s headquarters. In the ten years since I’d left Willow Creek, I’d only heard from Trap three times, and each time, he’d reiterated that the place was there if I needed it.
I frowned, trying to recall how long it had been since he’d last texted. It had to have been four years or more. It was definitely before Kerry had left for Boston, demanding his family’s heirloom engagement ring back.
My chest tightened until I thought I couldn’t breathe. It had nothing to do with Kerry and everything to do with the fleeting idea of going back to Tennessee, of seeing Maddox with a wife and kids—who blended into the Hatley gang perfectly—in the only place he’d ever wanted to call home. I’d wanted to fly, and he’d wanted to take root. He’d wanted Willow Creek, and I’d wanted anywhere else.
And now, it had been years since I’d talked to him.
Years I could only blame on myself.
Me and that damn fictional story I’d created in my head with Kerry, a man who’d never once made me feel the way I’d felt with a mere brush of Maddox’s hand, but whom I’d convinced myself I wanted anyway.
I could have called Maddox after Kerry and I had gone our separate ways, but what would I have said? It’s okay to talk to me now that my jealous fiancé isn’t in the picture? Worse…Maddox would have…because that was Maddox for you. Even if he’d had a wife and kids, he would have still allowed me back in because we’d been more than boyfriend and girlfriend. We’d been best friends. He’d been my confidant. My hero.
And I’d hurt him.
Not just by leaving Willow Creek. I’d hurt him more when he’d come to see me in the spring of our freshman year. We’d spent an entire weekend lost in each other’s skin, and it had been a jagged relief. A beautiful and exquisite homecoming. I’d almost begged him to stay, even though I knew he couldn’t, not with the ranch in the state it was in. But worse…scarier…I’d almost thrown in everything here and gotten on the plane with him. So, in self-defense, I’d asked him not to come back. I told him we couldn’t be anything more than friends.
And I’d believed it at the time. I’d believed it when I’d told him I didn’t want him waiting eleven years for me to become a doctor and that I was never going back to Willow Creek. I’d told him to find someone who would love him, his family, and the town as much as he did, but that it wouldn’t be me.
After he’d left, everything had been different between us, a barrier up because he’d been hurt and because I was desperate to hold on to my goals, to become a person who was worth something…anything. Our calls and texts after that had been stilted, as if for the first time in our lives, we couldn’t bare our souls to each other.
But at least we’d had those awkward conversations until I’d stuck the final stab in our wounded relationship. I’d taken away any contact because Kerry had been jealous of me maintaining a friendship with an ex.
Could anyone ever forgive someone who’d hurt them so many times?
I wasn’t the person to ask. I couldn’t ever forgive Mama.
“Hey? Where you at?” Sally said, flicking her finger into my shoulder, and I realized the credits had long ago ended for the episode ofBuffywithout me even reacting to it. Her question about going with her had spiraled into questions about every decision I’d ever made.
“I think…” I took a deep breath. “I think I’m going to go back to Tennessee.”
Her eyes grew wide. “No…really?”
I nodded. Maybe it was just my flight instinct finally winning out over hiding, but it would put me farther away from Dr. Gregory and keep Sally out of harm’s way. Maybe it would be a chance for me to do what my therapist had been wanting me to do for ages. She wanted me to face my past when I much preferred shoving those monsters right back under the bed and trying to forget about them.
“Maybe I’ll be able to lay some of my demons to rest,” I said softly.
“Or maybe you’ll finally find your way back to your guardian angel.”
I snorted. “Not likely.”
