Page 107 of Merritt and Her Childhood Crush
“I didn’t let myself be seen,” she says. “And I didn’t stay long once I realized what was happening. Gran tried to tell me not to come that weekend, but she never gave me the reason. So, I came.”
“Why?”
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
I shake my head. “Why did you come?”
The pause feels endless. Like whole lifetimes pass in this moment. Birth, death, everything in between.
“I came back for you. I knew I’d screwed up, and I hoped … I hoped maybe for another chance to tell you I loved you.”
Her hand crushes mine, and when I open my eyes, I see that she’s crying. Delicately removing my hand from her grip, I pull her toward me, dislodging Banjo, who gives us both a withering look so intense, we both manage to laugh.
“Mer, I’m so sorry.”
“You can’t be sorry. You made the choices you felt you needed to make. I said I wouldn’t come back. I hurt you. I pushed you away—on purpose. So you can’t apologize for marrying Cass.”
Even knowing what I know, I still think I’d make the same choice again. I don’t know how I couldn’t. But I hate that I hurt Merritt in doing so.
“I can say I’m sorry for how much that must have hurt. I know if I’d walked in on your wedding day, I’d have—”
I stop. Because there’s no need to detail the kind of violence I’d inflict. Not on a person. But I could envision trashing hotel rooms. Shattering glass. Punching holes in walls until my knuckles bled.
Merritt snuggles closer against me. “Is it bad that I like thinking of you getting jealous?”
“Not if I love it. And I do.”
I love you, I almost say. But it doesn’t feel right. Not when we’re talking about marrying other people.
“I say all this because I still struggle with Cass. I want to be a bigger person. To be mature and handle this with grace. But when you took the phone call on our date, when you left me for her—even if she really did have the most legitimate reason—it takes me back to that day. To watching you choose her over me.”
I’m gutted at her words. I know why she’s saying them. What Idon’tknow is how to tell her they’re untrue.
“Mer …”
“I couldn’t help but notice my painting is still outside,” Merritt says, her voice painfully small. “Do you not like it?”
I grab her hand before I can overthink it, my pulse like an alarm bell in my ears. I can’t find the words, but I can show her.
“Come with me,” I tell her.
When she sees me walking toward the screen door, her eyes go wide. “Bluebeard’s secret room,” she says. She laughs a little when I glare.
“You and your Bluebeard obsession,” I say, chuckling. “There are no other women in here, dead or alive. You’ll see.”
And when I walk her into my house for the first time, she does see.
Merritt stops right inside the door and gasps.
Heat floods my face again as I watch her look around my house. But I’m not embarrassed I’m … I don’t even know. Terrified? A jumbled hot mess of emotions is more like it.
“You kept them,” she whispers.
“Allof them. I hung up my favorites, but the rest are in a closet in the spare room. Go. Look.” I nudge her into the house, and as she looks at everything, I look at her.
Half the walls in my home are filled with paintings. Merritt’s paintings.
Gallery, shrine—I don’t know what you’d call it. Both, maybe?
