Page 52 of Stick Break
I squeeze her hand. “I’m glad you found out too. But that probably doesn’t make it hurt any less.”
* * *
Her gaze slides to mine, and for a heartbeat, we just see each other. There’s no act, no banter—just understanding. Shared scars.
“You get it,” she says softly, not as a question.
I nod once. “Was there someone else?” I ask, my mind on my relationship with Lyra.
She gives a dry, humorless laugh. “Yeah. His ego.” She looks out over the water, jaw set. “Turns out he couldn’t handle my success. The more I rose, the more he tried to pull me down. When he realized he couldn’t, he set out to destroy me instead. All because he couldn’t stand not being the brightest one in the room.”
Her voice doesn’t crack, but it’s close. She’s holding it together—barely.
I sit with that for a moment, the weight of it settling between us. “Bastard.”
She lets out a huff of breath that might be a laugh. “Yeah, that’s one of the nicer things I’ve called him.”
“To his face?”
“No.” Her voice softens, laced with disappointment. “Just…quietly. Alone. After. I wanted to scream at him. After everything, especially when my parents basically took his side.”
She glances down at our hands like she’s ashamed of something. “Instead, I ran away. Hid out. And crashed in your bed.”
My chest tightens. I let out a long, low whistle. “That’s brutal.”
She nods. “Yeah.”
We sit in the silence, boat swaying gently, sun casting lazy gold over everything.
“You know,” I say, glancing around. “We’re out in the middle of the water. Nobody around. You could scream. Say all the things you’ve been holding back. Scream it to me. The fish. The water.” I point. “That one grumpy-looking seagull.”
She laughs—a real one this time, soft and surprised. “Tell me something, Rip.”
“Anything.”
“Were you engaged? You and…”
“Lyra,” I supply, watching the way her brow twitches at the name. “Lyra Truman.” I laugh at that because it’s hysterical, really. Lyra who lies, yet her last name is Truman. “No,” I say. “We weren’t. But… like you, I thought I’d be somewhere different by now.”T
“Was there someone else?”
“Yeah,” I admit. “There’s always someone else with Lyra. Some guy she keeps going back to. But every time it falls apart, she shows up at my door and every time...”
“You love her.” It’s a quiet statement as her fingers curl more tightly around mine. “It’s not returned?”
I nod. No sense in denying it. “The truth is, she loves one thing, and it’s her career. It always comes first. She’ll do anything to get ahead.”
Charley’s brows pinch slightly, and there’s pain in her eyes, pain for herself—because she knows first hand what I’m talking about—but there’s also pain for me. I expect her to ask what Lyra does for a living.
“I’m just a convenience,” I admit.
“People suck,” she says finally, voice low and honest.
“I’m not going to argue that,” I agree, and this time, I’m the one lacing our fingers together.
“I’ll do it if you do it,” she says, eyes locked on mine, wind teasing her hair like even the lake wants to lean in.
“Scream?” I ask, half-laughing, half-curious.
