Page 132 of To Belong Together
“You were saying something the last time we talked, but I interrupted.”
“You expect me to remember?”
Yes. He did, because the moment remained clear in his mind. “I accused you of calling because you wanted the vacation, and you said it wasn’t that.”
Silence.
“I wasn’t ready to listen then, but I am now.”
She drew a breath. “Tanner told me he confronted you. I never asked him to do that.”
She was sorry for that, but not for everything she’d said to Erin? He relinquished the right to be angry, focused instead on what he’d done. “I never meant to overshadow you.”
“I didn’t give him permission to speak for me.” Her words were clipped.
Now he was speechless. Why was she angry that John knew about her prom? Why not accept his apology?
“Our first fight as a married couple was about you. Tanner told me what he said to you. He insisted he was standing up for me and kept asking why I was so angry.” Her voice held such frustration that John didn’t dare echo Tanner’s question. “So, I spent a lot of time asking myself that—why was I so angry at you, and at him?”
“And?”
“He put words in my mouth, and he was wrong. Trust me. I got over prom and Paul Masters a long time ago. Why do people assume they can read other people’s minds? Then they go and act as though they can solve the problem, and they only make it worse.”
Conviction tore through him.
His shock when Tanner had told him about Kate’s prom should’ve humbled him into realizing he didn’t know as much as he thought he did and wasn’t as qualified as he’d hoped to guess why another person acted the way they did.
But he’d kept right on assuming. He’d assumed Tanner was right about Kate.
He’d acted on speculation about Erin’s motivations too.
“What was the real problem, Kate?”
“You were my best friend when I was a kid. Anytime Mom asked you to run an errand, you took me along. You didn’t talk down to me. You introduced me to your friends. You let me sit in your room to read while you did homework. Before you moved, I begged Angie to take me to your gigs, but they were late or too far away or Mom worried the crowds were too rough for me. All I could do was spy when you guys practiced at our house. Adeline was, like, the person I most wanted to be in the world. She got to be one of your friends, part of your world. And then one day, you left, and I lost my best friend.” She stopped, sniffled, then picked up again. “And yeah, I know you tried, but it wasn’t the same. I’ve spent about half my life missing you.”
He’d missed her too, but her shaky sigh told him the homesickness he’d suffered hadn’t been nearly as rough as what she’d gone through. “I’m sorry.”
“Mom sat me down after our last call. She told me what you did.”
“What I did?”
“When I was a baby. With our real dad. Since no one believed you, I bet no one thanked you, did they?”
Thanked him? They’d thought he’d done nothing but cause problems. “No.” When the truth had become apparent, Mom had apologized, but she’d never thanked him. It had never occurred to him a thank-you was due.
“Thank you, Johnny.”
She hadn’t called him that in almost twenty years.
“You’re welcome.” Emotion thickened his voice. Everything was out between them, and he didn’t know what to do with it all. “So. Now …?”
“We’ve both changed. We can’t pick up where we were before you moved.”
That had been his mistake, hadn’t it? He’d assumed their relationship hadn’t changed in all the years he’d been away. “Then let’s get to know each other. I’ll visit more, and you’re old enough to come to my gigs now.”
The publicity from the first secret show had been fantastic, and Awestruck was already planning for more this summer. He could send a limo to get Kate and a load of her friends.
She chuckled. “I said we couldn’t pick back up where we left off, remember?”
