Page 137 of The Boy I Once Hated

“Okay,” I grumble, wondering where she is going with this.

“But then life happens, and that same carefree attitude starts to wear you down. Especially when you have to put food on the table and have two infant girls needing you twenty-four seven. Grant didn’t take to fatherhood as well as he took to his late nights and parties. One of us had to be the adult, and we both started to resent each other for it.”

I let her go off on her tangent, not really understanding why she’s telling me all of this.

“It was one thing that drew me to your father. How he, too, had been high school sweethearts with your mom. But unlike Grant was with me, Curt was devoted to Annabelle. There was nothing he wouldn’t have done for her.”

The hair on the nape of my neck stands on end, hating how she has the nerve to speak about my mother. She lets out a trebling exhale but continues on with her rant.

“I know what you think of me. I know that you hate me just because you think I stole your father away from her. But I can tell you that was never the case. Cancer stole your mother from both of you,” she explains, her shoulders slumping. “I watched how your father would come to visit her every chance he got. How it broke him every time he saw her slip further from his fingers. He would come out of that hospital room looking like he had left a part of his heart inside of it. It still hurts him to think of her. There isn’t a day that he doesn’t suffer from the guilt that he could redo his life, when she wasn’t afforded the same luxury.”

I fist the rag in my hand, twisting it hard with each word she says.

“Sometimes when your mother was just too frail to have visitors, your father would stand outside her room and just watch her sleep. I would walk over to him and spark up a conversation, just so he wouldn’t feel so lost. Our friendship grew from there. And although it was never my intention, I found myself falling in love with him.”

My molars instantly grind at her admission.

“Yes, I know how it all sounds. Here I was falling head over heels for a man whose wife was still trying to hold on to the life she had. I live with the shame of it every day. Worse still is that I know there is a part of your father’s heart that will never be mine. It will always belong to Annabelle. But maybe it’s because I know he loved her so fiercely that I was able to fall in love with him too. Maybe it even made me love him more.” She shrugs sheepishly. “I always thought my feelings were one-sided, though. I never acted on them. But then a few months went by after your mother passed and I honestly thought that would be the end of it. That I would never see your father again and he would never know that I had fallen for him. Imagine my surprise when Curt showed up at the hospital, asking me if it would be okay if he could take me out for coffee. Maybe I should have said no and waited for him to mourn your mom longer, but then again, he’d been mourning her since the cancer sneaked its way into your lives years prior to that.”

Her crestfallen expression has my head lowering away from her, unable to see the deep-seated turmoil and guilt in her gaze.

“So I accepted his offer for a coffee date, and well, coffee led to lunch dates, then dinner dates, and eventually marriage, as you well know.”

“Why are you telling me all of this?” I mumble through gritted teeth.

“Because I need you to understand that sometimes we can’t help but to fall in love with the last person we should. That even though the odds were stacked up against us, your father and I did fall in love. Deeply and wholeheartedly in love.” The sad smile that tugs at her lips has me paralyzed to the spot as she slowly breaches the gap between us. “And because, Noah, I believe you love my daughter just as much.”

When my eyes widen in alarm, she raises her hands in a white flag gesture and takes a step closer to me.

“I’m not here to chastise you for it. Or reprimand you for keeping such a secret from us. In fact, I’m praying that your feelings for Sky are as true as they appear to be.”

My jaw tics but I refuse to say anything in return. When she realizes she won’t get a confession out of me that easily, she inches even closer to me, a timid smile to her face.

“I can’t blame you for falling in love with her. My Skylar is special. So very special. It hurts me sometimes that she doesn’t see just how special she is,” she laments. “But something tells me that you see it. You see all the potential my baby girl has. Don’t you, Noah?”

On reflex, I nod.

How could I not?

Sky is everything to me.

I’ve never met a girl like her, and I doubt I ever will.

“That’s what I thought.” She smiles, but it’s the sadness in her tone that raises my hackles. My heart drums madly, my hands wringing the cloth in between them as I wait for Clara just to come out and say what she came here to say.

“But we aren’t the only ones who know how amazing our girl is. Did you know Sky got accepted to start Dartmouth in the fall? That she got a full ride to attend their creative writing program, one that covers her full tuition and board?”

My heart drops.

When I shake my head, Clara sighs.

“Don’t be upset with her. She didn’t tell anyone. I wouldn’t have found out about it either if the school hadn’t reached out to me directly. Apparently, they had been trying to convince her to defer her grant for a year, instead of turning them down completely.”

“She told me she didn’t get in. That she had to go to the community college in Falmouth because we didn’t have the money to send her to a good college,” I croak out, trying to assimilate this bombshell.

“It’s true,” Clara explains calmly. “We could never afford to send her to a fancy university like that. You, above everyone in this house, know our financial circumstances. But, Noah, didn’t it ever occur to you that Sky had the grades and potential to go to Dartmouth on her own merit?”

I try to recollect all the classes we had together in the past and remember that Sky never so much as got a grade lower than an A. Fuck! Why did I accept her story about not getting a grant so easily?

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