Page 25 of Back Then

Booker:I wanted to wait until I was home, I wanted to wait until you’d forgiven me. I wanted you to be there with me when you read it.

Macie:How could I forgive you when I didn’t even know why you left me?

Booker:I don’t know, baby. It seemed cruel to throw all that shit at your feet and not be there to help pick up the pieces. Are you okay?

Macie:No.

Booker:Can I get a little more than that please?

Macie:My parents watched me cry. They saw me wasting away to a shell of who I used to be. They watched me suffer, Booker. I was a wreck. I couldn’t even get out of bed. My momma cried with me. She told me how sorry she was.

Booker:I’ve had a lot of time to think on all this.

Macie:Lucky you.

Booker:We were kids, Macie. Your parents saw a small-town boy without two dimes to rub together. They wanted more for you. And they did everything in their power to make sure you got it.

Macie:Everyone lied to me. Every single person I loved lied to me. Over and over again.

Booker:You’re right. I lied, and your parents lied. We both did it to protect you. To give you the life we thought you deserved. And we were both wrong. Have you talked to them?

Macie:Yep. It did not go well. In fact, my mother pretended to faint to try to get me to stop screaming at them.

Booker:Well, that’s something, isn’t it?

Macie:I told them I never wanted to speak to them again. I told them all their efforts were wasted. That they destroyed us for no reason. I was back home, teaching at the local elementary school and still talking to the same small-town boy I’d been in love with since I was a girl.

Booker:I’m so sorry, baby. I hate that you’re hurting, I hate that I hid things from you. I would’ve done so many things differently.

Macie:We were kids.

Booker:We were. But I haven’t been a kid in a long time, and I should’ve told you sooner.

Macie:Why didn’t you?

Booker:Well, at first, I thought you were getting the letters. I thought I was buying us time until I was out on leave, and I could come home and see you. You’d turned eighteen and your father’s threats didn’t feel so scary anymore. But then, when I realized you never got the letters, I stayed away because you were still living at home. You needed your parents’ support and I was afraid to destroy your relationship with them.

Macie:They paid for my college, my dorm, my car. But I’d have given it all up to be with you. We would’ve figured it out, we would’ve had each other.

Booker:I would’ve worked my ass off to get you through school, believe me. But by the time I could’ve come home to you, you were already enrolled in your first semester. I was stationed across the country. You were thriving, and I was so homesick I could barely stand it. I was moving up though, each new position gave me a bump in pay. I guess in my mind, I was still working toward our future.

Macie:You were doing your best. I’m not too blind to see that. I understand why you left. I can even wrap my mind around why you stayed gone. But I’m still angry. I’m so damn angry at you.

Booker:Be angry, baby, I can take it.

Macie:Thank you for the letters. And the truth.

Booker:I’ll never lie to you again, Macie. I’ll never keep anything else from you. Good or bad.

Macie + McCall

Macie:My pretentious asshole parents. Are you kidding me? You knew they were the reason, and you let me go on and on about how bad they felt for me? Didn’t you want to shove a sock in my mouth and go vomit in my bathroom?

McCall:I haven’t heard you be this dramatic in a long time. But yeah. It was difficult.

Macie:I feel like an idiot. How could I not have known?

McCall:Maybe deep down you did. Or at least suspected. Who wants to believe the worst of the people who were supposed to love you the most?

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