“I got your texts.” Shit, shit, shit. I don’t have a plan. Oh my God, this sucks. Brandon steps forward. He must feel my discomfort, which means she does, too.
Yup. Her lips curve up in a gratified smile.
Fuck. This.
I draw my shoulders back and look her in the eye. “Don’t call me. Don’t text me. We’re done.”
“Yeah, I got that picture when you didn’t return my hundred texts.”
“Right.” Way to go, dipshit. What was I thinking when I came here? I want to wipe that smirk off her face. I want her to know that she hurt me and I think she sucks, but I’m not a mean person by nature, so actually telling someone she sucks is not really something I’m very good at.
Damn it. Why can’t I be a bitch?
“But if you get it, why do you keep texting?”
She smirked. “Maybe you’ll get one when you’re down and you’ll respond. You texted back a month ago.” She shrugs, and it pisses me off even more.
I draw in a deep breath and think of Delilah and how hurt she was that I’d kept the messages from her. It hits me like a brick in the face. This is all on me. It’s my fault Delilah is hurt. I can’t blame Sandy for that. But I can blame her for what she did to me. I’m breathing hard now, angry with myself for stumbling over words, and when they finally come, they fly fast and hard.
“You hurt me, and it was unfair. You can’t treat people like they don’t matter, or lie to them so they’ll play along with your little games.”
Brandon steps closer to me, but I’m past needing support. I’m in tell-her-off mode whether I’m good at it or not.
“I trusted you, and you took my trust and walked all over it.” Every word comes back at me like a slap.
Oh God, Delilah. I’m so sorry.
“Forget it.” I grab Brandon’s shirt and drag him down the steps, leaving Sandy to stare after us.
We cross the parking lot and head for the car.
“Um, Ash. I’m not sure you accomplished anything there.”
“Yes, I did. I realized that I should be yelling at myself. I took Dee’s trust and walked all over it. People do shitty things, Bran, but blaming my shitty stuff on them isn’t going to fix anything.”
I climb into the car and start the engine, then head for Wyatt’s house.
“What now?” Brandon leans his arm on the passenger door and rests his head back.
“I’m dropping you off at Wyatt’s. You’re living there now, right?”
Brandon sits up and gives me a serious stare. “Pretty much, but my bike’s at your place, remember?”
“Crap.” I turn the car around and drive toward my apartment, speeding up to make a yellow light.
“Where are you going after you drop me off?”
“Connecticut.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
~Delilah~
WITH THE IMAGE of my father’s warm eyes now fresh in my mind, I close the sketch pad and begin packing up my room. His voice still eludes me, but his eyes have made this process a little easier. I had forgotten how they crinkled at the edges when he smiled and the way he could look at me from across the room and soften his gaze until I felt his support without him ever saying a word.
Baby steps.
My room feels like the room of a younger, more naive girl, not the room of a college graduate who has been living without parents for an entire summer. It feels like someone else’s room, and because of that, I don’t feel connected to the things in it. I dump drawers into boxes, separate the clothes I want to keep from the ones I can live without, and box those up for charity. I take one last look at the bedroom that once was my sanctuary and try to conjure up appropriate feelings for the moment. Sadness, grief, regret. None of them come.
Relief and anger mingle uncomfortably inside me at my loss of the ability to feel something for the room that was once my private world.
Why the hell can’t anything be easy?
You won’t appreciate things that come easily.
I sit on my bed with my mouth gaping open. Holy. Shit. Those were my father’s words. His voice. My eyes shift around the empty room. I listen intently, but no further words of wisdom come. I stand on wobbly legs and begin packing my closet.
After a few minutes I’m past the disbelief—and the relief—and annoyance comes back for a visit as I picture my younger self and nights spent debating my attraction toward women, tamping it down with guilt. I don’t want to live in this uncomfortable place anymore. I refuse to live in it. I’m done.
So very done.
I walk down the hall toward my parents’ room, and like a winter coat falling from my shoulders, the weight of those tormented years lessens. I thought I’d feel worse, not better, as I approached my parents’ bedroom. I pull my shoulders back again, as I’d done downstairs, and gaze into their dark room.