I drop down in my chair, holding my head in my hands. It’s painful having to relive this. It’s definitely something I’d rather forget.
“When we came home for Christmas, I should’ve been happy. I was done with school. I had earned my degree. Yeah, Cassidy still had one semester left to go, but the finish line was in sight. We were on the brink of moving on with the next phase of our life. But on the ride home, we barely spoke to each other. It was the most time we’d spent together in weeks, and she pretended to fall asleep in the front seat so she wouldn’t have to talk to me.” I grimace, recalling how quiet she was as I drove in silence for miles, feeling so alone even though she was right there next to me.
“On our first night back, I called her parents’ house and she said that she didn’t want me to come over just yet. Her family wanted to spend some time with her first, and not to worry because we had four whole weeks to spend together before she went back,” I laugh bitterly, knowing the truth. “I thought she was avoiding me because she was going to break up with me. In fact, I was sure of it. So I thought I’d save her the trouble. I told her it wasn’t enough for me. I needed to see her that night or it was over. We got into a screaming match on the phone. She kept insisting that she didn’t want to end things like that, that she loved me and wanted to fix what was broken between us, but I didn’t believe her. For years, her parents had been trying to drive a wedge between us, and if she couldn’t see that, then it was never going to work. There was nothing left worth fighting for. For a whole semester, she’d tossed me aside like I meant nothing to her. Now that she was going to graduate in the spring, her parents were probably filling her head with the idea that she could do so much better, that she didn’t have to settle for someone like me.”
I stop to run my hand across my jaw, not even realizing how engrossed Ivy and Will are in my story. I’m lost in a sea of memories, feeling anew just how rejected I felt at the time.
“After we split up, people were telling me they kept seeing her around town with Tim. It turns out the two of them practically spent her entire break together. She never called me to say she was sorry, and I didn’t try to see her before she went back. We just left it like that.” I stare at the floor, rubbing the back of my neck to relieve the tension.
“But you still started work on the cabin?” Ivy questions, bringing me back to the present.
“Yeah, I did,” I nod in agreement. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
“And let me guess?” Will inquires, drawing his chair closer. “Someone tipped her off, told her what you were up to.”
“Pretty much,” I reply, pausing to take a sip of water, my mouth suddenly dry. “She called me when she found out. We had a heart-to-heart that lasted well into the night. After that, we’d talk every night on the phone. I thought things were back to normal. She was acting like her old self again. I begged her to come home for Valentine’s Day. I wanted to show her what I’d done so far on the cabin, and she did. One thing led to another and…” I gulp down the rest of the water, unable to go on, especially with the weight of Ivy’s eyes on me.
She knows what happened next, the night I thought Cassidy conceived. I don’t have to elaborate on it. Will can fill in the gaps on his own.
“But you’re thinking Tim could’ve gotten her pregnant the month before if she was sleeping with him?” Will asks bluntly.
“Pretty much,” I respond, for the first time blatantly acknowledging Cassidy’s betrayal. “But we’ll never know, will we?”
“We gotta get Tim to talk,” Ivy insists, reaching for my hand. “Get him to open up. It just feels like he’s holding something back, like there’s more to this than he’s letting on, and I just know Lauren has something to do with it.”
“And you think you’re the one he’s going to spill his secrets to?” I ask her warily.
“I might be,” she whispers softly. “He thinks we’re the same.”
“What do you mean?” Will questions.
“He sees us as the perpetual runners-up, like I wouldn’t be your first choice if Cassidy were still alive,” Ivy explains, and I tighten my grip on her hand, ready to contradict her. “He may believe that, but I don’t, and I even told him as much. But if I pretend to go along with him, he might be willing to admit that nothing really happened between them. I think it strokes his ego a bit to have you think he slept with her. He wanted her so badly that he just can’t let it go.”