Love Me for Me(5)

He swung his gaze up to the sky and then looked back at her, his head shaking so subtly that she had almost missed it. “Fancy seeing you here,” he said, his eyes taunting her for a reaction. “I can’t imagine why you’d come back.” His arms were crossed, the muscles tight and flexed, as he glared at her. His hands looked more weathered, older, but she remembered them perfectly—the way they’d felt as he dragged his fingertips up and down her back while she rested on his shoulder, the coarseness of them as he held her face in his hands.

His words cut her right through to the bone. He hated her for the way she’d left, and she didn’t blame him. Pete had wanted them to go to college together. He’d applied to Virginia Tech and the University of Richmond so he could stay close to his family. He wanted to be able to do things like go out on the boat with Pop when he felt like it and help his mom around the house if she needed him. He wanted Libby to be by his side like she had been since they were kids. Going to a state school would have allowed them to come home and be with their families more often while still giving them enough distance to be on their own together. But Libby’s mother had always told her she could get into the Ivy Leagues if she just put her mind to it, and, in the end, her ambition won out. She applied to Columbia University in New York City and she got in. Breaking the news of her acceptance to Pete had exploded into the type of argument that changes everything. It wasn’t just a disagreement; it was a complete attack on the kind of life he’d chosen to pursue.

The day she’d told him about Columbia was the first time she’d ever seen disappointment in his eyes. She’d sent off her applications for Virginia Tech and The University of Richmond along with the one for Columbia, but she knew she couldn’t spend her days in White Stone—and with Pete, she knew she would.

“Give me one good reason you should go there, Libby,” he had asked that day.

“Because I need something more. I need to get out. There’s nothing for me here,” she’d caught herself saying. She bit her tongue, knowing she’d made it sound as though Pete wasn’t worth staying for. She hadn’t meant it to come out that way, but it had. What she’d been trying to say was that for her whole life, she’d learned she had to achieve to be successful. In White Stone, she just didn’t have enough opportunity to achieve to her potential. It wasn’t about Pete. “I can’t get anywhere in life if I stay in White Stone. It isn’t the place for me.” She’d called it an insignificant town.

“I refuse to believe this,” he’d said. “That’s not what you want. It’s what your mother wants for you.” His cheeks were flushed, his jaw clenched. She’d never seen Pete Bennett cry before, but his face in that moment was about as close as she’d ever gotten to seeing it.

Pete’s implication that she couldn’t make her own choices rubbed Libby the wrong way. She was old enough to decide for herself what she wanted from life and, while her mother had strongly urged her to apply to an Ivy League school, ultimately it was up to Libby. And she wanted to get out of White Stone. “Then you must not know me as well as you think you do,” she’d said, irritation pelting her insides.

What she’d been too proud and angry to admit on that day was that, while she wanted out of that town, she was heartbroken about leaving Pete. He didn’t see her cry into her pillow every night for weeks after she’d left him. He didn’t know anything about the emptiness she’d felt day in and day out as she spent nights away from him, alone, in a new place where no one knew her. On more than one occasion, she’d almost picked up the phone to call him, to hear his voice, but she was too afraid he was angry with her. So she’d shut her eyes and imagined the crooked way his mouth turned up as if he were about to break into a laugh, the way his eyes squinted when he smiled. But that image always changed to the last expression of Pete’s that she’d seen: the sadness, hurt and disappointment.

The guilt that she carried still sat deep within her, and it hurt like crazy to feel it again. But it had been for the best! She had too much drive, too much ambition to be stuck in that town without any opportunities for something bigger, for life on a grander scale. What is life without achievement? she thought. Working hard for things made her feel like she was doing something worthwhile. Hadn’t he realized that by now?

“There you are!” her mother’s voice plowed right through the heaviness hanging in the air. Libby pulled her attention from Pete to find her mother walking out of the door to Miller’s, an apprehensive look lurking beneath an artificial smile. “Hello, Pete,” she said, sending a fluttering look over to him and then away. Her eyes settled on Libby. “Our table’s ready.”