“Are you staring at me again?” he asks, voice sleepy, smile spreading on his lips.
“Always.”
“You used to do that all the time. We’d sit in that tree house with the fireflies around us and the stars above us and you’d always look at me instead of the sky.”
I warm at the memory and how annoyed he used to get by it. “I was just preparing you for your future career.”
“Funny,” he mutters and turns his head to face me.
“I have my moments.” He reaches out and swats at my leg and I scramble away.
“Be careful, Ships, or else I’ll dangle you over the edge of the boat so your toes are in the water.”
“No!” I giggle, my face a mask of mock horror. “I still can’t believe that!” I shiver remembering that first nibble on my brightly painted toes from the tiny fish while snorkeling. We can only assume they must have thought they were food. It didn’t hurt, but it sure as hell scared the shit out of me. And of course I surfaced with a yelp while Hayes treaded water laughing so hard he sunk below the waterline.
“See? I saved you from getting your fingers nibbled on too. Good thing I kidnapped you today and prevented you from endless hours of torture at the salon.”
“My hero,” I swoon with a roll of my eyes he can’t see but know he knows I’m doing.
“Bet your ass I am. Haven’t you seen me in tights?”
“Oh God. Please. The ego.” I fall back on my elbows laughing and loving the sound of his laughter melding with mine. It’s comforting. It’s us.
The smile on his lips fades. “I didn’t know, you know.” His voice is suddenly serious.
“Didn’t know what?” He’s lost me.
“When I left, I didn’t know I wasn’t coming back.”
I’m not sure how he expects me to react from his unexpected confession, but I can’t deny that my breath catches. “It’s in the past,” I murmur, wanting to stick with the promise I made myself when I came here about forgiving him, and not wanting to waste the time we have left on things that can’t be changed.
“I know it’s in the past, Say, but it’s important for you to understand. I left for a weekend trip to Hollywood, a cocky kid with stars in his eyes who sure as shit wasn’t going to land a once-in-a-lifetime-dream role on his first audition.”
“But you did,” I whisper, remembering where I was the first time I noticed the hushed whispers of my friends who were averting their eyes every time I looked their way. How I finally confronted Ryder and found out Hayes had landed a huge role and wasn’t coming home anytime soon. I screamed and yelled and begged to know why Ryder hadn’t told me the truth. He admitted that I’d lost so much weight and was finally starting to smile again that he couldn’t bear to tell me. He was too afraid it would renew the heartache and start the cycle all over again.
“I did.” He nods subtly and even though his eyes are behind tinted lenses, I swear I can feel him searching mine to make sure I’m okay with the memories this conversation is evoking. “I walked in to the casting audition nervous as hell, wanting to say I tried my hardest and the dream wasn’t for me, but walked out shell-shocked when I’d been cast in the part.”
Silence falls between us as I fight the agonizing destitution I’d felt from clawing its way back. The grief. The loneliness. The heartbreak.
The silence.
“You left me a message.”
“I left you a lot of messages.” I can’t help the rejected bite to my tone.
“You did. And I listened to every single one of them, Saylor. So many damn times. I was so homesick. And homesick meant missing you and Ryder and the normal everyday routine we had . . . but it mostly meant you. But there was one . . . fuck, there was one of your messages that broke me, nearly made me pack my bags and come home. I’ll never forget the sound of your voice. How you were trying to seem so strong but there was this slight waver in your voice that fucking killed me.”
I know I left what felt like a million messages running the gamut from sad to angry to begging to crying to furious, but I know which one he’s referring to. My final message. The one where I gave in and told him if he didn’t want me anymore, he could at least have the guts to tell me.
I chew the inside of my cheek, surprised how talking about this is bringing back so much of the pain I swore I’d gotten over. “Why didn’t you call?” I ask quietly, in an attempt to cover the hurt that still remains.
He shifts to a sitting position, his face downcast to watch his hands for a moment before looking back to me. “Because it was my only chance to get out of here. Away from my dad, his drinking, and quick fists and my mom and her acceptance of it. Everyone saw me as Dale Whitley’s son. The kid who had no chance and wouldn’t amount to anything—”