Her heels click against the tile floor as she scans the dark hallway, rounding one corner then another until we reach a wall of alternating orange and black lockers.
“There she is,” Blaire says, beaming. “Number two-eleven. Yours was three-fourteen—and it was black.”
“I don’t know how you remember any of that.”
“You used to wait here for me after biology class our junior year.” She traces her fingertips along the metal vent at the top of the locker door. “And then you’d walk me to English, which was right across the hall from your history class.”
Turning, she rests her back against the locker, dragging in a hard breath and giving me that look. The one that melts my resolve in seconds. I glance left, then right. We’re still alone, under the cover of darkness.
The Joe Nichols song fades to Paramore’s The Only Exception, another hit from back in the day that always made me think of her. Hell, everything made me think of her. She was a part of every piece of my day from the moment I woke up in the morning and picked out the shirts I knew she loved … from the time I went to bed at night after dropping her off at home a hair before curfew because every second with her mattered.
Wagging her finger, she says, “Come closer.”
“What’re you up to …”
“Dance with me,” she asks in a voice so sweet I couldn’t say no if I wanted to. “It’s okay. No one’s watching.”
I close the canyon-sized gap between us, placing my hands around her hips as she rests hers on my shoulder. Nuzzling her nose beneath my jaw, she breathes me in and releases me with a honeyed sigh.
After tonight, this has to stop.
She’s got hope, and she’s going to get hurt all over again.
“I miss when life was simple,” she says as we sway in the dark.
“Me too.”
“I … I just wanted to tell you,” she says, gazing up at me. “I love you, Wyatt.” The words send a fullness to my chest and gut me just the same. Before I have a chance to respond, she continues, “You don’t have to say it back. In fact, you don’t have to say anything back. I just thought you should know.”
With that, she rests her cheek on my shoulder.
“I love you too,” I mouth in silence. I have to say those words even if she can’t hear them, even if she’ll never know them.
I tell myself it’s time to let her go … to put us both out of our misery.
I tell myself to accept the fact that she’s going to marry someone else someday, that she’s going to wear someone else’s last name and have another man’s babies.
And then I tell myself it’s all for the best.
Even if her father hadn’t done what he did, Blaire deserves better than me … because at the end of the day there’s not enough love in the world to change the fact that I’ve done something unspeakable, something I’ve never told a soul, something I intend to take to the grave.
Blaire deserves better than a man with a black mark on his soul, haunted by the consequences of his own decisions one fateful day. I don’t regret what I did, but it’s something I have to live with every day for the rest of my life.
“Should we go back?” she asks. “Not that anyone’s probably looking for us …”
“Yeah.” I release my hold on her and follow her towards the pulsing music, which gets louder with each step.
For the hours that follow, I make my way around the room, pretending I give a damn about everyone else all the while stealing glimpses of Blaire. She’s magnetic, this woman. Everyone flocks to her, drawn into her orbit. Every time I look her way, she’s smiling or laughing or telling some animated story using her hands.
She’s the bright summer sun after a hard rain.
She’s that one twinkling star that shines a little brighter than the others.
She’s the warm spot in a cold bed in the middle of the night.
My chest tightens when our gazes catch from across the room and she gives me a wink and a smile—the kind reserved only for me.
I head outside to get some air … and to talk some sense into myself.
31
Blaire
* * *
“So … that wasn’t so bad, eh?” I say to Wyatt as he walks me to my car. “Probably pretty typical as far as ten-year reunions go. Lots of braggers and a few bullshitters but mostly nice people wanting to reminisce.”
He’s quiet—which means something’s weighing on his mind.
I slip my hand between his arm and his hip, guiding him closer. “You okay?”
He looks away, running his fingers through his messy brown waves.
“It’s been a long night,” he says.
I laugh. “It was maybe three hours …”