1
Bailey
As I stand here in front of the mirror, I try to remember the last time that I felt so insanely nervous.
"You okay?" Liv asks, brushing past me with a make-up bag in her hand. I nod.
"Yeah, I’m fine," I promise her. I want to believe it. But in truth? I have no idea what this reunion is going to bring.
It’s been nearly ten years since I left Sweetheart, and there was a good reason for getting out when I did. In high school, I had been sure that I would end up staying here, with the man that I loved; maybe we would do a little traveling of the world first, maybe we would explore and get out and have fun, but we would come back here, to where it all began, and start our lives properly once and for all.
But that had been before the man I adored with all of my heart vanished off the face of the earth. Leaving me with no choice but to rework all of the plans I had put together for myself.
I couldn’t stay in Sweetheart, I knew that much; the memories of the two of us were too fresh in my mind, too sharp and cloying in my head. I might love this small town, the way the neighbors nod at me as I pass by their yards as though I never left, but that doesn’t mean that I am planning to walk into my little white-picket-fence house and pretend like my heart didn’t shatter the last time I lived here.
Instead of staying, I’d gotten out, moved to Denver and studied art, and now I work at a small art gallery in the city. And it’s a good life, a great one, even. But when I got the letter inviting me back to Sweetheart for our high school reunion, the memories from the past began to surface.
Liv had called me as soon as she heard it was happening, told me that I was going to come down and stay with her and Trevor and the kids, and I knew that there was no way I was going to get out of this. Maybe I didn’t want to, either. Maybe I’ve been looking for an excuse to come back here. To finally put to rest the things that have been plaguing me all this time.
"You sure?" Liv asks, furrowing her brow at me. She knows me better than anyone else in this small town, especially since I lost my parents; she’s the one who was there for me after the accident, helping me plan everything and keeping my head on straight even when I felt like I was losing my mind.
She’s always been a mama bear, ever since we were in high school together; she married Trevor when the two of them were barely twenty and had Jamie and Jayla soon afterwards, marking out her territory as the town momma of Sweetheart at once. I miss her, I really do, and getting to spend some time with her and the kids is a gift.
And it’s the reason, I keep telling myself, that I have come here in the first place. Even though I know that there is something else nagging at the back of my mind. A question that needs to be answered.
"You’re not worried about he-who-shall-not-be-named, are you?" she wonders aloud as she good-naturedly nudges me out of the way of the mirror and slicks on some lipstick. I shake my head at once.
"No, no," I lie quickly. She cocks an eyebrow at me. She knows me too well to believe that.
"I heard that someone saw him at the airport this weekend," she remarks casually. I stiffen.
"Saw who?" I reply, trying to play it cool. She tips her head to the side pointedly.
"Baxter, of course," she replies. Hearing his name come out of her mouth, it’s enough to make the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I try not to think about him if I can avoid it, but it looks as though I’m not going to get much of a choice here.
Baxter.
Baxter Ryder.
The two of us had met our senior year of high school, and I had known from the second that I laid eyes on him that he was the man for me. I know that a lot of people saw us as a cliché – head cheerleader and the quarterback, prom king and queen, the perfect couple. But I was perfectly happy living out every inch of that cliché for as long as I could make it last.
And I thought that he felt the same way.
When he told me that he loved me, I had believed it. I had believed him.
But looking back – looking back, there must have been cracks in the surface of our love that I had just failed to see.