A long week, really.
Candice has been keeping me in the loop with the trial, but unfortunately, there won’t be any news one way or another until after Thanksgiving. So for now, there’s nothing more for me to do but try to forget about it all and enjoy myself.
Those were her words.
As if I could forget.
As if I could focus on school or on calling my mom to see if she wants me and Bear to come home for the holiday or literally anything else other than the fact that Landon and his brothers have been questioned, as have I, as have all other witnesses in question.
And a decision will be made.
A decision I have absolutely zero control over.
I’m so lost in thought — something that seems to be happening to me more and more lately — that I don’t notice Gavin leaning against my car door until I’m about ten steps away. He straightens at the soft beep of me unlocking the vehicle, and while he offers a sheepish smile, I only give him a glare in return.
“What?” I clip, moving around him to toss my purse in the car before I stand — door still open — waiting for whatever he wants before I climb in and peel out of here.
“You shared a lot in therapy today,” he said, tucking his hands in his pockets. “I… I didn’t realize you were going to court for… for what happened.”
“I might not be.”
He frowns. “But you said—”
“We were all questioned, yes. I’m trying to press charges, yes. But nothing is certain. The detectives and lawyers have done their jobs for now, and it’s up to the prosecutor what happens next.”
“They’re going to pay,” he says, his jaw tense. “They will, Erin.”
I shrug, mostly because I don’t want to cry — nor do I want to get caught up in this conversation with the boy who broke my heart and left me behind because he couldn’t handle me.
“I’m proud of you,” he says after a quiet pause from me. “I know it couldn’t have been easy, to come forward after all this time. But you’re setting an example. You’re doing the right thing. And I believe the justice system will do its job and make them pay for what they did.”
I fight the urge to roll my eyes.
“Is that all?” I ask.
His shoulders deflate, and it’s then that I see how though his eyes are red from what I assume is lack of sleep, he does look better than when I last saw him. He’s filled out, his skin a bronze instead of that translucent gray, his cheekbones no longer hollow. Maybe he did get help. Maybe he meant what he said in his letter to me.
Regardless, I don’t owe him anything — least of all this conversation.
“Erin, I truly am so sorry,” he says, his voice just above a whisper. “For hurting you, for leaving the way I did. For… everything. I know it doesn’t matter now, I know you’re happy with Bear and I’m happy for you. But…” He shakes his head, running a hand back through his hair as he looks away from me. Sweat beads along his neck. “Goddamnit, Erin, you are so fucking important to me. To my life. You were instrumental in my recovery. And I don’t know if I helped you the way you helped me,” he says, his eyes meeting mine then. “But I meant what I said. I would really like to be friends. Just friends. Not the creepy kind of friend who says that’s all they want and then tries to make a move.”
I can’t help how my nose stings, eyes pricking with tears that dry as soon as they appear. Because as he said those words, that I helped him, I know he helped me, too.
“I just don’t want to lose you in my life,” he pleads. “And with everything going on in yours… I want to be there.”
I sigh, biting my lip as I mull over his words. To his credit, he does seem genuine.
And in so many ways, I feel the same as he does.
I never wanted him to leave the way he did. In fact, him breaking up with me because I’m not pretty enough would have been easier to handle than that letter he left me with.
But if he really did check himself into a treatment center, if he really was in that low of a place… and now he’s back… and we can be friends?
I know how much it would mean to him.
Even more — I know how much it would mean to me.
He was there for me when no one else was — not because they wouldn’t have been if I’d have told them, but because I didn’t have the strength to own what had happened to me. He was the first to touch me, the first to make me desire after having something so viciously taken from me.