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.
Because nothing else explains the way he just dropped off the face of the earth right before graduation. One second we were in love, and the next, he didn’t exist anymore. My whole heart was ripped in two, and I could hardly stand to be in Sweetheart without him. Even the name of the town sounded like a mockery to me.
It took me years to accept that it had happened. And even then, I still wanted to know what the hell I had done to earn that sort of treatment. He had held my hands on prom night and told me that he loved me. And then, he was gone.
But where? And why?
In the years since then, I have pondered that question a lot. Sure that there must be an answer to it that I just couldn’t quite make out. And yeah, maybe, if I’m being honest with myself, that got in the way of opening myself up to other men. Because the thought of allowing other men into my life when they might also hurt me like that – no, not a chance in hell.
I don’t want to fall in love again. Not until I understand what happened to send Baxter running from me like his ass was on fire.
And now, the rumors are telling me that he’s back in town. And I have to find out just how much truth there is to them. I don’t care what it takes, if I get my hands on him, I’m going to discover what he was hiding from me back then. I am going to find out what drove him away from me all those years ago.