I sat down beside her, but she didn’t look at me. Not a good sign. I wanted to reach over and take her hand, but I was afraid she would bolt. I was helpless again. I knew this feeling well.
“He looked like you,” she said softly as she watched the water sparkle under the moonlight. “The first day he noticed and flirted with me, all I saw was you. The way he smiled, how his eyes danced with amusement. He was so much like you.” She stopped and looked at me. A sadness in her eyes I couldn’t reach tore me apart. “I slept with him the first time because of you. I missed you so much.”
She needed to do this, but I wasn’t sure I could sit through it.
“But he wasn’t like you. Not really. He was his own self. His smile was more crooked, and he was playful. Less serious. He loved me, and because of that, I fell in love with him. I was scared at first, to love again. I knew how bad it hurt in the end.”
My hands fisted as I forced myself to breathe.
“His love was easy, and he made me feel like the most important thing in his life. I’d never had that before.”
Because I’d left her. I hadn’t stayed.
“Losing him, losing what we had, was . . .” She dropped her head into her hands and took a deep breath. “It changed me. It almost destroyed me. I don’t know if I’ll ever find that girl I once was again. The girl I became with Jace.” Finally, she turned her head to look at me. “You and I had history. A past that needed closure. I was so afraid when you came back that I loved you more. That I would always love you more. You terrified me. I was so afraid I’d lose what I had with Jace because when I looked at you, my heart did things I hadn’t felt in a long time.”
She reached up and wiped away a tear that had escaped and rolled down her cheek. If I could go back and change the past, I would. Anything to take this away from her.
“I’ll have to live with the fact that my stupidity took his life. That guilt will never go away. I was drinking to numb the memories. I knew I needed to tell Jace the truth about us and the pregnancy, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want him to hate me. I was afraid I’d lose his love. The way he looked at me like I was the only one in the world for him. But if I could go back, I’d tell him. Even if he hated me for what I’d done, at least he’d still be alive. His laughter wouldn’t be gone . . .”
I reached over and covered her hands, which she was fisting together in her lap. Her body tensed under my touch, but she didn’t move away. I didn’t know what the right words were. All I knew was that Jace wouldn’t have wanted this. He didn’t die saving her so she could live with this guilt. “You were scared of losing the man you loved because of something from your past. Drinking too much to mask emotions you didn’t want to face is normal. People do it all the time. What happened with Jace was not your fault. It was an accident, Bethy. It was a tragic accident. You had been in that water after partying and drinking many times in your life. We all have. Hell, I went surfing at night drunk once. Is that safe? No. But you weren’t thinking clearly. Jace saw you go out there, and his only thought was to keep you safe. He never once thought about the danger of swimming out too deep or rip currents. He chose to save you and sacrifice himself. And I knew him well enough to know he didn’t want to save you so that you could live with this guilt and pain. He wanted you to have a life, Bethy. He wanted you to live. What you’ve been doing is not living.”
Bethy’s mouth puckered up as she sucked in a sob. I would take this all from her and live with it if I could. “Tonight,” she said as another sob broke free. “Tonight with you . . . I didn’t even think about him.” As if realizing it herself as she admitted it, she pulled her hands free of mine and stood up abruptly, putting distance between us.
“That’s part of living. Enjoying life. You’ve just been existing,” I told her, hoping she got this. Accepted it.
She sniffed and wiped at her face. “I just . . . I can’t.” She stopped and took a deep breath, then turned to look at me. “I can’t live life . . . with you. I just can’t.”
I stood up, but she shook her head and turned to go inside. “I love you.” The words came out before I could stop them. Those were words I had wanted to say to her again for the past eight years.
She grabbed the side of the door tightly but didn’t look back at me. We stood there in silence for several moments while I held on to the one small thread of hope that this would keep her in my life. “I’m sorry, but it’s too late.”
She walked inside, and the walls around her hut closed.
This was it. I needed to walk away and let her find the life she wanted. I would never be a part of that life. But how could I accept that? I wanted a future with Bethy. I wanted to be the one to make her smile. How much more could I push her? Finding a way to let her move on and heal without me felt like ripping my heart out and leaving it lying there at her feet. She wanted to heal. She just didn’t want to do it with me.
Bethy
I set down my tray of drinks and took several deep breaths. It had been three months since I’d successfully pushed Tripp out of my life. When we had returned from the island after the wedding, Tripp no longer followed me to work and back. Unless he was with the guys playing golf, I rarely got a glimpse of him.
“You good, chica?” Jimmy, the head server at the club’s dining room, asked as he strolled through the double doors.
I managed a nod and plastered on a smile. “Yeah, great,” I replied.
“Good, because the board members are all here. We got our hands full tonight, and good ol’ Aunt Darla’s out there to make sure we don’t mess up.”
I had already seen the reserved table and the guests sitting at it. That was the main reason I needed a moment to get myself together. Waiting on my friends was normally something I enjoyed doing, because both Della and Blaire had worked here once, too. They were easy to wait on. Most of the time, they got up and fixed their own drinks and got their own plates from the kitchen.
But this was different. They were all dressed up. This was a business dinner, which Woods held every quarter. Once I had gone to those gatherings with Jace, although being on the outside wasn’t really that hard for me.
Seeing Tripp with a date was what threw me for a loop. Not that I even had a right to care.
“Waters are on the table. Woods has already chosen a red and a white for dinner. You take the red, and I’ll take the white. I also expect Dean Finlay will order bourbon. Everyone else normally sticks with the wine.”