“I thought a clean break would be easier for both of us,” he countered, his voice raised. “I had a lot to deal with back then, Pres.”
“Oh, did you? You had a lot to deal with coming home to your beautiful family and living in the lap of luxury while you found yourself? Meanwhile, I was heartbroken and trying to pick up the pieces of a life I didn’t recognize anymore, while trying not to fail every exam that next quarter. And then I slept with someone hoping I’d finally get over you and you’re telling me the whole time that you were in love with me and you left anyway?”
Sick. She was going to be sick. She’d wasted not only the time they’d dated, but years after thinking of him. For a while she’d pined for him, for a longer while she’d mourned. And then when she was finally over him, she’d traveled to Beaumont Bay and allowed herself to be talked into his bed.
You’re smarter than this, Presley.
“What was your plan this time around, Cash? Were you testing a theory? Or did you need inspiration for another hit song? Don’t tell me you were actually hoping I’d be ‘Back for Good’?”
His head snapped up and his mouth pulled into a frown.
“My God.” She wasn’t as far off the mark as she’d hoped. “Is that what your new song is about? Me staying?”
“Presley.”
“But I’m leaving. An-and you’re encouraging me to go. Is this a game to you? Do you enjoy stringing me along and then pushing me away?”
“Pres, listen to me.”
Which begged another question. “Why did you tell me about ‘Lightning’?”
He licked his lips. Sucked in a deep breath. “You gave up New York.”
She blinked. “What?”
“The internship. You stayed in Florida because I was in Florida. Your grades were slipping. Because of me.”
She shook her head, but the sentiment was weak. She wanted to accuse him of being cocky and self-centered, but she had turned down New York for him. She had put her life on hold once she was in his orbit. That’s what you did when you loved someone. Or at least, that’s what she did.
“I can’t give you anything else, but I can give you the truth. Now you know the answer to the question behind who inspired ‘Lightning.’ Do with it what you will. If it helps your career and allows you to travel the world like you dreamed, then maybe I can live with myself for letting you leave. If it’s a secret you want to keep to yourself, so be it. I’m not telling anyone.”
“You can’t give me anything else,” she repeated, her voice trembling with anger. “What the hell does that mean?” But she knew. He’d clearly said he was letting her leave—that he could live with himself now that he’d told her the truth. But what about her? What about what the truth was going to do to her? He’d practically guaranteed she would spend years pining and yearning and mourning him all over again.
“I know it was a mistake to let you go, Pres. I do. I know you care about me. I also know that you never truly forgave me for walking away from you. And I don’t blame you. Not one damn bit. I was so focused on my own success, I left and didn’t look back. You’d be crazy to trust me again.”
She was stunned silent, her heart aching at the truth behind those words. The truth was she had struggled to forgive him. And even though she told herself she had, it was hard to trust him now.
“You’ve heard ‘Lightning,’ you know how I feel about you.”
“Felt,”she corrected. “That song was about our past, not the present. And I’m not sure what to think of ‘Back for Good.’ Was it some warped fantasy or did those feelings from years ago come up again recently?”
Her heart hammered as she waited for him to answer. Those feelings had definitely resurfaced for her. And now, hours before she was heading home, he decided to drop a bomb on her, and for what? His own egotistical reasoning? So he could pay his penance for leaving her back then by telling her the most inconvenient truth ever?
“Songs are one of two things for me,” he said. “Fantasy or remembering. ‘Lightning’ is me remembering who we were, what we had before our lives happened to us. ‘Back for Good’ is the fairy-tale ending to ‘Lightning.’”
“What’s so unbelievable about me coming back for good?” She had to ask, at least once.
“This isn’t real.” He shook his head. “That’s why I’m rewriting the song.” He delivered her the felling blow on a butterfly’s wing. “I was caught up in the fairy tale of you in my bed and back in my life.”
“You were caught up,” she repeated, her limbs going numb. A protective instinct. She didn’t want to feel this pain—couldn’t handle it. “And telling me the truth behind ‘Lightning’ is what, my parting gift?”
“Now you know calling my ex-girlfriends won’t clear it up for you.”
“No, Cash, you cleared everything up for me.” Tears burned her eyes but she refused to let them fall. “You took the inspiration you needed and now you’re through with me. I was just the idiot falling in love with you again.”
She stomped inside and jogged to her room, locking the door when she heard his boots on the stairs. He knocked. She ignored him.
He’d already said enough. Too much.