Ithadhurt me. I would spend the next few years hearing Hunter’s words in my head, filling me with indecision and self-doubt whenever I got involved with a guy. Those scars took a long time to heal.
But now, at least I understood why.
“Do you forgive me?” he asked softly. “For what I said to you back then?”
“I do,” I said without hesitation.
He smiled with relief, dark eyes gleaming from the garage lights. “You have no idea how happy I am to hear that.”
As he sat there smiling at me, I felt a tremendous amount of loss. Hunter and I had liked each other back then, and we had not been able to do anything about it. And now too much time had passed between us. Something tightened in my chest, just behind my ribs.
His phone vibrated on the workbench next to me. I glanced at it out of habit, and saw most of the message on the screen before he could pick it up:
Carmen: I’ve been trying to call, but you still won’t pick up. If you’re going to be in Ohio for three more weeks, then when are you going to move your stuff out? My brother is coming to stay with me and I need it gone ASAP. I don’t want to toss it all out on the curb, but you’re not…
My mind felt slow and groggy. The words didn’t make sense at first. It took several seconds before I realized the implication.
“Hunter,” I said slowly, “what’s going on with you and Carmen?”
27
Erica
Hunter’s handsome face turned white as he read the text, then looked up and saw my reaction. He blinked several times, then wiped his mouth with his palm.
“Here’s the thing…” he began.
“What’s going on?” I demanded. “What aren’t you telling me?”
He shoved the phone in his pocket and went to the fridge to grab a beer. I watched as he cracked it open, drank a long gulp, then offered it to me.
I accepted it and took a sip. Hunter leaned against the workbench, bandaged bicep flexing with the weight of his body.
“It started when I came back to Columbus a month ago,” he said. “For your dad’s funeral. I had to move heaven and earth to get my flight rerouted, but it was important to me that I be there for it, especially after missing your mom’s service. I was late, so I sat in the back of the church. I was embarrassed because I didn’t have time to change into a suit—I came straight from the airport, doing ninety on the highway the whole way. So I’m sitting in the back of the church, listening to the pastor talk about your dad, and then you got up to speak. You were… You were stunning, Erica. That’s not a metaphor—I wasliterally stunnedwhen I saw the beautiful woman you had become. Halfway through your speech, I had to force myself to breathe because I was holding my breath since the moment you started speaking.”
He let out an embarrassed laugh. “Believe me, I know how fucked up that sounds. Your father had just died, and you were speakingat his funeral, and all I could think about was how beautiful you were. Some guy I am, huh?”
“It’s fine,” I said in a small voice. I didn’t know where he was going with this.
“My layover was only two hours, so I had to run as soon as the service ended,” Hunter went on. “Barely made it to the airport in time. I spent the flight back to Portland thinking about everything. I was engaged to Carmen, yet I had such a strong emotional reaction when I saw you. All those old feelings rushed back and filled my heart like they had never been gone. I realized that I had to break up with Carmen. It took me a few more weeks to know for certain, but eventually I couldn’t deny it any longer.”
“You… You…” I stammered. “You broke off your engagement because ofme?Without even talking to me first?”
“I broke off the engagement because I realized I wasn’t in love with Carmen,” Hunter explained. “I was comfortable with her. We weren’tunhappy. But if I’m going to be with someone for the rest of my life, I need to know it with every bone in my body. And that wasn’t the case with Carmen.”
My knees felt weak, so I sat on the hood of the Mustang. “This is… Wow.”
Hunter ran his fingers through his feathery hair. “After breaking off the engagement, I packed all my recording gear and booked the first flight to Columbus. I had no idea what I was going to do, or if I even had a plan.” He rose from his chair and stepped toward me. “But I knew I was going to tell you how I feel. That day at the expo? It wasn’t fate that we ran into each other, Erica. Iknewyou were going to be there because you posted about it on Instagram.”
I gave a start. “You follow me on Instagram?” My account only had a few dozen followers, almost all of whom were friends from college. I would have gotten a notification if Hunter tried to follow me.
He grimaced. “I sort of made a burner account to follow you. This was after the funeral when I was trying to figure things out. When I came back into town, I was too scared to just show up at your door. So I went to the expo instead.”
Hunter was too scared to talk to me?It seemed ridiculous. He had always been the hot, popular guy in school. And I was just me.
“I went to the expo with the intention of telling you how I felt. How I’ve had these feelings for five years, growing steadily without knowing it. How as soon as I saw you again, I knew I wanted to try to be with you, in the way we couldn’t be together back in high school.”
“Why didn’t you?” I asked, voice hardly more than a whisper. “You saw me at the expo. But you didn’t tell me.”