My stomach lurched as Amber voiced the very thing I’d been concerned about. “Do you think he’ll come after you?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably not. I’m sure I’m just being melodramatic.”
She sounded like she was trying to convince herself as much as me. “I’m just lucky Reeve is still willing to take me back in after I went to Micha just to piss him off.”
Lucky, yes. Not loved, as I feared. Just lucky. “How did you even know that would make him mad?”
“It’s a long story.” She glanced at me and must have realized I wouldn’t accept that for an answer, so she went on. “He’d been at a social event Reeve had taken me to. Reeve hadn’t known Micha would be there, and they saw each other. There was a confrontation. Micha cornered me and said, ‘If you’re ever tired of him…’ Blah, blah, blah. He was just another dirty, rich old man, you know? I blew him off. But then when I left Kaya, he was there. I mean he was right there, in town. Like he was waiting for an opportunity to, I don’t know, get at Reeve. I made a snap decision. And I regretted it.”
“He was waiting for you? That should have been a sign that he was not a good guy right there.” I didn’t hide my frustration.
“I had nowhere else to go, Em.”
I shifted my whole body toward her. “You could have come to me.” If she’d thought of me long enough to call, then she could have thought about running to me instead.
“I couldn’t,” she said emphatically. “Not after I sent you away like I did. I’d been horrible to you, and I didn’t deserve your forgiveness or your pity hospitality, which was what you would have given me.” She pointed a stern finger in my direction. “Don’t try to deny it.”
“I sure as hell will deny it. I would have helped you and it wouldn’t have been out of pity.”
“Yes. It would have. Then you would have been right where you’d been when I’d last seen you. Like you are now.” She stood up and faced me. “You’re so much better than this kind of life, Emily. I knew it, and that’s why I pushed you away, and then you went and proved that it was the right thing to do. I never meant to drag you back here.”
One phrase caught in my head: “that’s why I pushed you away.”
But she’d sent me away because of Bridge. Because she’d thought I’d stolen her boyfriend. Hadn’t she?
The question that I’d buried for so long came to surface, demanding to be asked, even though I already knew the answer. Even though I knew asking it now would change everything I’d held on to for these past six years. “You believed me when I told you Bridge raped me, didn’t you?”
Her face screwed up, as if the truth were as painful for her as it was for me. “Yes,” she said, her voice raw. “Of course, I believed you. He was a psychopath, and I left him ten minutes after you were gone.”
And just like that, the fable I’d held on to for all those years crumbled in front of me. It was a truth I’d known somewhere deep inside but hadn’t wanted to acknowledge. It had been easier to walk away when she and I had been at odds. If I’d let myself believe that she’d been on my side the whole time, I’d have never left.
I opened my mouth to speak, but she guessed my question and cut me off. “And don’t ask me why. You know why.”
It was another truth I hadn’t wanted to face. Even now I had to hear her say it before I could accept it. So I shook my head and stayed silent.
She heaved a sigh. “Because you wanted to leave and I was holding you back.”
I let my mind go back to that time, trying to see it from her point of view. I’d been pregnant. I’d gone to stay with her until I got on my feet. I’d been planning to get a job and take care of myself.
“No.” I shook my head more vigorously. “You weren’t holding me back at all.”
“How can you say that? If you hadn’t come to stay with me, Bridge would never…” She let her sentence trail away. Let the silence give us time to fill in the awful conclusion. He would never have raped me. He would never have put scissors inside me. He would never have caused my miscarriage.
“You can’t blame yourself for that.” My declaration felt weak. How many times had I blamed myself? “You helped me. You were there when I needed someone.”
“And you couldn’t see that I was in no shape to be the strong one. You wanted me to save you. Me. A coked-out party girl who’d hooked up with a violent asshole. You thought I was the person to lean on?” Her tone was bitter and compassionate all at once.
She took a breath and her next words were softer. “You had enough money to set yourself up. You would have gotten a job in modeling and you would have had your baby.” Her voice lilted up with emotion. “You would have been better off. You were better off.”
“I wasn’t better off. I was half a person. I was miserable.” Every day without her had been a battle. Even when I’d gotten my life together, I’d been empty. I’d been alone.
She scoffed. “Well, you made out pretty swell for someone who was miserable.”
I threw my head back and closed my eyes. All the horrible things I’d imagined about myself because she’d cut me off came flooding back. I’d told myself she couldn’t handle my addiction to men who were bad for me. I’d convinced myself that my sexual proclivities were so terrible that she’d decided I wasn’t worth the trouble.