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“As you already know, I heard about your little sleepwalking adventure last night,” Harper said as she swiped a smidge of white paint on the wall, bringing to life a lifeguard stand amongst the ocean landscape.
“Some days I think, wow… I’ve really missed this town, then moments like this make me think twice.”
“I could make you regret coming back here. After all, you hurt my friend.”
“She hurt me,” he admitted. “Must I remind you of the radio incident heard round the county?” He couldn’t help bringing it up. He didn’t like the fact that he hurt Isla, but there’d been plenty of times she’d hurt him, and he wagered to say her little stunt had hurt him worse than his yelling at her this morning.
Harper let her paintbrush come to her side and turned to look at him. “And when you left you broke her.”
“What was I supposed to do? How could I stay with someone who publicly admitted she didn’t trust me? It was humiliating and a damn smack in the face. After everything we’d been through…”
“She made a mistake.”
“You think?” He ran a hand over his face. “I get people make mistakes, we all do, but what she did…”
“Look, I probably shouldn’t even be telling you this, but I like to think I’m doing it because I love Isla and I care about her happiness.”
Nolan’s gaze swung to Harper, curiosity poking at his insides. “Tell me what?”
Harper sighed. “She’s still in love with you. I don’t think she’s ever stopped loving you. Did you know she hasn’t dated a single guy since you left?”
“But she told me—”
Harper shook her head. “She was lying.”
“Why would she lie about that?” Isla had never been much of a liar and to lie about something so inconsequential didn’t seem like her at all.
“If I had to guess, she didn’t want you to think she’s been waiting for you.”
Nolan’s head spunas he tried to wrap his mind around this revelation. He managed to keep it together before looking over at Harper. “Has she been?” It had been three years. He hadn’t exactly gone out of his way to date, but he’d been busy with work. At least that’s what he told himself.
“I can’t say for certain, but all the signs point to yes.” Harper shifted. “You’re a good guy, Nolan. You always have been. But Isla is extra vulnerable right now, and I don’t want to see her hurting any more than she already is.”
“I wanted to hurt her… in the beginning. I wanted her to know what it felt like to have her heart ripped out, but I could never bring myself to do it.”
Harper turned from the wall and pinned him with her hazel eyes. “Like I said, you already did, you just weren’t here to witness it.”
Harper’s words swirled in his head, and he tried to come to terms with them. For so long, he had hoped Isla had suffered as much as he did, and all along she had. If anything, she had it worse. She didn’t have anger to resort to and rely on that made it easy to forget. As far as he could tell, she only had regret, and regret was like an infection. If it wasn’t addressed, it would slowly kill her.
Chapter 14
Once again Isla tried and failed to get rid of a single thing of Grandma’s. She knew it would be hard, but she had no idea it would be this hard. They were inanimate objects, even if they held memories, she wasn’t giving away the memory. She was passing it on to someone else to create new memories, yet she couldn’t bring herself to do it.
She put a hole in the wall, but placing a vase in a box was too much… Maybe she needed to call Mom in. She would have the boxes filled in no time, but Isla didn’t want to call her parents. She was twenty-five, living on her own for the first time, and she needed to prove to herself that she could do this without relying on others to do it for her.
She took the vase in her hand and, with a deep breath, placed it in the box. “I did it,” she said as her eyes rested on the deep blue glass and beautiful shape. She swiped it into her hands. “Okay, this vase is too pretty. I’m going to keep it.” She placed it in the cabinet before she could even stop herself. When she realized she self-sabotaged again, she collapsed into a chair and dropped her head on the table. “I’m hopeless.”
A knock at the door jolted her up, causing her to knock the chair over. She picked it up and placed it under the table. Olivia was working, Harper was having a movie night with Tom and her mom, and her parents were having dinner with friends. Her heart skipped a beat when she guessed who it might be, then quickly told herself to knock it off. Even if it was Nolan, she was still mad at him.
Before opening the door, she peered out the window and caught a glimpse of Nolan’s dirty blond hair. She thought about leaving him out there and acting like she wasn’t home, but she was an adult, even if she didn’t want to act like one right now.
She opened the door and blocked the entryway. “Yes?” she said, refusing to look at his stupid eyes.
“Hey, can I come in?”
“Why?”
“I want to apologize for this morning.”
