Page 93 of Scarred Crown

“Alex talked about you all the time after I saw you two together the night of my father’s birthday. He visited you in California at Stanford. At our college.” Opening this line of questioning slices new wounds, but I’m not leaving this room without the truth. For too long I’ve avoided it.

“He was in San Francisco on some diplomatic trip, and he stopped off at campus. We had lunch.” A frown creases her brow. “I don’t know why he’d talk about me all the time. We weren’t together.”

“I saw him coming out of your room the next morning. Unless lunch led to dinner led to…” That’s not a thought I’m willing to finish. Catching sight of him leaving her room was enough to make me want to lash out, do stupid things.

She raises her eyebrows and wipes a last tear from her cheek before her gaze hardens. “My room? I guess I don’t have to think too hard about what you were doing in my dorm that early in the morning.”

Back then, I was eaten alive with jealousy and grief. Whatever I could find to mask those emotions, I latched on to it. Women, alcohol, drugs, modeling—nothing productive—not during those years. Numb seemed pretty good to me.

The handful of years between the end of college and Julia starting to work for my father were my sanest. The promise and temptation of seeing her around every corner vanished when she stayed in America while I returned to Bellerive to be put to work. And work I did. Every opportunity I came across that took me far away from Bellerive or California, I grasped it with both hands.

Then she came back, and we saw each other too much and not nearly enough. It was easier not to see her at all, and it was definitely easier not to see her with Alex. A casual brush of her hand on his sleeve made my gut clench, and I had to excuse myself from whatever discussion was happening. Each time my heart cracked open, a fresh wound. So I ran from the feeling. I’ve been running since that night.

I’m tired of wondering and imagining what the monster under the bed looks like. The worst has already happened. When she had a choice, she chose him.

“Can you just tell me the truth? The one thing I can’t stand—will not tolerate—is being lied to.” I spit out.

“I’m telling you the truth,” she cries.

“Not the whole truth.” I shake my head and glare at her. “This can’t be the whole truth.”

“The wheels are turning now.” Her finger circles her temple. “I’m starting to wonder if you’ve been punishing me for being with Alex for fourteen years.”

“Well, if I’ve been punishing you, trust me, I’ve been punishing myself as well. Not a very clever punishment if it hurt me as much as you.” I can’t keep the bitterness and injury out of my voice. She has no idea what it did to me to see her with him like that. The person I trusted most in the whole world with the person I trusted the least.

Her shoulders slump, and all the anger deflates out of her. “I never meant to hurt you. Honestly Nick. I didn’t even know I could. I was a stupid sixteen-year-old kid who was flattered by nineteen-year-old Alex’s attention.” She sighs. “Then I tried to force myself to feel things for him that I just,” her voice catches again, “I didn’t feel.”

None of this fits with the narrative that’s lived in my head. Some of it I could have invented, for sure, but other bits were either planted or encouraged by Alex. “The night I kissed you…” I clear my throat when it threatens to close around the raised scar of the truth. “You ran to Alex.”

She draws her legs up to her chest and rests her chin on them. “I guess it would have looked that way. But I went to find Alex to tell him what we’d been doing—hanging out behind your back—had to stop. I told him I didn’t want to be with him like that anymore.”

“But I saw you kissing.” The red dress, her pressed against him, the smug look on his face when he realized I saw them. They’re images that have haunted me when I’ve allowed them to get a foothold. I close my eyes at the memory, but it lives behind my eyelids no matter how tightly I shut them.

“He kissed me before I could say or do anything to stop him. I didn’t want him to kiss me.” Our gazes connect. “I didn’t choose Alex over you, not knowingly.” Her voice is heavy with tears again.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” My throat tightens.

“I thought you’d be angry with me. Think I was dumb or something. It was Alex. I understood what that meant.” She closes her eyes, and a tear slides down her cheek. “Or I thought I did, and I did it anyway.” She sniffs and brushes her tears away. “Why didn’t you ever ask?”

It takes me a moment to gather my courage, and I run my fingers through my beard in rough movements to distract myself from the sadness expanding in me. “I didn’t want to hear you tell me he meant more to you than I did.” My voice is rough, and I turn toward her. “Because there was no one who meant more to me than you.”

“Oh, Nick.” She breathes out the words in a rush. “Oh, Nick. No.” She climbs out of her chair and pushes me back into my armchair. She straddles me. “Never. I never would have said that.” She frames my face and stares into my eyes. “I was young and stupid. I thought if you ever found out about Alex, you’d yell at me. I never, not in a million years, thought… I never thought it would break us.” Her chin trembles, and her breath hitches on a sob.

I scoop up her tears with my thumb, and then I lean forward and kiss each of her cheeks. Her lashes flutter closed, and she breathes out a shuddering sigh. Even all puffy from crying, she’s lovely. The loveliest.

“I tried to find you after I talked to Alex and”—she breaks eye contact to look over my shoulder—“boy, did I find you.”

I clench my jaw. After I saw her with Alex, the rest of the night became a blur. Vicky. The barn. Jules walking in on us. Me asking her to forget everything. Her fleeing with Posey.

“My greatest forms of self-defense: women and alcohol.” When it seemed clear she didn’t want me how I wanted her, I needed a way to get us on even footing. Vicky was a perfect barrier. It’s not like I could spend my whole senior year drunk—though that happened a lot too.

“I thought we were…” She swallows. “We were going to be together.”

Tears are rolling down her cheeks again, and the ache spreads across my chest and down into my arms and legs. I hate to see her hurting, but I can’t ignore the hurt she caused in me either.

She frames my face with her thumbs on my cheeks, and she puts her lips close to my ear. “I was choosing you, Nick. I wanted you.”

I dig my fingers into her hips and tug her tighter against me. My breath is ragged. Only a few times have I let myself even consider the conversation going in this direction. All the evidence pointed to the opposite. She didn’t want me. I shouldn’t have kissed her. I ruined everything. Hearing her say those words is like submerging a searing burn in cool water. Painful and soothing.