Page 54 of Words We Didn't Say

I should respond to his message. He deserved my anger for the way he’d treated me, but not my cruelty. I needed to make it right somehow. I’d start by saying sorry.

My fingers fumbled on the clip of my clutch, and with a sharp tug, my phone was out without spilling my makeup and tiny perfume all over the tiled floor. When I looked down at my messages, my brain spun. I squinted, but the letters on the screen spun, too.

Whoa.

“Okay,” I grunted, “maybe no messages.”

I jabbed my finger to press the call button before I could change my mind, and my hand shook as I pressed the phone to my ear. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea. The phone trilled for a beat. What the hell was I doing? This definitely wasn’t a great idea. I couldn’t—

“Eden?”

My heart thumped against my ribs. My strappy heels were too flimsy to hold up my wobbly legs, so I flipped down the toilet seat lid with my knee, the loud crack rattling my nerves. I sat down in a puffy black lump of guilt.

I gulped a breath. “H-Hi.”

“You unblocked me?” Zach’s voice was low and heavy, like a sad but relieved sigh. “It’s so good to hear your voice.”

It was good to hear his voice, too. When we’d first started dating, he’d loved chatting after sex. He’d prop himself up on his elbow, trace lazy fingers over my skin, steal kisses, and sharea hundred stories about the kayaking and hiking trips he was planning. His words had been murmured in a deep, sleepy voice that comforted me to my bones. Not that he ever went on one of those trips. He was always too busy working.

“I, um…” I sat in dumb silence, gripping my phone so hard to stop the shaking my fingers were about to snap off.

“Denny Dee? Are you okay?”

Everyone kept asking me that. I always lied.Yeah, sure, I’m peachy. Couldn’t be better.But there was no one with me in the toilet stall to bother painting on a brave face. Maybe it was okay to admit the truth for once.

“No,” I whispered.

“Are you safe?” My foggy brain registered that Zach’s words were clipped, hurried. Was he worried about me? That was a first. “Where are you?”

“Oh, I’m just here…hiding out with thebonitasat El Diablo Cantina.” My voice sounded sosad. “You… You like thebonitas, right?”

Silence stretched.

“I’m still here,” Zach said. “My verbal prowess is limited to English, and the online translator took forever. It means beautiful…I think?” Another pause. “Eden, you know there’s only one woman who I think isbonita.”

“Michaela?”

“Never. You hear me?Never.It’s only ever been you.”

I gulped in another breath. My nose itched, and tears brimmed in my eyes. “But I wasn’t enough for you.”

“You were always enough.” The big liar sounded so sincere. “Since the day I first saw you at the coffee shop.”

“Then w-why didn’t you—” My throat seized. I forced in a shaky breath, but the more I fought the wave of emotion swelling inside me, the more it wanted to crash through my chest. “Why d-didn’t anyone know—”

Why didn’t anyone know about me? Why did you keep me a secret? Why were you ashamed of me? Why am I good enough to fuck, but not to love?

Humiliating tears dribbled down my cheeks. I clapped my hand over my mouth, but a strangled wail still escaped.

“Oh, Denny Dee… Oh, love…” Zach’s voice cracked. “I’m sorry you’re hurting so much. Cry it all out. I’m here.”

“You’re not. Youneverare.” The restroom was so cold. So lonely. I dragged up my knee and hugged around it with my free arm, resting my cheek on the scratchy tulle of my skirt. I hiccupped through the sobs. “Why didn’t you want anyone to know about me?”

“I want everyone to know about you,” he insisted. “I do.”

“Michaela didn’t know about me.”

“No, she didn’t.”

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