Page 132 of Always Been Yours

I gently push her head back to my shoulder. “No, sweetheart. Vivi loves you two so much. She isn’t mad at you. I’m the one whomessed up.”

“Are you going to fix it?” Daisy whines. “Maybe if you say sorry, she’ll come over for dinner again.”

“Yeah, Daddy. Just say sorry,” Stella pleads. “I’ll say sorry too.”

I look down at my oldest daughter, trying to read her thoughts but it’s never as easy with her compared to Daisy. She holds so much in, trying to protect everyone else. “Do you really like having Vivi here?”

Daisy nods again, “Yeah… I know she isn’t Mommy but she’s funny and nice. And I like when she dances in the kitchen with us.”

“Me too,” Stella whispers. “It was hard at first but now… it’s hard without her. She made me feel happier when she was here. I promise I won’t ever be mean to her again if she comes back.”

That makes me chuckle.Oh Stella, we still have your teenage years.But I appreciate the sentiment all the same.

“She’s like the sun, huh? Always making the world brighter when she’s around.” The girls don’t respond, instead just wiping their tears and holding on to me. But it was more of a reminder to me than anything else anyway.

Vivi is my home. I’ve known that for a while. What I hadn’t realized was she’s becoming a comfort for my daughters as well. I was so worried that my relationship with her was hurting them, but it isn’t. It’s helping them.

It only adds to my resolve to fix this with her. To create a future with her. A family, a home, a life. Whatever she’ll give me at this point.

Chapter Forty-Eight

Vivi

When I pull up to my driveway, I see the very last person I would’ve ever expected. Seriously, Arielle would have been more likely at this point.

Not Blake.

But this is just as nerve wracking, in a different way.

I slowly step out of my car and make my way toward the porch steps. She gives me a small smile, the air between us awkward.

I try to smile back at her, but I think it’s more of a grimace. “Hey… uh. Did you get lost?” I’m only teasing but the joke falls flat even to my own ears.

I don’t know what she wants, but somehow it involves Grady. I’m sure of that much. But I haven’t seen anyone in his family, other than Selena. Even then, I’m trying to avoid her for the first time since high school. If he hasn’t told her what happened, she knows something’s up.

Blake chuckles, but I know she’s only being polite. “No. Surprisingly, I meant to wind up here. I had to ask my mom for your address… She said she’ll call the cops if one of us doesn’t reach out in an hour.”

Thatactually makes me laugh, my shoulders relaxing a bit. Plopping down on the stair next to her, I ask, “So, what was so important you’d risk jail to talk to me?”

Blake stares forward for a few moments. I have to head to the pier soon, but I can grant her a few minutes. She deserves more from me if I’m being honest.

She taps her thumb to each finger over and over, a nervous tick I remember from childhood. “Being at S.P.A. was… hard.” I recognize the acronym as Serenity Prep Academy, the private school Blake attended through middle school and most of high school. “It started as cliques that I didn’t fit into and then evolved into… worse.” My eyes instantly fill with tears, but I hold them at bay. It’s my own emotional distress about her brother and the guilt I’ve been holding onto for over a decade when it comes to my friendship with Blake that causes the reaction. But I need to offer Blake more than my own emotions right now.

I owe Blake apologies and if she’s allowing me the knowledge of all the ways I’ve hurt her, then I need to listen. Then, and only then, will I properly ask for her forgiveness in the way she deserves.

She started at the private school when I was in ninth grade. Even though we grew apart soon after, I remembered it was a hard transition for her. A lot of the girls who go to S.P.A., even now, have attended their entire lives socliquesis probably putting it lightly. Blake’s an extremely talented swimmer and was offered a scholarship when she was only in seventh grade, and I remember it being important to Selena’s mom that she attend since Selena also graduated from a private, all-girls school. But regardless of how well off the Millers are, it’s pennies compared to most of the students there.

“That stuff didn’t happen right away. It all just got to be too much, so that’s why I finished online. But even beforethat… I just—I was so fucking angry. At everyone. At my grandma for wanting me to go there, at my parents for allowing it. At myself, for being good enough at swimming to get a scholarship so they had no reason to say no.” Her voice starts to tremble, so she takes a few deep breaths.

“I was pissed off at Grady for leaving for college… I was mad at you for caring more about your friendship with my brother than you did about mine.”

Fuck. That… that breaks my heart into what feels like irreparable pieces.

My initial reaction is to defend myself, to tell her she’s wrong. But that’s not true. I know it’s not.

It isn’t that she meantlessto me than Grady but… it was just hard. Everything that happened with Grady started to pile up and then I started to date Brody. I pulled away from their entire family, even if they weremineat that point. Anything relating to Grady just fucking hurt too much.

“You were my only friend that wasn’t my brother. Calypso was like an older sister, and your brothers were two more siblings as far as I was concerned. Butyouwere my friend. My best and first friend. I always knew that you and Grady were closer. As soon as I was old enough to understand what a crush was, it made sense. And I wasn’t jealous of that, necessarily. But I was mad at you. And I was mad at Grady. And you both were gone so I got angrier. And it consumed me.”

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