Page 122 of A Ballad of Betrayal and Beauty

“Then when the time came?” he spits venomously. “She left. She left me at a bus station. Gave me back my ring and disappeared from my life. She didn’t want a life with me. Is she making you the same promises? Well, you should run far away, Joel, because she’s aliar.”

Dusty wraps her arms around herself and sobs.

“And all that bullshit you told me in Vegas,” Key mutters. “How all I ever wanted was to save you. Be the big hero. Well, news flash for you, Dusty. You needed fuckingsaving!”

She closes her eyes and trembles. So do I.

“You were being abused. Getting into trouble. You got pregnant at seventeen because we were too fucking stupid to know any better.”

Key takes a long breath, his face wet with tears.

“I never wanted to change you. I just wanted to be with you wherever you were. Whatever you were doing. I was ready to spend forever with you, but you couldn’t even wait an hour for me? Did you even show up at all?”

I can hardly breathe. Key loved her. Loved her so much he was going to marry her. Loves her still.

“The ring,” I whisper.

Key and Dusty both turn to look at me. “The ring you wear on that necklace. You told me once it was a reminder of someone special. You didn’t tell me it was an engagement ring.”

“Joel . . .”

“And a baby? You were?—”

“She was,” Key says with disgust. “But she didn’t want that either. She got rid of it.”

“No!” she screams. “I didn’t getridof it.” Her face looks haunted, her chest rising and falling at an alarming speed, cheeks turning pink. “I didn’t get rid of it,” she repeats.

Key’s expression loses its hardness. Its anger. “You—you didn’t . . .”

She tries to take several deep breaths. Then her face turns a deep red, and there’s rage and fire in those blue eyes.

“I waited for you! I waited and you didn’t come!” she yells. “How do you think it felt? Standing at that bus station, pregnant, knowing I was completely alone. That the one person who said he loved me more than anything wasn’t there? Then when your dad told me you weren’t coming—that you’d changed your mind?—”

“What?” he asks.

“It confirmed what I had worried about for weeks. That it wasn’t really me you wanted. It was everything else.”

Key’s face looks like it’s aged years. His eyes are weary as he steps closer, his chin wobbling. “Dusty.No. How could you believehim?He lied!”

“He had my necklace. Told me you wanted to give it back. That’s when I knew I lost you.” She cries and covers her face with her hands. “I lost it, Key. I lost our baby.”

He moves, and for the briefest of seconds, I panic, thinking I might have to hurt my best friend. But he wraps his arms around her and she dissolves into horrible, wrenching sobs. My heart aches from the sound of it. From the terrible tragedy of it all.

I look between the two of them. How she fits so perfectly in his arms. How his head rests naturally on top of hers. How they move in such a way— god. They’re so familiar with one another. They were going to be afamily.

And with a horrible, nauseating realization, I see it.I’mthe odd one out. They have history. They were always meant to be, but the timing wasn’t right. Me? I’m just the placeholder. The one to bring them back together.

She’s not mine.

“I need to get the fuck out of here.”

“Wait, Joel!” Dusty rushes out of Key’s grip and grabs my arm, her eyes pleading. “This doesn’t change the way I feel about you,” she says. “Please believe me. I-I still have thosefeelingsfor you, just like I said.”

The first tears leak from the corners of my eyes. “But you’ll always be his, won’t you?”

Her eyes flit over my face, her cheeks shining in the low light. And that moment of hesitation is all I need, so I turn and go. I can hear them both following after me as I grab my keys off the counter where Key left them.

“Joel, wait,” Key says.

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