Page 62 of When You Wish Upon a Wideout

“Sienna—”

“And you couldn’t even come. Foroneday, you could’ve shown up and done the right thing. Pay your respects to the man who helped mold you into who you are today. Top wide receiver, wideout, whatever the hell it is you call yourself. And... ” She trailed off, her chest heaving.

“And what?”

“Me,” Sienna’s voice cracked, and she blinked repeatedly to keep the tears at the back of her eyes. “You could’ve made sure I was okay. I wasn’t. You promised you would come back for me.” She shook her head. “I didn’t need you to save me then, Beau. All I needed was myfriend,the same one who helped me during the first worst time of my life when my Mom died. I buried her when I was 17. I had to bury my father when I was—”

“Grace put a toy on your dad’s coffin. It was pink and sparkly. Like a flamingo, I think. That’s what it was, yeah? One of those pink birds?”

Sienna’s breath hitched.

“I was there, alright? I missed the funeral and went to the burial and was in the back. I saw you.” Beau shook his head. “And Grace. She had blonde hair like yours then. She kept putting her hand on your cheek and tapping it, like she was trying to cheer you up.”

The tears Sienna had blinked away returned with a vengeance as she tried to find her voice.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

Beau put his hands on his hips. “I saw Grace, and I thought there was someone else. I thought you didn’t need me. I thought you got that wish of the happily ever after, of being a mom like yours with someone else. I know you said you needed a friend, Sienna. This is going to sound awful, but I couldn’t be your friend back then. It’s not your fault, but I was young and seeing you and the thought of someone else.” Beau paused, grimacing. “It hurt. Even though I left, and you had every right, the idea of you with someone else hurt in a way I could never explain.”

Sienna watched how Beau’s hands fisted quickly at his sides before he gave them a gentle shake to loosen his grasp.

“I’m sorry. I wish I had been stronger, more mature. I wish I went and stood behind you that day so you knew you had someone.” Defeat seized Beau’s face.

I wish you had too, Sienna thought.

“Say something, please.” Beau glanced nervously at her face.

Sienna didn’t know what to say. Her mind was too busy wondering how different life could have been if Beau had been braver. She remembered the dark days following her father’s funeral, when she was only strong enough to smile around Grace despite feeling like she was dying inside, swallowed by the realization that even though she had Henry, Sienna was on her own. As she stood in his parent’s nearly empty living room, Sienna’s heart ached over the years that followed—treading the deep waters of mothering a seriously sick child, trying to comprehend diagnoses, treatments, and lab results when she only had a high school degree and had barely passed biology.

She thought of all the tears she had suppressed—for minutes, hours, and days—until she would have a moment in her bed to let them go, a flood of pent-up fear, stress, and loneliness leaking into her pillow, only to resume filling the tank the next morning. Quiet nights never stopped being difficult because the night had always been theirs. Sienna struggled with the way her heart yearned for Beau—his arms, his laugh, his presence—against the way her head reminded her he had better places to be than holding her.

“What about now?” Sienna asked quietly.

“What do you mean?”

“Could you be my friend now? If this doesn’t work. Could you be my friend if I was with someone else?”

Beau didn’t hesitate and shook his head. “I’m not going back to how it was for all those years. No way.”

“What do you mean?”

“Uswith other people.”

Trying to ignore the sting in her chest, Sienna nodded. “I met Grace’s Dad at a bar. I was drunk. So drunk that I thought his name was Alex when it was Andrew.” She watched the flex of Beau’s jaw when he clenched his teeth. “He asked me to get an abortion. He gave me a hundred and sixty bucks for my trouble.” She let out a heavy, burdened breath. “He wasn’t my only one-night stand. There were others before him. Except for Dylan, they wereallone-night stands.”

When Beau’s ears reddened, she scoffed. “You don’t get to be angry—”

“Thinking about a douchebag trying to dodge his responsibility after taking advantage of you…” Beau paused, looking off to the side. “Thinking of someone else touching you doesn’t exactly make me want to break into tap dance, Sienna.”

“Don’t pretend you were celibate this whole time.”

“I was with other women because I thought I was lonely. But I never feltbetter, no matter who it was. Because I never waslonely, Sienna. I was only missing you. So do me a favor and save the friend garbage. Don’t force me into a situation where I’m the guy with a brunette in my bed pretending she’s a blonde. And not just any blonde. Your kind of blonde—sunshine kind of blonde, which is my second favorite color.”

Sienna looked down at her sneakers and began to rock. “It was the same for me,” she admitted, struck with guilt, recalling the way she would shut her eyes tightly under the guise of pleasure when really, Sienna was imagining Beau beneath her, his hands sliding across her body, the way he filled her.

“Can you forgive me? For the funeral?” Beau asked hesitantly, absent of the confident tone his voice usually seeped with.

Instinctively, Sienna checked her watch. She needed to pick Grace up from school.

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