Page 65 of Long Road Home

Her question was said kindly, still, I turned and caught the hint of worry in her eyes. Also something that looked mildly apologetic. Uncanny how she seemed to know exactly what I wanted to talk about.

We reached the guesthouse in silence and my nerves were a frazzled mess as Christa opened the door to the small house that was exactly the same as I remembered. More than once Jordan and I snuck out here and fooled around on the small, but comfortable full-sized bed in the tiny bedroom. It was drafty, musty from being closed up all summer and I jumped as the wood screen door closed behind me.

She appeared more composed than me, as if she’d had a decade to prepare for this moment. Her serene expression rattled me further. When she spoke first, she almost knocked me on my ass. “Your boy is really cute. It’s amazing how much he looks like Jordan.”

“Toby’s great. But that’s not why I wanted to talk to you.”

“I assumed. But listen, before you say anything, you have to know I’ve grown up a lot since you left—”

“Why?” I blurted the question, the one burning the tip of my tongue since I saw her. “You were cruel to me. You were so mean to me and I never did anything to you, Christa, and you and Jenni and your pack of Spirit Girls made my life hell. Why would you do that?”

My body trembled like I’d stuck my finger in a socket. It was insane. As I spoke, all those memories rushed through me. All of them. Every single tortuous memory I had connected to Carlton and my time here before, pummeled me like a boxer on a mission to knock out his opponent.

“I know.” Christa licked her lips and raised her hands. It was meant to placate me. It only fueled all my anger.

“You werehorribleto me.” Emotion burned in my gut. All that rot that had festered, that I’d run from for so damn long, all the unnecessary bullying that had even Tillie finally understanding my need to flee. “I left this town. I left the only family I had and the only dreams I had in my life because you and Jenni and all of you girls thought it was so funny to make my life miserable. What would possess you to do something like that?”

“I’m sorry. It’s not enough, I know,” she rushed to say as I opened my mouth to stop her. “And I can’t apologize enough. I can’t, Destiny. We were everything you’ve said, but—”

“But nothing.”

“I know. And I don’t have a good explanation, but listen, Destiny. Listen to me. I hated myself for doing those things. And this isn’t a reason, it’s an excuse and alameone, but it’s the only one I have. I was a sophomore, Jenni was the leader of the Spirit Girls. I’d wanted to be one since I was a little girl. Get the jock, have the kickass short skirt, get invited to all the cool parties, and it was high school and looking back it might have been stupid, but I was a girl whose parents ran adiner.They weren’t the doctor in town or the lawyer. Jenni’s dad was the mayor and she made us all feel like if we didn’t do what she wanted because she was the captain, she’d kick us off the team. I was just the diner girl who wanted to be popular.” She shook her head and swiped beneath her eyes. “I’m sorry. It was wrong, but we were all girls in school who wanted to fit in and be liked, and even as much as I hated doing some of the things I did, and I did. Iswear it.It felt like at the time, it was the only choice to get what I wanted, too.”

I was gaping at her. My mouth hit the floor.

“It was wrong,” she continued before I gathered words. A mixture of understanding and anger and fury and hatred and goddamn it, Igother. Who didn’t want to belong in high school, a small town filled with cliques and brattiness. The problem was in my need to belong, I was never given the chance. “It was so wrong, Destiny, and as soon as we graduated, I knew that. I knew it before, but I changed. I swear it. And we’ll probably never be friends, but I do want you to know how horribly sorry I am.”

“You went along with it because you wanted Jordan.” The accusation slid from my tongue so quickly I didn’t have time to process her sincerity. Or her apology. “You went along with everything willingly because you wanted him for yourself, didn’t you?”

Her shoulders shook. With embarrassment, I hoped. All of that because she wanted a boy she didn’t have?

“Yeah, partly. I did. All he ever talked about was you, and I was a girl with a really huge crush and I wanted him to see me. And every time he came to the diner for dinner, I’d ask him if he had plans and it was always you. So I was young and stupid, and jealous and so yeah, it made it easier to do Jenni’s bidding, but it’s still on me for participating, and I take ownership of that.”

“Do you—”

“I don’t like him like that anymore, Destiny. I swear to you. That crush died years ago.”

I wanted to believe her. I truly, truly did. I wanted to believe everything Jordan said to me last night. That those girls were mean to me because they were jealous of me and found my one opened wound and picked it until I bled so harshly I’d never heal from it.

A better person might have ended it there. Walked away. Taken the high road. It was ten years ago. I could forgive and forget.Screw that.

“You dipped hundreds of tampons in red paint and littered them all over my yard and hung them from my trees.”

God. The humiliation ofthatnight. The night before prom. I’d woken up that morning, intending to get my hair done, throw on a sexy dress and instead, I’d spenthourspicking up wet, soppy red tampons all over Tillie’s yard, crying so hard I called Jordan and canceled.

It’d been the final straw. Their last act that had me giving in. Their last attack that made me realize if I stayed with Jordan, this was what our lives would always be like.

Two weeks later I learned I was pregnant and that choice I’d waffled on was cemented.

“That was you?”

Both of us whipped toward the door. Jordan stood there, a fury rolling off of him so palpable I stepped back. His eyes were venomous, steely and narrowed on Christa. “You did that to her?”

Oh God.

As if this conversation couldn’t have gone any worse.

Twenty-Two

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