Page 94 of The Fate Of Us

One look in his eyes told me… he needed to know.

I lifted my chin towards him, nervously pulling at my lips as I asked, “Do you want toknow why we are the way we are?”

Broad was the smile that stretched across his face. “I’ve needed to know since the day Imet her,” he sighed, eyeing Flo before claiming the seat next to her again, nodding quickly at me as he muttered, “Yes, please.”

“You’re an asshole.” My best friend of God knows how many years says to me.

I’m pretty sure my shoulders cramp from how hard I shrug them. “But what was I supposedto do? I asked her the day I left for college if anything was going on with her and Asher, and she told me there wasn’t. When, in my hand, was a photo of them kissing.” I look around as if the answer is written on the bakery walls. “How does that make me the asshole?”

“Why didn’t you just confront her right then and there?” Jacob asks, brows overlyfurrowed.

“I wanted to give her time to confess. Come clean.” I look down at the invisible watch onmy wrist. “I’m still waiting for her to, and it’s been nearly eight years since.”

“But that just doesn’t seem like something Addy would do.” Flo chimes in. “Are you sureit’s Asher in the picture and not you?”

Me and Jacob eye each other before directing our attention to Flo, her innocent questionmaking me smile. “I’ve looked at that picture for so long that I’d probably jump off a cliff if it turns out it was just me she was kissing.” They both huffed out a laugh. “It’s him. I wish it wasn’t but… it is.”

“And then he just turns up out of the blue and joins the cast. What are the chances.” Jacobponders.

“We were fine before Asher showed up. Comfortable.” They narrow their eyes at me. “Well, I would have preferred not to hate her, and her not to hate me, but that’s how weexist. It’s what we know.”

“But you didn’t used to.” Jacob reminds me, before rubbing a hand over his stubble. “Soafter you found this picture, you kept it to yourself, but still promised her that you’d meet her after your freshman year of college was over?” I nod at him. “Why?”

I shrug. “I think I decided as soon as I saw that picture that I wasn’t going to see heragain. She’d broken me, and I was cruel and hurt and wanted to hurt her too. After ghosting her for the year, I didn’t think she’d show up anyway.”

Hopping off her stool, Flo heads over to join Jacob by the booths, both of them facingme. She dips her fork into the tub of pasta that she’d cracked open right before I told Jacob everything, sinking a piece into her mouth as she asks, “Why did you not see each other when you went to college? Even before you found the Polaroid; why have a year apart?”

“She had the world to see. I had things to learn. We both needed time to develop awayfrom each other. She’d been my comforter since the moment we met, and I’d been her shoulder to cry on; we needed to figure out how to do that thing for ourselves before we became too attached.”

Jacob chimes in. “And did it help, not seeing her?”

No.The word flashes across my mind, some deep primal instinct that knew my answerbefore he’d asked the question. Even after knowing she’d cheated on me, no… it didn’t help.

I still missed her. I still craved her. I still wanted her around to simmer my heartbeat from time to time.

No… having her away from me only made things worse. Which was what I think mademe hate her. Not the fact that she kissed Asher and lied to me; I hated her because no matter how hard I tried to be okay without her, function without her, exist without her… I never could.

I shake my head at them both.

“Is that why you went back? The day you promised.” Jacob asks, and before I know it, that day is projecting in my mind.

Seven Years Ago

Get in. Grab the Polaroid. Get out.

That’s the plan that’s been running through my mind since I started the drive fromStanford. The words rolled through me, along with the breeze and familiar salt air I’d missed blowing right at me these past twelve months.

Perhaps a drive down the Pacific Coast Highway with the roof of my car down wasexactly what I needed to brush off the cobwebs that had spawned while I was gone, ridding me of the feeling that I hadn’t forgotten the things I promised to leave behind the day I left.

She was in my head again then. Fiery hair and equally fiery eyes.

I’m hoping she made good on her promise to leave town for good last year, praying thatshe wasn’t home.

I’m turning onto the street Addy and I spent our childhood running up and down soonerthan I would have liked, clocking the flower bed of lilacs outside Mrs. Delower’s house, surrounded and guarded by the mini picket fence that Addy tripped over one time. I carried her back to my house when she did, found a band-aid, nearly fell over when she kissed my cheek and ran straight back outside.

I shake my head, another mental cobweb shaking free.

Then I spy my house in the distance. And then hers.

---