Page 65 of Tomorrow Belongs to Us
“She doesn’t want us to break up. Well, it depends. Sometimes she’s okay with it, and sometimes she’s not. I’m the one who instigated the divorce.”
“Why?”
He's looks uncomfortable. “Irreconcilable differences.” A vein pops out in his neck, I can see it clearly under the light from the lamps. Is he telling me lies?
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because it’s the truth, and because I would never—Ihavenever—set out to hurt you intentionally, Megan. Not then, not now.”
I consider his words.
“I know you don’t believe me, Megan,” he says quietly. “My life is a clusterfuck, I made mistakes—although Cassie isn’t a mistake. She’s the best thing to come from this. I try to do the right thing, always, but life has a way of backfiring on me. And now you’ve showed up and it complicates things even more.”
I’m confused. “How do I complicate things?”
“You give me a glimmer of something good.”
I shake my head, trying to dislodge his words before they can imprint in my brain and replay at night when I find myself thinking of him. Glimmer? Something good? This man is living in an alternate universe.
“It seems ...” I hesitate. “It seems like a pretty big thing to omit, that’s all.”
He frowns. “How many times have we met? I never found the right time to mention it. I never thought things between us would happen so fast. I wanted to tell you about Vivian and Cassie, but you told me you didn't want to see ever me again. I didn't think we'd ever meet again, and then you showed up again that night. And now I don’t want you to walk out of my life again. We seem to take one step forward and two steps back.”
I force a laugh. “You're being presumptuous with your steps. What exactly do you think is the endgame here?”
He swipes a hand over his brow. “I don’t know. You're the one who came to me. Megan.”
He’s right about that. I did. I could have gone home but I went to him. I was attracted to him from the moment I saw him on TV. I don’t have much control around good looking guys, and I hate that I’m like this. But with Lance, it’s different. This is scary, because this has the potential to be something more than one night.
He could be my tomorrow, my forever, my always.
“I thought she was your niece,” I say, remembering my confusion when I first saw Cassie. “Your daughter, when I saw her.”
“My niece? Why would you think that?”
“Because until your daughter showed up, I had no idea you were married and had a child.”
“I'm not married—”
I set him straight. “Youarestill married, because you are notyetdivorced.”
“Noted.” He folds his arm. It’s only then that I see his t-shirt is ripped at the sleeve. He fought a guy, for me. I might have pushed back on him earlier but, secretly, I’m thrilled that he came to my rescue. I like that he was there for me. I’m all for women’s rights and feminist ideals, but having someone stand up for me and protect me, it’s the fairy tale every girl wants. Who doesn’t like a protector being there for her? My father walked out on my mother and left us all to fend for ourselves, so I will take a man standing up for me any day.
I drag my gaze away from his arms. “When I came to give you back your pen, your phone rang and there was a picture of a girl on it,” I explain. “I thought it was your niece.”
“Ah... that picture on my phone ...” An easy smile spreads across his face, and the contrast could not be more stark. This man loves children. He loves his niece, and he lives for his daughter. “That’s not Sarah, but it's one of my favorite photos of Cassie taken on her last birthday. She's got a splodge of cake on her nose and she's beaming the widest smile. That's ... that's my girl...” His voice chokes up and he seems lost in thought, lost in traces of his little girl. When he looks up, my gaze has softened.
He looks around. “Can we talk?”
“We are talking.”
“Someplace else, not out here.”
I can't do that. I've come out here because I wanted to hear what he had to say, and what he’s told me sounds plausible, almost as if it could be true.But it’s too plausible, a little voice inside me whispers. I don't believe things are that simple. Love is ugly. Life is hard.
Yet, this is easy, having Lance Turner back in my life. We have a chemistry that is impossible to ignore. I don't feel with anyone else what I feel with this man, it's like he imprinted on my young mind and ruined me for others.
It's wrong of me to blame my bad romantic relationships on him, especially when what we had wasn’t anything like that. My teenage mind used that night to get me through the bad times; those crushing, soul destroying moments where I hated being stuck in my small town, resentful that the future I had envisaged for myself had been swept away.
