Page 25 of The Summer I First Saw You
No. What’s up? I just got off the express train.
Oh God. Please go listen to the message.
I swiped over the screen of my phone until I found the voicemail. I hadn’t even listened yet, and I was already tired.
“Hi,” she began, her voice choking on a sob. “Hi. God, Harrison, I can’t believe I’m doing this, but…I don’t think you should come. I know you’re probably on your way to the airport right now, but this just isn’t going to work.” She made this high-pitched noise I’d never heard from her before, but it was the man’s voice behind her, murmuring reassurance, that rang the first warning bell. “This is so hard to say, and I know the timing is terrible, but David? My boss?”
A piece of me, something darker and wiser, knew what she was going to say. Even as I was telling myself not to jump to conclusions, I knew exactly what she was about to fucking say.
It was something I didn’t want to discuss with anyone then, and now, six months later, I still don’t want to discuss it.
“I’m not going to ask,” Daisy says, taking the seat beside mine. “I shouldn’t have suggested it.”
I stare out at the ocean. I guess it doesn’t matter at this point—she’s mostly figured it out. “Audrey’s engaged. To her boss. She was sleeping with him pretty much the whole goddamn time I was here selling our house and packing our stuff.”
“Oh,” she whispers. “God. I’m so sorry.”
I laugh, a trifle bitterly. “He’s got a title. She’s going to beLadyAudrey, apparently.”
Daisy blows out a breath. “She sucked, Harrison. And I’m not saying that because of what she did. I’m saying that because shealwayssucked. She was stuck up and miserable.”
“She wasn’t always.” It’s less about defending Audrey than it is about defending myself, defending what were, in retrospect, several really poor choices on my end—marrying her, agreeing to move. I’m no longer sure I even did it because I wanted our marriage to work. I think I was just unwilling to fail at something.
“She changed after her brother died. And I think she blamed me. She didn’t want to leave the East Coast in the first place.”
Daisy shakes her head. “You married a girl who hates thebeach. Someone like that was never going to make you happy. She was like…all the worst parts of you.”
I turn her way. “Worst parts?”
“The super high-charged,willing to work ‘til all hours to get aheadside. You should have taken some time off after London.” She frowns. “Wait. If you knew she was with someone else, why’d you stay there for twomonths?”
I release a slow exhale. I could lie, but why bother? She’ll probably divine the truth about that too, eventually.
“I didn’t.” My head falls to the top of the chair. “I sat here for two months pretending I was still in London before I told anyone I was back. It would have been too obvious what happened if they knew I flew home the very next day. Please don’t repeat any of this.”
The whole situation was so fucking embarrassing. But it’s more embarrassing that I sat here in silence for two months, lying to my friends and my family.
She reaches out and squeezes my hand. “I understand that better than you think.”
I can’t imagine she actually understands much. She’s twenty-one. What could possibly have happened in her life that would compare?
“And I won’t tell anyone. I was never going to tell anyone about the girlfriend thing anyway,” she adds. “I’m still making you run tomorrow, though.”
I laugh. I like that she’s not treating me like a kicked puppy. “Yeah,” I tell her. “I knew that too.”
There’s something adult in the smile she gives me as she squeezes my hand and walks away.
She’s mature for her age.
Of course, that’s the same bullshit every man tells himself to justify a very bad decision, isn’t it? It’s a slippery slope fromtemptedtovillain.
I’m worried I’ve already begun to slide.
14
DAISY
Audrey, you crazy fucking bitch.
