Page 86 of The Last Kind of Kiss
Bristol has already brought my single suitcase up, and in my world, a single suitcase isquitethe achievement considering how many cute winter ensembles I could’ve lugged along. He plants a chaste kiss on my lips before leaving me alone to get settled, and I wheel my suitcase over to the dresser, acknowledging the adorable snow globe that adorns the varnished wood top. With a methodical unzip to keep my clothes from popping out in one colorful avalanche, I start to tuck away each pre-planned outfit into a drawer.
Being here, celebrating such a special holiday with my boyfriend’s loved ones, is the closest I’ve ever felt to belonging to a family that wasn’t bound to me by blood. Bristol’s parents were so welcoming, and for the first time since Bristol broke the news about Summit, I don’t feel like I’m trying to shoehorn my way into an already tightly knit circle.
Bristol’s finally shown me how much I mean to him, and there’s no question or doubt in my mind that we’re meant to be together.
Until I knock against something in the corner of the draweras I’m laying down one of my faux fur parkas. I slowly ease the drawer open to pinpoint the culprit, finding a little black box with anSengraved in the velvet. I don’t need to open it to know what’s inside. It’s your classic ring box, and the initial on top makes it crystal clear.
I don’t want to go there. Ican’tgo there. I can’t relive this pain again—this pain that weighs my extremities down like heavy-duty chains. This pain that’s succeeded in drowning me once before and has returned with a vengeance to finish the job off permanently.
Unshed tears teem in my eyes, and every muscle in my body quivers with untempered betrayal as my fingers unearth a truth that I have no business digging up. Before I can confirm there’s a perfectly good ring still inside, anger and sadness broil inside me, capitalizing off that nagging voice in the back of my head that blurts out every single one of my insecurities. If it wasn’t for the adrenaline or the idiotic hope that I’m wrong, I wouldn’t have gone through with opening it.
But against my better judgment, I crack the lid of the box open, and a gold, round-cut ring glistens at me from beneath the canary glow of the chandelier, so glaringly obvious that the sight alone makes me sick to my stomach.
Bristol kept Summit’s engagement ring.
28
THE PAST ISN’T SO FAR BEHIND US
BRISTOL
Christmas is a rough time for me. Everything reminds me of Summit, even when I don’t want to think about her. Since she passed, I’ve only celebrated it in moderation with the guys. They know how hard the month of December is for me, so they keep the festivities to a minimum, or they spend the holidays with their families. I’ve told them time and again that they don’t have to dampen their excitement for my sake, but they’re just good guys, you know?
This is the first time that Christmas hasn’t felt like a funeral, and that’s all thanks to Lila. I’ve been so busy soaking up the love from this new relationship that I haven’t had time to wallow in the past. I know it sounds cheesy, but it doesn’t feel like I’m merely surviving the holidays anymore. It feels like I can finally start new traditions—like I can let go of the grief and look back on Summit’s memory with gratitude rather than a foreboding sense of sorrow.
While I’m helping my parents with dinner preparations, a familiar ping emanates from my pocket, and the screen of my phone blinks to life with an incoming text from Lila.
LILA:Can you come upstairs?
I’m not sure why Lila needs me to come upstairs, but anything’s better than shucking corn. I get up from the table, try to stride across the room and up the stairs without looking too relieved, and finally nudge the door open. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I wasn’t prepared to see her holding Summit’s engagement ring in her palm like one unbalanced scale.
“What is this?” she asks, the betrayal in her tone falling hard and heavy like a bomb from the hemorrhaging sky.
No, no, no. This wasn’t—this isn’t how it was supposed to happen. I was going to tell her.
I shuffle through fear, self-directed anger, guilt…and I hate it when I land on the knee-buckling latter. I’m so wired with disbelief that I don’t console her as I threaten to demolish the metaphorically thin ice beneath both our feet. “Lila, I can explain?—”
“Explain what, exactly? Why you kept your ex-fiancée’s engagement ring? Or how you kept it asecretfrom me?” she growls, shelving whatever shock she felt in the moment and trading it for a fury that won’t run out.
“I swear, I wanted to tell you?—”
“God, I’m so fucking stupid. You—you told me yourself that you didn’t want to hurt me again! And I…oh, my God, I’m the idiot who believed you.”
“That was all true! I should’ve come clean about it when I told you about Summit, okay? I kept trying to find the right moment to tell you, but then we were finally in a good place, and I didn’t want to ruin that. I didn’t want to upset you.”
“Great going, Bristol.Truly.Don’t use me as a scapegoat for your fucking oversight. You knew I’d be upset. You weren’t trying to be the good guy. You were being selfish, hanging on to something thatclearlywasn’t real between us.”
I recoil slightly, my breath vacating me in a disbelieving burst. “How could you say that?”
“Say what? The truth?” she thunders, the blue of her eyes turning a woolly grey akin to the icy slush outside. “You’ve been clinging to your past the entire time we were together. I can’t—I can’t believe you! I don’t even know how much of our relationship was genuine.”
“All of it!”
“How can you say that when Summit was the third wheel. Or wasIthe third wheel?”
I don’t guard my tongue when I lash out, even though I should. I’m the one in the wrong here, not her. “Of course you weren’t! I’ve been more honest with you about my feelings than you have been with yours,” I snap. “You never let the fact that I was almost engaged go. You could never just…just believe me when I reassured you time and again that you were the only person I wanted.”
“You’re right. Icouldn’tbelieve you. You were going to marry this woman, Bristol. You werein lovewith this woman. And she was taken from you in the worst possible way, without allowing you closure.”
