Page 75 of The First Kind of Love
His voice has yet to fracture from the ten-ton weight of grief, and for that, I envy him. When he reaches out to brush my arm, I rip it away like he just seared my flesh with a fireplace poker.
“My parents are expecting me. I have to go,” I repeat, the half-spoken truth abrading my sandpaper throat. Eyes wrenched shut, I pitch forward toward the door, but it’s not my lack of eyesight that forbids me from making any progress.
Fulton’s hands clench my arms entreatingly, forcing me to bear witness to the destruction I’m leaving behind in my wake—a failed relationship and broken trust, strong in theory but as delicate as spun glass.
When I meet his gaze, a current of hurt drifts through the brown of his eyes, and his bottom lip quivers. “What are you talking about? We have to get to the wedding. It’s going to start soon.”
Agony barrels onto the scene, flattening the reinforced defenses that have been constructed to keep my poor, impressionable heart from suffering another crack. Not by Fulton’s hands, but by my own. Instead of talking this through like a mature, grown adult, I made a decision that will affect us both, with little consideration for Fulton’s feelings.
“You have to go without me.”
There’s a fountain of tears waiting to spring eternal, andonce I stop fighting them, I’ll feel their wrath well into my two-hour flight back home.
“Sunshine, please…just…tell me what’s going on. We can figure this out. We can figure anything out,” he begs in an octave that I’ve never heard, his grip deteriorating into one of desperation—much like that of a mad man who’s gambled away his heart and refuses to let it go.
“Not this time,” I sob, shrinking in on myself, my nostrils hissing with a buildup of congestion. My eyes feel like they’re on fire. Even when I blink and clear the smoke, they ache, pleading for the moisture that I withhold.
Fulton sinks to his knees before me, his own eyes rheumy. His expression of confusion is arguably worse than one of vitriol, and it makes something evil tug at my belly. There’s a special place in hell for someone who strings people along like I have.
“Shiloh…” My name is dressed in his dulcet voice, but instead of soothing me, it welts my already-hemorrhaging heart, lashing against a bloody membrane.
“There’s an investor waiting for me in Riverside. I have to be there for legal reasons. I can save my family’s business if I fly home right away.”
“It’s Hayes and Aeris’ wedding day. We…we promised to be there for them. We’reinthe wedding.”
“I know, but this is the miracle I’ve been waiting for, Fulton. Don’t you see how important this is?”
A flip in him switches. Instead of skirting the realm of disbelief, anger overthrows the initial shock, now splashing his face in shades of crimson. When he stands up, he crowds my space with his mountainous body.
“And we aren’t?”
“That’s not what I meant,” I argue, shelving the sorrow long enough to wipe the teardrops clinging to my lashes.
“I should’ve known this would happen. I should’ve knownthat when it came down to me or work, you would always choose work. Even after I offered to help. Even after I held you during all those times you cried to me about wanting to escape—how you felt like a prisoner in your own life. Did any of that meananythingto you?” he snaps.
“Of course it did. I didn’t want tohaveto choose! You’re acting like I planned for this to happen. My mom sprung this on me five minutes ago, and there’s nothing they can do without me there.I’ma voting partner.Ihave to be there. I’m just trying to do what’s best for my family!” I scream, finally letting salt and water carve a circuit through my makeup, mascara running through separating foundation.
Fulton turns away to collect his anguish, one arm knocking against his temple like he doesn’t know what to do with it, and then he just…explodes.
“What happened to always being there for me?”
The sound from his throat is guttural, visceral, akin to the howling one might hear from a grieving mother who just lost her baby.
I did promise to always be there for him during our first date, and I’m not a person who goes back on their promises. At least, IthoughtI wasn’t.
I can’t describe the pain in his eyes, nor could I ever understand it. It’s years of being chosen second, of being overlooked, of being let down by the people who were always supposed to be there for him. Years of regret for being the man his father never was, only to realize that those with bigger hearts sustain the worst injuries.
Years of wishing he was enough to make someonestay.
I thought we had that in common.
“I need to be there for my parents too.”
“Well, that’s the problem with promising things to too many people: there’s always going to be someone who winds up unhappy. You’re never going to put yourself first, are you?”
A frown maims my cracked lips. “Ful?—”
“This can’t be what you want. Please don’t leave me, Sunshine.Please.”
