Page 36 of Secrets at Seaside
“I was afraid,” Amy admitted. “I nearly tanked my grades, and I could barely think, let alone talk about it.” She took a deep breath, preparing herself to unveil the rest of her lies.
“All that talk about sleeping with guys…” Amy shook her head, she couldn’t admit any more than she had. She felt emotionally drained and exhausted, but she’d opened the floodgates and she had to let it all out.
Jenna looked from Amy to Bella. “I don’t understand.”
“I do,” Leanna said. “You never slept with any of them.”
Amy shook her head and wiped the tears from her eyes.
“Amy,” Jenna whispered. “Why would you lie about that? We don’t care if you have or haven’t slept with guys.”
“I know. I mean, in my heart I know that, but I had been hiding my past for so long, and when we graduated from college, I just wanted to leave everything behind and be normal. And being normal meant doing all the things I didn’t want to do. So I pretended.” She shrugged and looked away, embarrassed.
“Amy. You are normal. You’re probably the most normal of all of us,” Bella said.
“You never talked to Tony about this for all these years? So you both went through it alone?” Leanna paused, and before Amy could do more than nod, she continued. “It’s amazing that he doesn’t hate you for turning him away, or that you don’t hate him. I can’t imagine the hurt you both must have gone through. How far along were you?”
“Just a few weeks.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter if you knew you were pregnant for a day, an hour, or a month. Once you know, youknow.” Leanna hugged Amy again. “But the other side of this tragic loss is that you and Tony missed out on all these years together. I don’t even understand how you’ve had the close relationship you have with him without talking about what happened.”
“I pushed him away. I buried the hurt so deep I pretended it had never happened, even when he tried to make things right. It was easier than facing it.” Amy’s chest tightened again with the memory of Tony standing in her dorm room, looking sorrowful and beaten down, while she feigned ignorance and somehow acted peppy and like he didn’t matter. Just to save her own pathetic self.
“That explains why he made himself so scarce for those few years when we were in college,” Leanna said. “Wow, Amy. I always thought it was his surfing career that kept him away. Remember? He only came up for a week here or there, and he almost never hung out with us.”
“And that all changed after we graduated from college, remember?” Jenna added.
Amy nodded. “I remember, all right. I was so relieved that he came back and didn’t hate me. I was afraid to talk to him at first, afraid he would bring up the past and then disappear again. But he never did, and we fell back into our friendship, only he’d become even more protective of me. I never understood why, but he told me the other night that it was the only way he could be close to me.”
“He wears his love for you on his sleeve,” Leanna said. “The way he’s always looking after you, holding your hand or putting an arm around you.”
“Carrying you to bed,” Jenna added.
“Holding your hair when you barf,” Bella said.
“What?” Amy asked.
“Yeah, when you drank too much last summer, he insisted on being the one to take you home,” Bella explained. “I argued with him, but he was very protective of you. And when Jenna and I came to check on you, you were fast asleep, lying against him. Your hair was tied back in a ponytail, and he said he’d get us your barf bowl, like it was something he’d done a million times before. Apparently, you got sick that night, and he’d held your hair back and then pinned it up.”
“You never told me this.” How else had she embarrassed herself? “He never said anything, either. I must have been the joke of Seaside.”
“No, you were the most loved woman in Seaside. None of us would have embarrassed you, and Jenna and I kind of were saving ourselves.” Bella glanced at Jenna. “We thought you’d kill us if you knew that he saw you throw up because we let him take you home.”
“Where do you guys stand now?” Leanna asked. “Have you talked about it?”
Amy nodded. “Some.”
“And?” Jenna pushed.
“I think—no, Iknow—he loves me as much as I love him, and we’re trying.”
“But?” Bella asked.
“But it’s scary, and I accepted that job with Duke, and Tony worries that he’s not the right guy for me.”
Bella rolled her eyes. “You didn’t sleep with anyone else for a hundred years. He sounds like he’s the only guy for you. Does he knowthat?”
Amy smiled at the disbelief that had registered on his face last night when she’d told him. “Uh-huh. He was a little shocked.”
