Page 24 of Off Trail Love
“Is this just a long con?” I step away from him so he’s not so close. Why is he still pretending that it didn’t happen? “You confessed your feelings in the note. I read it about a thousand times. It said, ‘Dear Maggie, I’ve wanted to tell you how I feel for a long time, but I don’t want to mess anything up between us. But the truth is, I like you—a lot. I’d like to be more than friendsand I think you feel the same way. Meet me at the end of the San Clemente pier tonight at seven. Love, Jack.”
His eyes go wide. “You remember that after six years?”
“So you admit that you wrote me a note and then stood me up?”
“Wait, no,” he rushes to say, taking a step toward me. He reaches out a hand before pulling it back, as if he’s unsure if he wants to touch me. I try to ignore the hurt that washes over me, but just like that night, it’s another rejection.
“I mean, I did write that note, at least the first part. But I never wrote that part about meeting you anywhere.”
I hold back an eye roll. I put up my walls because I can’t let him into my heart again. How could I have been so stupid to think that none of this was a game? “I find that hard to believe. Especially since you have women texting you about wanting to hook up ‘again.’” I hold up my hands and make quotes as I say the last word.
“Okay, first of all, Clara is crazy. I’ve only ever been out with her once—the night after graduation, and we didn’t hook up. She called me for the first time out of the blue today and asked me out. I said no. You’re going to have to believe me.” Realization floods his face, like he’s just figured something out. “Is that why you were so cold to me when I came up to you at the airport? Because you thought I’d stood you up?”
“I didn’t think you stood me up. You did stand me up,” I say. “And then, to rub salt in my wound, I saw you that night. With all of your friends and that girl—the one who you say you didn’t hook up with. You had an arm around her waist, and I watched you kiss her. And I just saw her text.”
He blinks once like he still doesn’t know what I’m talking about.
“You set me up so I’d see you kiss another girl.” I try to say it without any of the emotion that’s starting to bubble in my chest.If we don’t finish this conversation soon, I might cry, and I really don’t want to cry. Today, I crossed a major item off my bucket list by hiking to the summit. He doesn’t get to ruin this for me. “I mean, I knew then that I shouldn’t have been surprised. You always flirted with all the girls and kissed anyone and everyone who looked at you twice.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is true.” I sigh. “And I wish I could forget how many times I wished that it was me you were kissing.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “That’s why you kissed me.” It’s not a question.
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t leave you that note.” He sounds so sincere. I want to believe him.
“Then who did?” I ask before I lose my nerve.
“Honestly, I don’t know.” He shakes his head and spins around like he doesn’t know what to do with himself. “Probably one of my idiot friends who knew I liked you and thought it would be funny. Chad was the one who set me up with that girl that night. He also dared her to kiss me, which she did. It could have been him. That wouldn’t surprise me.”
“You did have crappy friends in high school,” I say. My heart twists in confusion. If he didn’t leave me the note, have I been mad at him all this time for no reason? And was that text I saw really just a weird coincidence?
“Yeah, well, we aren’t friends now.”
“That’s probably a good thing.”
We’re quiet for a minute. “I’m really sorry that Chad—or whichever of his buddies—did that. It was a cruel prank, if you can even call it that.”
“I waited for you.” My voice cracks. “Then, when I saw you with her, I knew it was just another stupid prank. One last prank,for old times’ sake, I guess. And I guess I’ll never learn, because you did it again.”
Jack takes another step, closing the distance between us, and takes one of my hands in his. “I swear I didn’t leave you that note. I never would have done something like that. And it’s just a coincidence that she texted. I didn’t know you’d be on this hike until I saw you talking to Graham at the airport.”
“I want to believe you,” I say. A single tear slips down my cheek. Dang it, so much for not crying. “But it’s hard.”
“I was planning to tell you how I felt about you the next time I saw you, but then you went to stay with your grandparents before college, and, well, then I didn’t see you again until the airport.”
“I left right after because I didn’t want to run into you. I was too humiliated. I thought you must have hated me because only someone who truly didn’t like someone would do something that cruel.”
“I don’t hate you, Maggie.” He chuckles. “It’s quite the opposite. I don’t want to be your enemy. I want to be your friend. Your confidant. Your boyfriend. Someday, I hope to be your...” he cuts himself short. The words I think he was going to say hang in the air. My everything.
“I just don’t know what to think.”
“Please believe me, Maggie,” He whispers.
“I want to, but I don’t know how.” I turn quickly, so he can’t see the tears forming in my eyes. I want to trust him, I do. I think part of me does trust him. I know him, so everything he is saying should be true. But what if it’s not? What if he is still a flirt like he was in high school, kissing a new girl every week?
