Page 119 of This Life and All the Rest
“I think everyone still felt guilty for that day, too.”
“Did Sam know?” she asks, and I can hear the fear in her voice, and I answer quickly.
“I don’t think so. I doubt it. Trent dealt with the senator when he got home from deployment. I’m not sure what went down, but Chase disappeared for a while. I never saw the other two guys again.”
I shake my head and hold eye contact.
“You know how that family is, Lennon. There’s no way they would have told Sam, and there’s no way she would have kept it from you.”
She blows out a harsh breath, relieved.
I still don’t understand the friendship Sam and Lennon have. It happened sometime after my overdose, but I was so far in my own head that I didn’t ask about it.
Maybe they bonded over the trauma.
Maybe they both felt like they had no one else, so they gravitated toward each other.
Whatever caused it, I’m so fucking grateful for it.
I think Sam and Lennon needed each other. It hurts to say, but neither of them had any real friends before that. Claire was fucking terrible to Lennon, and I wasn’t much better to Sam.
I tried. God, I tried, but I failed her. I was too selfish to be a good friend to anyone. I guess Claire and I had that in common. It nauseates me to think about.
“God, Lennon,” I breathe out, hanging my head in my hands. “You deserved so much better than we gave you.”
“No,” she says quickly. “No, you did what you thought you had to. You didn’t know Claire would take the letter, or that I would end up pregnant.”
She whispers the last part, and pain jolts inside my chest. My throat is so tight, my stomach so uneasy. I want to throw up.
She was pregnant.
With our baby.
“I’m so fucking sorry, Lennon. You have no idea how fucking sorry I am.”
Her eyes flutter shut, and she inhales deeply, then exhales. She speaks without opening her eyes.
“Maybe I should have just told Drea... But I didn’t want to tell her before you. And nothing would have changed the outcome, anyway. You still would have been in rehab. I still would have lost the pregnancy.”
“But you would have known that I didn’t abandon you. You would have come home.”
If Claire hadn’t taken that note, so many emotions and resentments could have been avoided. And why’d she do it? Some petty, immature stunt?
One small fucking decision that had a giant fucking impact on my life. On Lennon’s life.
“She responded to my email,” Lennon says, her head tipped to the ceiling.
She sounds defeated. Completely emotionally depleted.
“After you weren’t responding, I emailed Claire. I asked her where you were. I told her I needed to talk to you. God, Macon, I begged her for answers. I was so desperate.”
My stomach sinks. My heart crumbling further in my chest. I tried to make excuses for my sister. I tried so hard to understand her. And now this?
“What did she say?” I ask.
I know it’ll change everything.
Lennon takes a deep breath before speaking.
