Chapter Six
Autumn
Brynn’s eyes were the size of saucers as she stared over my shoulder. “Is that Cole Granger?” she asked, then answered her own question with a sputtered, “Holy shit it is!”
I looked down at my hands and back up again. “Yeah?” I said.
I tried as best I could to sound surprised, I swear I did. But I had two strikes against me. One, that I was an open book about everything. Basically the worst poker player in existence. Every emotion that flits through my head also shows directly on my face.
And the second strike was that Brynn was one of those people who could smell bullshit a mile away. One syllable was all she needed to know I was keeping a secret.
She snapped back from staring open-mouthed at Cole and eyed me suspiciously. “You knew he was coming!” she accused me.
I raised my eyebrows. “What?” I squeaked.
“Are you trying to play coy with me?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She sat back and folded her arms over her chest. “I’m talking about you seeing Cole Granger behind my back.”
“Seeing him?” My voice crawled an octave higher. I sounded like Minnie Mouse. “Yeah, that only counts if you mean the word ‘see’ literally. As in, I saw him. Today. At the convenience store my mom sent me to so I could get more eggs for her disgusting nog.”
“You’re a freak. Eggnog is delicious.”
I sighed. “Every year I try it, thinking I must be crazy, I mean it looks like something I’d like, all creamy and frothy like that. “ I ignore Brynn’s smirk. “But every year I take a sip and gag. It’s disgusting and I don’t know why I keep trying to pretend otherwise.”
“You’re trying to change the subject.”
“Maybe.”
“The answer to that should be, ‘change what subject?’ God you’re the worst liar in the world.”
I took a sip of my drink and sighed. “I know,” I lamented. “It’s a fucking curse.”
“So getting back on track here,” Brynn said impatiently. Her eyes were glued behind me, and I didn’t need to turn around to know she was staring at Cole. I could feel him behind me. My skin was magnetically alive and aware of his presence.
It was very distracting.
Distracting enough that it wasn’t until Brynn fell silent that I realized she was waiting for an answer.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Oh Jesus, I asked you how you were doing but I think I have my answer.”
“How I’m doing? I’m fine, why wouldn’t I be fine?” Goddamn the hysteria in my voice making a liar out of me.
“Because Cole Granger is five feet away from you.”
“Yes.”
“And you haven’t even looked at him.”
“Yes.”
“And he broke your heart into a million pieces and then left without saying goodbye.”
I swallowed. “He said goodbye.”
“In an email. A fucking Dear John letter.”
It was true. “Dear Red,” it had started. “There are no words to describe how much I loved you...”
I had deleted it before I could read any further. What was the use? He had left. He had already made his choice.
“You loved him,” Brynn reminded me, her eyes still boring into Cole like she was trying to turn him to stone like Medusa.
”But it was puppy love,” I protested, shredding the label on my beer bottle into teeny tiny pieces. These were words I had said so many times. A script I’d memorized and internalized until I believed myself. And believing it was true made it true, right? “We were just kids, it wasn’t a real relationship or anything. High school lovers in a small town high school? Please. It wasn’t love. It was convenience.”
Brynn fixed me with those big wide eyes of her that most people made the mistake of thinking were innocent. Once you got to know her, you learned very quickly that there was nothing innocent about Brynn. I could tell by the way her eyes narrowed a little that she was fixing to slam me with one of her trademark punch-to-the-gut questions and squared my shoulders a little. I waited for her to gut me like my mother had, to tell me I was lying to myself, that Cole and I had something real, that I should have pushed harder instead of giving up. That we could have made long distance work, that Philadelphia wasn’t that far away from Reckless Falls, hell if anyone was stubborn enough to do it, it was me. I had my responses ready to all of these accusations. Since I’d already slung them at myself.
But I still wasn’t prepared for what came out of her mouth. “So then why have you barely dated since he left?”
“I have too!” I sputtered. “Everett?”
“Oh please. You two had the chemistry of a dead fish. He’s a good, decent guy, but you two were a terrible couple and you know it.”
It was true. The thing I loved most about Everett was that he put no pressure on me. At all. He’d go exactly as far as I wanted and never push for more, which was exactly what I needed as I was recovering from heartbreak. He was repressed in a way that made me wonder if there was something else underneath his skin that he kept hidden. But if he did, I wasn’t the girl to find it.
“Yeah, poor Rett. I told him I didn’t like sex, did I tell you?”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“And he bought it?”
“He’s so straight-laced that I don’t think he understands lying.”
“That boy is a closet sex maniac just waiting to be unleashed, mark my words.”
“Yeah, well....”
“Well he’s not the reason you’re flushed bright red and breathing heavy right now, is he?”
“What? I am not.”
“You are. Your Cole-radar is going off.”
“He’s that close?”
“I think he’s coming over.”
“Oh god.”
“No, I’m just messing with you.”
“You’re a pain in my ass.”
“Why won’t you talk to him, Autumn?”
I twisted the bits of label in my hands and dropped them onto the table top that looked like it was undergoing a very localized snow squall. As I did, I tried to find an answer. I searched my brain for a response that made any sense whatsoever, but there were no words for what I was feeling. How could I explain why I was on high alert, like a zebra wandering past a pride of lions? I squirmed in my chair, frozen to the spot and burning with the desire to run away, get away from him and run shrieking out into the snowstorm and let the snowflakes sizzle on my overheated cheeks. Why did I want to grab him, and then fling him away, kiss him and then slap him across the face? Why was I still feeling this way after so many years? “Because...” I started lamely and then trailed off, still searching for how to tell Brynn that in spite of everything I had ever said about Cole Granger being an asshole, I didn’t actually believe it.
I didn’t break things off with him out of anger. I did it because I loved him. He needed to go. The first member of his family to get into college and he gets into Penn with a full ride? That’s incredible. I needed him to concentrate. To do well. To make me proud. Then maybe, someday in the future, our paths would cross again and we could pick up where we left off. Maybe. I wasn’t counting on it, though.
When he walked out that door without saying goodbye, I honestly hoped I’d never see him again.
I never counted on him coming back.
“He shouldn’t have left,” I finally stammered.
Brynn’s eyes darted upward and I wondered how close Cole was to us now. Did he hear me? Oh god, he must have. Could the ground open up and swallow me now? I shifted in my chair and started backtracking immediately. “Yeah I thought that back then, but really, how could I make that demand? He got that scholarship, he’s so damn smart, it was right for him to leave. I was being selfish as hell.”
Brynn’s eyes softened. “You were a teenage girl in love, of course you were selfish.”
“Still, it’s no excuse.”
“Sure it is,” a deep voice said over my shoulder.