Destiny

I was weaving my way through the small groups of people. The party was in full swing and I had to give props to Rebecca. She knew how to throw a party that had something for everyone.

Toys were sprinkled all over the yard for the kids to play with but most of them had congregated near the basketball hoop. I’d checked on Toby several times, forcing him at one point to take a break and get something to eat.

Rebecca threw a barbecue feast with hamburgers, brats, pulled pork, and chicken. Homemade potato salads and coleslaw, fruit salad and a string of different desserts were spread out on a huge row of tables. And on a different table, there was a whole line of bags of chips. Plastic cups from the keg littered the ground. Plastic wineglasses from the homemade sangria sat abandoned on several of the waist-high brick walls surrounding the patio.

Everyone had said hello to me. Most had offered their condolences of Tillie. Many had congratulated me with Toby.

All of them had been nice.

The shock was setting in. It was, entirely possible, I’d twisted things wrong all those years ago. Or at the very least, ten years had passed and like Jordan said the other night about Christa, we’d all grown up and put aside the childish bullshit of our past.

I grabbed the ladle from the sangria bowl and refilled my glass, surveying the area.

I’d had a few friends in Houston. Paul had a small group of friends where we occasionally got together to watch Texans games, too.

I had never been to a party with so many people, at least forty, closing in on fifty. Toby had never had this in his life. At least a dozen kids, boys and girls of all ages had welcomed him into their groups. He spent hours chasing goats with the boys, chasing girls around the horse barn with toads they found in the brush.

Through all of it, Jordan stayed close until I finally pushed him away at least an hour ago. He’d been by my side while everyone realized who Toby was, and who he belonged to. He handled their shock and surprise, their speculating gaze where all their unasked questions had been all too obvious.

Did you know?

Did you tell her to leave?

Did you hide your kid from his dad?

Are you okay with this?

No one had been brave enough to ask, and with how good Jordan was to both me and Toby when we saw the rascal, those questioning looks slowly started evaporating and were replaced with hesitant acceptance.

Currently, he was standing with Andrew and Shawn, plastic red keg cups in their hands, leaning against the side of the patio, and all of them were watching the boys play yet another game of hoops. Frequently though, he turned his head, searched for me, and when he saw I was still okay, turned back to the guys.

And every time those steely eyes of his landed on me, I couldn’t stop the tremble it sent down my spine. And it was then it hit me. Perhaps it should have been last night when his hands were on my breasts, and his tongue was in my mouth.

Perhaps it was when he said he’d get there when it came to forgiving me.

But those were words. Anyone could say them. His actions, watching me, checking on me, giving me my space and ensuring I was safe at the same time…that said everything. It proved he meant everything he said.

My gaze drifted through the crowd until I landed on one person. The only person who hadn’t come over to Jordan and me when we were together. The only woman at the entire party who had avoided me.

Last night I’d screwed up. I’d been rude to her, and Jordan had given me another perspective.

Tonight, it was time to finally begin putting the past behind me, exactly where it belonged.

I dumped my sangria into the trashcan. I’d had three glasses and while I’d felt the need for liquid courage earlier, it was more than I usually had. When I finally gathered the courage to talk to a girl who had helped make my life hell for years, level-headedness was key.

She was sitting with Kelly and a man and woman I’d been introduced to earlier but whose names I couldn’t remember. I weaved through the tables, dodged stumbling toddlers and stepped over a baseball here and there on my way through the yard, lit up by decorative lights from tree to tree for the evening.

I took the longest route possible. What in the hell would I say to her? What would she say to me? Apologize? Brush it off?

Worse…attack and throw everything back at me?

Avoidance couldn’t happen any longer. I had to do this.

Move on. Grow a backbone. Grow up.

I’d come up behind her, the couple I didn’t know laughing at something Christa had said and as much as I hated interrupting, I didn’t want to wait for a more polite time.

My hands trembled. My knees shook from the force of my thundering pulse.

I settled my hot, trembling palm onto her shoulder. “Hey, Christa? Can we talk for a minute?”

Beautiful, light green eyes whipped in my direction and the smile she’d clearly given toward the people she was with turned tremulous. “Hey, Destiny. Everything okay?”

“Yeah.” I pressed my hand to my thigh. God, the sweaty palms were unreal. “But can we talk?”

Her blonde brows pulled together, and she nodded. “Sure. Excuse me,” she said to the people at her table and pushed back in her chair.

Kelly winked at me, her grin knowing and encouraging. I nodded and hoped my expression was filled with thanks.

I attempted to smile politely at the couple I didn’t know but knew I failed. Everything felt strung tense, even the muscles on my face. I imagined a clown smile and grimaced, turning from the table and surveying where we could go for some privacy.

“This way,” Christa said, her hand went to my back and she pointed in the direction of the guesthouse. It was far enough away from the party where we could have privacy. Far enough away that if this went bad, no one would hear us. “They usually keep the guesthouse unlocked and we can have privacy. I imagine you’d like that?”

Her question was said kindly, still, I turned and caught the hint of worry in her eyes. Also something that looked mildly apologetic. Uncanny how she seemed to know exactly what I wanted to talk about.

We reached the guesthouse in silence and my nerves were a frazzled mess as Christa opened the door to the small house that was exactly the same as I remembered. More than once Jordan and I snuck out here and fooled around on the small, but comfortable full-sized bed in the tiny bedroom. It was drafty, musty from being closed up all summer and I jumped as the wood screen door closed behind me.

She appeared more composed than me, as if she’d had a decade to prepare for this moment. Her serene expression rattled me further. When she spoke first, she almost knocked me on my ass. “Your boy is really cute. It’s amazing how much he looks like Jordan.”

“Toby’s great. But that’s not why I wanted to talk to you.”

“I assumed. But listen, before you say anything, you have to know I’ve grown up a lot since you left—”

“Why?” I blurted the question, the one burning the tip of my tongue since I saw her. “You were cruel to me. You were so mean to me and I never did anything to you, Christa, and you and Jenni and your pack of Spirit Girls made my life hell. Why would you do that?”

My body trembled like I’d stuck my finger in a socket. It was insane. As I spoke, all those memories rushed through me. All of them. Every single tortuous memory I had connected to Carlton and my time here before, pummeled me like a boxer on a mission to knock out his opponent.

“I know.” Christa licked her lips and raised her hands. It was meant to placate me. It only fueled all my anger.

“You were horrible to me.” Emotion burned in my gut. All that rot that had festered, that I’d run from for so damn long, all the unnecessary bullying that had even Tillie finally understanding my need to flee. “I left this town. I left the only family I had and the only dreams I had in my life because you and Jenni and all of you girls thought it was so funny to make my life miserable. What would possess you to do something like that?”

“I’m sorry. It’s not enough, I know,” she rushed to say as I opened my mouth to stop her. “And I can’t apologize enough. I can’t, Destiny. We were everything you’ve said, but—”

“But nothing.”

“I know. And I don’t have a good explanation, but listen, Destiny. Listen to me. I hated myself for doing those things. And this isn’t a reason, it’s an excuse and a lame one, but it’s the only one I have. I was a sophomore, Jenni was the leader of the Spirit Girls. I’d wanted to be one since I was a little girl. Get the jock, have the kickass short skirt, get invited to all the cool parties, and it was high school and looking back it might have been stupid, but I was a girl whose parents ran a diner. They weren’t the doctor in town or the lawyer. Jenni’s dad was the mayor and she made us all feel like if we didn’t do what she wanted because she was the captain, she’d kick us off the team. I was just the diner girl who wanted to be popular.” She shook her head and swiped beneath her eyes. “I’m sorry. It was wrong, but we were all girls in school who wanted to fit in and be liked, and even as much as I hated doing some of the things I did, and I did. I swear it. It felt like at the time, it was the only choice to get what I wanted, too.”

I was gaping at her. My mouth hit the floor.

“It was wrong,” she continued before I gathered words. A mixture of understanding and anger and fury and hatred and goddamn it, I got her. Who didn’t want to belong in high school, a small town filled with cliques and brattiness. The problem was in my need to belong, I was never given the chance. “It was so wrong, Destiny, and as soon as we graduated, I knew that. I knew it before, but I changed. I swear it. And we’ll probably never be friends, but I do want you to know how horribly sorry I am.”

“You went along with it because you wanted Jordan.” The accusation slid from my tongue so quickly I didn’t have time to process her sincerity. Or her apology. “You went along with everything willingly because you wanted him for yourself, didn’t you?”

Her shoulders shook. With embarrassment, I hoped. All of that because she wanted a boy she didn’t have?

“Yeah, partly. I did. All he ever talked about was you, and I was a girl with a really huge crush and I wanted him to see me. And every time he came to the diner for dinner, I’d ask him if he had plans and it was always you. So I was young and stupid, and jealous and so yeah, it made it easier to do Jenni’s bidding, but it’s still on me for participating, and I take ownership of that.”

“Do you—”

“I don’t like him like that anymore, Destiny. I swear to you. That crush died years ago.”

I wanted to believe her. I truly, truly did. I wanted to believe everything Jordan said to me last night. That those girls were mean to me because they were jealous of me and found my one opened wound and picked it until I bled so harshly I’d never heal from it.

A better person might have ended it there. Walked away. Taken the high road. It was ten years ago. I could forgive and forget. Screw that.

“You dipped hundreds of tampons in red paint and littered them all over my yard and hung them from my trees.”

God. The humiliation of that night. The night before prom. I’d woken up that morning, intending to get my hair done, throw on a sexy dress and instead, I’d spent hours picking up wet, soppy red tampons all over Tillie’s yard, crying so hard I called Jordan and canceled.

It’d been the final straw. Their last act that had me giving in. Their last attack that made me realize if I stayed with Jordan, this was what our lives would always be like.

Two weeks later I learned I was pregnant and that choice I’d waffled on was cemented.

“That was you?”

Both of us whipped toward the door. Jordan stood there, a fury rolling off of him so palpable I stepped back. His eyes were venomous, steely and narrowed on Christa. “You did that to her?”

Oh God.

As if this conversation couldn’t have gone any worse.