Page 100 of The One

As Lainey glanced back at the school, strands of her light-brown hair stretched across her face, blown in by the wind. Years ago, I would have tucked them away. It fucking killed me that I didn’t have that permission anymore.

When her stare returned, her legs dropped from her chest. With her arms no longer wrapped around them, her hands clung to the edge of the metal seat.

Something had changed since she’d joined me on the bleachers.

When she’d first sat down, I hadn’t gotten the feeling that she wanted to let in the truth. She was fighting it. But something I’d said had made her more aware, and it seemed like she was open to it.

Which was ironic because the longer I sat here, the more I struggled giving it to her.

“You know, when I came here, I planned on saying what I wanted to say and not giving you a choice about hearing it. I was going to get it all out, regardless of what that looked like. I don’t feel that way anymore.”

Because I loved her.

And if that meant dying with these secrets, then I would. If that meant going against the whole reason why I was there, I was all right with that. I’d gone this long without saying these words to her. I could go the rest of my life if I needed to.

“Rhett …”

“Once you hear the rest of this, Lainey, you can’t unhear it. And when that happens, there are consequences. Your dreams will change. So will your nightmares.”

“I know.” Her hand went to her heart. “They can’t be worse than what they already are.”

“Trust me, they can.”

“Say it, Rhett.” Her voice wasn’t louder than a shallow breath. “Rip off the fucking Band-Aid.”

I pulled my leg back from where it had been resting next to her and clasped my hands together. “At the end of our senior year, I wanted to tell you about the way Penelope was acting. The way she was with me—the things she said, the touchy-feely bullshit, I mean. But it just didn’t feel like the right time. I wanted to wait until we were off at college and away from her. I knew how you felt about you two being on opposite sides of the country, and I didn’t want to take those moments away from you.”

“I wish you hadn’t made that decision.”

“What difference would it have made?”

Her eyes instantly filled with tears. “You can’t ask me that. Not now.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”Fuck.There were so many wrongs here, and I didn’t know how to say the right thing. “Now that I’vehad years and years to piece it all together, I think, ultimately, it came down to jealousy. She was jealous of you, Lainey. She was jealous of what we had, and that came to a head the day we were on the boat. That much was very obvious.”

She wiped her eyes. “I know there was yelling. I know you tossed her bag overboard. But I didn’t know there was jealousy—of me or of us.”

“She was coked out of her mind, Lainey. She’d smoked a joint all by herself.”

“You said nothing about that.”

“I was protecting her.”

“Why?”

I’d get there.

I needed to explain several things first.

I filled my lungs even though it felt fucking impossible. “During that boat ride, she was all over me. Clinging to me, climbing on me. She got on top of my shoulders while I was driving. And when I finally came to a stop, after we almost crashed into another boat because I’d taken my eyes off the water for a few seconds to deal with her, she started to say things.”

I stretched my fingers out, glancing at my palm, remembering the way I hadn’t been able to feel my hands that day, how everything had gone so fucking numb.

“She said you got everything you wanted and she didn’t and asked when it was going to be her turn. I couldn’t make any sense of it. It all sounded like gibberish at the time. I just wanted to get to the beach house and see you and not have to deal with her one-on-one. After the almost accident, my patience was running extra thin, and once she laid on the touching and the jealousy talk and brought you into it, I lost it. I yelled. And when I saw how she reacted to that, I pulled back and changed course, and I asked her to hug it out.” My fingers tightened, but thistime, I was looking at Lainey. “That didn’t work either. She was too far gone at that point.”

“I don’t understand.” She rocked back and forth over the seat, each pass sending me more of her rose scent. It was fucking with my head—all of this was. “How do things go from yelling to …”

Fifteen years later, and she still couldn’t say it.