Page 114 of The One

My eyes squeezed shut until her father stopped screaming, and I looked at Lainey. “There’s so much I need to tell you about the boat. Your sister?—”

“I don’t care what you have to tell me. I’ll never be able to look at you the same ever again. I’ll never be able to forgive you.” Her hands covered her face. “Get out, Rhett.”

“Lainey—”

“It doesn’t matter what you say.” Her hands dropped. “It’ll never bring her back.”

“No, but it will show you that none of this was my fault.”

As she held the tops of her knees, the pieces of mud that were there turned to dust and hit the air. “Were you driving the boat?”

I exhaled, the defeat eating at me. “Yes.”

“Did you stop her from jumping?”

The inside of my body was moving so fast, yet the outside felt as though it were frozen. “I couldn’t have, I didn’t know she was going to do it. I wasn’t even looking at her.”

“Exactly! You weren’t watching her, and that’s all I wanted from you—for you to be me if I wasn’t there.”

It didn’t matter that Penelope had been on coke.

Or that she had been out of control.

Or that she had been all over me.

All Lainey and her father cared about was that I’d failed them.

The realization of what I was facing was too much.

The truth was too much.

The thoughts in my head were too much.

“We can get past this,” I urged, desperate to make her remember that she’d loved me before this. “You can find a way to forgive me, and we can go to USC and be together, and?—”

“I’m not going to USC.”

There was wetness in my eyes, and I pushed it away, my hand staying because another round of tears was on its way. “What do you mean, Lainey? What about us?”

“Rhett, there is no us.” Her head slowly moved to the right and then the left, her throat bouncing when she swallowed. “Us ended when”—she glanced up at the ceiling, and the drips fell from her chin—“my sister died.”

“Lainey, no?—”

She pointed at the door. “Go!”

I sucked in a breath, feeling the blood drain from my body. “Lainey, I love you. I’ll do anything to make this right. But please, don’t do this. Don’t push me away. Don’t end what we have. You’re my why?—”

“After you leave this room, you will never see me again.” Tears were streaming down her cheeks, but there wasn’t any softness in her expression. No love as she stared back at me. “Now, go!”

“Lainey, can we talk about this? Will you please just hear my side of things?—”

She got up, stepping around me, and kicked my hand away when I tried to touch her ankle. She unlocked the door, and as her father rushed in, heading right for me, Lainey gave me one last look.

I knew then.

I felt it.

I saw it.