Page 136 of The Publicity Stunt

“April, um, I have a few minutes to spare before I really need to leave.” Her gaze is still pinned on the ring box. “Can we talk?” Then she looks up.

“Wh-what?” I ask shakily.

She smiles faintly, puts the ring back in her purse, and walks past me, sitting down on one of the steps. “Please?” She pats the space next to her.

I walk over to sit beside her at arm’s length.

We don’t look at each other or say anything for the next couple of seconds. I don’t know what is happening right now, but it feels wrong. Like I’m choosing to sit in my own discomfort.

I hear her clear throat softly. Then she says, “I’m sorry.”

I look at her from the corner of my eye, more confused than before. “What?”

“I’m sorry, April,” she repeats, sounding more guilty this time. She turns to face me, the ring box clutched in her palm. “For hurting you, hurting Parker, all of it. I’m sorry for being what kept you two apart all these years.”

My head starts to implode like a black hole. I don’t know what I was expecting her to be sorry for, but it was not that. Not at all. “You don’t have to say—there’s nothing to be sorry about. I’ll give him the ring.”

“No, it’s not about the ring. It’s everything. I’m sorry you found out about him and me, whatever way you did. I, um.” She looks down. “I should have never agreed to marry him, April.” Her words knock the air out of my lungs. “Of course, it was never going to last. We were both trying to cope with our own grief in the only way we knew how. I knew he didn’t love me. At least, not the way I wanted him to.” She looks back up at me. “I saw it in his eyes, heard it in his voice, felt it in the way he touched me. He didn’t love me the way he loved you. God, there was something about the way he looked at you,” she says, and a small laugh bubbles out of her. “Logan used to look at me like that.” Her laugh fades into a pitiful smile.

The shadows under her eyes come to life and she shakes her head. “Parker tried, you know? He really tried to fall in love with me.”

Somehow that makes me smile. Because it’s just so Parker. Never putting himself first. And here I am, always putting myself first.

“Seems like something he would do,” I say.

She nods in agreement.

Then to my surprise, I say, “I’m sorry too.”

Shara lifts her gaze to meet mine. “What do you have to be sorry about?” she asks, almost as a joke. But I answer nonetheless.

“For the part I played in your …” I shift in my seat uncomfortably.

“You can say the word ‘divorce,’ April.”

“Right,” I quickly say. “Divorce.”

She smiles and pats my knee. “Don’t be. It’s not like I was the perfect wife either.”

A fresh frown forms across my forehead and she seems to catch the reason behind it.

“Oh, he didn’t tell you.” She breathes out a soft laugh and shakes her head. “Of course, he didn’t.”

“Tell me what?”

“I cheated on him. With my personal trainer.” She winces, as if that’s the part she’s most ashamed of.

My frown deepens and I mouth a silent, “Oh.”

“Yeah. Typical, right?” She tries to shrug it off with another laugh and I shift closer. “But the funny part is, that’s not when we filed for divorce. We waited a whole year after that. He wasn’t even mad about it. Not at all. We both married each other for very similar, very fucked-up reasons.”

I don’t really know what to say. This day has been beyond bizarre and it’s only ten in the morning. I close my eyes and take in every piece of new information she just threw my way. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything.” She smiles at me. It’s weak and tired, just like her tone. “He’s a good man. And he’s been through hell and back for you. I’ve seen it. I know how hurt he was when you left. And how that hurt translated into our marriage. I can only imagine what it must’ve been like for you. But he’s been harboring his pain ever since you left. It’s only a matter of time before he gets too used to it.”

I look down at the ring box.

Suddenly I’m transported back to the night I left. I’ve spent eight years trying to find someone to blame for my choices. And I did. I blamed myself. I blamed Parker. And now Shara’s here, accepting part of that blame. Justifying my choices. And it doesn’t feel great. It doesn’t feel like anything.