Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 114419 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114419 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
She stood there, her wheels obviously turning, her mouth slack as she stared. He couldn’t tell exactly what she was thinking, but he knew this was his opportunity to explain to her what he’d done and why and that he would not get another. “Yeah . . . ,” she said, “I would have given all that up to marry you. It was my choice, Gavin, and you took that from me.”
“What were you going to do?” he asked. “Give up your dreams to follow me around the country as I entered tournaments? It was all I had going for me. There was zero guarantee I’d ever win anything. I had no real idea what I was facing. I felt the pressure of that, Si. I didn’t know how to balance my career aspirations and our relationship. I wanted to give you stability because it was the one thing you’d been denied your entire life, but I was scared. That rental house you were so excited about seemed like a variation on a theme. Almost like a trap—”
“A trap?”
“For both of us,” he said. “I realized later that to you, that house represented potential, but at the time I couldn’t see it. At the time, it seemed like nothing more than a lateral transfer. And so when your mom showed me that letter, it seemed like a weight was taken off my shoulders. It was a way out for you . . . but it was a way out for me too. I didn’t have to carry the pressure of failing you.”
“You couldn’t explain that to my face?” she said, her voice rising.
“No, I couldn’t explain that to your face. I was too weak to do that. I never would have left. I couldn’t look you in the eye and break your heart. Hell, at the time, I barely had the words to articulate what I was feeling. What I did know was that you had even less support than I did, and I was trying so hard to be your rock, until I crumbled. I loved you, but I was eighteen years old, too, Sienna.”
“And so you snuck away like a coward,” she accused, and he saw the tears glinting in her eyes, and again, her pain crushed him, even now. He shut his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath. He’d been wrong. Or at least, he’d been wrong in the way he’d gone about breaking up with her. Very wrong, and so goddamn messy.
She had deserved the truth. He hadn’t given it to her, and for that, he was truly sorry. “Yeah, I guess I did. I snuck away like a coward,” he said. “But answer me this: Would you have gone? If I came to you and told you about my doubts and that I knew about the scholarship and I wanted you to take it, that your mother of all people had told me about it, would you have gone?”
She let out a shuddery breath, looking away over his shoulder. He could tell she was considering, perhaps putting herself back in her eighteen-year-old shoes and really thinking about it from the perspective of the girl she’d once been. He appreciated that she took the time and contemplated her answer honestly. It would have been easier to say, Yes, of course I would have gone if you’d been honest with me, but she didn’t take the easy way out. That was Si. Fair to a fault. Truthful where he hadn’t been. He’d wondered where she could have possibly come by her delicate beauty in light of who her parents were. But he’d also wondered about her unceasing commitment to integrity, to truth, for the same reason. Maybe the more curious question was not how she’d come by those qualities but how she’d retained them.
“I . . . I don’t know. Maybe not.” She suddenly looked weary, and he was sorry for it but not. She took the few steps back to the bench and sat down as if her legs couldn’t hold her anymore, and he did the same. They’d needed to have this conversation. It was eleven years past due. She turned to him and met his eyes, and though the spark of anger had died, the sadness was still there. “You were my dream, Gavin. Not a college degree, not a career I couldn’t picture and wasn’t even sure I’d be good at. You. And maybe that was misguided. Or shortsighted or whatever you want to call it. But it’s the truth. At the time I thought maybe I’d do all that . . . later, but I . . . I wasn’t sure. I was only certain of one thing, and that was that I wanted you to be my future, and I wanted to be yours. I figured if we started there, the rest would work itself out.”