Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 81787 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81787 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
“Wilder, I—what picture? Why would Sylvia have a picture of me at college? At a party?”
“Facebook. You were tagged in it. You told me you were going to a party. Your friend Sam had invited you. I trusted you. I thought you loved me. Then, Sylvia showed me the picture. She said she had more, but seeing it made me sick. I couldn’t look at any more of them. I went to the bar, started drinking. Anything to numb the pain. I drank until I blacked out. I woke up with Sylvia in my bed.”
Sam. I closed my eyes and leaned back against the edge of the sink. A heaviness unlike any I had ever felt settled over me.
“Sam,” I said softly and closed my eyes.
I knew that picture. I remembered that night. Every moment of it. The week before Thanksgiving. Everyone had been leaving to go home for the holiday, and there had been a party.
“Yeah, Sam. Remember now?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yeah, I do.”
“Then, you understand why I believed her. Even if you didn’t fuck him, you both were very comfortable, touching each other. I didn’t touch other girls, Oakley. I didn’t even notice them. You were all I wanted. And you so casually let another guy put his hands on you. Get close to you.” The accusation in his voice didn’t hide his pain.
“Sam is gay. He and Ross were two of my closest friends during my time at Ole Miss. They were the reason I survived after—” I stopped and looked down at the ground.
He had thought I’d cheated. Because of a stupid picture Ross had posted on his Facebook page and tagged me. I’d never even used Facebook back then or now. I just had it, like everyone else did. But Sylvia had been watching me. For what? To find me making a mistake?
“Gay.” The word came out in a whisper.
“Yeah. I follow them on Instagram. They’re married now. They have a daughter, Arabella, who is six. They adopted her three years ago.”
I knew in that moment that all I had once thought changed. It was clear. The past. The disbelief that I could have been so wrong about what I thought Wilder and I had. The destruction it had caused us. The hate he’d had toward me for so long and the revenge I had taken out on him in court that day. Something he hadn’t deserved. Something I could never take back.
Yet, knowing the lie Sylvia had told and the pain she’d inflicted, I couldn’t hate her for it. Because the truth was, if we could go back in time, I wouldn’t change it. Without her lie, without the hell I had suffered because of it, there would be no Sarah, and I wouldn’t trade anything for her. I’d go through it all again to have her.
“We both know the truth now,” I finally said. “And neither one of us would go back and do anything differently. We both know that too.”
He ran his hand over his face and leaned back against the wall. “This is …” He sighed. “Fuck.”
“I’ve spent years trying to hate you. Sometimes, I thought I did. Other times, I wished like hell I did. Knowing the truth, it helps. I understand, and maybe I can finally heal. Finally let go of what we once were. Maybe…”
His eyes lifted to meet mine. “Can you? Because I don’t think that’s what this knowledge does for me. I have a fucking mountain of regrets I made with you that I’m not sure I can work through. At least not anytime soon.” The agony in his expression, which he wasn’t even trying to mask, broke me.
I slipped the sweatshirt over my head. It hit me mid-thigh, and I felt covered enough before walking across the room to stand in front of him. He didn’t move, but his eyes stayed on me. Never once wavering.
“We both have regrets, Wilder. But we wanted to punish each other. We were hurt. That can’t be something we let control us.”
His eyes dropped to my mouth. “It’s not that easy,” he said. “I don’t know if I can move past it. Let it go.” He inhaled sharply. “Sebastian was the one to take your virginity—something you’d held on to for so long. And you gave it to him. A man I have to see, work with, and know he loved you and had you in a way I never will.”
I wanted to laugh at that, but I didn’t. Wilder would misunderstand my humor. But the thought that Sebastian had ever had more of me than Wilder was so far from the truth. He’d taken my virginity, but that night, I had cried. Because it hadn’t been Wilder. I never opened my heart to Sebastian, and he tried hard to reach me. Even going as far as asking me to marry him. Telling me he loved me enough for the both of us and that he’d spend his life making me fall in love with him.