He gets up and walks over to me, smiling kindly as he tucks a strand of hair behind my ear.
“You’re wrong,” he says. “I think his feelings for you are basically the exact opposite.” His eyes move over my face and his smile fades. “Do you hate me?” he asks quietly.
It takes me a moment to figure out why he would ask me that, but then I realize: Charlie’s the only other person who would have told Sam about what happened between us.
“Never,” I say, my voice cracking, and he pulls me into a tight hug. “I didn’t hate you then, either. After what happened. You were good to me that summer.”
“I had ulterior motives, but I didn’t ever plan to make a move,” he whispers. “Until that night.”
“That night was my fault,” I tell him. Charlie squeezes me and then lets go.
“Can I ask you something?” I say when we separate.
“Sure,” he rasps. “Ask me anything.”
“Did your mom know?” His face wilts a little, and I close my eyes, swallowing back the lump in my throat.
“If it makes you feel better, she was mostly mad at me.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better,” I croak.
He nods, his eyes flickering like fireflies. “I tried to tell her how you seduced me with candy and hairy legs, but she wasn’t convinced.”
I huff out a laugh, and a little of the heaviness lifts.
“She told me to call you,” he says, serious again. I stop breathing. “Before she died. She said he’d need you after.”
I hug him again. “Thank you,” I whisper.
* * *
SAM IS SITTING at the edge of the dock, his feet in the water. The sun hasn’t risen above the hills yet, but its light casts a halo around the far shore that promises it will soon. My footsteps shake the wooden planks as I walk toward him, but he doesn’t turn around.
I sit beside him, putting two steaming cups of coffee down, then roll my pants up over my knees so I can dip my legs into the lake. I pass him one of the mugs, and we drink in silence. There aren’t any boats out yet, and the only sound is the distant, mournful call of a loon. I’m half-finished with my coffee—trying to figure out where to begin—when Sam starts talking.
“Charlie told me about the two of you over Christmas break when we came home from school,” he says, looking out over the calm water. I want to cut in and apologize, but I can tell he’s got more to say. And, at the very least, I owe him the chance to tell his side despite how afraid I am to hear it—to hear about what it was like for him to know what I’d done all this time, to hear him get to the part where he never wants to see me again.
His voice is husky, like he hasn’t spoken yet this morning. “I was in rough shape after we broke up. I didn’t understand what had gone wrong and why you would shut down like that. Even if you weren’t ready for marriage or to even talk about getting married, breaking up didn’t make sense to me. I felt like maybe I had experienced our entire relationship completely differently from how you had. I felt like I was going crazy.”
He pauses and looks at me from the corner of his eye. I can feel the shame tighten its grip on my throat and my heart beating harder, but instead of fighting it, I accept that this is going to be uncomfortable and focus instead on Sam and what he needs to say.
“I think Charlie thought if I knew what had really happened, it might somehow make it better, explain why you pushed me away.” He shakes his head like he still can’t believe it. “He told me that you did still love me, that you had immediately regretted it and completely freaked out.”
“I had a panic attack,” I whisper.
“Yeah, I kind of figured that part out at the wake,” he says, looking at me straight on. He’s so much calmer than he was yesterday, but his voice sounds hollow.
“I did regret it,” I tell him, hesitating before putting my hand on his thigh. He doesn’t move away or tense up under my touch, so I keep it there. “It’s the biggest regret of my life. I wish it hadn’t happened, but it did, and I’m so sorry.”
“I know,” he says, looking back at the lake, his shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry I lost it yesterday. I thought I had moved past it years ago, but hearing you say the words, it felt like hearing it for the first time all over again.”
I take his hand in mine and shake it. “Hey,” I say so he looks at me, and when he does, I squeeze his hand tighter and look him in the eye. “You don’t have anything to apologize for. Me, on the other hand . . .”