ashamed. And more determined to do what I can to set things right.
“Listen, Mason,” Lark says, curling her legs beneath her and smoothing her dress. “I don’t know why you’re here. I know Lisa didn’t invite you. At least she better not have invited you, because if she did I swear I—”
“She didn’t,” I cut in. “I came as Lana’s plus one.”
“Lana Tate?” Lark’s eyebrow arches. Lana went to school with Lark and is one of the few people on Lark’s Shit List. I think it has something to do with Lark’s younger sister, but I’m not exactly sure.
“I ran into her at the Fill Up Stop this afternoon and she asked what I was doing tonight,” I hurry to explain. “Then she mentioned the wedding. As soon as I heard Lisa’s name, I knew you’d be here. It just seemed like such a wild coincidence, on my first day back in town. And I just… Well, I thought…”
“You thought what?” Lark crosses her arms over her chest, clearly not amused.
“I obviously didn’t think it through,” I say, feeling stupider with every passing minute. “I shouldn’t have come here. I shouldn’t have interrupted your time with Lisa.”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” she agrees, the tight muscles around her mouth relaxing ever so slightly as she adds, “But you did. So say what you came to say and get it over with.”
I don’t want to get it over with. I want to erase history, turn back time, and take back all the hurt I’ve caused. But I can’t, so I’d better start talking before she runs out of patience.
“I made a mistake, Lark. A terrible, stupid mistake,” I say, the words rushing out. “I never should have broken things off the way I did. I mean, I never should have proposed in the first place, but I really shouldn’t have left without—”
Lark lets out a strangled sound, somewhere between a laugh and cry of pain, and jumps to her feet.
Before I can explain that the words are coming out all wrong, she rushes past me, her hip brushing my shoulder as she moves, knocking me flat on my back in the tall grass.
Chapter 3
Mason
“Wait!” I roll onto my side and scramble to my feet. “Please, wait, Lark!”
She spins to face me, her chin hitching higher. “I don’t want to wait. I want you to go away!”
“Please, that’s not what I meant to say. I had it all planned out, but my stomach is in knots and—” I break off, lifting my hands in the air, fingers spread wide in supplication. “What I meant was that I was way too messed up back then to be ready to promise the rest of my life to another person. After all the stuff with my mom and my uncle… I just… I wouldn’t have been able to be a good husband to you, no matter how hard I would have tried.”
I pause, encouraged by the slight softening around Lark’s eyes.
“My baggage weighed more than I did,” I continue. “I got home that night, the night you said yes, and everything went to shit. Parker and I had the blow up to end all blow ups and…” I take a breath, fighting for the courage to be honest with her. “I looked at myself in the mirror after, with my swollen lip and black eye and the peeling wallpaper in my trashed bathroom and thought... What the hell was I doing? With a girl like you? When I clearly didn’t deserve you.”
“That’s not true,” Lark whispers. “You were always so good to me. Before.”
“I tried to be,” I say, pulse racing as I take a tentative step closer. “I loved you so much.”
“And I loved you,” she says, taking a matching step backward. “And then you left. Without even saying goodbye. Without saying anything. Do you know how hard that was? I kept waiting for you to at least call and explain, but you never did.”
“I’m so sorry, Lark.” My chest aches. “By the time I got my head on straight it had been months and I was buried in work and I… Well, I convinced myself you wouldn’t want to hear from me. That it was best to leave you alone.”
“And now?” she whispers. “What’s changed?”
“I…” I trail off, swallowing hard. I’m only going to get one shot at this, one chance to prove to her I might be worthy of a second chance. I have to get every word right. Tongue slipping out to