Instead, I nodded like I could hear a tune in my head. Just up and down, back and forth, to a beat no one else could hear.
Finally, Leo sighed, and he met my gaze. “Shayne, would you like to take a walk with me?”
I opened my mouth to reply and stopped. Those were not words I expected to hear from Leo any time in the next seven years.
“I…uh…I…” I stuttered over my words, and Leo watched me, maybe hoping I wouldn’t agree, but I couldn’t let this one small opportunity pass me by.
It felt like the closest he might get to an olive branch, and maybe I could start to fix things. Plus, Leo had approached me, and wasn’t that what both Kane and Kairo had coached me to wait for?
“I’d be happy to,” I finally forced out.
Really, not happy, because no way in hell was this going to be an easy conversation, but I’d be stupid not to go for Leo’s walk with him.
Leo led the way quietly out of the gate, and I didn’t turn around. The weight of all of the gazes rested heavily on my back, and I had no doubt every single pair of eyes was trained on the two of us as we fooled ourselves that we were sneaking away.
Once on the quiet street outside, I breathed as deeply as I could, trying to fill my lungs and chase away some of the tension. I rolled my shoulders and exhaled.
When it became clear Leo wasn’t going to start the conversation, I ventured a small question. “How have you been?” It seemed so trivial, but our entire worlds were contained in those four words, and tension crushed my chest all over again.
I turned to watch Leo, and his jaw clenched, the only sign he made that he recognized the weight of my question as well. He took several deep breaths, his chest expanding with each one. I tried not to count them, but I did anyway.
Seven breaths.
One breath for each year since I’d broken him.
“Seven years hold a shitload of baggage, Shayne.” His voice was gruff, unyielding, and my breath lodged in my throat at the sound of unshed tears.
But I didn’t say anything. What could I say? Another apology now would sound dismissive, when I owed him the courtesy and respect of listening to him. When Leo transferred schools, I’d missed him and part of me had wondered if some of it had been my fault, but the weight of responsibility hadn’t exactly ground me down. Things were different now, though. Every single moment from those days was resurfacing in my mind like a distant dream I’d only just remembered, and they all hit me with fresh waves of shame as they seared themselves into my thoughts, burning me with the things I’d done.
My stomach roiled and nausea dried my throat every time I remembered something new.
“I managed to get through junior year after what you did.”
I winced, but there was no point in trying to sugarcoat things to myself. I was the one who’d brought the most harm to Leo because he’d loved me, trusted me, and I’d betrayed him. I swallowed against the bile.
“Then I transferred away and finished out across town.” He paused then spoke haltingly. “It was tough. The effects lasted through senior year… Things got pretty dark.”
There was so much more he wasn’t saying. Pretty dark seemed to conceal so much in its shadows, and I wanted to reach out to him but I didn’t dare. The irony of the idea I feared his rejection wasn’t lost on me.
“But then I went to college.” He glanced at me. “People were a lot less judgmental there.”
It hadn’t just been the judgments, though. My betrayal of him still shone in his eyes like it haunted him.
“And, I guess I got lucky.” He gave me a crooked grin. “My new roommate was a jock. Not the kind some of the high school kids you hung around thought they were.”
He was so quick to clarify, there was no way he was talking about sports. No, he was talking about the popular kids who wore their letterman jackets like some kind of armor or symbol of their acceptance and who had passed their judgment on him like they had some sort of ordained right to be assholes.
I’d used their status to keep myself safe and shielded from the realities of my life even as I’d offered Leo up to take the brunt of the