Power Play - Brittney Mulliner Page 0,45

In your car.” She looked around like she was realizing it for the first time. “I shouldn’t be here.”

I stopped her before she could pull on the handle. “Please, don’t.”

She glared at me. “Why not?”

“Because I can’t live like this anymore.” I looked past the pain and saw her resistance crumbling. Maybe she couldn’t either.

“Alexander,” I said his name aloud for the first time since we said goodbye.

Her face twisted in grief, and she wrapped her arms around her stomach as sobs broke free.

“He was real and perfect and his death destroyed me. I didn’t know how to breathe after he was gone. I didn’t know how to be there for you, so I left.”

She shook her head.

“I don’t expect you to ever forgive me, I’ll never forgive myself. But you have to know that I never stopped thinking about you or him. It wasn’t an easy decision to leave, but like you said, we were kids. I wasn’t prepared to handle something like that. No one at that age is.”

She sniffed, her sobbing slowing. “I thought you forgot about us. I let myself think that you didn’t care. That you didn’t really love me. It was easier to think that than accept that you could just leave.”

“I never forgot.”

She scanned my face, and her shoulders dropped.

I leaned across the center console and took her into my arms. I did what I should have done back then. I held her and told her how much it hurt. How much I loved him. How much I loved her. I held her until she wrapped her arms around me and clung like I was her lifeline. We finally did what we should have that awful day. We cried, and grieved, and supported each other.

17

Taylor

“What are you doing, Taylor?” Carrie’s concerned eyes scanned my face in our video chat as if the answer was written on my forehead.

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I have no idea. Nothing is going according to plan. It’s like my life has been taken over control, and I’m just along for the ride.”

“I don’t want you getting hurt.” She didn’t have to say again for me to know she was thinking it.

The episode in Jason’s car was expected. I thought maybe we’d fight or skirt around things again. I never imagined he would bring up Alexander. The way he’d been acting, I didn’t even know if he remembered or cared. Obviously, I was very wrong.

The whole conversation had been as painful as it was cathartic.

We needed to get it all out in the open in order for us to move on. We could have continued in the awkward, polite cycle of acknowledging that we did indeed have a past relationship, but never admitting the extent. But that made my heart ache. I never would have told him––or anyone else––that. It wasn’t any of his business.

Not until he said his name.

That was all it took to break me. To fall apart in his arms. And boy did that feel good. No, it felt right. It felt like home.

“I don’t think he can hurt me any more than he already has at this point,” I pointed out.

“No, don’t you dare fall for that.” She gave me her best stern mom look.

“What do you mean?”

“That is where hope is bred. Thinking that there’s a chance that he’s changed. That he learned his lesson. That is dangerous.” She sighed. “Taylor, I know you loved that boy with everything you had at eighteen, but didn’t you learn your lesson. You can’t trust him. You can’t rely on him.”

I nodded. “I know. Trust me, I’m not going to fall for him again. It’s just nice to get it out in the open. To finally talk about it.”

She bit her lip.

“It didn’t change anything. We’re not magically friends again. We’re not going to start dating.”

Her eyebrows rose in challenge.

“We’re not!” I nearly yelled before lowering my voice. “I couldn’t go on pretending. I couldn’t act like there was no more to us than just being high school sweethearts. Now that everything’s been discussed, we got the closure we needed. We can move on now.”

“Move on?” She huffed. “You never moved on, Tay. You never dated anyone else. You threw yourself into school and work to keep busy, but your heart never moved on.”

I nearly dropped my phone on the floor. “That’s not true. Just because I didn’t date a ton in college doesn’t mean it was because I was still hung up on him.