she’ll be able to transfer to BHU are buried beneath bigger worries.
I understand what that’s like. When something that once mattered seems inconsequential in the face of the nightmare you’ve woken to.
“I’ll make sure Dad gives you good references,” I say. It’s so lame. If I could, I’d weave together a big, bright future for her and hand it over wrapped in a bow. She’s been stuck in the quicksand of my mistake for too long. “There are a couple of board members who might be interested in a good nanny.”
“Arrow,” she says softly, and I want to pull her into my arms so badly it hurts.
“I won’t tell anyone your secret,” she says.
I suck in a breath and hold it to trap my rage. It’s not her job to free me from this burden, but I hoped she would. But mostly I want to rage because I know now she carries it too, and I don’t want that for her. “Don’t do that for me. Don’t hold it for me.”
She tilts her face toward the sun. “I’m not doing it for you.”
I shake my head. “I’d forgive you anything. I’d understand if you felt like you needed to—”
“Arrow, it’s done. I know you’d have gone forward and done the right thing if Coach hadn’t cornered you into keeping the secret. And I’m sorry for the ugly things I said yesterday. You didn’t deserve that. You’ve suffered enough. I forgive you,” she whispers, and those words hurt more than I’m prepared for.
I look away, shocked by the dull force of it. “Don’t do that. I don’t deserve that.”
She puts her hands on my face, her palms along my jaw, her fingertips in my hair, and turns me to look at her. “I forgive you, and I hope you’ll do whatever it is you need to do to forgive yourself. Do it for Brogan.”
“Fuck, Mia . . .”
The sun shines in her eyes. In a different life, maybe we’d be enjoying this beautiful day together—holding hands and sitting on the dock and watching the light reflect off the water. Then I’d pull her into me and kiss her, smell the sunshine in her hair as she whispered my name against my neck.
That’s not the fate we were given, and as she looks up at me, I realize I’ve had that image of us together from the day we met. I’ve never been willing to let it go. Not when me being a Woodison stood between us; not when Brogan stood between us. Not even when I sat in the hospital, willing my memory of New Year’s Eve to come back, or when Brogan was in surgery fighting for his life.
How different would our lives be today if I’d been able to let it go? If I hadn’t shown up at her door and told her I was in love with her? Would Brogan still be alive?
Part of my mind has always believed Mia was mine and has held on to the hope that we could make it work. Someday. Somehow. All of this could have been avoided if I hadn’t so stubbornly held on to that belief.
“That day that we met,” I say. “I think about it a lot. About how we seemed to click, but then you wanted nothing to do with me.”
“It seemed like such a big deal then.” She gives a sad smile. “I thought it was a terrible day to have met this sweet, amazing guy and find out he was a Woodison.” She exhales slowly and wraps her arms around her waist. “What I wouldn’t give to go back there and have that be the biggest problem in my life.”
I turn away because I can’t look at her and say what I need to say. “If I could go back, I never would have taken that first walk with you.”
She laughs a little uncomfortably. “What happened to wishing you’d kissed me?”
I stare at the ground and shake my head. “If I’d let you go, if I’d let you be with him without the questions of whether or not he made you happy, without being the one to catch you when he hurt you, without showing up at your door to tell you I was in love with you . . . everything would be different. Everything.” I lift my head and force myself to meet her eyes. “You kept trying to tell me we couldn’t be together, and I didn’t want to see it.”