The Day That Saved Us (21 page)

I remove my arm from my eyes. “Whether you said something or not, it eventually would’ve come out. It was only a matter of time. We were destined to fail from the beginning.”

“Don’t say that. You don’t mean it.”

“How long have you known about them?” I ask.

A few seconds pass before he responds, “A few days.”

“Unbelievable. I
knew
something was off! On the beach, when I found you sitting alone after you’d gone inside. You saw them then, didn’t you?”

He nods.

“You looked me in the eye and lied to me, over and over. What else can you lie about?”

“That’s not fair, and you know it!” He glares at me. “I couldn’t just drop a bomb like that on you. I was trying to find the right time.”

I sit up. “Right time? Right time! There
is
no right time! Nothing about this is right! Your dad and my mom are having an affair. In what world would that kind of information ever have perfect timing?”

“This is exactly why I kept it from you! It’s already destroying us, and you and I didn’t even do anything wrong!”

I keep my voice low and surprisingly steady. “You think it was easy for your dad, preying on a woman who’s already at her lowest?”

Brodee’s jaw clenches. “Your mom is just as guilty as my dad. It takes two, Peyton.”

“Your dad didn’t lose his spouse less than a year ago. My mom is probably desperate for any kind of affection. She wasn’t thinking straight enough to say no.”

Why am I defending her?

“My dad would never have done anything with someone who wasn’t willing.”

“Of course she was willing! Nick’s the closest thing she has to my dead dad!”

Quit defending her!

Brodee flinches. “Stop! What are we even doing? Why are we fighting about who’s more in the wrong? This isn’t our fight!” He breaks. Softly, he says, “You and I didn’t do this.”

I stop. He’s right. The only sound is our labored breathing as we try to calm down. There’s nothing left to say. This isn’t something you can come back from. This wrecked us, smashed us to a heap of unfixable parts. There is no salvaging the pieces.

As the pieces fall to the ground, they find new homes, new revelations. “This is why you want to go to USC, isn’t it? It had nothing to do with me at all. You just wanted to get back at him.”

“Don’t twist that, Peyton. Of course I want to go because of you. I
love
you.”

As I bring my legs to the side of the lounger, I grip the edges on either side of my thighs. “Then tell me. Please enlighten me. How long after you saw them together did you decide you no longer wanted to go to Duke?”

He can’t respond.

I shake my head—fight back tears. “That’s what I thought.”

“What can I do to make this right?” he desperately asks.

“Nothing.” I don’t mean for it to come out as bitter as it sounds. It’s the simple fact. The truth hurts. Nothing will ever be the same. Nothing can fix this. I’ll never be able to look at him the same. Or Nick. Or my mom. Or even Tate. Not because Tate did anything wrong, but because it’s
my
mom who destroyed her marriage. Her best friend—aside from her husband—she’s one person Tate should’ve been able to count on. We’re family. Family doesn’t do that to each other.

“I can’t lose us.” Brodee’s voice cracks.

“Right now there is no us.”

Silence tugs and stretches the reality until it’s the only thing between us. What we built is gone. It’s over.

I watch his retreating figure on the boardwalk and regret what I said, but I can’t take it back. I can’t take back what our parents did. I can’t change what happened to us. Even as my heart softens, I can’t even call him back to me. I don’t know where to go from here.

AFTER A COUPLE
hours of lying there I go back inside. When I close the door quietly behind me, my mom is coming down the stairs. I halt and nearly backtrack. The waves and their security are calling to me.

“Peyton,” she tries and takes a step toward me.

I shake my head to stop her. I can’t look at her, let alone have her touch me.

“Stop where you are.” She nods. Tears fill her eyes as she hovers below the last step. “I want to hear it from you. Tell me what Brodee saw was a misunderstanding—that it was a moment of weakness or not what it appeared to be at all. Tell me you’d never do that to Dad, to Tate, to us.”

“Honey…” Her hands fist against her mouth. “I…I…”

“You can’t, can you?” I choke. “You and Nick?”

“It’s so complicated, Peyton.” Her hands drop to her sides, and she tries to move toward me again. I put up my hands, stopping her. She stays put. “You know Nick and I go way back. We have this history that was never dealt with, never explored. It just happened. We’re in love. I know that’s hard to hear, but if this wasn’t something real, we never would have risked it.”

“So what, Dad dies, and Nick thinks he can take a shot with you now? All bets are off now that the husband is out of the picture.”

Her sad eyes transform to fury. “
Peyton Jane
.”

“No,” I snap. “You don’t get to reprimand me right now.
You
screwed up. Not
me
!”

“I am still your mother, and I deserve respect.”

I nearly choke on my laughter. “Just like you respected this family? Like you respected Tate and her relationship with Nick? You don’t get to reprimand me about respect. You’re such a hypocrite! How do you think Dad would feel about this?”

“Don’t,” she warns.

It’s as though I don’t even hear her. That, or I don’t care. More likely the later. “You think he’d understand? That he’d give his blessing.”

“Stop,” she says.

Nothing can stop the truth. “You think he’d be okay with you sleeping with his best friend?”

“That’s enough!”

I bite my lip, holding back more words, more truth. “Truth hurts, doesn’t it? I think I’ve had enough too.” I shoulder past her, up the stairs and slam my bedroom door behind me. I lock it for good measure.

I can’t be here for one more second. Racing around the room, I snatch up my clothes, anything I can find and pull out the duffle from under my bed. Then I grab my phone from my nightstand.

Me:
Where are you?

I fling open drawers and empty their contents. I yank clothing off hangers and grab my sandals from the floor. I sweep my arm across my vanity and swipe my makeup into my makeup bag. Anything and everything ends up in my duffle in a jumbled mess of material and cosmetics.

Brodee:
Walking back to the house.

Me:
Let’s go. Please. I need to get out of here now.

I think he might tell me no, but within seconds I get his response.

Brodee:
Okay.

BRODEE AND I
drove all night. The majority of our drive was in silence. I read while he drove, or rather pretended to read while all I saw was black ink on cream paper. The only topic of conversation was food, gas, and bathroom breaks. It took us eight hours, but we made it back a little after midnight.

My mom isn’t home, and I don’t know when she’ll show up. I don’t want to be at home when she does, so Brodee lets me stay at their house for the night. Being neighbors has its perks. I’ll know when she gets home—more precisely when it’s safe to go home and when to stay away.

Tatum and Carter are already at the Fisher’s, as we figured they would be. Carter’s room was cleared out when Brodee and I left the beach house, and Nick’s car was gone as was my mom’s. My guess is she let Nick take it to go after Tate, but he obviously didn’t get very far. Tatum has locked herself in her bedroom, and it’s unlikely we’ll see her before morning. Nick is MIA, and I hope he stays that way. If Brodee has any power, he’ll make sure Nick stays far away from their house.

The house is still as we walk up the carpeted stairwell to Brodee’s room. We pass Carter’s closed bedroom door and peer down at his parents’ closed door at the end of the hall. Tatum’s pain practically leaks from beneath the door, soaking into the house.

I drop my duffle at the foot of his bed and sit down on the edge. The mattress squeaks as I sink into it. When we used to have sleepovers, Brodee would let me have his bed, and he’d take the floor. I hated sleeping on the floor. He’d get a sleeping bag and tell me he didn’t mind, that it was cool because it felt like he was camping. I learned later on Brodee hates camping.

The mattress squeaks again as Brodee sits beside me. Out of the corner of my eye, I see him run his hand down his face and rest his elbows on his knees as he leans forward. I can tell he’s exhausted—physically and emotionally. I napped earlier and was able to sleep in the car, too. I’m not sure if he’s gotten much sleep since we fell asleep on the beach. It all seems like a lifetime away. Hatteras. Happiness. Hope in the future.

“Tonight, can we forget about it? Can we pretend that nothing has changed?” he asks desperately, watching me from the corner of his eyes. “When we wake up, we can let reality set in, but tonight I just want to hold you.”

It will only hurt more in the morning, but the pain is inevitable whether we prolong our time together or not. I want him to hold me, too. I nod. I don’t say anything. We crawl up his bed and lie on our sides, my back toward him. Brodee curls behind me. His arm wraps around my torso, tugging me snugly to his body.

I ask, “Do you remember my eleventh birthday when all I wanted was a telescope?”

“And the subtle hints you left for your parents.” I can hear the smile in his voice.

I softly laugh, recalling the magazine telescope clippings I’d left all around the house. One on my dad’s pillows, one under a magnet on the fridge, one laying on his nightstand, one slipped under his laptop in his office so it peeked out just enough from beneath it.

“I remember you making me cut out every telescope we could find from any magazine you could get your hands on.”

“And I was so mad when, on my birthday, I woke up to a new surfboard and not a telescope.” I chuckle before I pause. “Do you know why I was so upset?”

“Because you really wanted a telescope?”

“Because the telescope was something you and I could do together, star gaze the right way. You didn’t know how to surf yet, and I was so mad at my parents for getting me something I couldn’t share with you.”

Brodee holds me tighter. “Why do you think the very next weekend I asked your dad to teach me how to surf?” he asks.

“It wasn’t because you wanted to learn how?”

“I wanted to learn how so I could do it with you.”

I twist my face to look at him. “Really?”

“Don’t you get it, Peyton? Every obstacle that we’ve faced, threatening to distance us, has lost. More than friends or not, we’ve never let anything stand in our way before,” he whispers.

Until now
, I think and turn away, hiding the tears in my eyes.

He buries his face in my hair and exhales. “I love you so much.”

A tear falls and wets my hair on the pillow. “I know,” I say, because saying it back will only make this more difficult when we wake. I tuck one arm under my head and tangle my other with his over my stomach, settling further into him to savor every last touch. I breathe out.
I love you, too.

THE SUN WAKES
me. It takes a second before I realize I’m in Brodee’s room, not my bedroom in Hatteras. Everything from yesterday crashes into me like an asteroid. I don’t feel Brodee around me, so I look to the left side of the bed. He’s gone. Stretching, I get up and let myself out of his room in search of him and some breakfast. I forgot to charge my phone, so I don’t even know what time it is. It could be lunchtime for all I know.

When I get to the end of the hallway I hear him and Tatum talking downstairs, so I pause. Not because I want to spy, but so I don’t interrupt their conversation. And maybe to listen for a little bit.

“I don’t know where he is, Brodee.”

“Does Carter know? He was standing outside of his bedroom door when we walked upstairs. He had to have heard something. You guys weren’t exactly quiet.”

“He knows we got into a big fight, and that’s all he has to know for now. I didn’t tell him more than that. Your father can do that.”

There’s a pause.

“Mom…” Brodee utters. It sounds like he has tears in his voice. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I did, broke the news like that.”

“Brodee, son, you have nothing to apologize for. If you hadn’t, I don’t know how much longer it would’ve gone on without me knowing.”

“But I feel so awful. I hate to see you hurting. I should’ve told you in private. Or talked to Dad and made him tell you himself. That’s what I should have done.”

“Oh, sweetie, this is not something I want you to beat yourself up over. Crap happens. It wouldn’t have mattered how I found out. You did
nothing
wrong. Okay? You hear me?”

“Yeah.” He’s unconvinced. It’s my fault he feels so guilty. I opened my big mouth in the heat of the moment when I wasn’t thinking straight. If I were in his shoes and I walked in on them, I would’ve snapped too. But I wouldn’t have been able to wait. I’d have yelled at them right then and there. Or maybe I would’ve done exactly as he’d done and kept it to myself, trying to process it.

“Okay?” she asks more adamantly, but I can hear that she’s tearful.

“Okay,” he concedes.

“This should never have involved you in the first place. I’m sorry that you had to find out first.”

“You don’t have anything to apologize for either, Mom. I’m a big boy. I can handle it.”

I decide this break in conversation is the best time to go downstairs before I get caught eavesdropping. As I walk, I can see them talking at the kitchen counter. Tatum is wrapped in a bathrobe, her hair damp and hanging over her shoulders. Brodee looks just as disheveled as he did last night, wearing the same rumpled T-shirt and jeans he slept in. Their heads turn to me when they hear me coming down the steps.

Tatum’s the first one to move. She glides across the hardwood floors to meet me at the bottom of the steps and pulls me into her arms. “Oh, Peyton.”

I’m so caught off guard it takes me a moment to reciprocate.
Why is she hugging me?
Shouldn’t I be consoling her?

She pulls back and kisses me on the cheek. “Did we wake you? You look so tired, honey. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Why is she asking
me
? “Are
you
okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” she assures. It’s a lie. We both know it.

I bite my lip. “Tate, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry she did this to you.”

“Why are you and Brodee apologizing for things you can’t control, for things you shouldn’t even be worrying about? This is not your fault.”

“Because she’s my mom, and she hurt you. You’re my family too, Tate.”

“Oh, baby.” She pulls me back in, hugging me closely. “Yes, we are. We’re going to get through this. We’re going to be just fine.”

I catch Brodee’s sad eyes over her shoulder. He shrugs and offers a small close-lipped smile. Apparently he doesn’t agree, but he’s going to smile because there’s nothing else he can do.