The Fable of Us (32 page)

Boone’s brows pulled together. “What do you mean, you and Ford never slept together?”

“Exactly what it sounds like. I’ve never fucked Ford. He’s never fucked me.” I made myself hold his stare for one more moment, despite the cold sweat I could feel about to break out from the effort. “Any more questions?”

From the way he looked, it seemed as if someone had just told Boone that everything he’d known about life was untrue. That the members of his family were really strangers and that his life had all been a lie. The expression that molded his face made it seem like he was lost in the middle of the Sahara with no compass or map to guide him.

“But you two dated for a couple of years after we broke up . . .”

I couldn’t tell if he was talking to himself or to me.

“And people can date without fucking. You know, in case you weren’t aware of this.”

“But—”

“But what? Just because I was screwing you at sixteen automatically meant I was going to screw any future guy I dated? What kind of a girl did you think I was?” I shook my head and took that first step toward the door. From Boone’s expression, he was still reeling, still trying to catch up to a train barreling down an open set of tracks while he had bricks tied to his feet. “Oh yeah, that’s right. You thought I was the kind of girl who’d screw some other guy behind the back of the guy I loved. I guess it’s not that big of a stretch to leap to the conclusion I’d fuck just about anyone else who came along, right?”

Boone lifted his hands. “Clara—”

“Please don’t try to Clara me in that tone. Please just don’t.” I bit the inside of my cheek and took another step toward the door. “Not after accusing me of what you did. Not after what happened between us earlier. Not after everything we’ve been through. Please just don’t ever say my name again, okay?”

He scrubbed his face with both hands, either not knowing what to say or searching for the right words. “Are you saying the baby was mine?”

My eyes shut. The baby. That was a topic just as, if not more, painful than the one of Boone leaving me. “If it wasn’t yours, then it was immaculate conception. How’s that for an honest answer?”

His hands fell from his face, his gaze lowered to the ground. “It was mine,” he whispered.

“It was yours,” I whispered back.

He spun away from me, clamping his hands behind his neck. “Goddammit.”

A tear fell from the corner of my eye. I’d cried another one. When I closed my eyes, a few more wound their way down my cheeks. I hadn’t cried over this in years. I’d cried so many tears over this during those first few years I could have raised the Gulf another foot. I wasn’t sure what I was angrier over: that I was crying or that it was because he’d brought it all up again. A person couldn’t just bury something, then choose to excavate it any old time they chose to. Buried things should stay that way.

Keeping his back to me again, he paced the room as he shook his head, and I hit my limit.

“I’m kind of relieved, you know? In a weird way.” I barely gave my angels a second look as I passed the dresser. “All this time I thought you left because I was pregnant. I thought the baby and the responsibility and too much too fast drove you away.”

Boone stopped pacing, but his arms stayed curled around his head.

“When really, all along, it had to do with some giant miscommunication. You taking the word of, as you put it, the guy you hated most in the whole entire world, no questions asked, without running his story past me. You believed him. You had so little faith in me that you were willing to accept that I could look you in the face and tell you I loved you in the morning, then slip into his bed that night.” I paused on my journey to the door. Even now, looking at him and having so many of the missing pieces filled in, I still couldn’t hate him. I wanted to, but I couldn’t. My heart wouldn’t let me. “It’s a relief knowing what really happened and why you really left.”

Boone’s head tipped back some. “How is that a relief?”

I waited a moment before answering. “Because now I can let go of the what ifs and the occasional moments I miss you. You didn’t run away because you were a typical eighteen-year-old boy, scared shitless of becoming a dad. You ran away because you took the word of an asshole and never had the consideration or the respect or the foresight to ask your girlfriend about it. I didn’t lose a scared boy that day, because you know what?” I swiped at my lower lashes before the next tear fell. “You can’t lose something you never had in the first place.”

When I reached the door, I only hesitated for a moment before opening the door and escaping. Tonight, I was the one walking away.

And I learned being the one who left was just as hard as being the one left behind.

I
’d moved on from being unable to exhale to completely suffocating. The thick night air felt as though it were pressing down on me, ready to grind me into the ground. That future didn’t seem all that bleak in comparison to the possibilities.

When I’d finally come back after my night walk that wouldn’t end, it was morning and my room was empty. I might have been the one who left, but he was the one who was gone.

There hadn’t been a sign he’d ever been there either. No curled up socks abandoned in a corner, no blankets and pillows left on the floor, no second toothbrush balanced on the ledge of the sink. Boone had left my life as seemingly suddenly as he’d come back into it.

I should have been relieved. I should have been thrilled I wouldn’t have to deliver some awkward good-bye at the end of this whole plus-one charade after what the two of us had learned last night. He’d left me because of a lie, while I’d spent the past seven years believing he’d left me because he couldn’t handle being a teen dad.

Knowing the truth should have made things easier, but instead it made them harder. We hadn’t come between ourselves—someone else had come between us. We’d
let
someone else come between us. Who knew what would have happened if Ford had never told Boone what he had. Our breakup could have been inevitable, it could have been worse, but either way, it was tragic.

I’d dated Ford after Boone. For a couple of years even. How could he look me in the eyes when he’d done what he had? How had he been able to just forget the past, the lies he’d told, and try to make a future with me when he knew the scars Boone had left me with?

I hadn’t been able to look at Ford once all day. In fact, I knew better than to put myself in the same general area as him—unless I was looking to get myself arrested for aggravated assault.

That was why I was camped out on the back porch stoop, where the hired help passed through, instead of mingling with the rest of Charleston’s finest at the Abbotts’ version of a rehearsal dinner.

The Abbott version didn’t include renting out a room at the local buffet or barbecuing some ribs down at the public park or being served pot roast in the basement of a church, like the handful of other rehearsal dinners I’d attended. No, the Abbott interpretation of the rehearsal dinner included fine champagne ordered by the case, a surf and turf dinner where only the best cuts of beef and largest lobster tails would be offered, and about one server to every two guests.

Not to be forgotten, the Abbott family rehearsal dinner had a theme, and it wasn’t a half-assed one either. Tonight’s theme was the Roaring Twenties, but instead of feeling like actual history books had been consulted for inspiration, I felt more like I’d stepped into one of the more opulent scenes from the latest Gatsby movie.

Everything was excessive or over-the-top or some mix of the two. Everything was golden or sparkling in some jewel-toned color. A band played ‘20s music, and most of the guests were wearing some style of fashion that harkened back to that time period. A few of the guests had even rolled up in old cars from the ‘20s. It was a ridiculous show of money and abundance. Everyone loved it.

Except me.

That was why I’d holed up on the dark stoop—to avoid the party, the party-goers, and most importantly, the party-throwers. I hadn’t told my family about Boone leaving, not that they wouldn’t have thrown the celebration if I had, but because I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction. I didn’t want them to know I’d made the same mistake twice with the same man they’d warned me against twice.

I didn’t want them to know I’d lost him all over again. I’d done a decent job of dodging them all day, and my plan was to keep up the trend tonight. Actually, keeping up the ruse until I was lifting off and flying in the opposite direction of this place would have been nice. I knew better than to hope for that though. I’d learned the hard way what happened to a person when they put their faith in hope.

I was busy picking at my version of a ‘20s dress—a simple cotton sundress that Charlotte had informed me was not anything close to resembling the era before thrusting a different gown, heavy with beads and contempt, at me . . . which was why I was wearing the cotton dress.

I noticed the shadow moving in my direction, but I assumed it was one of the catering company’s staff needing to step into the kitchen for a fresh tray of caviar and crackers. That was when I noticed the orange glow of a cigar. For some reason, that pulsing orange glow was one of the few good memories I had of home and my family.

“What are you doing camped out back here, Clara Belle? Everyone’s looking for you.” My dad’s voice filled the night around me.

“Hiding,” I answered, because if I’d ever been able to admit the truth to anyone in my family, it had been my dad. More because he could see through a lie before it had been aired than because of his aptitude in understanding and compassion.

“Hiding from what?” When he moved closer, enough of the light streaming outside from the kitchen cast onto him. In true Abbott style, he was dressed to impress with his pinstriped, double-breasted suit and cap shoes.

“Hiding from everyone,” I said, twisting the toe of my shoe into the ground. “And everything.”

“Hiding only delays the inevitable. It sure doesn’t make it go away. Better to just confront whatever it is you’re hiding from and get it over with.”

“Does that wisdom apply to me wanting to stab a cocktail fork into the groom-to-be’s right eye, then his left, before burying it in his throat?” I hadn’t really intended to verbalize my dark fantasies, but I was tired of the whole lip-service thing.

Instead of shaking his head like I was being emotional and immature, or grunting in tired disapproval, my dad moved closer and took a seat beside me on the second-to-bottom step. I scooted over to give him space, and I pretended I wasn’t surprised my dad was sitting beside me—willingly—on the back steps of the staff entrance.

“Where’s Boone?” he asked, shifting around on the step like he couldn’t get comfortable.

I shouldn’t tell him the truth. I should keep up with the lie. I was tired of both.

“Gone. I think we’re over. Again.”

Dad was quiet for a moment, silently working on his cigar. “When something doesn’t work out the first time, there’s not much hope it’s going to work out a second time.” He stared out in the night in front of us like he could see things I couldn’t. “You’re still you, and he’s still him. People don’t change, Clara Belle. Not because they don’t want to, but because they can’t. Boone is who he is, and you are who you are. I would have warned you not to make the same mistake twice if I’d known you were even considering letting Boone Cavanaugh into your life again. Or if I thought you might actually listen to me . . .”

I ignored his last comment, knowing he was right. I did have a bad disposition when it came to listening to anything my parents tried telling me. “Yeah, but I think the whole reason we didn’t work out the first time was because of a lie. The same lie that’s coming between us now.”

Dad shifted on the stair. “What lie?”

I was about to shake my head and wave in a forget-it kind of way before encouraging him to go enjoy the party, but I felt the truth rise up in my throat. It was done being bottled up. “Ford told Boone we were sleeping together and implied in not so many words that the baby could have been either of theirs.”

Dad’s face pulled up into a wince, probably because we didn’t talk about the baby. I was as guilty of keeping that topic under lock and key as they were. I hadn’t said anything about it since that summer I’d left, and it was clear from the look on his face that he thought he’d never hear about it again.

“I’m sure Ford had the best intentions when he told Boone that.” His voice was too controlled, too even. “Ford’s always cared about you, Clara Belle, and while what he did might have been the wrong way to go about it, you can’t fault him for trying to do what was in your best interest.”

I felt anger boil in my veins. I shouldn’t have expected my dad to side with me, but I sure hadn’t been prepared for him defending Ford. “He told Boone that I was sleeping with him.” I twisted on the stair, facing him. Dad didn’t move; he just kept staring out into the night like a movie reel was flashing before his eyes. “How can you say that Ford telling my boyfriend something like that when I’d just found out I was pregnant was in my best interests?”