“What do you mean, go?” Lukas asked.
My heart was breaking into pieces. “I think it’s best if we don’t see each other for a little while.”
“What?” Lukas shook his head. “No, come on, Kayla. Lisa is overreacting. She doesn’t get a say in who we choose to be with. Stay.”
“I can’t,” I managed to say through tears that wouldn’t stop falling. I turned to him and searched his eyes. Was I really about to walk out on him after everything? “We have to make things right.”
He reached for me. “They’re right when we’re together.”
I stepped back. He let his hand fall to his side.
“I’m sorry,” I breathed.
Chapter 35
Lukas
The black screen with lines of code and commands taunted me. I hadn’t been able to get a single thing done over the past few days. Usually, the office was the place for me to find solace when things in my life were piling up and becoming too much.
But this week?
There was no comfort in those lines and chains.
I sighed and leaned back in my chair. I was too distracted to be productive. My thoughts were consumed with concerns and worries about my mother and her condition. Since Halloween, I’d gone back every day for four consecutive days to check in on her, and none of those days had been as bad as the night Kayla and I went to visit her.
My mother had been in high spirits for the last couple of days. What was more, she knew my face when she saw me, and she knew I was her son, not her good-for-nothing husband. I’d forgiven her, of course. It wasn’t her fault that she remembered me as someone I hated. And it wasn’t her fault that she was hurting me.
Even though Kayla hadn’t said those words, she’d shown me that my mother still loved me simply by how she’d got her talking about me. There was nothing in the world I could ever do to thank her enough for that.
Even if I could, it was hard to thank a person who went dark on you.
I hadn’t spoken to Kayla since she rushed out of my home the other morning after the confrontation with Lisa. My sister had sent her running for the hills and it was clear to me where Kayla’s loyalties really rested.
With Lisa.
It hurt. It hurt a lot. But I also couldn’t hate her for it. Lisa and Kayla had been best friends since they were old enough to play hopscotch. Sure, I wished Lisa had the emotional maturity to be happy for me and Kayla rather than shame us for falling for each other, but apparently, that wasn’t in the cards.
Kayla and I had been doomed from the start.
I should have known better. I should have stopped things before they went too far. I should have listened when Kayla expressed concerns about Lisa. At least the pain wouldn’t be so bad if we’d put a pin in things early on. I might wonder what might have been, but part of me wondered if that was better than knowing what I knew now.
I was in love with Kayla Goodfellow. Madly, wholeheartedly, desperately in love with her.
Part of me wished it hadn’t been so easy for her to walk out on me that Sunday morning. Part of me wished she’d said screw it all and thrown herself at me, deciding she loved me more than she needed Lisa.
But then she wouldn’t be the woman I loved.
I loved Kayla because of how good she was and how she cared for everyone. I loved her because she was kind and generous and she would never hurt someone. I loved her because she knew how to repair things, how to pour love into things, and how to save people from nightmares of their own making.
And she did it all with grace and no judgment.
No, if Kayla had been able to turn her back on Lisa, she wouldn’t be the woman I thought she was.
Even though I knew all these things, it didn’t make it hurt any less.
I was relieved for a distraction when my assistant knocked on my office door and popped her head in. “Mr. Holt? Rebecca Mills just published her article about you. Would you like to read it?”
“Sure, why not?”
My assistant came in and put a newspaper flat on my desk in front of me. My face was on the front page. It wasn’t the usual sort of picture I was used to seeing of myself on the front page of anything editorial. Normally, the image was posed. Normally, I was in a suit and tie. Normally, there was professional lighting to capture my best angles.
But this picture wasn’t that.
It was candid.
I was laughing, half turned away from the camera, facing Kayla, whose head was thrown back in laughter as well. She had a hand on my arm and an apple in her other hand. The backdrop was the orchard farm, the place where I’d first started to have genuine feelings for my sister’s best friend.
“It’s a very good picture of you, sir,” my assistant said.
“Thank you.”
“And she’s very pretty.”
I smiled as I gazed down at the black and white image of Kayla. “Yes, she is.”
My assistant left me alone to read the article. I flipped a couple of pages in after reading the first page to finish the rest of the piece, where Rebecca had compiled all our interviews into one story where she concluded that the subject of her stories had changed a great deal in the time of our working together.
In the article, she described me as someone introspective, sympathetic, and changed for the better.
For the first time in a long time, I felt a sense of pride.
But what really stood out to me in the article were all the snapshots of Kayla and me. I wondered if readers would notice that she was in almost every
