He was the first person to see me as more than some immature girl who wanted to be popular.
I was selfish and stupid back then, but with Derek…I could be anything.
He believed in me, thought I was worth more, and gave me the courage to be better.
“I promise you, Teagan, it was not lame.”
“It doesn’t matter, does it? In the grand scheme of it all, you did what you did and I had to learn to live without you. I struggled, was depressed beyond words, almost lost Chastity in childbirth, and you weren’t there. I did it all alone.”
“I knew you could.”
“Please,” I huff. “I don’t need your praise. I needed your friendship. I needed you to be the one man, other than my father, to actually be there and not turn your back on me when things got rough. Do you have any idea what I went through with Keith?”
He shakes his head.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. All these years I’ve waited for this moment to call him out and I can’t even do it. I can’t tell him that it wasn’t about me doing it on my own, it was about doing it without him. I still can’t say the words: I was in love with you.
The fact is, it doesn’t change anything.
“I went through complete fucking hell. I watched someone I thought I knew become someone I couldn’t even recognize. All because of his new life. But what about my life, Derek? What about my needs? What about Chastity? None of that mattered because I was irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.”
The things I did in my youth were…stupid. If I could go back and talk to my nineteen-year-old self, I would bitchslap her. I would tie her hands to her books and force her eyes forward.
As an adult, I have the beautifully cruel gift of hindsight. I see the errors, and the way I made excuses for my poor choices. I gave Keith every possible opportunity to hurt me and then wasn’t even surprised when he took them.
I let my desire to be popular keep me from seeing that I was loved by the few people who mattered. Keith told me he loved me, that I would be on his arm like a queen in high school, but only if…
If I did this.
If I gave him that.
If I allowed him what he wanted.
Everything came with an…if.
“I’m sorry. I know it’s not enough for you and I know I let you down, but know that I didn’t want to do it.”
“I’m not even angry anymore,” I tell him as I start to walk because standing here, looking at him as regret fills his eyes, is too much for me.
There’s this part of me that has spent so much time loving Derek, longing for him, that I want to pull him into my arms and forgive it all. Then there’s the other side that’s hurt and disappointed. If he loved me, he would’ve fought for me. Regardless of her reading silly things written a million years ago in a journal.
“Then what are you?”
I turn my head toward him. “Used to it.”
Derek’s eyes close and the breath expels from his nose. “I thought about you, Tea. I wrestled with calling you every single day.”
“But, what? You couldn’t? You really thought Meghan was going to leave you?”
He takes a few steps closer, eliminating the distance between us. “Yes.”
“I’m trying to understand here. I’m doing my best to get what the hell could make it that easy for you. You didn’t even try after that. I was…am…angry and I hate this.”
“I hated it! I hated it and then I hated you for making me hate it.”
“Me?” I gasp. “What did I do to deserve your anger? I woke up one day and realized that you didn’t want to ever hear my voice again. You never wanted to see me, know anything about me, and I was to act as though you were dead! Dead, Derek! You told me to go on with my life as though you had died because that was what I was to you—dead! And I didn’t do anything wrong!”
“I know that!”
“Then please, tell me, what was my crime?”
Derek’s breathing is labored and he throws his hands in the air. “You made me fall in love with you!”
Time seems to cease around me. I feel the air stop moving, and I can’t hear anything other than the words he just said replaying in my head.
He loved me?
He loved me the way I loved him and his way of dealing with it was to completely cut me out.
I romanticized for years over hearing those words from his lips. I dreamed of how he would take me in his arms, kiss me, tell me he was a fool and loved me. It was supposed to be this magical declaration.
Not out of anger. Not telling me that he hated me for making him love me.
I’m tired of being the bad guy.
I loved him too. I loved him so much that I was willing to suffer through his fucking wedding, stand by his side, and give him the little bit of peace I could. I didn’t use my love to hurt him. It stayed bottled up where I allowed it to eat me alive, and protect the relationship we were allowed to have.
I look up in his blue eyes, and a tear falls. “That’s the cruelest thing you could’ve ever said to me.”
And then, I walk away, leaving him like he left me.
Chapter Thirteen
Teagan
Twenty-one years old
“What are you saying?” I ask as tears start to stream down my face.
“I’m saying I don’t think we should talk anymore.”
My heart hurts. I’m confused and I don’t understand why Derek is saying these things. I haven’t done anything. We talked yesterday and
