Not Your Fault (16 page)

“I’m sorry,” Kris says, making eye contact with my mom and then glancing at the rest of the group.

“Don’t apologize—” I begin, but he squeezes my elbow in an oddly reassuring way and then slips off his roller skates and drops them on the front counter on his way out the door. The second the door closes behind him, my mother unleashes the wrath of hell on me.

“How long has this been going on?” as she stomps to the table and slams her purse down in front of Dad.

“How
dare
you do this to me and your father. And to your
brother
,” said with a vehemence that makes everyone’s skin crawl.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” This one pierces straight into my soul.

“What’s wrong with
you
, Mom?” I’m vaguely aware that we’re making a scene, but this is the sort of situation in life where you have one chance to stand up for what is right, for what is good, or you will never forgive yourself. I have enough regrets in life and I don’t need another one.

“Excuse me?” she interrupts. “Did you forget who he is and what he did to you?”

Instead of yelling back at her, I keep my voice calm. “How could I forget? Why would you even ask me that? Do you think so little of me that you can’t even fathom that if I make the choice to be with Kris then there must be something going on that you don’t know about? Do you think I’m an idiot?” I pull off my skates and let them fall to the floor. I grab my shoes and swing my purse over my shoulder. “You may think something is wrong with me, but something is wrong with you if think I would forgive him without a good reason. Thanks for asking me what it was before you jumped to conclusions.”

Cat tries to jump in here, but I ignore her, walking in socked feet straight across the room and out the front doors, without a glance back in their direction.

The driver’s seat of Kris’s truck is empty when I get there, and although it’s completely irrational, the thought that maybe he just disappeared into thin air begins to freak me out. But then I see the dropped tailgate and walk around to the back of the truck. Kris lies on his back in the bed of the truck, supporting his head with his hands as he stares at the sky.

“You didn’t leave,” I say as I drop my stuff on the tailgate and crawl up to sit next to him. “Thank you.”

His head rolls to the side and gives me a pained smile. “I’ll leave if you need me to.”

I shake my head. “Screw this place. Let’s go somewhere.”

Kris drives and I ride. We don’t talk much but that’s okay because I know we’re both waiting until we reach our destination. The silence is exactly what we need right now. He takes us down the back roads so far out from the city limits that I think we end up on the back roads that lead to the back roads. There are no streetlights this far out, so the only visibility comes from the truck’s headlights, the moon in the sky and the occasional firefly.

He pulls off a gravel road, steering the truck into a grassy pathway that leads to the sand. We’re on the beach across from the west side of Sterling Island. I only know this because the island shimmers across the water from us, the tiny lights of downtown glowing in the sky.

We park on the sand and he lowers the tailgate again. He pulls out two massive beach towels and spreads them out in the bed of the truck. He lies back, using a balled up hoodie as a pillow and I join him, lying on his chest. I try not to think about how the black and white towels have a hot pink damask print on them and that’s the sort of towel only a woman would buy. Is he lying under the stars with me on a pair of towels his ex-girlfriend picked out?

 “These are nice towels,” I say. I hate myself for bringing it up. He’s with me and I should just accept that and get over it. I’m the one who had a boyfriend not long ago—it’s not like I have any room to talk.

“My mom gave them to me. She had a coupon and got them on sale and bragged to me for like ten minutes about how much they originally cost and how cheap she got them.”

Ugh. I’m an idiot.

Also, this conversation is going nowhere.

“Kris, we have to talk about what just happened. I’m so sorry my mother said those things.”

He shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair. “No, you don’t need to apologize. I deserved what she said.”

“She’s just angry,” I say, pulling up on my elbows. He stares at the sky but I kiss his cheek and he turns toward me. “I’ll tell her about the letter and she’ll realize you didn’t mean to hurt me.”

“And what about Tyler? What will she realize about that?”

I swallow.

Kris sits up, sliding to the end of the tailgate and swinging his legs off the side. He runs his hands through his hair in frustration and then his shoulders slump as he stares at the ground. I crawl to the tailgate and sit next to him. I can’t think of a single fucking thing to say that would be appropriate so I stay quiet and lean my head against his shoulder.

Kris clears his throat. “She’ll never forgive me, Del. And you shouldn’t expect her to.”

“That’s—” I begin but he cuts me off.

“You wouldn’t have forgiven me either if we weren’t in love.”

I stiffen my jaw but I don’t respond. He continues, “If we weren’t dating back then and I was just some guy who accidently killed your brother, you would hate me. That’s how your mom feels and she should feel that way. It’s my fault. I hate myself every day for it, but that doesn’t make it any less my fault.”

“I don’t care, Kris. You’re right, I do love you. I loved you before Tyler and I love you after him. I don’t care how I would feel if things were different between us, because they aren’t.” I put my hand on his heart and he covers it with his own hand. “You’re my missing piece, and I don’t care what anyone else thinks.”

He lifts my hand to his lips and kisses it. “Tyler was my best friend. Hell, I loved him even more because he introduced me to you. I miss him just as much as everyone else does.”

I smile at the memories of Ty and Kris playing football in the backyard before I had been officially introduced to Kris. I’d sit on my bed watching him out the window as I developed the biggest crush ever. “I talked to Tyler the other day,” I say. A cool breeze sweeps across my face and I glance to the heavens, almost expecting to see my brother sitting on a cloud. “I don’t know why I look for him up here,” I say as I stare at the stars. “I know I won’t see him, but that’s okay because I can feel him.”

“You talk to him too?” Kris asks.

I shrug. “It was the other day after we had kissed and I felt so guilty about it I drove all the way to his grave and just sat there and poured my heart out.”

Kris studies me with a look of…appreciation? …adoration? I continue, “I asked him to give me a sign if it was okay for me to like you.”

Kris laughs and shakes his head as he looks at the sky, as if he can’t believe what I just said. “Hey!” I slap his arm. “Don’t make fun of me! I was having a crisis of conscious.”

“That’s not why I was laughing,” he says. He pinches the bridge of his nose with his finger and thumb, and then drags his hand across his face. “I was laughing because I did the same thing. I even brought him a sort of peace offering of Mountain Dew and beef jerky.”

“That was you?” I ask. My heart fills with warm fuzzies at the realization that Kris had been to the cemetery just hours before me.

He nods. “I didn’t ask him for a sign, but I did talk to him, just hoping I would know in my heart what I should do.”

“And did you?”

He kisses my forehead. “What do you think?”

Chapter 22

I park behind Cat’s car and step out onto the plush green lawn of Grace Memorial Park. I should have brought some beef jerky and Mountain Dew with me, maybe that would give me the strength to do what I’m about to do.

Step into the lion’s den.

My mother and sister sit quietly on the park bench in front of Tyler’s headstone, their backs to me as I approach them from the sidewalk. Talking with me was Mom’s idea, but meeting at the cemetery was all Cat. Always the one to step in and mediate, Cat claimed that ‘talking in front of Tyler’ would insure that both of us remained civil and, hopefully, that Mom would hold her anger in long enough for me to explain myself.

“Catherine informed me that you and Nathan broke up weeks ago,” Mom says the moment after I say hello. I nod in reply, my mouth suddenly too dry to form words. Cat stands up and motions for me to take her place on the bench.

As much as I do not want to sit down, I do. I glance at Tyler’s graduation photo for strength and his smiling face actually helps a little. I clear my throat. “Yes, Mom. We broke up.”

Mom sits straight, her arms clasped tightly in her lap. A thick layer of makeup covers the dark circles under her eyes, but just because I can’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t there. “Catherine also said you had something to tell me.”

I nod again. “After Tyler died, Nathan wrote a letter to Kris pretending to be me. He said that I didn’t want to see him ever again. Kris thought it was from me and he did what he was told.”

Mom lifts an eyebrow. “Why do you believe this story?”

“Because I saw the letter. He kept it and it was from my same Hello Kitty stationary.” I begin listing all the factual evidence I have to support my claim but then I stop, remembering that this is not a courtroom and I don’t owe any explanations. “Because I love Kris, Mom. And when he says he got that letter, I believe him.”

Mom inhales a deep breath and when she exhales, tears form in her eyes. She glances toward Tyler’s photo, maybe looking for the same strength that I needed from him. “Why would Nathan do that?”

I shrug. “He followed me around like a puppy all those years, remember? I guess he was just that desperate to date me.”

Mom’s lips form a thin line and I flinch on instinct, preparing for whatever outburst she’s about to unleash on me. “Well,” she says as the hint of a smile tugs at her lips. “You were quite the catch back then.”

I smile and shake my head, feeling blood rush into my cheeks.

She takes my hand. “Why did you keep all of these things from me?”

I glance back at Tyler’s photo to suck up some more courage before I reply. “Because you’re never around, Mom. You never call anymore and when I call you I get your voicemail. You need to believe me when I say that I didn’t mean to keep all of this from you. I would never mean to hurt you.”

She pulls me into a hug and apologizes as her tears run down my shoulder. “I know you love him, honey. You always have.”

I pull back and glance at Cat. She gives me wide eyes and a gesture to keep talking. “Do you think you will ever stop hating him?” I ask my mother.

She thinks about it for a moment. “I don’t…
hate
…him. The past is the past. I want you to be happy. I want the same for Catherine and for your father and me.”

I bite my lip. “That’s kind of cryptic.”

She gives me a sad smile. “I just need some time.”

Cat gives me a thumbs up behind Mom’s back. “So,” Mom says. “Do you have any plans for your birthday tonight?”

“Kris is taking me to dinner.” I feel guilty saying it, but it’s the truth.

Mom looks at my sister. “Do you mind if we come too?”

“Of course,” I tell her. I can only imagine what Kris will say when I call him later with this news, but it’s a start to putting this family back together. It only seems fitting to have this reunion on my birthday.

Later, Kris stands in front of the full-length mirror built into his closet door. He fidgets with his tie, yanking it to the left and then to the right, and then making it a little looser. He runs a hand through his hair and then stares at himself, an unimpressed look on his face.

I finish my hairstyle with one final bobby pin and then walk up behind him, sliding my arms around his waist and nuzzling against his back. “I know you’re worried,” I begin, hoping that I’ll think of something comforting to say before I finish my sentence, “But everything wi—”

“Will be just fine,” Kris finishes for me, turning around and wrapping his arms around me. I hook my hands behind his neck. My eyes close when he kisses me and I inhale the amazing scent of his cologne. We’ve slept in the same bed together for four days, yet I never get tired of his smell.

When our lips part, he kisses my cheek and then my forehead and my eyebrow and nose in quick succession. “I love you, Delaney.”

I smile up at him, getting lost his eyes. “I love you, Kris.”

I don’t know what the future holds for Kris and me. I don’t know if my mother will be able to put this behind her and move on. But I do know one thing—in the same way that Tyler’s death was unexpected, life is unexpected. While we’re alive we need to make the most of every moment. That’s something I’ve heard a million times, but only now do I truly understand the weight of those words.

This is my life. I didn’t need a lobotomy toggle switch to get me through it—I needed love. Love comes and it goes but when it comes for real, you know it. I stare at the beautiful man standing in front of me and my heart swells with so much love, love that you can’t possibly feel without having experienced pain. He takes my hand and we head into the next journey of our lives, together.

And I know that everything will be okay.

Acknowledgements

First of all, I would like to thank Spell Check for having my back when I type the word Acknowledgements because I will never type that word correctly on the first try. Since I hope to publish many more books in the future, I know you and I will become the best of friends.

To indie authors and bloggers and readers – thank you. An author can never imagine the overwhelming support of these people until you receive it firsthand. Thanks for making my dream come true and for sticking with me as I find my place in the world of indie publishing.

Thank you Melissa Anderson for reading each chapter as I wrote it and for giving me unwavering support and encouragement in a way only a true fan of reading can do. You are awesome and I hope I made you proud.