Then Summer Came (23 page)

She didn’t look like the shy, quiet, coy assistant I remembered.  She looked like a ravaged woman.  Her clothes were intact, but they had been pulled at, and her hair was a matted mess, as if she’d been in a bed. 

The way she looked at me was almost as if she despised me.  I’d never seen her actually even look at me, but she was staring hard at me before she left. 

I stood perfectly still and perfectly quiet. Derek walked around me to close the door.  He came back in front of me and took my face into his hands. 

“Lissa?” he breathed. 

I blinked up at him. 

“I’m so sorry.”  His breath shook.  “I-I’m sorry…”

My lips parted.  I tried to find the words, but nothing came out. 

“I-I don’t know what to say.  It was a mistake.  I’m
so
sorry, Lis.  Please forgive me.  Can-Can you forgive me?”

I nodded, not able to speak.  I was in complete shock, but who was I not to forgive him?

He crushed me into his chest.  “Jesus, I’m sorry, Lis.  I love you.”  His words were rattled.

I nodded again.  I felt like a zombie.  “I love you, too,” I said into his shoulder my voice monotone. 

He kissed the top of my head, again and again, apologizing. 

“Derek…”  My words were muffled into his lapel.  “I came here to tell you that I love you—”

“I know. I love you, too.”

“No, I came here to tell you I love you, but…I can’t do this…I can’t—”

“Lis, you said you forgive me.  I fucked up.  It was a mistake and—”

“No.” I pulled back to look up at him.  “No, I-I
do
forgive you.  How could I not?”

His face contorted as he stared down at me, still holding me tightly. 

“Of course I forgive you, Derek. I’ve been doing the same thing…”

“But I haven’t
been
doing
this, Lis.  I swear it’s the only time.  We were just talking.  It just happened.”

“No, shh, Derek.”  I pulled his face to mine, softly stroking his cheek.  The zombie feeling had gone and I was more clear-headed.  “Derek, it’s not about that.”

He opened his eyes into mine.  They were hurt, and it was like a knife to my heart. 

“Derek, I came to tell you that I didn’t choose us.  I-I…”  I searched for the words, but I was so horrible with saying how I felt sometimes.  “I think were too far gone.  We have been…for a while.”  I was happy with my choice of words.  It was exactly how I felt, but easy to say. 

His face softened and he nodded, his thumb stroking my bottom lip. 

“Is it…Beck?”

I shook my head.  “I don’t know…”  I didn’t know.  Beck always confused me.  I’d always had a difficult time with my thoughts when it came to him, and I wasn’t sure of anything at that moment. 

He didn’t say anything. 

“I’m so sorry,” I cried.  “I didn’t want it to be like this…”

“I know,” he said sadly, but he didn’t shed a tear.  I think he knew it as much as I knew it.  I think he knew it when he asked me to choose.  “I’m sorry, too.  This isn’t just
your
fault.”

I nodded, trying to fight back the sobs.  He pressed his lips to my cold forehead and held them there for what felt like forever.  When he pulled away, his lips touched mine briefly, and he pulled me into a hug that was heavy with goodbyes.  He held me for a long time and apologized, again, before I slipped away from him.  I stared into his blue, blue eyes one last time, slid the ring off my finger and into his palm, and told him goodbye. 

It was hard to leave, and I cried to whole way down, but we’d both known it was over. 

I called Emily once I was back in the car, and she told me to come to her dorm.  “Come now,” she’d said.  “Don’t go anywhere else.  Come talk to me and tell me what happened.”

I was bundled up on her sofa, every blanket she owned pulled around me, as she listened to my story.  I told her everything I could think of without holding back, until I just couldn’t anymore. 

              I told her about how Beck kept confusing me by acting like I was upsetting him, and about how I’d decided on the way to Derek’s office that we couldn’t be together anymore, that we were too jaded, and it was over. 

“He asked if it was because of Beck,” I told her. 

“And…what’d you say?”

“I said I didn’t’ know.”

She nodded, dazed.  “Do you still…not know?”

I shrugged.  I didn’t want to think about anything.  My mind was so muddled.  I just wanted to cry until it felt clear again. 

"Lis, maybe you should go talk to Beck?" 

"I can't.  I don't know what to say to him.  He got upset, and it confused me, and I yelled at him.  It felt like something was ending, and I felt sick.  I wanted to turn around and go back to him, but I didn't know what to say to him.  That's what I went to tell Derek when I caught him with Olivia." 

"Go talk to him,” she pressed. 

"I told you, I can't."  I stuffed my head under the heavy stack of blankets. 

"Well…this may be the only opportunity you have." 

I peeked out at her, confused.  "What do you mean?" 

"I talked to Mik earlier.  He said…Beck's leaving." 

"What?  When?" 

"He's packing now." 

I considered it for a second.  He was leaving…
of course he was leaving
.  I’d known he would leave since before he came. 

"Where’s he going?" 

"New York." 

"Well, we all knew he'd leave sometime.  He doesn't stay anywhere too long." 

"Mik says he stayed here longer than he's ever stayed anywhere…" she trailed off watching me intently for a reaction.  I hated when she did that.

"Well, his family is here," I told her, “of course he stayed.” 

"Lissa, I think we all know his family isn't the reason he stayed."  She sounded a little irritated now.  "Lis, I know you hate when I analyze you, but it's just one question this time. I just want to ask
one question
." 

“Okay…" I agreed, hesitantly. 

"Would you ever cheat on Beck?" 

"What?"  I was thrown off by her question.  That's not what I’d expected her to ask.  "That's ridiculous, we aren't even together." 

"I mean, if it were Beck that you were engaged to,
instead of Derek
, would you have…cheated on him?" 

"No!” I blurted.  The word just popped out.  “I wouldn't.  I-I couldn't…hurt him…"  I stared off at the floor.  I couldn’t even believe I’d just said that.  I didn’t mind hurting Derek.  What the hell was wrong with me?  "That sounds so bad, because I did it to Derek…but…I wouldn't want to hurt Beck." 

A ghost of a smile crossed her lips.  “You said you didn’t know what to say to him,” she spoke quietly, “maybe
that's
what you should tell him."  

My eyes shot around the room as I considered what she’d said.  She was right!  That’s what I’d tell him.  He always confused me, and it was hard to think when I was around him, so I would do all the thinking on the way.  I’d tell him that I would never hurt him, that I’d never have cheated on him…which would probably sound as crazy to him as it did to me. 

I flew to Wilshire.  Well, I drove…but I sped.  A few hours before, I’d been speeding to Derek to tell him that I chose him, but now I was speeding to Beck to tell him that I didn’t want him to go and that I’d realized on the way to Oxnard that I wanted
him
, not Derek.  Maybe I’d not actually known it until I talked to Emily, but I’d known that something was wrong, and I couldn’t be with Derek anymore. 

Chapter Twenty-Two

I peeked through the doorway of Beck's room.  The lights were off, and he was standing in the center of the room staring blankly out the window.  There was something about the way he looked:  calm, serene.  It was raw, like he was stripped down to just…
Beck
.  He looked more gorgeous than he ever had before.  The light coming through the window just lit up the front of his face.  His features were somber and sent an ache through me.  His short, brown hair was messy; I could tell he'd been nervously running his fingers through it.  He looked ready to go, his bags at his feet and one slung over his shoulder. 

I was so nervous to speak to him.  I was certain he hated me, but he needed to know that I'd never want to hurt him.  He needed to know how I felt.  

"Beck," I said, my voice surprisingly steady.  His eyes lit up when he turned his head toward me, and a subtle smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.  "You're leaving…" 

He nodded. 

"Beck…I'm sorry…" 

"Don't be," he said blinking away and reaching for his bags.  "You don't have to apologize, Lissa." 

“Beck, when I left here, I felt awful.  Like I’d lost something…it…I…”  I searched until I found the words.  Already, I could hardly talk to him.  "I only went to Derek because I felt guilty…what we did to him…I felt so guilty." I needed him to understand why I'd gone to Derek.  "If you'd have heard the things he said to me, Beck, if you'd have been there to see how we'd broken him, you would understand.  I never felt like he even cared about what we were doing.  He seemed to be jealous, but not hurt.  But this time was different.  This time, he looked so…
broken
." 

"I get it, Lissa.  You don't have to do this."  He grabbed his bags and made his way toward the door, where I stood. 

"Beck," I said, trying to get him to stay, just long enough to hear me out.  "I felt guilty for leading you on.  You look at me in ways Derek never has.  You know things about me that Derek had never taken the time to know.  You cared about me, when it felt like Derek never did.  I mostly felt guilty about that.  I felt guilty for letting you fill that role when I could never return any of it to you because I was engaged to your brother.  It wasn't fair to you…and…
that
is why chose Derek.  I chose him because I'd made a promise to him, and I couldn't keep you anymore.  You weren't mine to keep."

“Well, you don’t have to feel guilty anymore.”  His words were ice cold.

"I don’t!” I yelled, and he paused in the doorway.  “On my way to Derek, I kept feeling like something was wrong.  I just couldn’t go back to him, and I knew that.  We were done, and we both knew it.  And when I got there he was…he was with his assistant.  He…cheated on me…" 

I watched Beck's face fall, and he regarded me apologetically.  "I'm really sorry, Lissa, but can you really be angry?" 

“No, I wasn’t angry at all because I knew before it’d happened that I was going there to end our relationship.  I forgave him for what he did, but it didn’t matter.  We were too tainted, too jaded, too poisoned, too gone."  I stopped to catch my breath, and then I began to ramble, not knowing what to say or how to say it.  "And then I went to Emily and she asked me if I'd ever cheat on you, and I thought she was crazy because it was
impossible
for me to cheat on you, but she said if I were engaged to you, instead of Derek, would I cheat on you?  I said that I wouldn't.  I don’t know why, but I said that I wouldn’t.  I just couldn’t…I couldn’t ever hurt you, and I needed you to know that.  I…" 

We stood in silence, and I prayed for him to say something,
anything
, but he just stared at me vacantly. 

"Is that what you came to say?" he finally asked.  My heart dropped into my stomach, and I felt my chin shiver.  "Well, like you said:  that's impossible," was all he said. 

I brought a shaking hand to my mouth and chewed on my fingernails, trying to contain the sobs that were about to bust out of me. 

He looked away and sighed and then he looked back to me and asked, "Is there anything else you wanted to say?" 

I swallowed the lump in my throat.  I pressed my fingers into my lips until it hurt and shook my head.

  He smiled a sad sort of smile and moved passed me, through the doorway.  He stopped just as he passed me and sucked in a deep breath.  "Bye, Lissa," he said. 

I listened to him walk down the stairs, and I heard the front door close.  I busted into tears and fell to my knees.  I felt stupid for even going there.  Why would he care if I “wouldn't hurt him?”  I’d made my choice, and he had made his own plans around those choices.  I was a fool to think that telling him that I wouldn't want to hurt him would make any difference. 
What did that even mean
? 

The more I said the words in my head, the dumber they sounded.  I allowed myself to cry, but I told myself that I was crying because of how stupid I was, not because of Beck leaving.  He deserved to leave, if that's what he wanted, and I had no right to be upset by it.  I'd basically made the decision for him. 

I cried in the floor of Beck's empty room for the better half of an hour.  I wiped my face clean and told myself to suck it up and live with the choices I'd made. 

I got to my feet and moped down the stairs.  I looked back, once, at the place that I'd lived with my fiancé and the place I'd met Beck, but I didn't allow myself to remember any of the times I'd had with either of them.  It'd be pointless and torturing.  I pulled the front door closed and headed through the dark to my car, trying to get myself together enough that I could tell Em everything when I got back, without breaking into pieces.  I could do it.  And even if I couldn't, Em would understand. 

My fiancé had made me choose between him and the man I'd been cheating on him with, and I'd chose my fiancé, only to realize that he wasn’t what I wanted, and then I caught him cheating on me less than an hour later.  And to tack onto my pain, I had the I'm-sorry-your-life-is-upside-down-but-mine's-still-going-great look from Beck to add to it. 

"You're not going to tell me, are you?"  I looked over to where his voice had come from and saw a silhouetted Beck sitting on the edge of the brick wall that surrounded the bushes outside the apartments, his legs dangling off the side.  He was sitting, just staring at me, a few feet up from where I stood at my car, my hand resting on the handle. 

"What?" I asked through muffled sniffles, trying not to let on at how upset I truly was; if he could walk away so could I.