“Amy, I’m telling you the truth.” John didn’t move. He couldn’t. There was no way that he was leaving her room, not when things felt as bad as they did.
“No.” She shook her head. “When you’re in love, you do everything you can to make sure the other person knows that they’re loved. That’s, like, the first rule. It’s, like, the only rule.” Her head didn’t stop shaking softly. “You let eight years slip by without ever getting in touch. I don’t know what it was that you felt for me then, but it wasn’t love.”
“You think I didn’t try to get in touch?” John asked her. He couldn’t stand to see the sadness creeping into her eyes. He couldn’t stand the way that she was referring to his affections as though they were in the past. He knew that how he’d felt about her then was love because he still felt that way now. That had been obvious from the moment he’d seen her again.
“No, you didn’t,” Amy told him firmly.
“Amy, I tried to call you. I tried calling you for a month, but you never answered. After that, I thought maybe you were mad at me. You know, for being sent away? So, I wrote to you. I figured even if you wouldn’t take my calls, you might read the letters. I’m sorry if you never got them, but I promise you, Amy, I sent them.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Why was she being so stubborn? “Amy, I sent you those letters.”
“If that was true, then where are they? Why did I never see them?”
“I don’t know,” John admitted. “Maybe my dad got to them before you could.”
Amy laughed. “Is this what you’re going to do?” she asked.
“Is what, what I’m going to do?” John asked, confused.
“Are you just going to blame your dad for everything? Can’t you take any responsibility for yourself?”
“Amy, I sent you those letters.”
“Well, that doesn’t change anything,” she told him finally. “I mean, those eight years still happened. I never got any letters. I don’t even know you anymore. You’re not even close to the guy that I used to play ball with out back, so I don’t know what you want from me. I don’t know why you’re here.”
“I don’t want anything from you,” John said, walking over to her. He was lying. There were things he wanted from her. He wanted her forgiveness. He wanted her to look at him like she used to. “I just wanted you to know the truth.”
“Well, I guess I know that now.”
John stopped at the door, which she was still holding open. “You know, I think you should take the job. The way you smiled when you heard that you’d got it…There’s no way you can consider working for my dad.”
Amy’s tough expression softened. “I’m not sure your dad is going to see it that way.”
“No, I doubt that he will,” John agreed with her. “But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do it. You must have always known that this would be hard.”
“I guess.” She nodded.
“So, you can’t back down now. You’ve been preparing your whole life for this battle. It’s time to actually fight it.”
“Why do you even care?” Amy cut through his pep talk.
It hurt him. It hurt him to think that she didn’t know that he still cared. He knew, though, that simply telling her that wouldn’t make a difference. He’d been a total jerk to her since he’d back. His actions were speaking louder than his words ever could. “I just want to see you happy,” he settled on as he walked out of her room. “I don’t want you to look back in ten years and regret the choice you made. You need to do what’s right for you. You need to make sure that you’re living the life that you wanted.”
He didn’t wait for her to say anything else. He knew that she probably doubted everything that he’d already said. He walked away from her room feeling worse than when he’d gone into it. He’d meant to help. That’s why he’d followed her. He’d wanted to help her feel better, but he couldn’t help but feel as though he’d done the opposite of that.
He got back to his room, which had been untouched in the eight years that he’d spent away from it. Familiar posters were still pinned to the walls displaying bands and baseball teams that he no longer had any interest in. He had no desire to pull them down, though. They were the only proof that he’d ever had something resembling a normal childhood.
********
Chapter 11
Amy
If John’s mission had been to make everything ten times worse, then he’d accomplished it. Amy could feel herself drowning under the information he’d just given her. It was too much. How was she supposed to deal with an explosive family secret when she was standing on the edge of being kicked out of that family? Why had John told her? What had he hoped would happen from the truth coming out?
She sat down on her bed and thought about it all. His father had sent him away because of her. He’d sent his own son away so that he could ensure that his lawyer came out top of her classes. She’d never really thought about it before, but he’d always been strict about friends coming to the house. She’d sometimes managed to get permission for some of her female friends, but never the guys. Had John’s father stopped her from dating? Had he really taken away the only boy that she’d ever really loved, because he’d loved her back?
She groaned into the silence around her. If what John had told her was true—if he really had been sent away because of her—then she would never be able to take the job she wanted. There was no way that John’s father would send away his own son without having backup plans further down the line too. What was she going to do?
Through the oppressive lining of thoughts, she could feel a gentle nudging. There was more to the conversation than just her future career. There was more to the conversation than what John’s father had done. There was one small trace of good that had come from John coming to her room. There was one question he’d answered that had plagued her ever since he’d left. He had tried to get in touch. He hadn’t just cut contact and left her for those eight years.
Amy found herself on her feet, before she even knew what her plan was. She walked through the house quickly. She didn’t want to give herself time to chicken out or back down from what she was about to do. She found her stepfather where she had been expecting to find him. She walked into the study without knocking and enjoyed the look of outrage on his face.
“What are you doing, bursting into the room like that?” he demanded.
“I need to talk to you,” Amy said without slowing her stride. She came to a stop when she’d reached his desk and pulled out a chair that had been pushed under it. She sat down and took her time getting comfortable. She didn’t care that he was glaring at her. In fact, it made the whole thing feel better than she’d thought it would feel.
“Well, that much is clear.”
“You see, I’ve just been talking to John.” She watched to see whether his expression would give away any of his guilt. It didn’t. He held a steady look of outrage and contempt, but showed no trace of what he’d done to either of them. “He told me that he’s been sending letters from boarding school, which is weird, because I never got any of them.” She broke off and shifted in her seat. “So, at first, I’m thinking that he’s lying. Or, you know, maybe there’s been some huge mix up with the mail, but then, he tells me something else. He tells me that you sent him away so that he wouldn’t distract me from school. So, with that information, what am I meant to think? I mean, you gave me one of the sharpest minds in the country. So, you know, it’s not been hard to connect those dots.”
“Are you accusing me of something?”
Amy nodded. “I think we both know that’s the case.”
“I think you should be careful what you say next,” her stepfather warned her. “You might think you have an upper hand here, but believe me, you don’t.”
“I’d like my letters,” Amy ignored his threat. “I’d like to read the letters that your son wrote to me. I want to know what he’s been trying to tell me these past eight
years.”
“You think I kept them?”
Amy smiled. She could tell from the way that his hands had started to fidget on the desk that he was lying. “Yes, I think you kept them. I think they’re somewhere in this office. Probably in your safe, so there wasn’t a chance of me finding them.”
“Oh, fine,” he sighed. “I don’t see what use they’re going to be for you now. It’s not like you can relive the last eight years.” He stood up and walked over to the safe, where Amy had predicted they would be. It took him a minute to unlock the thing. He returned to the desk with a large stack of letters that were all still sealed in their envelopes. “Here.” He pushed them over to her.
She took the letters and stood up to leave. She stopped walking when she’d reached his office door and turned back to him. “I want you to know, I’m taking the job that I want. I know you sacrificed watching your son grow up for me, but I never asked you to do that and I owe you nothing for it. I’m sorry things haven’t worked out the way you planned, but I suggest that you walk away from any further plans that you might have.” She walked out of the room before he could say anything. Something smashed against the door the second it closed behind her.
She knew that she was playing a dangerous game. She knew that her stepfather wasn’t a man she wanted to be on the wrong side of, but what could she do?
********
Chapter 12
John
He was nervous. He felt like he was walking to his death. His brain was screaming at him to stop. It couldn’t understand why he was doing it through his own choice. Who walked willingly to their deaths? He stopped when he reached the study door and knocked loudly. The door opened after a few quiet seconds had passed.
“What are you doing here?” His father gave him a look of disgust. “Don’t you think you’ve done enough for one night?”
“What?”
“Amy has just been down here,” his father said sharply. “Don’t you pretend that you didn’t know the trouble you were going to cause.”
“What trouble?” John asked, utterly confused.
“Amy came to see me about those damn letters you kept sending her.”