She stepped fully back from him, squaring her shoulders. “I can’t do this. Us. This is over. We’re over.”
“What? Why?” He took a step toward her, arm outstretched, and she evaded in a move so instinctive, it left him cold.
“I just can’t.”
“That’s not an answer, Corinne. You were fine forty-five minutes ago. We were on the same page. What the hell happened between then and now? Did Malika say something to you?” He couldn’t imagine what, but who else had she seen?
She shook her head. “No, it’s not—I... This has to be finished, Tucker. It just has to. I’m sorry.”
Without another word, she turned and fled.
“Corinne!” Tucker started after her.
“Don’t!” The panic in her voice stopped him. “Just don’t.”
So he let her go. As the door snicked shut behind her, he reached for the open bottle of champagne, tipping it up for a long pull and wondering exactly how things had gone so sideways on one of the best nights of his life.
~*~
Corinne managed to pull it together by the time she got home. She knew better than to show weakness. Her mother would pounce on it, and right now, Corinne couldn’t handle that. She couldn’t take anything else. But Marianne wasn’t up. With pitiful gratitude for the reprieve, Corinne made it up the steps and into the privacy of her room before the tears started in earnest.
She took care with the dress. After a trip to the cleaners, it would be going back to Babette at Brides and Belles. She considered having a shower and curling up in her robe, but that only reminded her of the gift she’d walked away from and made her cry harder. A text came in as she slipped straight into pajamas.
Tucker: At least let me know you made it home okay.
God. She’d just broken up with him and he was still That Guy.
Corinne thumbed back a one word reply: Home.
She fell to the bed, pressing her face into the pillow. Makeup would stain the pillowcase, but she didn’t care right now. Not when her heart was cracking right in two. But she deserved the pain—all of it and more—for having ever put Whitney in a position to fall into this kind of life. She’d broken her best friend. Destroyed Whitney’s self worth as her own self worth had been eroded over years. And for what? A false popularity in high school? The approval she’d never won from her parents?
Rolling over, she tugged open her nightstand drawer and pulled out the pencil box. Drawing herself up, she flipped open the metal lid and removed the stack of notes, neatly bound in thin blue ribbon. Six months’ worth of inspirational quotes and personalized messages scrawled out on 3x5 index cards small enough to fit through the vent in her locker. She’d read them so often over her senior year and afterward, she’d had them memorized at one point. After finding out Tucker had been the one to send them, she’d unearthed them again, rereading them with that knowledge to see if there’d been any clue.
She’d never have seen it in high school. She hadn’t known him then, hadn’t understood him. But God, he’d understood her. Rereading them now, Corinne’s heart bled a little more with every card. She wasn’t worth his good opinion. Not then. Not now. Breaking things off was the only logical choice. The only decent choice.
Tucker would want an explanation. He deserved one. But she simply couldn’t cope with seeing his view of her change, couldn’t handle him recognizing that the version of her he saw was a lie. That she really was the mean girl. He deserved someone nice. Someone as sweet and solid and wonderful as he was. Corinne wasn’t that girl. She was saving them both before they got in any deeper.
She’d considered staying. Of taking the gift he’d offered her. Giving them both a last goodbye. But she didn’t deserve to be pampered, didn’t deserve to relax. And if she’d made love with him again, she wasn’t sure she’d have been able to walk away. Even if she had, it would’ve hurt him more because he wouldn’t have known the night for the goodbye it would have been. No, it was better she left at the start.
Maybe someday she’d actually believe it.
“Well, you screwed things up with him, didn’t you?”
Corinne lifted her tear-streaked face to find her mother in the doorway. She hadn’t heard the door inch open over her tears.
Marianne evidently interpreted her silence as agreement. She stepped inside with a sigh. “You can’t get anything right, can you?” She shook her head in that oh-so-familiar way conveying pity and disappointment.
Raw and wounded, the tenuous tether on her temper snapped. “Nothing is ever good enough for you.”
“I just want what’s best for you.”
Corinne gave a bitter laugh. “Bullshit. Nothing is ever good enough. Not with me. Not with Dad. Your expectations drove him away. He’s happy now. Did you know that? Do you even know what that is? You’ve never, ever been satisfied with anything in your life.”
Her mother’s mouth thinned. “We’re not talking about me. You’re the one who let a prize like Tucker McGee get away.”
“Tucker isn’t a prize. He isn’t some kind of trophy. He’s a good person. A good man. And I let him go because I don’t deserve him, because he sure as hell deserves someone better than me.”
Marianne gaped at her. “Is that really what you think?”