Things We Never Said (Hart's Boardwalk 3)

A ball of grief filled my throat as I realized I would have to say goodbye to Michael Sullivan for good. Pushing myself to my feet, my fingers clenched around the hem of my sweater as I attempted to keep myself together. Needing to be courageous because I hadn’t been in the past, I bravely met his gaze and whatever he saw in mine caused him to snap to his feet and reach for me.

I retreated from his touch.

His vexation was obvious. “Don’t do this to me again, Dahlia.”

“I’m … There’s too much pain here, Michael.” I gestured between us. “Aren’t you tired of it? Of all the drama and pain?”

“It doesn’t have to be that way. We can work through it.”

“Can we?” I retorted, disbelieving. “I don’t think you can work through that kind of bitterness and blame. I left. I’m sorrier than I can ever say for that. But the truth is”—I grabbed my purse and let out a shaky exhale—“as irrational as it may sound, I blame you too. I blame you for letting me go.”

Michael was stunned. He looked like I’d slapped him. Hard. Or punched him in the gut. Either way, I caught him so off guard, he let me go again.

“Goodbye, Michael.” I almost choked on the words.

He didn’t respond.

He didn’t come after me as I crossed the room to the front door.

Even as I stood out in the dark of the early morning, I didn’t hear the door opening behind me.

A sob crawled up inside me, but I forced it down. My God, it hurt. I walked, huddled into myself, wondering how my life could be filled with so many regrets when I’d promised myself as a kid that I’d never have any.

I’d lied to Michael. To protect him. To protect me. Yes, there was an irrational part of me that blamed him for letting me go, but I’d lied when I’d used it as the main reason to leave him again. That reason was buried deep, a splinter that had never worked its way out.

Sometime later, I don’t know how long afterward, I heard footsteps behind me and then a strong hand pulled me around and out of myself. I blinked stupidly up into my dad’s face, confused and discombobulated.

“Dad?”

He put his arm around me and led me to his car that idled at the side of the road. I glanced around, wondering where I was.

“Michael called and told me to come get you.”

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled as he helped me into the car.

My teeth chattered.

I was freezing.

“It’s okay.” Dad shut the door and rounded the car. When he got in, he turned to me. “You’ll be okay.”

I nodded numbly. “Yeah.”

I had to be.

Michael let himself back into his apartment and wearily moved into the kitchen to make a coffee to warm himself up. It had been freezing outside, and he’d chased after Dahlia in only sweats and a T-shirt. Keeping his distance as she walked down the street, hunched into herself, and seemingly wandering with no destination in mind, Michael had called Cian. He’d followed Dahlia and given Cian the directions he needed to pick her up.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t wanted to go to her himself. Of course, he did. However, her words kept going around and around in his head. They made sense, but they didn’t, and Michael was left with the unnerving feeling that there was more to Dahlia’s reasons for walking out on them again than what she’d admitted to.

Yet, he also knew she wasn’t lying when she said she blamed him for letting her go.

He had, hadn’t he?

He’d thrown away everything he knew to be true about the girl he loved when he decided she’d selfishly left him. The truth was, she hadn’t. His fist clenched around the coffee pot handle as he remembered the scene with Dahlia earlier. What her mother had said and done to her that drove her away from them all.

“Do you blame her?” he’d said when she commented about her mother erasing her from her life.

Fuck. He rubbed at the ache of regret in his chest. Michael had assumed that Dahlia couldn’t deal with Dillon’s death and she’d started her life over somewhere else. It didn’t mean she shouldn’t have come back to him … but would he have? If it had been him, and Dahlia hadn’t bothered to go after him, to figure out what went wrong, would he have come home?