Finding Solace

Lying all the way back, he rests his hands under his head and stares at the sky. “My mom can take care of herself.”

“I was here,” I whisper.

“You were being taken care of by somebody else.” He pauses and looks out at the water and away from me for too long. When he turns back, I see some of the pain I feel inside residing in his irises. “You weren’t mine, so I no longer had a right to care about you.”

You had already decided you were leaving whether I was with you or not. “And if I hadn’t been?”

“Then I would’ve had a reason to stay.”

What? He had been moving on. Without me. Even though Cole told me time and time again that Jason had moved on, should I have listened to my heart? Should I have known better and not allowed my pride to stop me from hearing Jason’s side of things? He needs to know that maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe he’d been under the wrong impression all along. “It wasn’t over for me, Jason. The night you saw us. It wasn’t over for me until he told me how you’d met someone over at State. God, I felt so foolish and hurt.”

“It was lies, Delilah,” he says without hesitation as if his heart were speaking the words. He sits up, his expression falling from the pain—at the outer corners of his eyes and the tips of his lips. “I loved you so fucking much. What did he tell you?”

What didn’t he tell me?

“Everything a best friend would know. He said you didn’t want me but didn’t know how to end it. How you . . .” I start to push up, to leave this discomfort, but he catches my hand.

“Please, Delilah. Tell me.”

I could say I’m staying for him, but that’s not the truth. I sit back down because I need to talk this through and get it off my chest. “I was used goods after dating you. Cole told me how everyone in town talked about me behind my back. Do you know what that would do to my father? Or how my mom would lose her circle of friends? I was destroyed after being with you, the has-been beauty queen.”

“You weren’t.” Caressing my cheek, he says, “You were per—”

“Cole said he’d love me,” I add, raising my chin and closing my eyes while moving out of the warmth of his touch. “He’d save my family the humiliation. He’d save my reputation, so I relented.” Images of him with other women shatter my thoughts and my heart once again. When I open my eyes, my gaze hardens as the pain comes back. “Looking back now, I can see how he got me at my weakest and took advantage. You were gone. I couldn’t think straight anymore. Shelby was graduating in another state. My parents had so many fights back then over the farm, me, my sister leaving. My world fell apart, and that’s when he talked me into marrying him.”

“God, no.” An emotional toll takes over his shoulders, and they sag. Scraping his fingers over his brow, he can’t even look at me. Just as I couldn’t look at myself back then. I was so weak. When he looks at me, shame still fills his body and his tone. “I’m sorry I left. I’m sorry I failed you. I’m so fucking sorry, Delilah.”

His apologies stun me. I’m staring at the man I thought I’d marry, and now he’s sorry for everything. “You’re sorry?” I gulp down my pride, realizing how much I misjudged him.

“Yes. I’m sorry I hurt you.”

Too much honesty and truth of emotion is shared. It will take time to process this, so I ramble to make it go away until I have time alone to figure out why he’s so sorry. “The county clerk was our witness. She took a call regarding an escaped bull on the highway in the middle of the ceremony. Cole thought I was crying from happiness, but I was devastated.”

“Why didn’t you call me, return my texts, or come see me? Why didn’t you want to hear my side of things?”

“I thought I had. He was your best friend, so I believed him. He had no reason to lie to me.”

“He had every fucking reason to lie to you because he was in love with you.”

“People respected Cole back then. I was the embarrassment to my family. Cole was a second chance instead of me being viewed as sloppy seconds.”

He sighs so heavy that I’m surprised he has any breath left. “Fuck that, Delilah. If I’d known—”

“See, that’s just it. It seems by your reaction that neither of us did.” I rest back on my palms. “I’ve gone over this a million ways to Friday and never could make sense of it. But here’s the thing, I gave up trying to reason my way to explain things years ago.” My directness is unsettling. I’m used to sitting in my farmhouse alone at night and not having to answer to anybody anymore. Why confide true emotions to Jason? Why now? “Upheaving the past won’t change things now, so I shouldn’t have said anything.”