His hand jumps to his forehead, his index fin
ger scratching his hairline. "Maybe it was her. Ben was dating the perfect girl. She was smart, sweet, and beautiful. He was always talking about how perfect she was. He spent a lot of time at her house helping her parents with odd jobs. I was dating a girl who was on the verge of dropping out of school. Her entire life consisted of getting high and getting fucked."
I cringe at the words. "So you broke it off?"
"That would have been the right thing to do." He bites his bottom lip. "I wasn't into doing the right thing back then. I just stopped talking to her."
"What do you mean?"
"I ignored her. I hooked up with other girls. I just pretended she didn't exist anymore." His tone is cold. "I was such a fucked up asshole."
"You were a teenager," I say, not to assuage his guilt but to move him past it so he'll tell me more about what happened.
"She confronted me in front of my house one day." He rolls the water bottle between his palms. "I didn't want my dad or Ben to see her, so I pushed her into my car and we took off."
"They didn't know you'd broken up?" I'm trying to string the pieces together.
"It wasn't that." His eyes dart over my face in a flash, never settling on my eyes. "I never introduced her to them in the first place. I told them I had a girlfriend but I didn't bring her around."
"I understand." He was ashamed of his choice. I'd felt the same way about some of the boys I dated in high school. I don't think anyone can fault Noah for that.
"We had it out that day." He stares at the ground. "I told her I didn't want anything to do with her. I told her to stay away from me."
"How did she take that?"
A small chuckle pours out of him. "Not well. She told me I couldn't just drop her. She said it wasn't all my decision."
The words bite into a part of me that now feels foreign. I'd thrown some of those same words at Parker when he broke up with me. I may have been older than Sammy was when Noah broke her heart, but the maturity level of the pain was on par. Rejection is a bitter pill for anyone to swallow, regardless of their age. "She was hurt."
"I didn’t realize how badly I hurt her," he mutters. "I didn't know until you told me she was the woman Ben was with when our mother died."
Chapter 18
We’ve sat in silence for the past ten minutes watching children swing and mothers chat. Noah stared off into the distance as I texted with Ben, wishing him a safe trip as he boarded the plane for Boston. I'm grateful that he's away for the next few days. Hearing the details about who Sammy was to Noah has jarred me. I need time to center myself before his brother gets back. I'm eager to talk to him about all of this, but first, I need to hear Noah out.
"How did she end up in bed with Ben?"
He breathes heavily, pulling the air into his lungs. "The day after I told Sammy that I didn't want anything to do with her our mother died."
There's no way the timing is a coincidence. "Why was she at your house?"
"There was a party the night I told her to get lost," he says the words slowly. "It was supposed to be a last hurrah for our graduating class. I'd told her about it weeks before because I wanted her there. I knew Ben wouldn't go. He never partied. He was always studying or hanging out with his girlfriend."
"He went to that party?"
"He did." He nods his head slowly. "His girlfriend was away with her family. She told him to go so he could hang out with his friends. "
"He told me he met Samantha there," I offer even though I'm certain Noah is well aware of every detail.
His hand moves over the edge of the bench, tracing a path along the grain of the wood. "She saw him there. She came on to him. I saw her grinding against him when they were dancing. She was trying to make me jealous."
"Did you tell Ben who she was?"
"I didn't." He looks down at me. "I pulled her outside and told her who he was."
"What did she say?" I cross my legs in an effort to get my body to relax. I feel as though I'm opening a box that contains the key to letting Ben free of all the guilt he's been carrying with him for years.
"She told me that if I wasn't going to fuck her anymore, that she'd fuck him instead."