Page 3

Another sad smile. She whispers, “I know. That’s why I couldn’t tell you.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“You would have come back to Rubble Ridge. You would have done the right thing.” She air quotes ‘right thing’ with a bitter scoff. “You would have walked away from hockey—and you would have regretted us.”

“No.” I refuse to entertain the absurdity of her statement.

It is absurd, isn’t it?

She nods. “Yes, Holt, you would have. Maybe not in the beginning, but you would have lived with the knowing that you’d made it—that you abandoned your dream for a life you never wanted to live. The years would have passed, and you’d have grown sour. You would have been the man on his couch, watching the game and reminiscing all that could have been if only you’d not knocked up your high school girlfriend.”

“Faye.”

“Owen would have felt the blade of your regret. He would have carried it, and it would have soured him, too.” Her hands lift to my face now. “You would have loved us, I know that, Holt. I know it. But you would have regretted us just as much—and I wasn’t willing to live like that. I wasn’t willing to let my son, our son, live like that.”

“So, you stayed with him.” My voice cracks with fourteen years’ worth of emotion. Of pain. Of missing her. Of missing out on him. “You let my brother be my son’s father?”

“I didn’t stay with him, Holt. I just stayed here—with everyone.”

“Everyone but me.”

She pulls away, and I swear, the distance she puts between us cuts me up inside.

“Holt…”

“I need to know, Faye. Everything. From the beginning.”

Her brows slant inward, and she pales just slightly. “What do you mean?”

“I want to know how my brother became my son’s father. How he became your husband. If you didn’t choose him, I need to know how it happened.”

There’s a long pause. A space in time where neither of us moves at all.

Finally, she dips her chin. “Okay.” She gestures to a bench. I sit and she sits next to me. “I’ll start from the beginning.”

2

FOR HER

AUGUST 2009 – 20 YEARS OLD

Laura gives me a sad smile, her hands twisting the strap of her purse in her lap. She stayed the night last night like she’s stayed many nights before, but last night wasn’t like those nights. Last night, I told her I couldn’t do it anymore.

Last night, she cried.

“I’m really going to miss you,” she tells me softly. Bands tighten around my heart, because I hate that I’ve done this to her.

I knew it was over when she told me she loved me. That she wanted to move in and start building something real.

It’s not fair to let her fall in love with me when I’m not capable of loving her back. At least not the way I think I’m supposed to love her.

“I’ll miss you, too.” It’s not a lie. I will miss her. She was comforting when I needed it.

She distracted me when I needed that, too.

I do care for her. But I don’t love her.

“I’m sorry,” I say honestly.