“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you always do that?” he grumbles.
“Do what?”
“That!” Derek says with a growl. “You answer questions with a question—still. I figured you would’ve grown out of it by now.”
I grin, liking that it irritates him. I don’t even realize I do it. It’s just easier than trying to guess and be wrong. If people were more forward and didn’t beat around the bush, I wouldn’t have to keep asking them to clarify.
“It’s a habit.” I shrug.
“Yeah, it’s annoying.”
“So is you pointing it out.”
Derek huffs but I catch his grin. “Well…too bad.”
This is the first time it feels a little like old times. He’s giving me shit and I’m giving it right back.
“So what did Everly do that is making you question your life choices?” I ask as he stands in front of one painting for too long.
“I don’t stand for bullying and I heard her”—he shifts uncomfortably—“on the phone…making plans.”
It’s not hard to guess what—or who—the plans are for. “She’s trying to make her place in the pack.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re a vet, you should get what I’m saying.”
Derek rubs his temples and I try not to laugh at him. “You mean they’re a pack of animals?”
He has no idea. “Wolves would’ve been my first choice of words, but yes. Teenage girls, well, the bitchy ones, tend to live in a pack mentality. Remember me with Lori and Kelly?”
“Oh, how I wish I could forget.”
We were truly awful and I hate when I look back at myself during that time. I can only hope that Everly is more like me and less like Kelly. She was the orchestrator of it all. Each horrible thing came from her devious mind.
“Well, what were the plans for Chastity?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, the best way to beat them is to know the plan. Can you imagine if every person Kelly wanted to destroy knew beforehand? They could’ve taken countermeasures.”
Derek takes a step closer. “I squashed it. You don’t have to worry.”
“That’s not likely.”
“Seriously, I wouldn’t let it happen.”
He is cute that he thinks he has that type of control. “Still, I think the more information the better. Do you want to see Chastity caught up in this? Don’t you think she’s endured enough?”
Whether he tells me or not, I’m going to prepare my daughter.
“Of course she has.” He sighs and moves back. “It’s just that so has my daughter and I’m not going to betray her.”
I can understand that, but I’m in the same boat. “And what about protecting my daughter?”
“I would never hurt your daughter or let Everly hurt her,” Derek says with conviction. “I need you to trust me.”
Trust. That word means so much. “Once upon a time I did trust you, and we’re a long way from that right now.”
“I know and I’m sorry. I think you need to have some blind faith then. I really like Chastity. She’s a smart girl, by the way. Way smarter than even you were back then. I enjoyed having her assist me today.”
I forgot that today was the first time she worked with him. She’s been going over there, doing tasks for his father, but she told me that Derek was who she shadowed today. I had to bite my tongue to keep from asking a million questions.
Was he nice to her?
Was he funny?
Did he ask her about me?
Did he smell nice?
The last one was way over the line of appropriate to ask my teenage daughter, so I figured it was probably best to not ask anything and let her lead the conversation.
“Yeah, I hope she’s smarter than me in every possible way. She loves animals and would happily be with them more than people.”
“I can see that. She helped clean out more crap in those stalls than I would’ve at her age and still asked to stay a little longer to play with the animals.”
I smile to myself. “Reminds me of someone else I used to know.”
“Well, I didn’t have a choice. I grew up on a zoo thanks to my dad.”
“But you loved the animals.”
He nods. “I still do.”
It’s crazy how much Chastity is like him in some ways. “I feel like our kids were switched at birth, don’t you?”
Derek lets out a small laugh. “You’d think, considering how close we were and how well I could manage you, that I’d do a better job with her,” he says and then his eyes go back to the painting.
I walk up behind him, allowing myself to look over his shoulder to see which he’s fixated on.
Of course it would be that painting.
I remember that one so distinctly. I painted it on my thirty-first birthday. It had been years since I had allowed myself to remember him in any sort of wistful way. I learned that thinking about him only made me sad.
But that birthday was different.
I was so lonely. We had made a pact that if by our thirtieth birthdays we weren’t married, we would marry each other.
It was stupid and it never really would happen, but there I was, seventeen again and laughing with him after prom.
I sat at the beach for four hours. With each stroke of my brush, a tear would fall, mourning the loss of him over and over. All the feelings of sadness I’d pushed aside washed over me. I was sitting, watching the waves crest and retreat, painting them with the sun from a different angle.
He turns, our eyes lock on each other, and my heart begins to race. He looks at me like he’s seeing straight through my heart.
Derek doesn’t say anything. He watches, searching deeper inside of my soul than I give him permission to. It unnerves me and I feel exposed.
Too many feelings fill me.
Too much of…all of it.
I turn my head, and start to walk away, but he grips my wrist. “I’m sorry.”
My eyes snap back to his. “For?”
“Everything.”
Each breath I take is heavy and my head is spinning. When I paint, I’m raw with emotion. Now, being in this room with him looking at my work, saying these things, has me feeling vulnerable.
“It was a long time ago. It doesn’t really matter, does it?”
His lids fall, and I know that wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but it’s all I can give. I need to build my walls back up because Derek is the dream that will never come true for me.
“I’m still sorry.”
“I am too.” For everything.
“Do you think we can ever be friends again?”
We’ve lost too much, hurt each other too deeply to ever be more than…this.
Indifferent old friends who won’t be able to get through the mucky past, which is filled with quicksand. I can’t afford to step in it and get sucked under.
Chastity needs me to be strong. I can’t become this weak woman who is heartbroken over him.
“I hope so. I hope we can be a different kind of friends. Ones who are older, wiser, and honest. Do you think that’s possible? Considering our history?” I ask.