“It’s not your fault. It’s not mine either. If it makes you feel better, I wouldn’t have let you come after me. I wasn’t going to let you throw your dream away. I didn’t want that for you.”
“I was supposed to protect you. It was never meant to be the other way around.”
“We have both done things to protect the other, and that’s the way it should be.” I don’t want him feeling guilty for anything that happened.
“After I had my ‘come to Jesus’ moment, I phoned Jimmy. I had no one else to talk to who knew us. I told him I was going to book a flight to Oregon and go see you. I intended to demand the truth.”
“He talked you out of doing it.” It’s what I asked him to do, and I know Jimmy is a man of his word.
“He did.”
“How is Jimmy? I have missed him.”
“He’s getting old. Boner finally convinced him to retire and sell him the boxing club.”
“Viola told me.”
“I can’t believe they got married, but Jimmy says they’re very happy.”
“They are. I hated missing their wedding, but I couldn’t risk attending.” It was clear Greg had eyes and ears on us over the years, and I didn’t know what he might do if I stepped foot in Colorado Springs. I came clean to Viola before I left town, so she understands why I haven’t returned and why I had to bail on her wedding.
“You have sacrificed so much for me, Kendall. I won’t ever forget it.” Vander’s piercing green eyes lock on mine, and I can barely breathe. The intensity of the way he’s looking at me knocks all the air from my lungs, and I’m back in the past, reliving every intimate moment we’ve ever shared. His lips kick up, and the biggest smile crests over his mouth as he points between us. “This is ultimately what kept me going. I knew we had the kind of love that would never die. I chose to trust in it and what we’d learned together about our past and what we suspected and hoped for our future.”
I sniffle and swipe at the tears pooling in my eyes. “That is the only way I survived our separation, Vander. Knowing we were always meant to be, but I honestly didn’t know if you’d given up on that. On us. I wouldn’t have blamed you if you did.”
“Never, Kendall.” He stretches across the table and sweeps his lips against mine. “I would never give up on you or on us.” He settles back in his seat. “Tell me what really happened. I want to know.”
So, I do.
51
KENDALL
The waiter brings our main courses to the table while I am filling Vander in on everything that went down back then.
“Jesus, Kendall.” He sets his silverware down and takes my hand again. Pain is etched upon his face. “I can’t believe you went through all of that alone. I’m so upset he did that to you, and I’m ashamed of how I reacted. I should’ve known. I should have trusted you more.”
“Don’t do that. You have apologized, and I don’t want you to blame yourself. You were eighteen, and while you were always more mature than your peers, our relationship was your first, and it was intense. I mostly forgot that because being with you was so natural, but it was a lot to take in. You were on the cusp of fulfilling your dreams. You were trying to protect your mom and me, and that man had put you through hell your entire life. You thought I’d cheated on you with him. You can’t help how you felt or how you reacted. It killed me letting you believe that, but I knew if I told you the truth you’d either kill him or agree to whatever demands he made to protect me from prosecution.”
“I would have,” he says, pushing his dinner aside the same time I do.
“I didn’t want you to throw everything away. I didn’t want you to lose the future you had worked so hard for.”
“A future I had thanks to you.” His eyes shine with love, and my heart melts. “You sacrificed your happiness so I could pursue my dream. I know you secured me the financial aid. I can never repay you for all the ways you have supported me and supported my dreams. Though I look forward to trying.”
There is no hesitation in his tone or his expression, and I want that for us so badly. I just hope he feels the same when he knows everything. “That’s what you do for the person you love more than life itself. I loved you enough to walk away, but it wasn’t easy, Vander. It destroyed me. None of it has been easy.”
“I know, baby.” He rubs his thumb over the back of my hand, and it’s wonderfully soothing. “Jimmy eventually told me about that night. It was my junior year, just after I found out you’d spoken to Yale on my behalf. I called him up. Told him I was going to get you back. None of his usual reasoning placated me. I was determined to speak to you and clear the air, once and for all, until he told me what you said, and the gravity of the situation hit home. I knew then, conclusively, that my father was behind it. I confronted him, but he denied it. Continued to spout the lie. The only way I walked out of there without throttling him with my bare hands was the knowledge you had sacrificed our happiness and walked away from our love because you felt you’d had no choice.”
“He never let me forget the deal. Every year, he sent me an image from his evidence file. It reminded me he could still get me sent down, and it drove the knife into my heart harder. He always chose a picture or a video that was one of our most precious moments. Every year, it threatened to destroy the progress I’d made, but anger and retribution are powerful motivators too, and it only made me more determined to see him brought to his knees.”
“He threatened me as well,” Vander says, topping off our wineglasses and emptying the bottle. The waiter approaches, and he orders another one. “I decided I’d had enough the year after I graduated. I couldn’t go on any longer without you. I got on a flight to Oregon, and when I stepped outside the terminal building, I was ambushed by armed men and taken away in a van with a black bag over my head.”
Shock shuttles through me, and I stare at him with my mouth hanging open. “He could have killed you!”
“Nah.” He continues rubbing circles on the back of my hand as he stops to take a mouthful of his drink. “I was pretty famous for my digital art by then. I’d opened one gallery and was in the process of opening a second. He couldn’t have taken me out without an investigation. If anything had happened to me, he’d be the first person they looked at. I knew he wouldn’t kill me. Beat me to a bloody pulp and threaten your life if I went near you? Yeah. But he wouldn’t murder me.”
“He threatened you to stay away from me?”
“He said he’d kill you and your family, and he scared me enough that I never attempted to visit you again. He was playing us both off against the other. I didn’t know what he was holding over you, and he never alluded to it. He made it seem like this was about me not getting what I wanted from life. His form of a twisted life lesson. He really is a sick son of a bitch.”
“I have never hated anyone as much as I hate your father.”
“I know the feeling though Curtis is a close second.” He smirks. “I see karma kicked him in the ass.”