I reach out, catching her upper arm between my fingers. My touch is light—I’ve seen too many men rough up my mother to even think about trying to overpower anyone with brute strength—but Lark jerks away like my touch has burned her.
The jerk of her arm is so intense, it throws her off balance, sending her tripping over her feet and falling to the ground.
I’m moving too fast to catch her, too fast even to stop my own forward momentum. I grind to a halt inches from where she’s landed in the grass, my arms reeling, only to fall forward a second later, landing with an oomph on top of the only girl I’ve ever loved.
Our legs tangle and our stomachs brush and Lark’s breath stirs the hair hanging into my face. Our eyes meet, and for a moment all the anger and misery and uncertainty vanishes, leaving only longing in its place.
She still feels it, too—the connection between us.
I can read it in her eyes. It’s darker out here than under the lanterns, but the moon is nearly full. There’s more than enough light to see that Lark doesn’t hate me.
Or at least she doesn’t just hate me.
She still misses me, too.
She still wishes things had ended differently between us.
“Get off of me,” she whispers, but she doesn’t sound angry anymore.
“Can we please talk? Just for a few minutes?” I ask, not moving a muscle. “Or, if you don’t want to talk, will you at least promise to go back to the party? I’ll leave. I just don’t want you out here in the dark alone.”
“What you want doesn’t concern me, Mason,” she snaps.
“Please,” I beg. “I just want you to be safe.” I press my lips together, hesitating a beat before I decide to try my luck one more time. “And to apologize. Profusely.”
“I’m not interested in your apology,” Lark says, her eyes darting back and forth, refusing to meet mine.
“How can you know if you don’t give me a chance to make it?” I ask, gently. “It’ll be a good one, I promise. With lots of admitting I was a fool who made a horrible fucking mistake. One he’s regretted every day since…”
“I don’t… I…” Her breath rushes out as she brings her hands to my chest and pushes. “I need some space. Please.”
I sit back, rolling onto my heels in the grass, feeling the loss of her warmth, her closeness, like a punch in the gut.
For all I know this might be the last time I’ll ever touch Lark.
I was worried about her being with someone else—which might still be the case, though I don’t see a ring on her finger—not that she would hate me so much she wouldn’t even give me a chance to explain.
I mean, I realized there was a good chance she’d want nothing more to do with me, but I at least thought she’d hear me out. The Lark I knew was a forgiving person. She didn’t hold a grudge. She didn’t even get mad that often, and when she did, her anger passed like a summer storm, in and out in an afternoon, leaving the air cleaner when it was gone.
But this isn’t the Lark I knew, I think, as I watch her sit up and brush the grass off her dress. This is the Lark I left behind, the Lark I hurt in a way she’d never been hurt before.
Lark has a wonderful family and loyal friends. Lark grew up in a safe, happy home where the worst thing that ever happened was a scraped knee or one of her sisters not getting picked for the cheer squad. Her heart was innocent, trusting. She had absolutely no frame of reference for the kind of pain that would make a person run away from the one thing he wanted most in the world. She had never been taught to hate herself the way I had, to expect the worst from people because that was all the people who mattered most ever gave you.
My leaving was probably her first real taste of heartbreak.
I hate that I was the one to introduce her to that kind of pain. But most of all I hate that my mistake might have changed her for good.
What if she’s a different person now?
Different in a sad way, and all because of me?
The realization makes me even sadder. More ashamed. And more determined to do what I can to set things right.
“Listen, Mason,” Lark says, curling her legs beneath her and smoothing her dress. “I don’t know why you’re here. I know Lisa didn’t invite you. At least she better not have invited you, because if she did I swear I—”
“She didn’t,” I cut in. “I came as Lana’s plus one.”
“Lana Tate?” Lark’s eyebrow arches. Lana went to school with Lark and is one of the few people on Lark’s Shit List. I think it has something to do with Lark’s younger sister, but I’m not exactly sure.
“I ran into her at the Fill Up Stop this afternoon and she asked what I was doing tonight,” I hurry to explain. “Then she mentioned the wedding. As soon as I heard Lisa’s name, I knew you’d be here. It just seemed like such a wild coincidence, on my first day back in town. And I just… Well, I thought…”
“You thought what?” Lark crosses her arms over her chest, clearly not amused.
“I obviously didn’t think it through,” I say, feeling stupider with every passing minute. “I shouldn’t have come here. I shouldn’t have interrupted your time with Lisa.”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” she agrees, the tight muscles around her mouth relaxing ever so slightly as she adds, “But you did. So say what you came to say and get it over with.”
I don’t want to get it over with. I want to erase history, turn back time, and take back all the hurt I’ve caused. But I can’t, so I’d better start talking before she runs out of patience.
“I made a mistake, Lark. A terrible, stupid mistake,” I say, the words rushing out. “I never should have broken things off the way I did. I mean, I never should have proposed in the first place, but I really shouldn’t have left without—”
Lark lets out a strangled sound, somewhere between a laugh and cry of pain, and jumps to her feet.
Before I can explain that the words are coming out all wrong, she rushes past me, her hip brushing my shoulder as she moves, knocking me flat on my back in the tall grass.
Chapter 3
Mason
“Wait!” I roll onto my side and scramble to my feet. “Please, wait, Lark!”
She spins to face me, her chin hitching higher. “I don’t want to wait. I want you to go away!”
“Please, that’s not what I meant to say. I had it all planned out, but my stomach is in knots and—” I break off, lifting my hands in the air, fingers spread wide in supplication. “What I meant was that I was way too messed up back then to be ready to promise the rest of my life to another person. After all the stuff with my mom and my uncle… I just… I wouldn’t have been able to be a good husband to you, no matter how hard I would have tried.”
I pause, encouraged by the slight softening around Lark’s eyes.
“My baggage weighed more than I did,” I continue. “I got home that night, the night you said yes, and everything went to shit. Parker and I had the blow up to end all blow ups and…” I take a breath, fighting for the courage to be honest with her. “I looked at myself in the mirror after, with my swollen lip and black eye and the peeling wallpaper in my trashed bathroom and thought... What the hell was I doing? With a girl like you? When I clearly didn’t deserve you.”