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“It was a fucked-up love letter. From our teacher. It was sick. He talked about making plans, a future, and referenced something sexual they had done.” Chest heaving, and fire spitting from her eyes, she hissed out, “She was fifteen!”
I shook my head, reached for her hand, and squeezed. “That wasn’t your fault.”
Tara pulled back, crossing her arms. “It was. I told her to tutor with him. I trusted him because he was older and attractive. I was so stupid, Hals. And I swore I would never let something like that happen again.” Pushing a hair off her face, she glanced at me. “I understand what you’re feeling. Stacy thought she loved Mr. Baker, and he knew exactly how to manipulate her because she was young, vulnerable, and needy for affection. I refuse to turn my back on a friend again—on a victim. When I say I’m on your side, I truly mean that.”
I rubbed at my forehead, debating my next move.
Even though my heart broke and my tears fell faster, I needed Tara to understand that this wasn’t the same. Not at all.
I wasn’t Stacy.
Reed wasn’t Mr. Baker.
“This is different, Tara.” Urgency tinged my words. I had to rewire her faulty way of thinking. “It’s not the same because you know your dad. You know he’s a good man.”
“I thought I knew him,” she croaked out, picking at the skin around her thumbnail. She sighed, hopelessly. “God, I can’t believe he would do this.”
I grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her eyes on me. “Look at me. I swear to you, your father never manipulated me. Forget what he told you—he was taking the blame to keep you from turning your back on me. I was the one who pursued him, I was the one who lied about my age, and I was the one who begged for him to train me, even though he told me it was a bad idea. He tried to stop this from happening.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, more tears slipping out.
“We fell in love,” I confessed, my voice cracking. “Real love. He saw me as a woman, as an equal, as a partner. Age doesn’t matter. They’re just numbers. There is no crime here.”
Tara sucked in a long breath and withdrew, moving away as she tightened her arms across her chest. “I can’t accept it, Halley. It doesn’t make sense.”
“It doesn’t make sense because you’re looking for parallels in a completely different situation.”
She stared down at the floor, her body stiff, and all she said was, “I’m sorry.”
Defeat sunk me. Exhaustion soaked into my bones, leaving me dry.
Closing my eyes, I stepped backward, wishing I could crawl under the bed covers and sleep the day away. Sleep the rest of my life away. “I have to get ready for work. Please…just think about it,” I pleaded. “I need you to try to understand.”
Tara said nothing.
Didn’t call me back.
She stood statue-still in the middle of the hallway, her eyes glued to the carpet beneath her feet.
Tears still falling, I walked into the bedroom and closed the door, praying, wishing, begging she could make sense of this.
Two weeks had passed and nothing made sense.
Scotty helped me carry the final boxes to his van as I robotically trailed behind him with a scrapbook in my hands. We’d stopped by the Stephens’ house before leaving town to gather the few boxes that hadn’t made their way over to the apartment yet.
And to say goodbye.
Although I now grasped the root of Tara’s reaction more clearly, stemming from the lingering guilt of her past that she’d been carrying around for years, we had yet to make any progress in seeing eye-to-eye. Tara couldn’t scrub the similarities from her mind, which meant I was leaving with this painful crater still wedged between us.
I swallowed, my throat stinging like a beehive. Tara and Whitney stood on the front porch with crestfallen expressions while I pivoted back around and faced them from the edge of the driveway.
This was real. This was happening.
I had sold my Camry, figuring I’d need the extra cash to get back on my feet, and now I was driving off into a daunting unknown with nothing but some flimsy boxes and a hole in my chest. My attention panned to Tara as she took a seat on the porch step and stared at me from afar, her ponytail swinging in the early-August breeze.
The sky turned gray, her skin sun-faded. Even her eyes were a somber shade of green. I wondered if my own eyes were playing tricks on me, muting all color to match my mood.
Inhaling a deep breath, I moved forward, just as Scotty reached for my hand. I glanced at him.