He lets out a sardonic laugh. “What did you think I was going to do when you told me?”

I lift my shoulders. “I just…I didn’t want to hurt you.” It’s scaring me how easily these lies are falling from my mouth.

His eyes are fixed on mine. “Well, you failed. Because you did hurt me. You hurt me a fuck of a lot.”

I know, and I’m so sorry.

I look away, unable to hold his stare any longer.

“Why did your dad and Casey leave with you?”

My eyes flash back to his. “What?”

“It’s a simple question, Evie. Why did they leave with you? I get that you left with your lover boy, but why did they go? That makes no sense. Why would they have uprooted their lives to leave with you? Especially considering how things were with Casey, how sick she was.”

“They-they—I needed to get away, and they came with me. They’re my family.”

He rubs his fingers over his forehead.

Then, dropping his hand, he takes two big steps toward me. Leaning in, he says into my ear, “You’re a fucking liar.”

I don’t know what comes over me. Maybe it’s his proximity or the fact that I can’t get him to believe my lies—yes, I’m well aware of how laughable that sounds—but I push my hands against his chest, shoving him away.

He doesn’t go far.

“Fuck you!” I yell. “I don’t know what the fuck you want from me, Adam, but clearly, I can’t give it to you!”

I turn to leave.

But he grabs my wrist, yanking me back. “The only thing I ever wanted was the truth, but you seem incapable of telling it to me.”

“I’ve told you the truth!” I scream. “I was young, and I made a mistake! I left you, and I can’t change that now! So, just”—I’m panting now—“let it go.”

He drops my arm like I’ve just burned him.

“Let it go.” His face is incredulous. Then, he does the strangest thing. He laughs. And I don’t mean a small laugh. I mean, a full-on belly laugh.

“Adam?” I say confused.

He looks at me. He’s laughing, but anger is still firmly fixed in his eyes. “Trust me, if I could have let it go, I would have fucking years ago.”

I don’t know what to say to that, but truthfully, I’m in the same position as him. I couldn’t let go either. I know, for him, it was for a different reason. He couldn’t let go of not knowing the truth, why I left him, whereas I couldn’t let go because I never could find a way to stop loving him. Our reasons may have differed, but ultimately, we were in the same position.

He rubs the laughter from his eyes and moves across the room. Picking his drink back up, he takes a long pull.

“Where have you been all this time?” He holds the glass to his chest.

“San Francisco.”

Shock flickers over his face. “I was in San Francisco three years ago. I thought I saw you.”

He was there? He saw me?

“But you were gone so quickly. I called my PI, but he couldn’t find any trace of you there. I thought I’d imagined it…you.”

“Your PI?”

Hard eyes lift to mine. “I looked for you, Evie, for a long time. I hired a PI, but he could never find you. It was like you’d dropped off the face of the earth. Did you change your name?”

His eyes go to the badge on my uniform that reads Evie.

“No, I didn’t change my name.”

“Your surname?”

“No. It stayed the same—Taylor. Evie Taylor.”

“That doesn’t make sense.” Accusatory eyes flick up to mine. “So, why couldn’t my PI find you?”

“I don’t know.” I shake my head, swallowing down.

Well, I can think of maybe one reason why he couldn’t find me, but I can’t share that with him.

He stares at me, before looking away. “It doesn’t make any sense,” he mutters to himself. “He even checked for Casey, and Casey would have had to register, at the very least, with a doctor.”

“He checked for Casey?” The words whoosh out of me, and my heart starts to pound.

“Of course he did. I was desperate to find you. I would have done anything back then to know where you were.”

His impassioned words are like a punch to the stomach.

Deep down I always thought he would try to look for me. But thinking and knowing are two very different things.

My eyes lower to the floor. “I’m sorry.”

“For what, Evie? For cheating on me, for leaving me, for the PI not being able to find you?”

“All of it.” I force my eyes back to him. “I should have handled it better. I didn’t, and I’m sorry.”

His eyes search my face, and then he turns away, staring out the window.

“Casey? Is she…?” He leaves the question opened ended, and I understand why. He doesn’t know that she’s fine. Healthy. Alive.

“She’s fine. Good. Better. She’s starting UCLA in the fall. She wants to be a nurse. That’s why we’re here.”

“So, she got better?” He turns slightly to look at me.

“Yes.”

“She was dying, Evie. And now she’s well. Is that why you left? To get some life-saving treatment for her?”

I press my lips together and shake my head.

“Then, why? It doesn’t make any sense. None of this makes sense.” His voice implores, begging to me.

I look away. “Casey was dying. We got her some treatment, and we were beyond lucky that the treatment saved her life. But that had nothing to do with why I left.”

He looks back out the window.

He doesn’t say anything for a long time. I’m wondering if I should just leave when he does speak again.

“Do you still draw?” he asks in a soft voice.

“No.” I look down at my hands, entwining my fingers together.

“Why not?”

How do I tell him that leaving him was the hardest thing I ever had to do, and it broke me?

It broke everything inside of me, and I haven’t been able to draw since then. Every time I put the pencil to the paper, all I could see was his face, and I couldn’t bear the reminder of what I’d lost.

I don’t tell him. That’s the thing. I can’t ever tell him.

I let go of my hands and wrap my arms around my stomach, trying to hold in all the pain that’s threatening to spill out of me, and I just shake my head. “Do you still surf?” I ask him.

I look up to find he’s facing me, back against the window, eyes on me.

“Only on weekends.”

I guess things have changed so much for both of us. The dreams we had together never made it to fruition with us being apart.

We each became a slave to the choice I had to make.

My eyes rake over him as I remember the Adam I knew ten years ago and compare him to the Adam I see before me. The long hair is gone, replaced with cropped locks. The unshaven scruff on his face is still very much there though. At least some things haven’t changed.

“You cut your hair.”

“It has been ten years.”

“I know. I just…I remember a time when you said you’d never cut your hair.” A small smile touches my lips at the memory.

“Yeah, and I remember when you promised to love me till death do us part. Shit changes.”

My smile drops from my face. My cheeks sting like he’s just slapped me.

I deserved that. Doesn’t stop it from hurting like a bitch though.

I turn my cheek, forcing a blank expression onto my face. I don’t want him to see how injured I am by his words.

“How long was it going on for?” he asks me in a quiet voice.

I look back to him. “What?”

“With this other guy. How long were you seeing him behind my back?”

I can see how much it’s hurting him, thinking I cheated on him, and I hate hurting him. I don’t want him to think so very badly of me even though, in some ways, what I actually did was worse.

I blow out a breath. “There wasn’t any other guy, Adam. I’m sorry I lied about that. I guess I just said that because…I don’t know.” I shake my head. “You wanted a valid reason, and I didn’t have one to give you, other than…getting married…it was just too much too soon. I panicked, and I ran. I’m sorry. You wanted the truth. That’s it.”