Read Online Homecoming by Janet Wellington - Free Book Online Page B

and we won that silly competition?” She smiled. They’d been good together.
    “We were a good team.”
    Cory tipped her head, then decided it was as good a time as any to ask him what had been troubling her since the moment he’d showed up, back in Faythe, and back in her life. “What happened to us?” A simple question, but she had the feeling the answer wouldn’t be.
    “You’re going to make me talk about this too, aren’t you.” It was more a statement than a question. Jake let out a sigh, then looked pretty resigned to the idea that she probably wasn’t giving him much choice.
    “It just might make things...easier...if we cleared the air,” she said.
    “Do you remember when we met in the park the night before graduation?”
    She nodded and felt instant heat in her cheeks, a heat that made its way lower until it pooled low in her stomach. She’d planned to seduce him that night; she’d worn painted-on-tight black jeans, a sheer blouse, and a lacy-as-sin black bra she’d ordered from a Victoria’s Secret catalog. She’d felt him pulling away for a while, emotionally, and she thought maybe he was tired of...waiting. She’d even been prepared, taking a condom out of her brother’s underwear drawer.
    “That night I told you I had to leave town.”
    “But you wouldn’t say why.” They’d argued, then, instead of making love. She’d regretted it for a long time. But anger had been stronger than regret, and she had finally been able to lift herself out of the depression that had filled her summer. Her father had kept insisting over and over that it was for the best; her mom had simply comforted her.
    “I couldn’t tell you the whole truth.”
    “So tell me now.”
    “My old man had gotten me a job at the factory. I was supposed to start the next day. I was even going to miss graduation. He and I had argued all month before that. We almost came to blows once, but he was so drunk I wouldn’t fight him. I told him I didn’t want the job and that I was thinking of going to Chicago. He said if I did, to never come back.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me?”
    “Because I thought you might try to talk me into either staying or taking you with me. And your parents and you wanted you to go to college. My grades were crap. College wasn’t going to work for me. What was I going to do? I knew people like me who stayed in Faythe ended up working in the factory. Deep down I knew your parents only tolerated me because they knew you’d end up somewhere else and I’d end up staying in Hicksville. No matter what, I knew it wouldn’t work, Cory, so I decided to make it easier by leaving quick. No long good-byes.”
    She remembered his eyes that night. The impassive coldness he’d tried to portray had been a poor act. To her he had looked just plain scared; a little like he looked now.
    He cleared his throat as if trying to compose himself. “We had a good thing, that last year. And between you and Tillie, I found the strength to leave. And my leaving freed you up to go to that college you wanted to go to, freed you to find someone...better suited, right?
    “It helps to know why you left.” This time it was Cory’s turn to be evasive. She wasn’t ready to talk about Ed and what had happened to her, what an idiot she’d been. There would be another time for digging into those memories, and she would choose it, if it happened at all. She ignored Jake’s query and instead gingerly tore the charcoal drawing of the young man out of the sketch book. “I’m going to town—you need anything?”
    “No. I thought I’d try to keep sorting through these boxes and you can decide if it’s anything we should keep for the house or give away.”
    His tone was one of relief and such sweetness that she had to fight a powerful urge to go to him and wrap her arms around his neck the way she used to...when he would let her...when no one was watching. But, she needed to leave the past alone too. He’d made a good life