After being jilted at the altar, Amber Gardner finds herself in a small beach town and stuck rooming with an unlikely person: her childhood nemesis Cameron, the man she is supposed to hate.
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Amber Gardner and her fiancé were together for two year...
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POPS' CALL RANG A FEW TIMES BEFORE I PICKED UP.
Ready for dinner in a soft blue summer dress, I sank down on the bed and let the phone ring in my lap. I didn't know what to say or how to talk to him properly without breaking down. However, as much as my brain tried to devise excuses not to take his call, I knew the more I dragged this, the worse it would be. I'd hurt Pops even more than I'd intended to.
So, taking the deepest breath my lungs could take in, I answered his call.
A pregnant silence followed as if we didn't dare to start first. I could hear his breath on the line, and I knew he could hear mine. I'm sorry, Pops, I wanted to say. I'm so sorry for letting you down and running away. I wanted to tell him that I wasn't the brave girl he thought I was. I wasn't good at reading people. No matter what he taught me, I still found the wrong guy and got my ass dumped.
"Berry," he finally whispered with a trembling voice. His voice was my undoing, triggering tears to well in my eyes. "Are you okay?"
I looked up, biting my lips. I shouldn't have cried over the phone and worried him even more. Patting the skin underneath my eyes, I cleared my throat and said, "Yeah, Pops. I'm fine—getting better. How are you? I missed you so much."
"I was so worried, Berry. You've left without an explanation, and I thought the worst. Then, you turned off your phone." He sighed. "I'm glad Cameron talked to Annie to inform us about it," Cameron told his mom? "I was about to go to the police."
"I'm sorry," I whispered in guilt. Seeing things from his side, I'd been absolutely reckless and selfish. I shut them off, ghosted them, and didn't inform anyone about my well-being. "I was a mess," I continued. "I am a mess, Pops. How could I not see this coming?"
"We can't foresee everything, baby."
But even a sixteen-year-old girl can see it clearly. Still, I said, "Right."
People like us, Pops and I, fell headfirst and loved blindly. We wore our hearts on our sleeves. Pops used to tell me not to put someone else over myself, but as they say: Children learn more from what you are than what you teach.
