Page 49 of Living La Vida Mocha

All that time I’d selfishly thought it was about me, even when he had said it wasn’t. My heart splintered knowing he’d been hiding his painful secrets from me for years.

Tenderly holding his hand in mine, I rubbed the top. “Does it happen often?”

“Lately, it’s been happening more frequently.”

“Because of me.” It wasn’t a question; it was something Bea had said – how I wasaffectinghim.

The darkness in his eyes deepened. “Absolutely not. Why would you say that?”

The words took on a tone of their own. “Something your sister said.”

A low growl roared out of him. “What did she say? Exactly.”

“That I was affecting you. How I’d broken your heart once before, and I needed to stay away.” I snorted at the memory.

“Well… yeah… remember, I was trying to save face.” He shifted and twitched slightly. “You see, it all depends on the point of view one sees it from, but the truth of the matter is I told them you broke my heart.”

Like a baby bull, another snort blew out of me. “I’m listening, and oh boy, this better be good.”

I desperately needed to understand how I was the instigator of the breakup which had devastatedmeto the core. There was no way a person would intentionally do that to themselves.

“Because of the dark place I was in and, believe me when I tell you it was dark, I told my family you had been the one to walk away from us.”

My eyes widened. “Oh. My. Lanta. They think I left you over your disease?”

No wonder Bea hated me so much.

He waved his hands through the air and shook his head. “Oh no, no, no. Not at all. I told them you had broken up with me before I had even moved to Switzerland, and we were still communicating briefly, but you started dating some new guy and thought it was best to end what was left of us.”

The way he scrunched his face with anI’m-hoping-to-pull-this offexpression was not as adorable as he may have hoped.

“And they bought it?”

It was ridiculous to believe they’d fall for that. They were all highly intelligent, and I would’ve expected them to have seen right through the lie. They all knew how much I loved him, how madly in love I was, and how Carter was my sun, moon, and whole world.

A small smirk played on the fringes of his lips; it was neither jovial nor devious. “What can I say? I lied well.”

“And a lot. Good grief. But Bea saidIbroke your heart, yet it wasyouwho left me. Left us. How could I have broken your heart if you were the one handing out the damage? How could you have lied like that?”

The smirk wiped away with a swish of his hand, and his voice softened. “Leaving you was the hardest thing I ever did.”

“You pushed me away. Your calls, your emails… they become… infrequent.”

“Because I couldn’t handle anything. And you, you were supposed to fight for me, to want to stay, but you didn’t call as much, and your email communications drifted to nothing.”

Oh, wow. My heart crashed into a brick wall. All this time, I figured he left me because school had become difficult and his studies were affected, or that he couldn’t handle to lack of intimacy coming with a long-distance relationship. I had zero reason to believe it was because he was having a mental health crisis. Being thousands of miles away from all who loved him certainly didn’t help either.

Carter continued as if I had pressed pause on the conversation to allow my brain to catch up. “I couldn’t walk around pretending everything was all sunshine and roses, and I definitely didn’t want to burden you with undue stress and emotional turmoil, considering I didn’t even know how to deal with any of it myself.” He sucked in and then released a slow breath. “I had to put the walls up, but in retrospect, it just seemed like you left so easily.”

His gaze connected with my dumbfounded one.

My brain pressed fast forward to get to the part where my thoughts suddenly made sense. “How was I to have known what you were going through when you didn’t share any of it with me? All that time, I worried it was our relationship, and how the long-distance thing was straining us because we needed to hold and touch the other. Figured we were slipping away, even if just for a bit until you came back home. I thought you believed in us – in me – to make it all work. That we’d get our happy ending.” Tremors started in my chin, and my voice cracked as it fell. “I died the day you sent that email, an email…”

Shaking my head, a rush of emotions washed over me, making me relive that fateful moment as if it happened yesterday; the cut was so raw and so deep it very well could’ve happened twenty-four hours ago. My heart palpitated, my breath hitched, and an achiness tightened its stronghold on my chest.

“That was the worst day of my life until…” Dad passed away.

He hung his head. “I’m so sorry. It was selfish, but at the same time it was self-preservation.”