“I have to, Sutton. I can’t live like this. It’s not fair that I have to keep you a secret because of my parents. You deserve to be out and proud. This is your senior year. You’re supposed to have the best time of your life, and I know that keeping you in the closet is holding you back.”

“But it’s only for eight months. Until we go to college,” I said. Her parents would only let her apply to Christian colleges. She was applying to Abilene which was only about three hours from A&M, and to Calvin in Michigan which was a whole world away. She made a sobbing noise.

“I’m going to Calvin. My parents said they won’t help me at all if I go to ACU.”

“Wait, what?”

“It’s not fair to you to ask you to wait for me. Michigan and Texas are thousands of miles apart.”

“So, you just want to give up? You’re eighteen. You can pack your stuff and move in with me and Dad. Then we can go to A&M together. You don’t need their money.”

She shook her head and grabbed my hands. “They’re my parents, Sutton. I’m all they have. I can’t just leave them.” I watched the tears trickle down her face and knew I was losing her. There wasn’t anything I could do about it. “I love you and that’s why I’m doing this. Trying to date long-distance is impossible. This is hard enough and we’re only a hundred miles apart.”

Everything she said made sense, but my heart wouldn’t concede. I was too invested. I put my head on my steering wheel and cried. I felt her arms wrap around my body as she cried with me.

“I will always love you, Sutton.”

I looked at her through the tears that wouldn’t stop falling. “How can you do this to me?”

“I’m doing this for both of us. You’ll always have my heart.” She opened the door and slowly slipped out.

“You’re making the biggest mistake,” I said. When I realized that this wasn’t a joke, I got angry. “Go ahead and forget about me. Forget my face, forget everything that happened, and lose my number!” I watched as she walked to her car and drove away without so much as a backward glance. I sat in the parking lot wondering how my heart slipped out of my grasp so effortlessly when just a few short minutes ago it was something I held onto for dear life.

Chapter Six—First Meeting, Again

Present

I was dreading tonight. Like on a scale of one to ten, I was at an eleven. Lexi felt my tension even though I tried to hide it.

“Come on. It’ll be fun. I promise to be on my best behavior,” Lexi said.