I shook my head. “Sully never wanted to ruffle feathers. I mean, if Alexander was the good kid, and you were the rebel, then he was the one who wanted to simply exist without conflict. So he would have gone with Dad’s plan. He was the easy one, and it was so easy to love him.” I’d simply realized in these last years that it wasn’t the right love—the consuming, passionate, all-encompassing one in the books and songs I loved. But that truth would never leave my lips. I’d let it fester and rot inside me before admitting something like that.

“It was easy to love him, for all of those reasons and more,” Cam agreed. “But that doesn’t explain why you had to use your inheritance to go to college.”

“My father thought I was still in shock from Sully’s death. That I was being irrational and lashing out against what he felt was a logical and acceptable plan. In reality, I was trying to honor my first dream, since I’d lost my last. I was trying to figure out who I was without Sullivan.” And without you. Not that I hadn’t lost Cam years before when he’d shipped off to basic. “Dad refused to pay for it, which was fine. It’s his money, after all. But once I saw his decision for what it was—his need to control me because he’d lost that control over Charity—I paid for it myself.”

“You carved your own path.” He moved closer but didn’t crowd me.

“For four years, I did. I learned, and I lived, and I even dated, not that anyone in Alba would believe me.” I inhaled deeply, bolstering my courage. “Does that make you hate me?”

“What?”

“That I moved on.”

His eyebrows furrowed. “No. Of course not. Why the hell would you even remotely think that?” He moved to lean against the counter next to me, effectively breaking eye contact.

“Xander was disappointed when I told him one Christmas. The look in his eyes… It was like I’d cheated on Sully. And honestly, that first date felt a lot like I had.”

“Willow, you can’t cheat on someone who’s dead.” His gaze fell to the floor.

“I know that now. It took a few years for me to really get that, but eventually I did. But every time I came home on break, it felt like I was moving on and the town wasn’t. And I get it. I do. Change is literally Alba’s worst enemy. The people in this town would still have me wearing widow black if they had their way, weeping at a shrine for Sullivan.”

“And yet you came back.”

“It’s my home.” I turned to look at him. “And so did you, I might add.” Why?

His eyes rose to meet mine, and he shifted the ice pack on his cheek.