I look down and blink away the tears. “I’ll call you guys later,” I say, walking toward my truck with my head down. Something that I’ve done for the past eight years. Opening the door and getting behind the wheel, I look down at my red dress I chose for this occasion. When I got dressed today for the function, I did it hoping Beau would tell me that I was beautiful. When he came over last week and begged me to come, I couldn’t say no to him. There isn’t much I would say no to him for because I loved him. Bottom line, he was the hero in every single romance book I’ve read. He was the prince in every Disney movie. He was everything, but he looked at me like he always did—as a friend. I was his best friend, and he was one of mine.

I mean, let’s face it, I didn’t have many people to choose from. I was the kid from the wrong side of the tracks, or so I was told my whole life. My father could be one of five people, which just made me shake my head.

My mother tried as best as she could. She was a waitress at the local watering hole, and then one day, she applied for a job for the mayor and his wife. She was their cleaning lady, and she became very close with the mayor’s wife, Mary Ellen. Soon, she was doing the cooking and the cleaning, and Mary Ellen got me into the school where Beau and Jacob attended. I started there wearing secondhand boy clothes since my mother could never save enough for clothes, and Mary Ellen always felt sorry for me and gave me the boys’ hand-me-downs. I dressed like a boy until I was fifteen and got my own job and could buy my own stuff.

Jacob and Beau ignored me at first, but then when we got back to the house, I would be stuck waiting for my mother to finish, so Beau was stuck with me. Slowly but surely, we became three peas in a pod until that fateful day when our lives changed. I want to say I wish I could go back and change it. I want to say I regret everything, but then I would regret Ethan, and I refuse to allow him to feel like I’ve felt my whole life. He was never going to be told that he was lucky I kept him. He was never going to be told I had no choice. He will always know how much he is loved and how much he is wanted. I hope that if he ever finds out what I did, he will still love me as much as he does today.