The sounds and smells of breakfast floating up the stairs into the loft woke Exhale the next morning. After rubbing the sleep from her eyes and checking to make sure her hair wasn’t sticking up all over the place, she made her way lazily down the stairs to join everyone.

“Well, good morning, sunshine,” Sage teased. “Glad to see you finally decided to join us.”

Yawning in reply, she shuffled over to the counter and began piling her plate with scrambled eggs, toast, grits, and sausage. After looking at it, however, she decided she looked like a pig with so much food on her plate, so she pushed the sausages off and returned one of her slices of toast back to the pile before bringing it to the table and taking the only available seat, between her mother and Taylor. Seeing Taylor reminded her the embarrassment she had felt the night before, and suddenly she was no longer hungry in the slightest.

Taylor watched her from the corner of his eye, noticing that she wasn’t really eating, but simply pushing her food around her plate and every once in awhile, taking a bit into her mouth. He, too, was thinking of their conversation the night before, and realized that if he had planned on telling Exhale how he felt about her, scaring her away from him was not the way to go about it.

“So what’s everyone doing today?” Magdalen asked, seemingly unaware of the uneasiness that had fallen between her daughter and Taylor beside her.

“Mom, can we please go play putt-putt today?” Echo asked from the opposite end of the table.

Sage laughed before answering, “Sure that sounds like fun. How about you guys? Gonna join us?”

“Nah, we’re gonna hit the beach,” said Ethan, speaking for himself and Isaac.

“Yeah, are you coming with us?” Isaac nudged Taylor to indicate the question was for him.

Taylor looked uncertainly between his brother and Exhale. “Um…I don’t know. Haley, did you wanna do something today?”

Forcing a smile, Exhale said shortly, “No, it’s fine. You guys have fun.” The oblivious chatter of her parents and her younger sister stopped abruptly when Exhale pushed her chair back, the legs scraping loudly against the tile floor. “Excuse me.” She hurried to Ethan’s bedroom where she locked herself in his bathroom and glared at herself in the mirror. “What the hell is the matter with you?” she whispered harshly to herself.

She wasn’t sure what had caused her to reply to Taylor’s innocent question so bitingly. Something about the way he was acting as if nothing had happened was bothering her, gnawing at her, making her crazy inside. Something had changed in him, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on, but it had only been since the day before. Suddenly he was shying away from her, and she knew the way to resolve that wasn’t snapping at him as she had just done, yet she couldn’t seem to control it.

Until she heard the open and closing of the front door to signal that her parents had left with Echo and Karis for miniature golf, she stayed locked in the bathroom, trying desperately to avoid the worried looks and questions her mother was sure to throw at her. Finally, she exited the bathroom and made her way carefully through Ethan’s bedroom, which he had somehow already managed to make a mess, and out into the hallway. There she found Ethan, standing in front of the door with a look of utmost annoyance on his face. “What the hell do you girls do in there that takes so long?” he asked rhetorically, brushing past her roughly into the room to change into his bathing suit.

When she went out into the living room, she found it empty. She heard Isaac and Taylor’s hushed voices coming from Isaac’s bedroom and looked to see that the door was only slightly cracked open. The sofa bed was still pulled out, and Taylor’s dirty clothes were balled up on the floor next to his suitcase. Feeling a strong urge to do something to make up for her erratic behavior, she tucked the sheets in and folded the bed up, then replaced the sofa cushions before lifting Taylor’s dirty clothes and throwing them on the sofa to fold. Praying to God she wouldn’t come across any underwear, she folded the shirt and balled up the socks, then lifted the pants by the legs. When something white and folded dropped out of the pocket and onto the sofa, she stopped and dropped the pants, intending to put the something into his bag. Halfway to the bag, she froze when she recognized her own distinctive handwriting on the envelope in her hands. Fuming, she tore the envelope open and pulled the pages apart, realizing quickly there was a third that hadn’t been there when she’d stored this letter in her desk drawer. Skimming it quickly, she gasped, anger suddenly blinding her vision as she heard the sound of her name being spoken. “Haley…”

Looking up, she barely registered Taylor standing in Isaac’s doorway, staring at her shocked. His eyes were begging, pleading with her to understand, but all she could do was stare fiercely in return. Storming past him, her grip growing steadily tighter around the papers, she threw open the door to Ethan’s bedroom to find him digging through the mess on his floor for his beach towel, but looked up quickly upon her thunderous entrance. “Who the fuck do you think you are?” she screamed furiously.

Ethan’s face became a mask of confusion, and the only reply that came to him was, “Huh?”

“I said,” she repeated, just as loudly and just as heatedly, balling up the papers in her hand and heaving them at him so that they hit him square in the chest, “who the fuck do you think you are? How dare you steal something so personal and so private of mine and give it to him?” She gestured angrily to Taylor, who was now cowering behind her, turning her harsh gaze upon him for several meaningful seconds before turning back to her brother.

“Hale, don’t be upset with him. He had nothing to do with it,” Ethan said, trying to remain calm. “I was just…I was trying to help. He needed to know the truth, Hale, and when I found that letter, I knew it was the only way he’d ever know. I’m sorry-”

“Enough!” she screamed, her voice raising to dangerous levels. Her yelling had drawn Isaac out of his room, but at that moment, she could care less about who could hear her. “Maybe I never wanted him to see it! Did you ever think of that? No, of course you didn’t because you’re so fucking selfish-”

“Selfish?!” Ethan interrupted, his own anger bubbling dangerously within him. “How the fuck does this make me selfish, Hale? How did I benefit from this at all?”

“Are you kidding me?” she yelled, laughing bitterly in amazement that her brother could be so thick. “Since day fucking one, you’ve been trying to manipulate the relationship between me and Taylor, and for what? You gave him this letter because you thought it would finally accomplish what you’ve been trying to accomplish from the beginning, and-”

“Wait,” Taylor interjected, taking a cautious step in the room and carefully avoiding Exhale’s wild gesticulations, not wanting this argument between siblings to escalate any further. “Haley, just calm down and listen to me. I understand why you’re angry, because you never wanted me to see this, but since the first time I read it, I can’t for the life of me figure out why you didn’t want me to see it.”

Feeling drained from all of the shouting and gesturing, Exhale felt herself go limp when Taylor posed his question. “Taylor, you could never understand…Why would I ever show it to you or tell you these things when you’re so fucking happy with Reese? It made me look selfish because I had pushed you away when I had Taston, and…I just couldn’t bring myself to do that.”

Knowing this was never at all the way he had intended to carry out his promise, but seeing that no time was better than the present, Taylor took a deep breath before admitting, “I broke up with her. The night before we came here.”

Bringing her tear-glazed eyes up to his, confusion clouding them suddenly, she said, “Why on earth would you do that? You both liked each other so much, and…” She let her voice trail away, awaiting an answer.

“Of course I liked her. She was sweet, and funny, and I’m sure she’ll have no problems moving on, but, Haley, I didn’t love her like-”

“Don’t give me that crap,” Exhale interrupted suddenly, annoyed with his form of response. “People don’t date at seventeen for love, Taylor.”

“You didn’t let me finish,” Taylor replied, his voice becoming more strong and confident as he formed his next sentence carefully in his mind. He knew it was probably the most important sentence he’d ever say to her, and if it wasn’t absolutely perfect, this would all go even more terribly wrong than it already had. “I couldn’t stay with Reese, knowing that I didn’t love her, but knowing…knowing that I’m in love with you and that I always have been.”

A swift and terrifying silence fell over the four occupants of the room. Ethan and Isaac watched expectantly as Taylor stared at Exhale, awaiting her response to his declaration of love for her. To all of their surprise, she didn’t say a word, and instead ran from the room. Seconds later, they heard the slam of the French doors, the sound of it reverberating through the silent house. He started after her hastily, but Isaac quickly grabbed Taylor’s arm to stop him, saying, “Let her go, man. Just give her a minute to-”

Shrugging him off impatiently, Taylor hurried through the living room and threw the door open, expecting her to be halfway to the beach by now, but stopping short when he realized she was standing against the balcony instead. Her eyes were cast down toward the Gulf, watching the people on the shore build sand castles and splash in the water, her heart aching to be that carefree again. Neither of them said anything for what felt like an eternity. “You can’t be in love with me,” she said slowly, breaking the thick silence with her voice and turning to face him.

“Why can’t I?” he asked, taking a wary step towards her.

“Because…” She dropped her folded arms to her sides, feeling utterly defeated. “Because you only go for these unnaturally beautiful girls, and last I checked, I don’t fall under that category. I’m just a stupid tomboy who looks ridiculous and awkward when I dress myself up in a feeble attempt to impress you.” She scoffed bitterly, staring him hard in the eyes, knowing what she was about to say could make him hate her, make him never want to speak to her again, but suddenly, she didn’t care because it was the truth, and regardless of the consequences, he needed to hear it. “If you’re so in love with me, if you’ve always been in love with me as you claim, why was it so easy to cast me aside whenever a Rory or a Reese came along? You could have had me whenever you wanted in all this time, Taylor, but no. You chose someone who could have walked out of a fucking magazine seconds before. I never seemed to matter to you then, so why now? Plain and simple, you can’t be in love with me. You’ve proven that enough.”

The truth in her words felt like a blow to the stomach with a three ton truck. “Haley…” He took another tentative step towards her. “I’ve done so many things that I’m not proud of. I’ve been self-centered, and by doing that I’ve pushed away the one person who I can’t live without,” he said, his voice thick with emotion as he struggled not to cry. Crying was not something he did easily. “I know I haven’t been fair to you, but until I got that letter from Ethan, I honestly didn’t know how you felt for me…I’m an idiot, and I’ll be the first to admit that. I might know nothing when it comes to girls, but, God, if I’ve ever known anything as surely as I know now, it’s that I am in love with you, Haley.”

“Fuck, Taylor, where is this all coming from?” she asked, throwing her hands up again and turning back to the banister. “Why on earth do you even want me? What could I possibly have to offer you?”

“This might sound corny as hell, Haley, but…all I’m asking for is your heart,” he said, his voice so quiet that he though she may very well have not heard a word of it.

Arms folded tightly across her chest, she spun back to face him, advancing so that their faces were mere inches apart. Tears of betrayal, anger and confusion were streaming down her cheeks. For a split second, the thought crossed Taylor’s mind that she might kiss him and bring an end to this insanity. But when she spoke, all hopes of reconciliation vanished from his mind. “Whether or not you knew it,” she said slowly, deliberately, “you’ve already had that for some time now.” Then she brushed past him and went into the house, leaving him confused and broken on the porch.

INDEX | CHAPTER FORTY