Sutton shook her head, breath shuddering out as she stared at Charlotte. “No. Don’t—you can’t rewrite history like that, Charlotte. You can’t. Just because of what’s happening between us right now?—”
“This has nothing to do with us right now. This has nothing to do with what I said earlier.” The fire in Charlotte’s voice was blazing and insistent, though it wasn’t angry. It was passion, undeniably so. “I’m not rewriting history.”
“Youare. You are, though, because I wasin love with you, Charlotte Thompson!” The words exploded from Sutton, from somewhere so deep inside of her, somewhere that had been bottled up and pushed down long ago. “I was so, so in love with you, and I was fine with you not coming out. I was fine with us not labelling what we were to one another. I was completelyfinewith that, and you still ended it.”
That was Sutton’s painful truth. That she would have continued to live, for an indeterminate amount of time, by Charlotte’s career. And even then, it hadn’t been enough.
The hard, shattering truth that she’d had to accept in order to move on so long ago was that if Charlotte had truly loved her, it would have been enough.
“And I deluded myself into thinking that you might have felt the same way, until I had to eventually accept that you didn’t. Because if you had felt what I felt, you wouldn’t have been able to walk away.”
The pain from that, though healed, would always be sensitive scar tissue on Sutton’s heart, best left alone. And it ached now, all over again, as she stared desperately at Charlotte.
Charlotte jumped from her perch in her chair, unable to contain the energy inside of her. “You weren’t the only person who was shattered when things ended between us, Sutton.” Though Sutton tried to deny it, the painful edge to her voice was unmistakable.
Charlotte stood directly in front of her before dropping to her knees, her hands falling on Sutton’s thighs, her grip warm and desperate. “Iwasn’t okay with not labelling what we did back then any longer.” Her hold tightened, as if Sutton’s heart-pounding attention could stray from her for even a single moment. “Because I was so deeply in love with you, I couldn’t see straight anymore. I wasn’t seeing anything correctly, not even my career. And that terrified me. So I ended it. And I waswrong.”
No. The word was stuck in Sutton’s throat, thick and croaky and intent, but she couldn’t voice it. Even though—no. It wasn’t true. Couldn’tbetrue.
“Yes,” Charlotte insisted, clearly not needing Sutton to speak her mind when she could read her thoughts. “And I’ve hated myself for it so often over the years because you moved on, darling, but I never did.”
This must be what insanity felt like, Sutton thought. She wanted to laugh and cry at once, her feelings overwhelming her, as she stared down at Charlotte.
The young woman she’d once been still lived inside of her, clearly, because at Charlotte’s words, a part of her screamed with joy. Like some part of her was healed in hearing them.
All the while, the heartache and blistering pain and the painstaking effort she’d put in by putting Charlotte behind her shouted in self-righteous disbelief.
And all of it tied together inside of her,insanely, as Charlotte Thompson beseeched Sutton to believe her, on her knees at Sutton’s feet.
“And that’s why I said what I said earlier, Sutton. Earlier tonight, at the party.”
Oh god. Theywerediscussing it. Charlotte was going there.
And Sutton… she still couldn’t find any words; her tongue felt too thick.
“I was wrong to walk away from you then. To walk away from us. From everything we could have been together, everything we could have built. And I’ve never felt it, thisthingwe have, with anyone else, no matter how much time passes.”
“Charlotte.” Her name—begging, desperate, a prayer—was all Sutton could voice.
This was a dream. It was a nightmare. It couldn’t be—couldn’tbe real.
“So if it means having you, then Iwon’t run for president.”
The words rang through the air, clear as day, for the second time in twelve hours. And even though Sutton had already heard them, the shock of it slammed into her all over again.
The shock, though, finally helped her find the ability to speak again.
“Charlotte, what does that even mean for you?” It was easier to ask that than to focus on herself. So much easier to focus on Charlotte than the calamity of thoughts and feelings trying to barrel their way through her.
Charlotte clearly had been entirely unprepared for that question as she stared up at Sutton, blinking widely.
That look nudged her to continue. She reached down, unable to keep her hands from dropping to Charlotte’s.
Maybe it was stupid, maybe it was ridiculous, but this… it really felt like the end. Despite all of Charlotte’s pretty words, the reality was different. Sutton knew that now.
“What does your life look like without this plan in front of you? How long will it take for you to resent me? What will you do with yourself?” she challenged, asking the questions she’d been unable to voice earlier, the ones that made Charlotte’s statement so unbelievable it was absurd.
“I don’t doubt that you—” She choked on the wordlove, unable to get it past her lips. She couldn’t go there with Charlotte, not even now. “That you have a lot of intense feelings for me. But have you even thought about what you’re saying you’ll give up?”