Page 49 of Embracing the Beat
MICHAELA
West is silent.
“How are you surprised by all of this? It was all over the internet a few months ago.” I was sure everyone in my family knew. That everyone I had ever met must know based on some of the messages I got after the video from people who were supposedly my “friends” during high school. But no one in my family has been brave enough or callous enough to bring it up.
“You know I don’t pay attention to that tr—” He cuts himself off before he can utter the word.
“Trash,” I finish for him.
“Mikey—” The regret is clear in his voice. If anything, it only makes my humiliation burn hotter.
“I’m not proud of being out there like that, but I am happy that I told the truth. Mia didn’t deserve what Tucker was trying to do.”
“You didn’t deserve it either,” he says. His arm tightens around my shoulders, and I desperately want to lean into his warmth, into the support he’s willing to give me. Now. But he questioned me earlier, and that holds me back. “I acted like an asshole coming in here the way I did.”
“I’m not going to argue with you,” I retort. He did act like an asshole. It was completely out of character for him. I didn’t think he was capable of that kind of behavior.
“I should probably explain.” He seems so uncomfortable. Is this what it’s going to be like now? This awkwardness interspersed with moments where I think we’re friends? One step forward and two steps back?
“You don’t have to.” So much has happened since I left home. So many changes and assumptions and consequences that I’ve never gotten an explanation for. I’m used to doing my own thing and dealing with the fallout by myself.
“I want to.” His voice is quiet but determined.
“Okay. I’m listening.”
But he remains silent for a long moment. I’m ready to tell him to forget it—for the second time—when he drags a hand through his hair, surging off the couch. His sudden movement startles me, and I watch him pace.
“I can’t—I need to walk. Walk with me?”
“Where?”
“Around the block?”
It’s unexpected, but not an odd request, and I stand next to him. Physically, he’s inches away, but in every other way that matters, he might as well be on the moon.
“Sure.”
I grab a pair of flip-flops, and we leave the house, turning right. The heat of the day is starting to ease, and the summer evening is quiet—idyllic except for the knots of uncertainty tightening my stomach.
“You know when I met Ashley, right?” He breaks the silence while his left hand brushes against mine between us.
“College.”
“I met her the first weekend I moved into my dorm room. I literally bumped into her when I was leaving the building and she was coming in. Her stuff went everywhere. By the time we picked it all up, I had her phone number and a date for Friday night.”
“Sounds pretty cute.”
Picture perfect. But I understand that pictures don’t always tell the full story.
The side of his mouth quirks in a shadow of a smile, but he doesn’t stop walking, and his focus remains on the sidewalk in front of him.
“It felt like it. One date led to another and another, and before I knew it, we were graduating, and I accepted a job in Pittsburgh since she was moving back home.”
“I remember.” I hadn’t been able to explain why I was so sad about his move. Going to college while Sawyer joined the Army, West wasn’t at our house much anyway. But his move meant I would never see him.
“I moved. Fuck. I even proposed,” he groans to the sky, clenching his fingers around tufts of hair.
“When did you propose?”
