The Choice - A Small Town Love Triangle by Piper Phoenix Page B

had been there for a very long time. The extreme dislike for one another hadn’t started because of her, it was something that had existed for a while. Traci didn’t know what to say, all she wanted to say was how sorry she was, over and over and over again.
    He continued, “When I was 18… I had this girlfriend, Emma. We’d been together since freshman year high school. We’d spend any free time we had together, which wasn’t a whole heck of a lot because I helped my dad on the farm every day, but we were an official couple. During our senior year we talked about our future and planned on getting married after we finished high school. She’d go to college, and I’d stay here and work the farm until she graduated.”
    Traci’s stomach tightened at the mention of the other girl. It was an odd twinge of jealousy that she pushed deep down inside of her. She had no right. He ran his hands through his hair and sighed. She waited patiently. It was almost as if he was seeing it all play out in his head like a movie.
    “Then when my dad passed away, things changed. My mom had passed away two years before that so it had only been us boys for a while,” he explained before she could ask about his mother, “With dad gone I had even less free time. I finished high school and worked the farm full time. Cash still lived here at the time and helped out with farm-work when he felt like it but mostly he just lounged around and partied like a typical 20-year-old. But I didn’t get to party. I had to work. Someone had to take care of the animals and the crops,” he looked at her waiting for some kind of response.
    “Of course,” she said not really sure what to say.
    “That summer after I graduated, I went to ask Cash to help me with something, and for the life of me I can’t even remember what I needed help with. When I walked into his room and saw him with… her, I almost couldn’t control myself. I wanted to hurt him so he could feel the pain I was feeling. He had her bent over his desk, they were both naked and well I suppose you can probably imagine what I saw,” he said with more sadness in his voice than anything else.
    She felt even worse knowing that history had practically repeated itself. It had happened to him again. Thankfully he hadn’t walked in on her and Cash fucking, but it was bad enough considering. And they still had fucked even if he hadn’t seen it.
    “I’d found out later they’d been screwing behind my back for months. Cash never even apologized. Girls have been all over him since we were kids. He was always the handsome one, girls would ask me to introduce them. Cash has always had things so easy. Any girl he wanted… the football star… teachers took it easy on him in school. Even my dad rarely made him do chores.
    “Anyway seeing you with him set off all those feelings again. I thought we had something. I really, really liked you Traci, and stupid sonsabitch I am, I still do.”
    “I like you too Sawyer I really do. It was a mistake. If I’d have known any of this…,” she said even though she knew he wouldn’t have ever talked about any of this so early in their relationship. Still, she had royally screwed up, and it wasn’t because she hadn’t known from the start that they were brothers, or because she hadn’t known what had happened in their past. It was because she couldn’t make up her mind. “It was wrong of me to try to figure things out while seeing both of you, it all happened so fast. I was confused and—”
    “—I wish I would have told you right away. I should have been up front about it,” Sawyer said and it made her think about the lies she had told him when they had first met. The big lie about her name being the main one.
    “Sawyer I’m so sorry I did this to you. It’s over with Cash. I hope it doesn’t have to be over with you too, but I’ll understand if it is.”
    “I… I’m hurting, Traci,” he said looking at her, his eyes wide and red the