Page 99 of I'm Gonna Get You Back
“It wasn’t without flinching.” She sits on the edge of the mattress, her voice thick with emotion. “It… destroyed me.”
It’s a dagger. No, a thousand daggers.
I squeeze my hands into fists, every thought and feeling from the past year clashing and crashing together until I feel like I might detonate. “Then why did you do it?”
The shadow of her lashes fans across her cheeks as she closes her eyes, thinking. “I was scared. You—this—wasn’t in my plan. Then when my plan fell apart… I didn’t want you to get stuck here. You were leaving. You had to go.”
“You didn’t even give us a chance when Iwashere,” I say, my eyes digging into hers. “I did everything I could possibly think of to give you what you wanted.”
“You did,” she agrees quietly, looking down at her hands. “And I know it wasn’t enough, but I gave you more than I ever thought I was capable of.”
We stand there a moment as that settles between us. A part of me wants to drop all of this here and now and pull her into my arms. But too much of our history stops me. Never knowing if how I felt or what I said would drive her away. Like the thing that’s lingered since her birthday last year.
“Did you ever read the card?” I ask. The birthday card with the poem I wrote her. That confessed everything I needed her to know. She never said a single thing about it and I never asked.
Her mouth opens, closes. “What card?”
I can’t tell if she’s playing it cool, lying, or just trying to let me down gently. Maybe she has no idea what I’m talking about. But a calm clarity settles over me as I realize it doesn’t really make a difference. I’ve known all along she only wants me when it doesn’t mean anything.
My voice is small, anguished. “We can’t keep doing this.”
Our eyes meet, and I know immediately it was a mistake to come back here. To be with her again. To remember how soft her skin is and how her breath skips when I touch her in a way she likes. To remember that our connection is still strong enough to scare the shit out of me.
It took me months to forget. But now, I know again. Iknow.And I’ll have to carry that knowing through every torturous, lonely minute at school all over again.
Because the problem is the same as it ever was: She doesn’t want anything real, and I don’t know how to stop myself from loving her.
“I have to go,” I say. “Can Mitchell drive you home?”
I lace up my shoes, avoiding her eyes the entire time. My knee feels fine. It’ll be fine.
“Reid—”
I walk out the door.
None of us get what we want, anyway.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIXCLARANOW
BEFORE I CAN SAYanything else, Reid walks out of his bedroom without so much as a backward glance. I’m left standing there in the wreckage of what neither of us can seem to repair.
His touch was searing, his kisses almost bruising in their intensity. When he wrapped his body around mine, I never wanted to let go as my heart sighed,Yes, this, finally.
But the moment I brought up last year, he shut down. Maybe no matter what we want, what heneedsis closure. The thought forms a breathless ache in the center of my chest.
I hear a door open across the hall, followed by tense, low voices. Reid telling Mitchell to get up about five hours earlier than he usually would. Then several fast footsteps and the firm closing of the front door.
Reid’s in a darker place than I realized. If things are as bad as he says they are, it’s almost as if he wants them to implode. And they will if he keeps running on an injured knee or avoiding what’s going on at school.
I hate seeing him in pain like this. I wish I coulddosomething.
Mitchell appears in the doorway, puffy and mussed from sleep.
He raises his eyebrows, and with every drawn-out syllable dripping with implication says, “Sleep well?”
I slump onto the edge of the bed and bury my face in my hands. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
He steps into the room. “Good. Literally always err on the side of sparing me the details of my brother’s sex life.”
