Page 61 of The Long Way Home
I take a breath, but it gets stuck halfway down.
“Have you lost your mind?” I shake my head. “Ben, how could I even want to kiss you right now?”
He scoffs, mouth twisting cruelly. “Because that’s what people who are in it do. They fight, then they remind each other what they’re fighting for.”
I can’t imagine turning this anger into intimacy. He stands there smug. He thinks he is being noble. Like this is some grand, passionate declaration instead of what it is: a power play. A demand dressed up as affection.
I wrap my arms around myself, squeezing until my fingertips dig into my ribs.
“No.” I feel the edge of the counter press against the backs of my hips. “You don’t get to act like this is some romantic moment, Ben. You don’t get to demand a kiss as if it’s proof I still care. I don’t owe you that.”
His eyes narrow like I’m speaking a foreign language. And maybe I am, because it’s suddenly so clear we’re not having the same conversation.
He takes a step back. “Do you hear yourself, Rachel? You’re not even denying it.” He starts to laugh. “You belong to him, don’t you?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Maybe not on paper. Maybe not in bed. But somewhere in your head, in your heart—he’s still got a piece of you, doesn’t he?” His voice rises again, but there is desperation tangled in it. “And I’m the one stuck with what’s left. These shitty, broken scraps.”
I look at him, and he seems to actually believe it. He thinks I’m half a person he was handed. He thinks every problem between us starts and ends with something wrong inside me.
And the worst part is, I don’t even know how to argue against him. I used to. I remember that girl. I was the one who spoke up, who didn’t shrink herself just to keep the peace. I had opinions.I had courage. I chased what I wanted without apologizing for it. I feltsolid, like I actually took up space in my own life. And now I keep wondering when I started doubting myself, when fear got louder than my own voice. Where did that version of me go and how do I get her back?
Ben laughs again. “Jesus, Rachel,” he says, rubbing his jaw. “You’re being ridiculous. You really think Rhett—Rhett—would go for a girl like you?” He shakes his head. “Didn’t you say you’ve known him for like what? A decade? If he never did anything then, why do you think he would now?”
I stare at his mouth while he talks, wondering when I started believing this voice more than my own.
“You talk like you’ve got options. But deep down, you know your place. And it’s here. With me. I’m the best you’re ever gonna get, and you know it.”
“I don’t want to do this,” I whisper.
Ben shakes his head. “Of course you don’t. You never want to talk when it’s about you.”
I flinch. “That’s not fair.”
“Yeah, well, I guess I’m tired of fair.”
He watches me for another second, breathing too hard through his nose. Then he grabs the glass of water, still half full on the counter, and gulps it down. He slams it back onto the granite.
“Whatever,” he mutters. “I’m going to bed.”
I watch him walk back to the bedroom, his footsteps fading down the hall. I feel defeated. I wait for the spiral to hit—for the familiar certainty that there is nothing I can do, nothing I can fix, no version of myself that will ever be enough.
But it doesn’t come. Instead, there’s this dull, unsettling realization creeping into my chest: if he’s so sure I have no options, why does he sound so threatened by the idea that I might?
He wants this to be about Rhett, but I know Rhett better than he does. Rhett doesn’t feel that way about me. And that is fine. That’s not the point. I think about Rhett not the way Ben framed him, not as proof of my worth or lack of it, but as someone who never once made me feel small just for existing.
Ben says I know my place.
Maybe that is the real problem for Ben.
Because right now,my placeis starting to look a lot like walking out that door and never coming back.
Chapter Fourteen
RACHEL
I’m checking notes on Mr. Walker’s progress when Faier’s voice calls out from his office. “Rachel, a minute?”
