Page 106 of Cold Mercy

“Why are you apologizing?” she asks, voice flat, dead.

“For telling me how you feel? You made yourself perfectly clear, I understood. Anything else?”

She turns to look at me then. Her eyes shine, not from anger, not from heartbreak, but from the brutal effort to keep tears from falling.

Goddammit. The one thing I never wanted to do is hurt her like this again, and here I am, tearing open the wound just by standing here.

“What I felt,” I start, my voice rough, “had nothing to do with what I said back then. I lied to you because I thought I was protecting you. I thought—”

“Protecting me?” She laughs, a jagged, broken sound that cuts straight through my chest. “Is that what you call it? You didn't protect me, Thomas. You broke my fucking heart. You made me feel like a pathetic, desperate girl who imagined a connection that wasn't there. Like I was just...a game for you while you figured out your actual life.”

The second the words leave her mouth, I know I’ve lost control of this conversation.

She steps closer, tears spilling hot and fast down her cheeks, but her eyes are blazing with fury.

“Was it fun?” she demands, her voice cracking. “Was it fun to watch me fall for it? To watch me open up and let you into my house, into my head, and into my heart just so you could turn around and tell me I meant nothing? Did you get off on it?”

Jesus Christ.

I want to grab her. I want to shake her and tell her that leaving her was the only thing that kept me from burning her entire life down.

“It wasn't a game, Sophia,” I say, desperate now. “It was never a fucking game.”

“Then why did you leave?” she screams, shoving my chest with both hands. The force of it surprises me, knocking me back a step. “Why did you tell me to forget you? Why did you disappear if it wasn't a game?”

She pushes again, harder this time, hurt replacing anger, and I catch her wrists before she can pull back. My hands close around her gently, thumb brushing her pulse, my breath barely steady. Her skin is cold, trembling under my touch, and I hate myself for being the reason why.

“Because I was scared,” I admit, the truth tearing out of me. “Because I knew if I stayed, I would ruin everything, I would ruin you.”

Her eyes lock on mine, drowning me in everything I broke. For a second, she stops fighting. She just looks at me with a devastation so deep it silences the world.

Please, just see that I’m bleeding too.

Then she slips her hands free, stepping back out of my reach like I’m contagious.

“You’re right,” she whispers, her voice suddenly cold, almost eerily calm. She wipes her face with the back of her hand, erasing the tears, erasing me. “You did ruin everything, and you don't get to fix it just because you're lonely now.”

She straightens her spine, putting the armor back on right in front of my eyes.

“I moved on, Reed. You should too. Your minute’s up.”

I know with absolute, crushing certainty, that I deserve every bit of this silence.

She turns away and starts walking toward the house, wiping tears with the back of her hand, shoulders trembling in a way that makes me want to fall onto the dock and scream into the water. I don’t know what I expected when I drove here. That she’d smile at me? That we’d talk? That we’d fix something unfixable? I’m an idiot. I should pack my things, leave the lakehouse, return to New York, show up only for the wedding, and vanish right after. I can’t stay here for a week watching her live a life that doesn’t include me.

When I walk into the house, James and Elizabeth are curled on the couch near the fireplace. They're still awake, and they’re going to witness this humiliation too.

I clear my throat. “Hey, sorry to bother you, but did either of you see my bag? I left it in the hallway closet.”

Elizabeth giggles, the tipsy kind that says she’s at least two glasses in, and waves a hand.

“Oh! Sophia asked James to move it to her room. Something about reorganizing because we will need the extra space.”

I freeze. She did what?

James gets up and walks toward me, slightly unsteady. He leans in close enough that Elizabeth can’t hear.

“Don’t stress about the Charles thing,” he murmurs. “Doubt anything serious happens. She’s leaving in a month anyway, and he's kind of a player, if you know what I mean.”