Page 70 of Some Sort of Happy (Happy Crazy Love 1)
“Yes. I saw a poem you must have written about me the day we saw each other again at the beach. It was so beautiful, Sebastian. I was so drawn to you after reading it.”
He laughed bitterly. “Really.”
“Yes! At least I’m being honest!”
“You got caught. You have to be honest now.”
I bit my lip, torn between wanting answers and knowing I should shut up. “What was that about choking a woman? Was it therapy? Was it about me?”
“Fuck off. Not everything in my life is about you.” He turned and stormed into the cabin, leaving me to sob uncontrollably on the porch.
God, why couldn’t I have minded my own business? Why hadn’t I just asked him directly what I wanted to know? Why couldn’t he and I make this work, and was it even worth trying? If our start was this rocky, should we just forget it?
I collapsed onto the porch steps and cried hard into my arms.
Up in the loft, I threw the fucking notebook on the floor and sat down hard on the edge of the bed. I was mad as fuck, and I was horrified. Skylar had seen really fucked-up things that I’d written—things that I wasn’t comfortable sharing with her yet, so I’d lashed out. The SUDS list was one thing, I might have talked with her about that eventually anyway, but the stuff about her…God. She’d seen the exercise Ken had recommended where I imagine the worst—I’d written that the night I’d seen her at the beach in the attempt to lessen the impact of the thought, to wrest control away from it. I’d written in graphic detail about strangling her—my God, what she must think? She was probably down there calling the police!
It was a matter of time, anyway.
I squeezed my eyes shut. Maybe that was true.
Still, I’d treated her cruelly. As if I didn’t know what it was like to mess up and be sorry for it. And yet she’d apologized and asked my forgiveness.
I was a monster.
You warned her. She can’t say you didn’t.
“So now what, asshole?” I muttered, rubbing my face with my hands.
From downstairs I heard the screen door shut, and a moment later I saw her messy blonde head coming up the ladder. She got to the top, struggled with the sheet, then stood up tall. Her face was tearstained and her eyes were red, but the set of her chin was defiant.
“Here’s the thing,” she announced. “I’m not letting us ruin this.”
“Ruin what?”
“Our beginning. I don’t care what you wrote in that book, you are not a monster and I’ll never think that. So if that’s what has you all in knots right now, let’s just get that out of the way.”
I was too stunned to say anything.
“And I was completely wrong to look in your notebook the way I did. I’m sorry.” She lifted her shoulders. “I wanted to know how you felt.”
I’m falling in love with you.
“Sebastian.” She walked toward me, and I focused on the sheet wrapped around her body. “How do you feel?”
“I don’t know,” I said lamely. I stared at her bare feet, toe to toe with mine.
“Yes, you do. You’re scared. I am too.” She put her hand under my chin and forced me to meet her eyes. “I was there last night, remember? I heard the things you said. I said things back to you, and I meant them.”
Finally, I looked up and met her eyes. “I meant the things I said too.”
“OK.” She rubbed my arm. “Then we have something worth fighting for, something young and a little unsteady on its legs, but it can get stronger.”
“What if this is just too much work?” I blurted, hating myself for sounding like a coward.
“For who?”
“Both of us. What if I keep fucking up and you get tired of having to forgive me?”
