Page 33

Oh god, this was weird. Like super, super awkward. I cleared my throat as I sat on the edge of my bed. “How’s Chelsea?”

That perked him up, causing him to stand a little straighter. “She’s okay, I guess. She’s making some progress.”

“That’s good.” I meant it. Chelsea was a major pain, but ultimately, she was a good person, and I owed her my life. “Do they know what’s wrong?”

He took in a deep breath, his eyes shifting away from me. “No.” It was a simple answer, but I could hear the pain hiding in the depths of that single syllable.

“I’m sorry.”

He didn’t reply, and the silence encompassed us again. My insides crawled, and I was pretty sure that a baboon had taken residence in my stomach, and boy was he wreaking havoc in there.

“How have you been?” he finally asked after a few seconds.

“Fine. Busy, but fine.” It was a big, fat, bold lie. I wasn’t fine. Not evencloseto fine. My brother was doomed to die, and I had just agreed to marry Wes! And then, on top of it all, there was Matias and the insanely weird awkwardness that was nothing like us.

This wasn’t me. This wasn’t him. This just wasn’t us, and I was hating every second of it. I looked over at him, watching as he placed his hands in his jean pockets, thumbs sticking out, shoulders slightly rolled forward. As tempting as he looked, he also looked old in a way. Like the last few months had aged him years somehow. And he looked tired…the lines of his face telling a story of heartache, woe, and stress. And boy, did I understand what that felt like.

“Are you mad at me?” His voice came out haltingly as his eyes traveled to meet mine. And though his eyes carried the strain of a thousand years, in that moment, I was reminded of how young we both really were. Eighteen, risking our lives to protect the people we loved and being forced to make choices we didn’t a hundred percent agree with.

I opened my lips to tell himno, to reassure him that things were fine between us, but the words wouldn’t come out. Because it wasn’t fine. None of it was fine. And I wasn’t sure what I felt anymore. “I don’t know.” It was the most honest answer I could give him. “Are you?”

His eyes flickered, the silence stretching before he finally shook his head. “No.”

Quiet fell between us again, time ticking away as we stared at each other, neither one of us sure of what to do or say next. So I put my big girl pants on, swallowed the lump forming in my throat, and asked the question that had been bugging me the moment I saw him on the other side of the threshold. “Did Edith tell you?”

His brows knitted together. “Tell me what?”

“About what Sasha promised the North?”

“She told me you were living here now.”

“Yeah, but did she tell you why?” I wasn’t ready for this. I knew it was coming, that it was bound to happen, but I just wasn’t ready.

“Yes.”

One word and my heart shattered. It splintered into a million different pieces, and all I could do was rub my palms on my thighs, fighting back the tears that threatened to send me into a blubbery mess. “How…how are you not mad at me?” I thought for sure he would have had all kinds of emotions about this. The fact that he didn’t…well, it kind of hurt.

He took in a deep breath through his nose, releasing it slowly through his lips before he spoke. “Because…” he hesitated, and I got the feeling that what he was going to share next wasn’t going to be something I was going to particularly like. “I had a lot of time to think over the past couple of months. And I had some choices I had to make too.”

He took another deep breath, closing his eyes as he prepared to drop whatever bomb he had ticking away in his soul. Then he squared his jaw and faced me. “Chelsea needs me. I’m the only thing she has left, and I can’t leave her to fight whatever the hell she has going on by herself.”

“You chose her, didn’t you?” My feelings for Matias were complicated. I was angry at him for shooting my brother, but that didn’t mean that I didn’t stilllikehim. But there were also times where I felt a strange numbness when I thought about him, and that confused me too. Despite the messiness of it all, I always hoped that we would be able to work through it, figure it out, and maybe go back to the way things were. Hearing him now, listening to him tell me this…it stung.

His eyes flickered, moisture glistening as he frowned. “I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t know what to say to explain it to you.”

“Wait a minute. Have you been purposely avoiding me?” I stood up.

“I didn’t want to hurt you—”

“And you thought that ghosting me was a better alternative?”

“I know you’re mad—”

“Screw being mad,” I cut in. “I’m not mad, I’m hurt. I kept making up excuses about why you’ve been MIA all this time, only to discover that you’ve been intentionally ignoring me?” He remained quiet, and to his credit, he didn’t even try to defend himself. He just listened, taking it. “No wonder why you’re not pissed about this whole betrothal thing. You dumped me weeks ago.”

He sighed gruffly. “Come on, Mara. It’s not like that. It’s not like I wanted all of this to happen.”

I walked over to him. “But it did, Matias. It did. And you didn’t even have the decency totellme.”