Page 44

No, I don’t think I could. My closed hands shake at the idea of it.
Roan’s eyes dart around, landing on photographs and memories I created without him, his breathing unstable, impending devastation etched in his face like a stone carving. He picks up a photo, one of graduation day. Agustin’s lips are pressing to my temple, pure love and devotion in Agustin’s eyes, so unlike the man standing before me.
Roan drops the photo on the table and it thumps flat against the wood. Disgusted, he growls out a breath and runs his hands over his face. His chin rises, our stare holding for a beat, his red eyes swimming with emotion. “What the fuck are you doing with this guy?”
My words shake with my body. “What are you talking about?”
He steps forward, invading my space, his eyes committed, pleading, asking questions I don’t know the answers to. He grabs my face between his hands and makes me look at him. His eyes are wavering, indecisive, damn near teary-eyed. But Roan, he wouldn’t cry. He wouldn’t let anyone see weakness like that. “What are you doing withhim?”
My jaw clenches and works back and forth. I search his eyes, burning with rage, fighting back the urge to melt into him and let him hold me like I want. I can picture it, my body curving into his, allowing myself that feeling only he gives, the one where nothing matters but him and me. But I have to be stronger than the hold he has over me. “Am I just supposed to wait around for you?”
He licks his lips, his heavy breathing hitting my face. “So that’s what this is about?”
I push away from him and create much-needed space. I can’t think with him this close. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Every breath vibrates his frame. “No, I think you do,” he spits. “You’re pissed that I didn’t fall to my knees the moment you turned eighteen.”
What a fucking dick.
The meaning behind his words gets the better of me and I drive my hands into his chest. He catches himself against the table, his eyes shifting from rage to empty. He knows. “I can’t believe you’re acting like this,” I yell, barely able to control my tone or words. I throw my arms up in the air. “I hate you.” I shove him again. “I fucking hate what you do to me!” His body trembles, but he doesn’t move. All I see is his despair. “I’ve tried so many times to have more with you. I was always there, waiting. I’ve begged and pleaded and made a complete fool out of myself for years. You havenoidea what it’s like to love someone like you and be completely inferior to them at the same time. Yes, I slept with your brother. Yes, I slept with Agustin.” He flinches at my words, but I don’t stop. “But it’s you who I came back to and once again, you pushed me away because you couldn’t handle the idea of someone else playing with your toy. That’s all I am to you. Something you can mess with and get a rise out of, and I’m done. I’m so done!”
The truth silences him. He’s breathing heavily. I’m crying and am pretty sure I’m going to pass out from lack of oxygen because I don’t think I breathed that entire time.
I stare at him, waiting. His pallid face, the spark of color in his cheeks. Rain-soaked. His lips part, but no words. He doesn’t move. Not an inch. He blinks, takes another breath and stares at me like I’ve ripped a hole in his chest, leaving it wide-open and bare to the world now.
I gasp, a shallow cry pushing through me. I want to apologize, but I don’t because damn it, I meant every word.
He moves, and it’s quick. He steps to the side, reaching with both hands and flips the table with the pictures of me and another man over. Unprepared for the crash, I scream and suddenly he’s in my face, yanking my body to his.
“Stop it! Let me go!”
He pulls me into him, tighter. I fight to get away but his arms swallow and constrict. With clenched fists, I close my eyes and beg for strength. Our feet crunch on broken shards of glass, his movements desperate as he fights to hold onto me.
Finally, I let go and cry into his chest. “Why did you constantly push me away?”
He doesn’t answer but his body shakes, sinking into mine, a sob with no tears rolling through him. He takes my face in his hands. My temples throb, my words gone when I see how empty and depleted he looks. “I’m sorry,” he says, his chin shaking. I think, maybe, it’s the first time he’s said those words to me and meant them. His brow pinches, desperately clinging to his control.
Tears soak my face and I offer what I can, what will make him see that I’m no longer the little girl wilting under his control anymore. “It’s… too late.”
Those words, they destroy him. They break him completely. He shakes.
Blinking away the destroyed look, he drops his face, his lips at my ear. “Do you love him?” he asks, pushing his voice out, but choking on every word.
I swallow, my tears coming harder now. My shoulders tremor with my words. “That’s irrelevant now, don’t you think?”
There’s a tiny lift of his lips in amusement that I twisted his words on him, but his hold on me relaxes, and fades, along with his hope for more. I feel the loss immediately. His brow knits together, his face vacant. He nods and stares down at the destruction he once again caused, madness in his eyes. “What if I don’t want to let you go?” His words are empty and uncertain. He’s scared of what I’m going to say next. Finally, and though I don’t want it now, I have the power over him.
I shrug, trying to appear carefree for once, unsure which one of us is going to cave. “I don’t think you have a choice anymore.”
He stops, no movement. And then his jaw clenches, a flood of emotions saturating his eyes. I can’t decipher them, but they’re intense, a portrayal of a man who has been broken down to nothing. His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat. He drags his thumb along his lower lip, and then drops his hand. He steps forward, his hand on my cheek, the other on my hip. He digs his fingers into my hip and grips tightly, his breathing erratic and labored, mirroring my own. Despite his obvious torment, the love in his touch, it’s hard not to get caught up in it. He knows the effect on me and uses it to his advantage. I fear he’s going to kiss me, but instead, he breath hits under my chin, dragging his parted lips across my jaw with the words, “I never fucked that girl in Athens.”
He pulls back, his hold tightening, waiting for the words to hit me.
We stare. Neither of us reacts.
Until… it hits me. The truth. The meaning.
I push my hands to his chest. His heart’s pounding. I grip his jacket and my knuckles whiten. I shove him away from me. Breathe in his words. Let them slam into me like the heavy weight they are. I let them bleed into me and infect my soul. I can barely shape my lips around the word “Leave.” My knees buckle, my stomach dropping, and the guy who entices a reaction from me with just a flicker of his eyes, walks out of my life, leaving me with a truth I never saw coming.