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My body was already shaking, but now my emotions made it even worse. All the fight drained out of me. I was an idiot and now I suffered the consequences. I wouldn’t survive this week, not with the cold hostility added to the room surrounding us.
I heard the door to the wood-burning stove open, making me look up.
Alden wasn’t glaring at me anymore. Instead, he was adding logs to the fire. The heat from the opened door curled around the room, chipping away at the ice that had formed around me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have acted like a brat out there.”
He paused and turned to me. “Excuse me?”
Oh God. I’d never live this down. “I said I’m sorry. Do you have to make this a thing?”
“You don’t apologize, Stella. Usually you take whatever you’re wrong about to the grave.”
Old me would have. New me couldn’t even look him in the eyes. “Guess I’m not the girl you knew.”
“Who the hell did”—he gestured to me—“this.”
“Why does it matter?”
“Because this isn’t you.”
“And how do you know who I am?”
He raised an eyebrow. “I’ve known you your whole life.”
“Not for the last seven years you haven’t.”
His lips pursed, and he turned back to the fire. Our conversation froze over like the ground outside.
“Besides,” I said, “this is going to be easier if Idon’tbe the person you know.”
“Not for me, it won’t.” His voice was low.
“What does that mean?”
“It means it’s easier if you’reyou.I don’t like seeing you fold into yourself like this.”
“The other option is me being angry.”
“Then be as mad as you want, Stella. In fact, I welcome it.”
“No man in his right mind would want to be stuck withmewhen I’m mad.”
He slowly turned. “I never said I was in my right mind.”
My brain couldn’t comprehend that he’d come back, much less what he was saying. Was I still in the snow? Was I dying and dreaming all of this up?
That would be the only way this would make any sense.
Alden didn’t like me. It took me a long time to see it, but he only tolerated me because of his relationship with Nick.
Sure, he said he found me physically attractive once, but if that had been true, he obviously regretted it.
I used to think it was his loss. But these days, it felt more like mine than anything else.
Why did I ever think sleeping with him was a good idea? I should have let it be. We would have stayed friends at the very least, and I would have one less man making me feel like I wasn’t enough.
Winnie would kick my ass if she knew how much I was spiraling about who I was. She was fearless, always staying true to who she was even when people looked down on her. I wished I could be that way, but after spending two years being told I was too much, it had started to sink in.