Page 91 of A Wreck, You Make Me (Bad Boys of Bardstown #3)

“I didn’t know that. Not until recently.

I thought something was wrong with me. Something was poisoning my insides so much so that some days I didn’t even want to be around them.

I didn’t want to hang out with Ledger at practice.

I didn’t want to go to Callie’s get-togethers.

Every time they mentioned their girls, Reed, I just…

I felt irritated. I felt like I couldn’t stand it.

And well, you already know I couldn’t stand being near Stellan because I thought Isadora should be with me.

But the truth is I was jealous. Jealous of what they had, have.

The kind of happiness they have. The kind of love they have.

They’re making their own families, and I couldn’t see that.

Not when I was left behind. Not when I was lonely. ”

He pauses to look at me with a penetrating gaze. “You knew that though, didn’t you? You already knew I was lonely.”

“Yes,” I whisper.

I knew. I could see. I didn’t know the extent of it until now but yes, I knew. And I wanted to do everything I could to make that go away. To make him feel better. To be his cure, his balm. His everything like he was mine.

“You somehow always know,” he says, his thumbs rubbing the back of my hand. “Somehow you already know all the things about me before even I know them.”

“Because I am your heart reader,” I tell him, even though I know I shouldn’t.

I shouldn’t make our connection any deeper than it already is.

I shouldn’t look for more ties to bind us together, more shackles and ropes, more twines and twigs.

Because for some reason, being tied to him feels like freedom and happiness, safety, and I don’t need any reminders of that right now.

Both his eyes and his voice are fond when he agrees, “Yeah.” Then, taking a deep breath, he continues, “But what you don’t know, you couldn’t know because I had to figure it out for myself is that I got together with Isadora out of that same loneliness that made me jealous of my own siblings.

It wasn’t love. It was never love. I was just looking to fill the gap in my soul, in my heart that missed my siblings so badly and she was there.

And when she left I…” He searches for a word, and I look at him with suspended breaths and a reeling mind.

“I think what I felt was hopeless. I felt like I was never going to have what my siblings had. I thought I was once again being left behind and it was so…painful, that feeling. Scary too, terrifying that I thought it was heartbreak. But it wasn’t.

She never broke my heart when she left because she never had it. Even I didn’t have my heart back then.”

“You didn’t?”

He shakes his head. “No, I gave it away.”

“To whom?”

Again, both his eyes and his voice are fond, maybe even laced with a sad sort of amusement at my naivete when he says, “To you.”

I blink. Then I blink again and finally it slams into me, the knowledge and I lose my breath.

It’s me. It’s always been me. He’s loved me since the beginning, maybe since the first moment he saw me.

That’s why he used to look at me when he was with her.

That’s why he used to think about me, watch me, knew that I watched him because his heart was mine.

I wasn’t the other girl. No, I was the only girl.

I am the only girl.

But he’s right, there is no way I could’ve known about all this. There’s no way I could’ve pieced it all together, not until he told me about it.

A breath rushes out of him, wafting over me, all sweet and hot, laced with his favorite fruit, me.

“Jesus, fuck . I can’t believe I didn’t see it.

I can’t… Everything I have done, all the twisted things I have done was all so I could be…

I could be close to you.” He swallows thickly, flexing his grip on my fingers, staring into my eyes.

“So I could just look at you. And touch you and feel you. Talk to you even though I know nothing about talking. I followed you that night, the night of my engagement, all because I couldn’t stand to be there.

I couldn’t stand to be in there when you were somewhere else, when you were miserable because of me.

So, I followed you out and all I wanted was to look at you, hear your voice directed at me for the first time. ”

He comes even closer then, if possible, “You said I fell in love with you while trying to get out of love with her. No, I fell in love with you the first moment I saw you. I just didn’t realize it even though my brain, my heart, every fucking bone in my fucking body was telling me.”

Once again, I want to be angry at him for this.

For not listening to his own self. For not recognizing the signs but I can’t be.

Because it’s not really his fault, is it?

This is how he took care of his family, ignoring himself and his emotional needs.

He made it so that he didn’t have any emotional needs.

So there is no way he could’ve recognized them.

There is no way he would’ve listened, not until he was forced to. By me.

He takes another deep breath and his chest shudders with it.

His entire frame shudders and there’s a crack in his voice when he continues, “You know why that is. You know why I am the way I am and fuck, baby, I…” He rests his forehead against mine and rolling it, he goes, “I never should’ve left that night.

I never should’ve left you when you told me you loved me and I loved you.

I should’ve stayed. I should’ve talked to you.

You always tell me to talk and I never… But I thought I was going to hurt you.

I got so scared when I realized I loved you and that my love was going to hurt you.

I thought leaving was the only choice I had.

For the first time in my life, I wanted to do the right thing and in pursuit of that I…

” Another deep breath. “I hurt you anyway. I hurt you so badly that you had to run. You had to leave everyone behind, Snow, our family and I... It’s all my fault.

It’s my fucking fault but I’m going to fix it, all right?

I’m going to fucking fix everything I broke and?—”

“No,” I say on a soft, barely audible whisper.

He still hears it and pauses. “You?—”

I pull away from him even though there’s no space left to go. He’s taken every inch around me but I turn my face away and cut him off, “There’s nothing to fix. I want you to go. I want you to leave me alone. Just go.”

“No,” he says, his voice thick, his hands in mine so tight that it makes me afraid I’ll never be able to get free. “Don’t say that. Don’t you fucking say that. I can fix it. I can make things right. All I need is a chance. All I need?—”

I turn back to him then and looking him in his eyes that probably mirror mine, anguished and tortured.

“No, I won’t. I can’t .” His jaw clenches but I keep going, “Because I’ve already given you all the chances I had.

I’ve given you everything I had. But all you ever do is keep hurting me.

You keep breaking my heart and I can’t do it anymore.

I won’t. I deserve better. So leave. Now. ”

It’s not true. Even as I say it, I know that.

He does break my heart, but he also makes it race like no one ever has.

He does hurt me, but he also makes me the kind of happy I’ve never felt before.

But I’m tired now. I’m so tired of this push and pull and maybe it’s better if we’re not together.

It’s better if we go our separate ways and because a love that hurts so bad can’t be good for you, can it?

“Punish me,” he says.

“What?”

His eyes are somehow both calm and frantic as he rasps, “I’ve hurt you, haven’t I?

I’ve broken your heart over and over and fucking over.

So hurt me back. Punish me. Teach me a lesson.

Teach me a lesson so hard and so fucking bad that I never do it again.

That I get nightmares from it. Steal my sleep, make me hurt. ”

“I don’t?—”

“Hit me. Smack me in the face,” he goes on, still crowding me against the wall, keeping our hands joined, keeping our eyes locked.

“Make me crawl, make me beg. Fucking spit on me. Do whatever the fuck you want but don’t give up on me.

Just give me another chance. One more chance to show you that you’re safe with me. Like I’m safe with you.”

My heart is slamming in my chest. So hard, so fucking hard that I think I’ll pass out. But I don’t, instead I find myself saying, “A date.”

“What?”

I swallow, my skin feeling tight with goosebumps and my belly fluttering with excitement. If I stopped to think about it even for a second, I know I’ll back out. And for some reason, I feel this is something I just have to do.

“Watch me go on a date with another man.” His body freezes, becomes a large slab of stone much like the night he left me in my room but this time, he has something brewing in his eyes, something intense, violent even.

“For thirty minutes. Without punching him in the face or scaring him away or anything that’ll ruin it and I’ll give you another chance. ”