Page 13 of Between Never and Forever

“Dex.” Her body shuddered at my words, and then she wrapped her arms around her chest.

Fuck, I wanted to hold her. I wanted to tell her we’d be all right. I took a deep breath and grabbed the strings of her bikini instead. I tied them back around her neck as I knelt down to look her in her eyes. “Stop calling me. Go live that glitzy life you always wanted.” I needed this closure, and so did she.

“But that’s not why I’m doing this—”

“I don’t care why you’re doing it, pretty girl. I just don’t want any part of it. It’s why I don’t pick up when you call, why I don’t text back. I barely even read the texts, Kee. I’m living my life.”

Yeah, I’d ignored all sixty-five texts. I hadn’t read them each twenty-five times over. I hadn’t figured out a way to ping where they were coming from. I certainly wasn’t obsessed with her twenty-four-seven. That would have been unhealthy.

“How can you say that?” One tear fell from each eye, but she swiped them both away.

How could I keep the cycle of our hell going? We were broken, and we kept breaking each other. One of us had to stop.

“I’m letting go of a childhood love, heartbreaker.”

“Don’t call me that.” She said it with venom but the nickname fit.

“Whatever, Kee. We went through trauma together, but it doesn’t mean we can’t move on.”

“That’s what you think it was? Just some childhood crush?” Her eyes narrowed now as I sat back on my haunches.

“What else would it be?” A love so profound that I’d never get over it, but I couldn’t share that. My pride had already been lost to her once. Now, I was graduating college, getting opportunities of a lifetime to work on patented software. And she was soaring in her career.

“And what are we now?”

“Well, you seem to be settled into that pop star status, huh? I’m just working on getting through college.”

“I want whatever I can have with you.”

“You can’t have anything now,” I said and stood back up. “You look pretty in a garden, Keelani. You should tell your record label you want a garden on your next album cover.”

“Is that all you think I care about?” The question was uttered in pain.

I lifted a brow. “Isn’t it?”

The way she looked at me with dejection, I swear it made the air shift around us. That garden would haunt me for years to come. “Do you really think I don’t love you?”

What she didn’t understand was that this whole town had turned on me. Even my parents questioned how much I’d given her to drink that night. And her parents, well, I couldn’t face them after the PR stunt that was pulled. I distanced myself completely, compartmentalizing it all in order to survive. I came home, I engaged with my family, and then I left.

Kyle’s death, Gabriella’s injury, and Keelani’s safety were all on me. My heart was calloused over after years of the town’s questioning, after years of interrogating myself also. Never again would I lose control like that and let love steer me into something that wasn’t right.

So, I shut her down. “I don’t know, Kee. All I know is that you said you didn’t love me once.”

“I didn’t mean it.”

I stepped back and away from her. “Yes, well, I mean it when I say I don’t love you now.”

I didn’t mean it either.

PART TWO

TWELVE YEARS LATER

ChapterFive

KEELANI

“DoI have to look at your sad face for the next six months every time I bring up my brother? Because I can’t handle it. I hate when women cry.” Dimitri sighed and sat down on my hotel room’s couch next to where I was getting my makeup done.