Page 87 of Unlocked Dive

Not him. Not really.

Not yet.

“So that’s why you didn’t tell me about Gabe? You didn’t want to let me down?”

“I tried to tell you this afternoon, but you were already so hurt and angry, and I…” He shifts back when I stiffen, creating reluctant space between us. “I wanted to pretend I was the man you saw in me for one more night.”

“So you decided to let me fuck you as what, some kind of favor because you felt sorry for me? Or to appease your fucking guilt?” This time, I do push him, with all my strength, until he staggers and the distance between us crystallizes into something real.

“No. God, no. Iwantedthis. For you, yes, but also for me. It was…”

“Stupid of us.” Denial is a flimsy shield. Foolish of me to rely on it, when he’s never let me hide behind any of my other defenses.

“Important.” His voice rasps over the raw edges of our anguish.

“Important. Because it was the first time or because it was the last?”

He covers his face with his hands, and I sink to my knees beneath the sudden weight of awful understanding. I can’t even pretend it’s not my fault we ended up here.

How many lines have I forced him to cross while convincing myself it was what he wanted?

Take, I told him, eroding his resolve and his choices with the torrent of my need.

How am I any different from his other lovers—despite my grand declarations—when I make him compromise himself again and again? I was so sure I was better than them, but I’ve been the selfish one, endangering his career and his relationships to mend my own fractured soul.

Selfish enough that I still don’t want to let him go.

“Look at me,” I beg. “I crushed the most important audition of my life today because of you. I found out my own brother tried to ruin my lifeandhe had you first, and it fucking sucked, but I didn’t let it break me.I defended you. And then you let me have you the way no one else ever has and think everything wasgonna be okay. That we’d get through this, because we’reEcho and Byrd. And now, after all of that, you’re breaking up with me?”

“That’s not what I’m doing,” he says, dropping to join me on the carpet. His hair is curling along his jaw as it dries, and I could reach out and touch him if he wasn’t so fucking far away.

“It feels like you are.”

“I may have held back the truth about Gabriel, but I never lied about anything else. I wasn’t lying when I said I love you.”

“Then what is this shit? Why are you looking at me like you’re saying goodbye?”

“Everything that happened today—with your father, with Gabe, and with me—it’s all been there the whole time, underneath the rest. Just because we’ve been pretending—”

“Who was fuckingpretending? I never was. Don’t try and tell me you were either. I fucking know you, Byrd Baardwijk. You don’t do anything you don’t mean. You would have fucked me the first week without giving a shit if you were that kind of guy.”

“I wasn’t pretending to love you. I was pretending I could keep you.”

“Why can’t you?”

“Because Ican’t. And you know this. Think about it, Echo. Think about your future and what you really want.”

“I want you more than I want school.”

“Don’t say that. You know where that choice got me. Seven years drowning in a resentful marriage that was never going to work. I won’t do that to you.”

“I’d never resent you.” But I can tell I’m losing the battle. He’s been warning me the whole time that this has to end. Did I really think I could change our fate by offering to give up my own future? So that every time he looks at me, he’s haunted by the ghosts of his past failings.

Or worse, by asking him to follow me across the world the way Lara did?

“Don’t you understand?” he begs, cupping my face to brush away my tears. “If you don’t do something incredible with your life, Gabriel wins. We can’t let him win.”

I crumple forward and smear my useless misery into his lap. His hands are achingly gentle in my hair.