Page 82 of Van Cort

“Me?”

He sighs. “Do you like her?”

“To fuck? Yeah.”

“West. Adult time now. She means something to me.”

“The only thing that means anything to you is you.”

“You know that’s not true.”

“I don’t know shit about you anymore.”

“Also, untrue. There’s only one person in this world who does know me. You.”

I fold my arms over each other, pissed, because yes, I do know that. I know it far too fucking well. I know exactly what things mean to him, and exactly how he reacts when things don’t go his way, regardless of time apart. That’s the whole reason I’m here trying to ruin something for him, to give him a taste of his own goddamn medicine.

“What the hell do you want me to say, Rhett? Yes? I don’t know. I’ve been too busy trying to dislike her to even think about liking her.” Twenty fucking years of pain and I haven’t managed to make the past disappear. Maybe he can box up what happened and toss it away somehow, but me? No. He deserves to feel that, too.

“And how have you hurt her so far?” I stay silent, refusing to acknowledge that I’ve done pretty much nothing to ruin anything. I was going to. I just haven’t. Maybe it’s her, or being with him again. I don’t know, but everything’s turned sideways since we got here and memories keep infecting my mood. “Or me, for that matter.”

“I still could.”

“I know, but you won’t because you’re not like me, West. You’re the goodness in us, no matter how hard you try to persuade me, or yourself, otherwise.”

I kick off the deck rail and head inside. “Yeah, well, I still fucking hate you.”

By the time he’s followed me inside, I’ve poured a glass of whiskey and am trying to work out if we need to fight or not.

He picks up a glass, as I walk away, and pours himself one. “How’s the cabin?”

“Rotten. Broken. Abandoned.”

He drinks and looks at me over the rim. “Do you remember the last time we were there together?” I nod. “It was perfect before that day. I thought we had the world at our feet and nothing would ever get in the way. We just needed Father to die, and then we’d be fine.” Yeah, instead, he screwed everything up and we’re fucked like that cabin is. “Do you really hate me?”

I look at his face, recognising the true concern on his features. “I hate what you did.”

“I hate what I did, too. There’s no changing that. There is a chance for us to change us, though.”

I lean on the wall and watch him stare outside towards the cabin. “Into what?”

“Into something I expect we’ve both searched the past twenty years for. Something we once thought we had.” What? So he can screw it all up again? I watch him put his drink down and walk closer to me, a sneer on my face. “I can’t believe I’m about to put this out there, but I’m better because of you, West. I hate it, but it’s a fact, and there’s no outrunning it. Never has been. You are that part of me that I won’t ever be and barely want to be. You always were.”

“Yeah. I guess that got beaten out of you.”

“To protect you. To keep the best part of us as safe as it could be. I took my punishment a long time ago. You don’t need to carry it on.”

Staring at him, I think. He’ll give me time to do that. It isn’t like I didn’t know this would be coming if I acted decently. I did. The only way this was going to continue in some kind of hostile vein was if I hurt her somehow. I haven’t. Yet.

“Just tell me you don’t want what I’m offering, and I’ll end it now with her by explaining what’s been going on. I have become too invested in her to let this continue.”

“You’d lose her?”

“Yes. And I’ll tell her the truth, too. Here, in this place where it all went so fucking wrong. I won’t lie anymore. There are too many memories of times before now that interfere with how I thought in Seattle. Everything here – you, her, us – is burning inside me, and I would rather finish it than carry on pretending I don’t care enough to fall in love again.”

The sound of that word from his mouth makes me swallow down a small shred of guilt that still lives within me, and I leave the confines of the room to get some fresh air.

Fuck him. Love? I know what love is to him. It’s nothing like my idea of the word or the feeling. He’s cruel when the sentiment grows, and possessive, and completely fucking irrational.